by Mel Odom
Hawke relaxed a little. He knew what she was saying was true. The little he knew about magework wouldn’t help. “So, what we have is a magical bunker.”
“To a degree, oui,” Snakechaser said. “But it’s a bunker with limitations. Perhaps they can’t attack us with magic here, but neither can we attack them while we’re inside.”
“Well,” Hawke said, “it’s a good thing you all brought weapons.” He turned back to Rachel. “Let’s go. Faster.”
“Up,” she replied, and ran up the stairs. “We’re almost there.”
Wired into the drone array through military-spec AR glasses, Ayuni Sukenobu clicked through the feeds from the various units buzzing around the building in the distance. She cycled through each, gaining more information with each picture. Excitement thrummed inside her as she thought about how close she was to her prize.
For over a year, she’d chased the shadow whispers of the Dragonseed. She’d known others were searching for it too; Aztechnology and a few other lesser corps had been researching the artifact, but she was certain she would be the one to find it.
And once she had the Dragonseed, her grandfather would take even more pride in her. She would stand even taller in the eyes of her family and the executive board at NeoNET. After all, she would be the first one to break into the secrets the dragons protected so viciously.
Her hand strayed to the necklace of scales she wore. All her life she’d coveted the dragons’ majesty, their power and wealth and mystery. Dunkelzahn himself had taunted her over the years, ridiculing her efforts at hiring people to discover everything he’d hidden away, with every one of her failures delivered to her. After he’d died, the great dragon had left her the necklace of his scales in his will—to continually remind her of the things he’d told her she would never know.
The necklace was anathema to her, but she wore it to remind herself not to give up seeking the knowledge she wanted. It was the spur she needed to continue her quest. The dragons weren’t as omnipotent as they pretended to be, and she intended to prove that.
Unconscionably, the drones’ views didn’t penetrate the walls of the building except to show seven blurry thermographic images proceeding up a set of stairs. Two of the shadowrunners lagged behind, perhaps injured during a fall or other accident, but they were catching up.
Clicking out of the video array, Sukenobu turned to the colonel leading the troops she’d hired. “Why can’t I see into the building?”
He shook his head. In his forties, heavily-cybered, scars from past campaigns showed on his face and cyberlimbs. “The drones’ video arrays can’t penetrate the walls. Could be the bricks they’re made of contain a lot of lead.”
Angry, scarcely containing her frustration, Sukenobu wheeled on her combat mage leader. “Can you see them?”
The woman shook her head. She was old and wizened, gray and sharp-eyed, looking out of place in her combat suit. Taking a fresh grip on her staff, she said, “No, Director Sukenobu, I cannot.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the building, ma’am. It’s warded against astral interference.”
Sukenobu drew a breath and thought about the situation. It stood to reason that the building would be magic, even magically resistant, to protect anything inside. That only proved what was inside was valuable.
She returned her attention to the colonel. “Send a team into the building. Flush those people out and let’s deal with them.”
“Yes, Director.”
Almost immediately, twenty men in five groups closed on the building.
As Hawke reached the tenth floor landing, explosions erupted on the bottom floor. Rumbling detonations filled the structure, and his audio dampers filtered the noise to a tolerable level. Vibrations ran throughout the building, dropping loose stones and scree in small dust clouds.
Hawke held his position, thinking maybe the whole thing was about to fall on their heads. Here he’d traveled to the bottom of the sea only to die in a collapsed building. The thought almost made him smile, but it wasn’t humorous. Not really.
The echoes of the explosions died away, and the quaking stilled.
“Well,” Rolla announced in a tense voice that cracked only slightly. “We survived, but those guys who came in after us just had one of their worst days. Armor-piercing anti-personnel munitions will slot you up quick.”
“They still haven’t given up, though,” Flicker said. “You may have destroyed that passageway, but there’s still three other sides of the building. More teams are entering now.”
Rachel started running without being told. Hawke followed her, his thoughts dizzy with trying to figure out how they could get past all of the incoming sec troops on their way out.
Assuming they survived whatever waited ahead of them.
Filled with ornate statuary, the passageway ran straight, wide and deep. Arched doorways to other chambers lay on either side, but Rachel passed them all, heading for what appeared to be a blank wall at the end.
She stopped and studied the barrier, and Hawke fell into position beside her. Button cams they’d left in their wake showed sec troops in armor charging up the stairs. He knew other groups would be coming up other passageways, too. At least four stairwells led to the top floor.
“Rachel?” Hawke looked at the wall, seeing only raised images of humans and elves warring against improbable monsters.
“Are those . . . what I think they are?” Nighthorse stepped closer and tentatively ran her fingers over the grotesque, tentacled monsters frozen in stone. “I’ve heard vague rumors here and there—the merest whispers of whispers—but I never thought I’d see anything like this.”
“History lesson later,” Hawke said. “Find the goods and go now.” He turned back to Rachel. “We need—”
Lunging forward, Rachel placed both hands on the wall and shoved. Her back arched with the effort, her breath hissing out between clenched teeth.
For a moment, nothing happened. Hawke slung his rifle over his shoulder, getting ready to help. Then the wall split down the middle with a crackle of blue lightning. A shimmering haze draped the opening like a spiderweb, then gradually faded away.
“Magic?” Hawke asked Nighthorse.
The shaman nodded. “Guardian spell. Old magic. Very powerful.”
“What would it have done?”
“I don’t know. Be glad it didn’t get the chance to do it. The spell went away after it scanned Rachel. Evidently it recognized her, but that doesn’t mean the way will be safe for the rest of us.”
“Cheery. Then we should probably be—”
Rachel stepped into the dark room.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Certain Rachel was about to die in some bloody fashion he’d never seen before, or that one of the tentacled monsters engraved on the wall was lurking inside, Hawke slid the assault rifle from his shoulder and stepped in behind her. He swept the room with the rifle, intending to stop Rachel in case she wasn’t really herself again.
Instead, she had frozen a few steps in, staring at the large dragon in the center of the room.
Covered in dark-green and yellow scales, it stood at least thirty meters tall, resting on three huge, clawed feet and holding the other claw in front of it. Enormous wings were folded along its back. Thorny projections covered the wedge-shaped face, some a meter long, but still small in relation to the immense head. Two huge horns curved back over the dragon’s head, above the large, almond-shaped eyes that glowed with red fire. Another curved horn stood out on its nose. Below its cruelly curved mouth showing a hint of the massive fangs inside, another horn poked straight down.
Rolla whirled around the door and opened fire on the dragon. Bullets bounced from the statue’s scaled chest in a flurry of yellow sparks that died in the darkness.
“Hey!” With a glare, Paredes gestured and a shimmering barrier protected them from ricochets.
“What?” The troll glared belligerently back. “If it was alive, I wasn’t gonna give it a cha
nce to strike first.”
The dragon never moved.
“It’s not alive,” Nighthorse said as she stepped into the room.
“Good thing,” Rolla said as he replaced his spent magazine. “If it was, I woulda flatlined it.”
“More like,” Snakechaser said as he approached, holding his walking stick in front of him, “you would have only annoyed it and probably assured our doom.”
Hawke played his infrared beam around the room, expanding his cybervision. Along the walls, bas-reliefs of the dragon or others of its kind were rendered in stone and stood out in various poses. In some of the images, the dragon battled the tentacled monsters as elves sheltered at its feet.
“Flicker?”
A small cloud of drones flew into the room and fanned out. Their video feeds ghosted across Hawke’s helmet visor.
“The only things living in this room,” Flicker said, “are you guys. But not for long. You’re out of time.”
Rachel slowly walked forward, her gaze focused at the dragon’s outstretched claw. Nestled inside the curled talons, the blue stone artifact lay in the dragon’s palm. As she drew closer, it started glowing, brighter and brighter.
“Maybe we should take a minute,” Hawke suggested.
But his words were lost in the rumbling of rock created by the dragon’s talons opening to expose the artifact. Rachel hesitated, her hand only centimeters from the stone. Hawke knew she was probably remembering what had happened in the pool, remembering how she had almost lost herself. He knew he was.
“Rachel,” he said softly. “We need to know more before you do anything rash.”
“I know.” She drew her hand back slightly.
“Not to sound pushy, hermano,” Paredes said, “but hesitation at this point may be as detrimental as doing something rash.”
A shimmer filled the space near Rachel and the Shadowman stood beside her.
Rolla fired at the new arrival immediately, but the bullets stopped in mid-air before they reached their target. He flicked his wrist, and the troll street samurai was knocked off his feet and slammed into the wall behind him. After he crashed to the floor, Rolla got up slowly.
“Take the Dragonseed, Child. This is your destiny.”
“What if I choose not to?” Rachel pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Then you will be Unborn, and you will die.”
Hawke shifted slightly, but he didn’t aim his weapon toward the Shadowman. This close in, with the blue glow of the artifact stripping the darkness from the man’s features, he saw the Shadowman’s strong jaw and piercing golden eyes that were much brighter than Snakechaser’s.
“You know I speak the truth. You can read that in me.”
“I can see the truth in others,” Rachel said. “You, I just hear.”
“Do not doubt yourself or your power, Child. You are strong. This is your Destiny. Now is the time to embrace it.”
“Tell me who you are,” Rachel said. “What is your connection to me?”
“I gave you life. I created you. And I would see you Become all that you are supposed to be.” The Shadowman stepped closer and gently took her hand. “These people have brought you this far, Rachel. As have I. But the last choice is yours alone to make.”
“I’ll die if I don’t take the artifact?”
“Yes.”
“Then it sounds like I don’t have much of a decision.”
“We all must choose life or death, Child. And those choices are often made in times like these. Sometimes it is not so clear-cut.”
Slowly, Rachel reached for the artifact. As soon as she touched it, a blinding blue flash filled the chamber, and thunder pealed so loud the concussion knocked Hawke from his feet. When his vision cleared, he saw Rachel standing there bathed in a blue aura. A deeper blue fire burned within her, reaching from her head to her feet and spreading outward.
“Rachel?” Hawke pushed himself to his feet. “Rachel?”
Calmly, she looked up at him. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
Hawke looked past her at the now-empty talon. “Where’s the artifact?”
“She is the artifact. She is the Dragonseed.” The Shadowman stepped back from her, and now he spread his wings, definitely looking more reptilian now. “Now she is truly Born.”
The golden eyes, surrounded by scales, cut to Hawke. “My enemies still pursue her, however. You must protect her. Get her out of this place and back into the world.”
Anger flared within Hawke. “That would have been a hell of a lot easier if you hadn’t told NeoNET and Aztechnology where we were. You’re the reason we’ve got two armies standing out there ready to flatline us.”
With a deep basso growl, the Shadowman stepped forward. His wings flared, a tail whipped behind him, and his jaws elongated, showing an impressive amount of sharp, curved fangs.
“Do not choose to be so reckless, Hawke. You are very close to making a life and death decision of your own in the next few seconds.”
“If you could have done this without me and my team, you’d have done it.” Hawke expected to end up smeared across a wall at any second, but he couldn’t hold back the furious fire burning within him any longer. “Rachel is at risk—we’re at risk—because of the games you’ve been playing.”
The Shadowman drew back a hand that became a fistful of curved talons.
“No!” Darting in front of Hawke, Rachel held up both hands to the Shadowman. She spoke again, calmly and with more authority. “No. You will not harm him. Not any of them. If you do, you’ll have to kill me with them.”
“You presume too much, Child.”
“Hawke’s right,” Rachel replied. “You’ve used all of them.” She paused. “You used me as bait for the two corps here now. Why?”
Letting his arm fall back to his side, the Shadowman shrank down, becoming more human in appearance again. “Because I did not just want to celebrate your Birth. I wanted you brought into your Life with a victory. In ancient times, a Dragonseed would be birthed in the blood of my enemies who fell in battle. Today, in this world, I choose to celebrate by putting my foot on the throats of two of my enemies.”
“How do you figure on doing that?” Hawke demanded. “They’re both here. They’ll kill us to get Rachel when they find out she’s the Artifact. Then they’ll kill each other ’til one of them has her.”
“No, they won’t. Each of them will believe they have succeeded in their endeavors instead.” Turning to the dragon statue, the Shadowman gestured, and suddenly the blue stone talisman was clasped in the stone talons again.
Hawke looked at Rachel. The blue glow around her was gone, but she still seemed changed somehow. He could feel the difference in her, even though he couldn’t see it. There was something edgy and dark about her now.
“Each of those corps will be allowed to find a Dragonseed.” The Shadowman’s fanged smile gleamed in the shadows. “Each will believe they have found the only one, never knowing that both possess the double-edged sword I am leaving them.”
“You couldn’t have done that in Guatemala?” Hawke demanded.
The Shadowman shook his head. “The artifact discovered in Guatemala was only a shadow of this one. A bread crumb trail that started you all on the journey that ended here. It was the starting point that allowed Rachel to take the path she needed to travel in order to Become. She had to be prepared to meet her Destiny. While she was in that coma, her body changed so that she could handle her Growth.”
“He’s the one who owns a controlling share in KilmerTek,” Dolphin said over Hawke’s commlink.
“Who is he?” Hawke asked, watching the Shadowman closely.
“I still don’t know,” Dolphin admitted. “I’m still searching for his name.”
“That is a fruitless enterprise.” The smugness in the Shadowman’s tone was galling. “You will never find proof of my manipulations.”
“Nobody’s that good,” Dolphin said defiantly.
The
Shadowman chuckled. “So you say.”
“Why do you want the other corps to find the Dragonseeds?” Rachel asked.
“Because they will get more than they bargained for.”
One of Flicker’s drones swept in over the Dragonseed and hovered there. A diagnostic spreadsheet opened in Hawke’s view. He didn’t understand any of it.
In the next heartbeat, the drone exploded in a flash of orange and yellow fire. Gray ash fell to the floor like snow.
“Did you get that, Dolphin?” Flicker asked.
“It was code—like nothing I’ve ever seen,” she replied. “He’s trapped the fake artifact with some kind of . . . virus.”
“I have. One that will allow me certain . . . liberties within both Aztechnology and NeoNET when they attempt to decipher this replica. I will strike a blow at my enemies, and my Child will come into her own. A Birth and twin victories to mark its occasion. This is a good day.”
“Not if you don’t get out of there,” Flicker said. “NeoNET’s knocking on the door, Hawke. You’ve got to leave now.”
Scanning the images relayed by drone, Hawke saw NeoNET’s lead sec teams were already on the ninth floor landing.
Rolla cursed as he set up by the doorway. “You figure this is as good a place as any to die?”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
The Shadowman laughed, the raucous, otherworldly noise filling the chamber, echoing all around them.
Hawke turned on him. “What’s so funny?”
“Do you truly believe I would bring you this far, make certain this Child was Born, only to have you lose her?” The shadows of his face parted to reveal the fangs again. “I have not. If you are strong enough and sly enough, a way out is still available to you.”
Rachel turned and stared at the walls. “There’s a hidden passageway.”
“How’d you know that?” Rolla demanded. He popped around the entrance long enough to fire a burst at the first sec men at the other end of the passageway.
“Because she does,” Nighthorse said. “I can see it, too.”
