by Jak Koke
Everything had gone wrong with the recovery of the Dragon Heart, and for the first time since the death of his parents, Ryan had failed. It was not a feeling he was used to, one he did not want to get used to. His stomach was in knots, and dull pain wracked his gut.
Dunkelzahn's message came back to him. The message relayed to Ryan several days ago by a spirit that had somehow been bound even after the dragon's death.
"Your mission," the spirit had said, speaking in a voice like Dunkelzahn's, "is to take the Dragon Heart to the metaplanes and give it to the one whose song protects the spike created by the Great Ghost Dance. She is called Thayla. I will repeat this once, Ryanthusar, because it is so important. Retrieve the Dragon Heart and deliver it to Thayla—the bridge must not be finished.
"In order to complete your task, you must enlist the service of a powerful mage who knows the ritual that can carry you and the Dragon Heart into the metaplanes. This mage must also be absolutely committed to this endeavor. Of all my friends, only two fit these criteria . . .
"I have taught you of the cycles of magic, but no one has dared manipulate them as our enemies do now, bringing this age to the brink of destruction so early in the mana cycle. The discovery of the Locus by Darke may be the single most devastating event in all of history. If the metaplanar Chasm is breached before we are ready, we will all suffer. All beings will die.
"All beings."
"My fellow dragons are overconfident, thinking they can hide in their lairs as they have always done. But when the Enemy comes, the monsters will be able to use the technology of our own time to locate and breach our lairs. No sentient creature is safe this time. When the mana level gets high enough, the chasm will grow narrower and narrower until the Enemy can cross without any bridge. But there will be no hiding this time. Technology changes everything.
No magic can protect against it.
"This time there will be no hiding. There will only be war. We must build up our defenses; we must gain the time we need to build up our technology so that we have the ability to fight the Enemy when it can cross. But to gain that time we must protect our natural defenses. They must not be allowed to fail, and the Dragon Heart will ensure that they don't. Thayla will know how to use it. Get it to her before it is too late."
The spirit had vanished then, its task completed. And Ryan had been stunned. How could he be entrusted with such a responsibility?
I don't want it.
Ryan took a deep breath and sank into the cushions. The mission was too much, too daunting a task, and one he had no idea how to even begin.
Ryan had always been a weapon, wielded with extreme precision by the great dragon Dunkelzahn.
Now Dunkelzahn was dead. Gone in a massive explosion. Vaporized.
And while Ryan's edge was still sharp enough to cut, there was no hand to guide him. No hand but his own.
Ever since his ordeal with Roxborough, Ryan had been thinking on his own more and more. Thinking about what he wanted from life. Thinking about the comforts of life that other people had. Comforts like a home, a loving and stable relationship.
Comforts that Ryan had never allowed himself.
Dhin's voice cut the air of the limo's cabin. "Were you expecting company, Bossman? Seems we've picked ourselves up a tail."
Ryan sat upright. He took a breath and said, "Thanks, Dhin. Keep them in sight."
He touched his wristphone, punching in the code for Carla Brooks. After a second, the tiny screen filled with the platinum white hair, black skin, and sharp elven features. Her smile was warm, even though her tone was dry. "Well, well, Quicksilver, I see you still like to do things your way. I just got off the line with Maxwell—"
"No time for chat, Black Angel. Did you anticipate my actions and assign covert escort?"
Carla's smile faded, and her eyes narrowed. "You know me better than that. Those are not the kind of games you and I play with each other. I take it by the look on your face that you've picked up some unwelcome company."
Ryan nodded.
Carla's face took on a look of concern. "You want me to send an intercept team?"
Ryan shook his head. "We'll take care of them. Dhin's going to feed you the vehicle specs and all the info he's got on it. Track it from your end. If I don't hear back from you in three minutes, we'll move on them."
"Got it, Quicksilver. Good hunting." Carla's face faded from the screen.
Ryan took a second to remove his suit jacket, roll up his shirt sleeves, and pull the matte-black Ingram Warrior machine pistol from its trim pouch at his waist. He checked the slide clip, thirty rounds ready, one in the chamber. Ryan slid the silencer from its holster and screwed it onto the Ingram's barrel. As a physical adept, he followed the Silent Way, moving with silence and stealth whenever possible.
Ryan set the silenced Ingram on the seat beside him, then reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat for his MGL mini-6 grenade pistol, again popping the clip and checking the load. Six high-explosive rounds. By feel, he pulled another grenade clip from the pocket. Six white phosphorous grenades.
He jammed the WP clip home, and stuffed the clip of explosive rounds into the pouch that had held the Ingram.
Ryan still had his usual bandolier of narcotic throwing darts that he would use preferentially. But if things didn't go the way he expected them to, the white phosphorous would burn his pursuers out of their vehicle, and the Ingram would do the rest. He just hoped it didn't come to that.
Three minutes passed without a word from Carla Brooks. Ryan looked into the front seat and spoke, "Dhin, status."
"They're still with us."
"Range?"
"They're hanging back about a quarter-klick."
They hadn't closed the distance; that in itself was strange. They must have known Ryan had tagged them.
Something nagged at the back of Ryan's mind, something he wasn't getting. He rubbed his eyes and cursed himself for not getting more sleep. He wasn't as sharp as he needed to be, and in the world of covert ops, a dulled edge was as good as a quick death.
In their place, Ryan would have done one of two things. Either split off and let a back-up team take over, provided there was one, and Ryan had to assume there was. If no back-up team was available, Ryan would have moved into strike position before the quarry had time to set up a defensive posture.
That nagging itch refused to go away, a familiar twitch he couldn't pin down. Almost a feeling of deja vu. This setup tasted familiar, but Ryan just couldn't place the flavor.
"Is there any chance of losing them?" Ryan asked.
Dhin's chuckle was cold and humorless. "In this boat? They're driving a modified Eurocar. Sleek, fast, and surprise, surprise, lightly armored. No chance we'd outrun or outmaneuver it."
"Do we have any drones aboard?"
After a pause, "Yeah. One."
"Surveillance or assault?"
Dhin laughed again. "Well, I guess assault would sum it up, 'cause that's all it can do. It's a modified Stealth Sniper II, but somebody with a firepower fetish has stripped all its armor off and replaced the sniper rifle with a minigun. She's packing hot loads, which should cut that Eurocar in half, armor or no armor, but one hit with so much as a fly swatter, and the drone will go down."
Ryan smiled.
"Bossman, you want me to force them off the road?"
Ryan gave that option quick consideration before discarding it. "No, the outcome would be too uncertain. Besides, in the downtown cluster, that's going to attract a lot of very unwelcome local heat."
Ryan leaned forward to the telecom and called up a street map of the heart of the DC sprawl. The contour grid appeared, showing their position on the George Mason Memorial Bridge. If Ryan took the time to look out the Nightsky's window, he knew he would see the smog-clouded sunlight sparkling off the polluted waters of the Potomac.
"All right, Dhin, here's the plan. Just after the Jefferson Memorial, take Fourteenth up past the White House."
"You going to hav
e the Federal Police take care of them?" Dhin's voice held a note of incredulity.
"No, continue on up to K Street."
Dhin slaved his screen to Ryan's telecom display so that he could see what Ryan was talking about.
"See the corner here, right at Fifteenth?"
"Got it."
"Just before we get there, punch it. Take the corner as fast as this boat will travel. If I've got their MO down, they'll accelerate to try and keep pace. As you round the corner, pop the drone. The high-rise should shield the action.
Round the far corner here." Ryan highlighted the next corner one block up, which crossed toward Fifteenth.
"But make sure you do it slow enough for them to play catch up. At that point, hit this alley."
"Playing cat and mouse, Bossman?"
"Yeah, but this time the mice have very sharp teeth. The instant you hit the alley, stand on the brakes, and I'll bail out. Then punch it to the far mouth of the alley and stop, blocking the exit. When they round the corner, we'll have them in a vice. On my signal, hit them with the drone's minigun. Disable the car, but make sure the occupants are still able to walk and talk when you get through with them."
Dhin whistled. "Poor slots aren't even going to know what hit them."
"I hope you're right."
A minute later, Dhin spoke. "We're closing in on target area. Tail vehicle running true to form."
"Ready."
"Here we go!"
Ryan heard the dim squeal of tires on pavement as the acceleration pressed him back into the cushions. With one hand he grabbed the Ingram off the seat beside him, with the other he lifted the mini-6 from his lap.
"First corner!"
Even leaning into the turn, Ryan found himself slammed into the door as the limo fishtailed around the corner. Then he heard the sharp click as the drone was sprung from the trunk.
"Tail vehicle accelerating. Second corner!"
Ryan grabbed the door handle and prepared himself to bail.
"Alley entrance!"
Ryan rocked sideways and forward as Dhin took the corner and slammed on the brakes. Ryan pulled the handle and rolled with the motion of the limo out into the dim, dirty alley. He kept rolling until he crashed into a trash dumpster.
Pain wracked his shoulder, but he ignored it and scurried behind the dumpster, using magic to mask himself and blend with the dank surroundings.
He did a quick weapons check as Dhin accelerated down the alley. Everything was still in its proper place.
A second set of tires squealed as the nimble Eurocar shot past him. Ryan saw two figures in the vehicle, and from their heat signatures, he guessed the driver to be an ork and the passenger to be human.
Dhin screeched to a halt at the far end of the alley, causing blue-gray smoke to pour from the tortured tires of the limo. The Eurocar did the same, and for a long moment, everything was silent.
Then the back-up lights on the Eurocar glowed white, and the little car shot backward.
Ryan keyed his wrist phone. "Now!"
The high-pitched whine of the minigun's rotating barrel screamed from five meters overhead as Ryan stepped into the middle of the alley, weapons raised. The thunder of hot rounds hitting armor roared through the narrow confines of the alleyway, deafening Ryan.
He watched as the front of the Eurocar disintegrated before his eyes. Metal and sparks showered the flanking buildings as the minigun perforated the car's engine compartment like hail through thin glass. In less than five seconds, it was all over. The Eurocar's engine surgically separated from the rest of the vehicle.
Ryan heard the minigun's barrel whine to a stop, and once again silence filled the alley. The after-echo of violence rang in his ears.
He stepped forward, Ingram raised. "Occupants of the vehicle!" he shouted. "Step out of your car and keep your hands where I can see them."
There was a long pause, and slowly, the passenger-side door opened, and out stepped a tall, heavily built man of about forty-five, gray hair closely cropped to his skull. He wore light body armor covered by a short trooper's vest.
The man's hands were above his head, and his brown eyes danced with a humor that was mirrored by the delighted grin on his face.
"Mister Mercury!" he said with a laugh, his familiar voice relaxed, comfortable. "It's lucky for us you happened by.
There seems to be something wrong with our car. I told the management boys not to buy foreign—the damn things always seem to break down."
Oh, drek, thought Ryan as he lowered the Ingram. Suddenly he knew what that nagging itch had been trying to tell him. That sense of deja vu.
4
Lucero's spirit walked the metaplanes with her master. She paced around inside a stained circle on a cracked plane of rock. The outcropping of magic that was protected by the song of the goddess.
She was the dark spot in the sea of light. She was its nucleus, its genesis. And somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knew the stain of shadow could only exist against the onslaught of white because of her.
Earlier, she had thought that perhaps it was the voice of Quetzalcoatl singing, trying to cleanse her innate evil. But she doubted that even his power could rid her of the taint, the curse of her blood desire. Her yearning for its power.
Her blood addiction.
That dark stain on her soul refused to be washed away.
Lucero was in her astral form, much like her physical body. Naked skin covered with runic scars, shaved head. Once beautiful, now hideous.
She stopped pacing at the center of the blood-blackened earth. It was a tiny island of silence amid a sea of song.
Beautiful music on an arching outcropping of stone.
The ground under Lucero's scarred feet was soaked with sticky, thick fluid that drenched her skin up to her ankles.
Everything around her held the iron stench of the freshly dead.
A smooth, lifeless hand touched her leg with an almost erotic sensation, and she shuddered as she looked down at the grinning wound beneath the dead girl's throat. So young, thought Lucero. So much life unlived.
Lucero was drawn by a dark fascination. She knelt by the young girl and touched her fingers to the gaping wound, which still pulsed with the last quaver of life. This was the freshest victim, and her body radiated heat.
Lucero watched in detached, morbid fascination as her own fingers touched inside the viscous slash on the girl's neck. She felt slick warmth, and drew her hand back almost against her will, her fingers rising to her lips. Fingers covered in what was left of the child's blood.
A thrill of ecstasy shimmered through her as she smelled the iron tang, as she felt the dwindling life energy in the child's blood. Lucero could resist no longer and she plunged her fingers into her mouth, sucking greedily at the metal-tasting liquid that covered them. A hunger consumed her, and she found her fingers dipping again into the wound, found herself licking desperately at the blood that spilled down her hand.
As if in response, the music outside the small, dark shell rose to a crescendo so beautiful, so painful that Lucero stopped herself so that she could listen. The song spoke to her like the voice of goodness, revealing the horror of what she had been doing. It choked the hunger out of her.
Lucero stood, quickly, not risking a look down at the scatter of dead bodies that stretched around her. She was not alone in the circle of the dead. Señor Oscuro, her master, was with her, working feverishly. His blood-drenched blade flashed across throat after throat as the sweat streamed down his forehead and cheeks to drip into his dark beard.
Power radiated from his black eyes. His raven hair reflected the red glow of the blood power he drew from the victims he summoned from the physical world. Transporting them here by magic before making a sacrifice of their life energy.
Lucero watched as Oscuro approached and pulled the young girl's body up by the feet. He dragged her to the furthest edge of the circle, positioning the girl's head so that the blind, lifeless eyes looked outward, guarding
the perimeter.
Lucero stood, numb. In her heart, she longed for the searing beautiful pain of the music. The purity that let her forget about the dark blotch on her soul, the cancer of her addiction.
Oscuro returned to the center of the circle, and called to her. "Lucero?" His soft voice seemed to ooze over her flesh, making it crawl. Yet part of her was comforted by the sheer evil she felt there. Hearing his voice made her corrupted soul feel more at ease.
She stepped forward, until she could smell the stench of blood and sweat that poured off the bearded man. "Yes, Master," Lucero said, with head bowed.
He touched a blood-smeared hand to her cheek. The feeling brought revulsion, even as the smell of the blood woke her hunger again, tearing at her mind, her sanity. "I must return to the physical world now," he said, tracing blood along both her cheeks, then her forehead, and lastly to her lips.
He seemed to be tempting her deliberately. She strained not to open her mouth, to lap at the fluid that stained his fingertips. "Yes, Master," she whispered, and slowly licked her bottom lip.
"The Gestalt has weakened to the point of collapse. The Locus is only partially active and it can only help them sustain me in this metaplanar location for so long. Now is the time for the test. I believe that I have done enough of the work to keep you here, but you must concentrate. You must keep the link open."
Lucero nodded.
"Be strong, child. Our work is nearly complete. Soon we will have reached the tip of the outcropping. And when we do, we will feel the power of the tzitzitmine. They will help us finish the bridge and bring our allies across."
His voice grew forceful. "Ah, that will be a glorious day. Our allies from across the Chasm will help us rule the world."
With that, he vanished. Traveling back to the physical world.
Lucero longed to be with him. Her master. She knew where he went in the physical world. He would appear in his body, high inside the step-pyramid teocalli in San Marcos. The temple's rock surface would be radiating warmth from the day's heat. The night hanging still and hot.
In Lucero's memory, the old amusement park tower stabbed up into the sky directly across from the teocalli, like a stiletto dipped in black blood. And below that was the spring-fed lake; it glowed a blue-green from the submerged floodlights. In the center of the lights was the Locus, a sharply chiseled stone of obsidian black.
