Lightning Blade (Ruby Callaway Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  “To me.” I poked at the phone with the shotgun’s barrel, sending the device spiraling to the floor. It didn’t crack, but this second piece of interference caught his attention.

  Blue eyes filled with rage, he spun in his seat, face only inches from mine. I could smell his aftershave. “I’m taking you back, Ruby.”

  “Or you could say thank you.”

  “You’re crazy.” Roark didn’t move. Neither of us breathed, our lips inches apart. “Everyone at the outpost is right.”

  “Good to hear I’m so popular.”

  “They call you the Crimson Angel.”

  And that was before they knew about my little extracurricular activities inside the Tempe Camp.

  “Not as catchy as Lightning Blade,” I said. “But I’m still flattered.”

  His lips opened slightly, trying to hide his surprise. We hadn’t gone through the whole data cube dog-and-pony show this time, so I hadn’t heard his call sign. Roark’s aura went from confident and angry to uncertain within seconds. Blinking heavily, he leaned back in the leather seat. The car continued on its course, making no detour toward the field of doom.

  As Phoenix’s shimmering skyscrapers loomed into view, threatening to block out the horizon, Roark said, “Tell me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What’d you mean by again?”

  I gave him a mysterious smile and looked out the window. “I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”

  I heard him pick up his phone and dust it off. “How the hell do you know what’s going on?”

  “I’m a Realmfarer,” I said, which wasn’t an explanation, but a little bone to toss out.

  To which Roark replied, “I know.”

  “I know that you know,” I shot back, then looked straight into his eyes. The special agent could probably play a mean hand of poker, because he didn’t look bothered by my response at all. “Because you’ve told me before.”

  Turns out, there’s no real good way to ease into the whole time loop thing. Hopefully we were far enough away from the camp to make it a major pain in the ass for him to turn the car around.

  “Let’s say I want to believe you.” Roark tapped at his phone, the car’s ruined audio system spewing gibberish into the air as the coordinates adjusted. “Tell me how.”

  I said, “I can see the loop.” Looking straight ahead, I clarified. “The time loop.”

  I’m not sure what I expected. For him to stop the car. Scream oh no. Roll his eyes and take me immediately.

  But today was better than yesterday. Apparently I was growing on people.

  Because Colton Roark dialed a number and said, “Alice? Clear your schedule. I’m coming by.”

  The caller on the other end gave a short, perfunctory response.

  “Look up anything to do with time loops.” A short pause. “The necromancer, yeah.”

  A final brief reply, then the call ended. I stared, waiting for the details.

  Roark looked back, sad blue eyes alight with curiosity. “Because your ‘lead’ was bullshit.”

  “I’m pretty sure we established that five minutes ago,” I said.

  “All the same.” His sad blue eyes said just so you know I know.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me, Agent Roark?”

  “All sorts of things.” His handsome face shimmered with the hint of darkness.

  “Like what?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Then he turned away as the car barreled toward a towering metropolis that I barely recognized.

  10

  Phoenix wasn’t quite the low-key desert city I remembered. It looked like New York—if Manhattan had suddenly grown a hundred stories and decided to sleep even less. Neon advertisements for brands I didn’t recognize hung dozens of feet in the air, crisscrossing the night sky like an ambient light show.

  The traffic was packed bumper-to-bumper in the narrow, one-lane road, inches from a sidewalk bazaar. Despite this, the cruiser’s speed kept steady at over fifty, the cooks, necklace peddlers and requisite street urchins blurring at the edges.

  Smoke from trash can fires and open grills mixed with the projected advertisements, giving them an ethereal glow against the sky. Or what I could see of it; the skyscrapers blocked just about everything, including the moon.

  Noting my curiosity, Roark said, “They’re saying we’ll hit three thousand feet in two years.”

  “Three thousand?” Most of the buildings already looked taller than that.

  “Average building height.” He craned his neck to look skyward. “Most efficient cities get more government funds.”

  “Of course they do.”

  The car barely braked as it deftly navigated a sharp turn. A kid hawking some sort of energy drink didn’t even blink as we whipped within inches of his shins.

  “They ever go off the road?”

  “Not that you hear about.” The light and dark strands above Roark’s head wrestled one another. It would have seemed playful, had the dissonance not been written so clearly on his face. He scratched at his stubble, his eyes sinking for a moment.

  I wondered how long it had been since he’d last rested.

  I wondered why it had been so long since he’d rested.

  That one was easier. He wanted to catch the necromancer. Sleep was an inconvenience or a luxury. Take your pick.

  Although that didn’t really answer why.

  Phoenix began changing before my eyes from a thriving, seedy metropolis into a grim militarized zone. Rather abruptly, after a couple more hairpin turns, we reached a tall gate of solid steel, the car stopping on a dime. Two men with rifles and heavy body armor approached, footsteps audible even from thirty feet away. Dozens of cameras monitored the entrance from every angle.

  Roark’s eyes narrowed, like I was not to speak.

  I didn’t promise anything. The Realmfarer light show that was a part of who I was, however, drifted into nothingness. Like someone had tripped a switch. Whatever suppression tech they used in this area was far more powerful than anything in the camp.

  Viewing the scene through human eyes felt odd, even though that was how the first years of my life had begun. Right up until that 1812 Philadelphia night in the print shop, when the half-demon had stumbled through my door with his talking dog. That’s the type of experience that changes things.

  I just had no idea how far the rabbit hole would go.

  There was a tap on the glass, and the window automatically descended. “Credentials.”

  Roark reached into his pocket, pulling out the badge I’d seen a few loops ago. The leather and plain identification photo—no holograms or bar codes—seemed oddly old-fashioned with the city’s electric glow dancing behind us.

  “Come on Roark,” the soldier said. “You know you gotta fucking update this shit.”

  “So arrest me, Madsen.”

  Madsen looked like he was considering it, his shoulders tight with annoyance. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he slammed his gloved hand twice against the hood.

  “Just because I like you, Roark.” As he walked toward the small guard station located at the base of the massive, solid steel gate, I saw the flutter of bills stuck to the back.

  Roark had tricks up his sleeve that even a glimpse into the future couldn’t reveal.

  All sorts of secrets indeed.

  “That how you make all your friends?” I asked, watching Madsen disappear into the concrete guard tower, followed by his jackbooted buddy. Their building looked like a hut in comparison to the seventy-foot gate.

  “Got you for free,” Roark replied.

  “Get what you pay for.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  The gate lumbered open, gears creaking. Somehow, the car understood that Roark needed to retrieve his credentials, b
ecause it rolled slowly up to the edge of the open gate and stopped. A minute later, Madsen walked out.

  “I don’t know if I can keep doing this, Roark.” Madsen held out the credentials. “If someone finds out you’re coming through here this much, I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know. Even for you, man, they might bring down the hammer.”

  Roark grabbed the badge and said, “Well that’d be a shame for both of us.” He reached into his back pocket, more bills materializing. “Buy Carin something nice, would you?”

  “The fuck you know about my wife?”

  “See you around, Madsen.”

  The car burst through the opening like it was shot out of a cannon, leaving the guard behind to count his extra money. I didn’t have to ask why there was a gate, nor did it require any magical intuition to solve the mystery.

  Here was the Phoenix I remembered.

  Its cold ashes, at least.

  A quick glance in the rearview revealed a wall—part unbreakable steel, but mostly the backs of tightly packed skyscrapers—surrounding the remnants of the old city. It was like a Greek ruin, where one generation had simply shoveled dirt on the bodies of their ancestors and then built up and onward. A smoggy haze hovered over everything at street level, giving it the ambiance of a lost city covered in fog.

  The car’s busted navigation system attempted to render a holographic warning about our new surroundings—unsavory neighborhoods and such—but the garbled static obscured most of the message. I didn’t need a PSA to understand this place wasn’t safe.

  Almost every street corner had the letters LC2 scrawled on the side of a crumbling building or fallen street sign, complete with a skull and crossbones.

  Crime lord marking their territory, maybe.

  Roark took over manual control. Guess these were extenuating circumstances. Must not have an accurate satellite map of this apocalyptic ruin. The wheels slid a little on the dusty road before locking back into rhythm.

  No one in their right mind would venture into this wasteland, let alone grease palms—and presumably risk prison—to get inside. You could chalk up the risk-taking to the time loop, but it wasn’t like Roark believed he was really in one. Even if he was playing along, if only out of curiosity.

  Or desperation. He might not have known the necromancer had killed him twenty-three times, but I could see the other failures written on his face. Years of misses and dead ends.

  “What happened here?” I asked, taking in the wreckage.

  “Some creatures rejected the new laws.” His voice was tight. I watched the darkness consume everything around him, so much that I couldn’t see his face. Then it dissipated.

  Guess they only bothered with dampeners around the gate. Anything in here was free to roam the ruins and tear each other’s throats out. Just like the Mud Belt—except a hundred times worse.

  I had the distinct feeling of being watched. Roark drove fast for the residential streets, but he had nothing on the kamikaze auto-drive system. The dip in speed made the scenery much less of a blur, revealing flashes at the broken windows. Eyes glowing inside cracked door frames. Howls punctuated the graffiti covered landscape, answered by screeching challenges.

  “They’re still here,” I said in awe. Roark shot around a rusted truck, its trunk missing, the cruiser’s wheels screaming in protest at the aggressive maneuver. I bounced off the arm rest like a sack of groceries before the car righted itself.

  “The Fallout Zone’s a good place to go if you need answers.”

  Seemed more like a good place to get killed. Glints of diamond—from MagiTekk’s prototype rifle models, no doubt—studded almost every surface. If a wall wasn’t covered in bullets or scrawled ink, it was caked in long-dried blood. Being trapped within what was essentially a sprawling prison didn’t produce friendly, welcoming behavior.

  Roark’s phone dinged, and he slammed on the brakes without warning. It was about all I could do to stop myself from going straight through the windshield. Bouncing to a stop, I glared daggers at him.

  “Don’t give me that look.” He checked his service weapon. “I’ve seen your file.”

  “I’m not suicidal.” I rubbed my wrist. “Or reckless.”

  Always shoot first, Ruby. That’s how you will survive.

  Pearl’s mantra, still with me almost twenty-one years on.

  “What happened in 2018, then?” His sad blue eyes burned with curiosity. It almost seemed like he could read me better—with no magic at all—than I could him. “That’s when everything changed.”

  My hands instinctively clutched the shotgun. “We’ve already discussed that.”

  “Yeah, of course. Time loops.” He blinked and then said, “Stick close. Alice Conway doesn’t live in a friendly neighborhood.”

  I looked out at the desolate street. “Thanks for the warning.”

  He nodded and said, “Come on.”

  Roark reached for the door, but I grabbed his arm tight. “Wait.”

  “Scared, Realmfarer?” It felt odd for all my secrets to be revealed. That was far from the truth, but seeing the history rush out of the data cube a few days ago had made me feel naked. When you’re always looking forward, glancing in the rearview can reveal a smoldering wasteland.

  After two hundred fifty years, that was the mark I’d writ on the world. Everyone who came near me died. Well, Kalos and Argos were still out there, somewhere. But half-demons—even once they lost their powers—were harder to kill than cockroaches.

  And immortal dogs were, well, immortal.

  The others, though…

  Galleron’s words whispered in my ear again. You’re a hunter, Rebecca Callaway. A killer.

  Roark’s arm shook off my grip. I refocused, finding him rubbing his elbow. “Jesus Christ, Dewitt got off easy.”

  Blood ran down the skin from surprisingly deep scratches. “Didn’t take you for such a pussy, Roark.”

  “I can still take you back,” he said. But everything about him, from the light to his expression, told me that was a lie. The virus had already burrowed deep within his psyche. A virus more dangerous than any sickness.

  Curiosity.

  A need to know if I was telling the truth.

  “So why are we waiting?”

  “I need ammo.” I brought the shotgun up. As much as I wanted to repeat standing there with my thumb up my ass while a bunch of vamps rose from the dead, I hadn’t lived this long by heading into dangerous places unarmed.

  When you couldn’t cast spells, nor had any offensive capabilities, you needed to outsource your aggression to a third party. The magically augmented shotgun had served me well for over a century.

  Roark’s blue eyes narrowed, examining the ancient gun. “I don’t know if I have anything for that.”

  “It’s modified to fire modern shells.”

  “MagiTekk rounds?”

  “Never tried them,” I said. “Been a while since the last first time.”

  “I bet,” Roark said, a little more drily than I’d expected. I felt my cheeks flush and ears tingle. I popped open the door and leapt out of the car, dragging the gun behind me.

  The first thing that hit me was the smell. Death and decay hung over everything like the smell of fresh cut grass over a just-mowed lawn. The car must’ve had one hell of a filtration system, because this place was vile. No matter which way I turned, it didn’t matter. The aroma clung to my nostrils, so thick inside my mouth that I could taste it.

  Roark got out and popped the trunk. “Not the Phoenix you remembered, huh?”

  Eyes watering slightly, I said, “It’s fine.”

  “You might want this.” He tossed me a thick mask with a blinking dial over the mouthpiece that read 60:00. A small pen came after. “And that, too.”

  He looked at me, then stabbed himself in the neck to demonstrate.

&n
bsp; I didn’t move, just looked at my new gear while tasting the dust and death in utter disbelief. How much had the world changed while I was gone? I got the vague, uncomfortable feeling that this might be how a cave man would react if he was suddenly thawed from the ice and taken to dinner at the Ritz.

  A violent cough erupted from my lungs, breaking my philosophical train of thought. Buckling to one knee, my spine racked with violent spasms, I shook and spit up blood on the pavement. I felt a gentle, firm hand against my back.

  The other hand took the mask, pressed the center button, and then fitted it snugly over my mouth. Gradually, my breathing returned to normal, although my throat felt like someone had rubbed diamond studded sandpaper over it.

  No doubt something MagiTekk’s scientists were hard at work on.

  There was a slight pinch in my neck, followed by an aeronautic hiss as the pen delivered its payload into my blood stream. After a couple seconds, Roark helped me to my feet.

  “What…what…” My head pounded like I’d just been subjected to one of Stevens’s dark room experiments.

  “Radiation.” His blue eyes looked me over with concern. “They dropped a couple bombs when things got bad.”

  “How—the rest of the city?”

  Understanding my non-question, Roark said, “Scrubbers. But they left this part to fend for itself. As a reminder.”

  “How do they survive?” It came out as a raspy whisper.

  Roark’s eyes narrowed, explaining far better than words. I shivered, desperately trying not to, and he returned to the trunk. His head disappeared inside the hole, searching in the mess. It was funny, after seeing how organized the car’s interior was.

  He returned and draped a black leather jacket over my shoulders. “It fits.”

  “Into crossdressing?” I asked.

  “From a perp,” he said. “Never threw it out.”

  “Not really my style,” I said, slipping into it nonetheless. A rattling in the pocket drew my attention. Shells. I held them up to the light, the MagiTekk logo glinting in the hazy moonlight. Not quite what I usually used. But in the absence of essence-based munition, these were my best bet for staying alive.

  I slipped a shell inside the chamber. Perfect fit.