In the Shadow of Dragons (Aftermagic Book 1)

by Sonya Bateman

  Damn it! If Zen wasn’t distracting her right now, she would’ve gotten him. If he says he’s fine, then he’s fine, she thought. What do you want me to do about it?

  “He’s not fine. They lost two patrols already.”

  That surprised her. Maybe Sawyer really was getting sloppy. She shook her head, crouched low and started moving behind the pallets of boxes, headed for the aisle the Changer had gone down. Once again. What am I supposed to do about it?

  “You’re the leader.” Zen’s thought-voice sounded faintly angry. “So lead. YOU tell ME what to do about it.”

  A snarl formed on her lips. Damn it, this was why she didn’t want to be the leader. Fine. I’ll head over there in a second. All right?

  “I’ll tell him.”

  And Zen was gone.

  Shaking her head, Teague paused behind a shrink-wrapped pallet across from the aisle she’d seen the Changer enter. He was still there. She heard breathing, low and harsh. But there was no evidence of magic — if he could use it, he would’ve tried by now. Just a Norm then, probably.

  Fine with her, since it kept her from having to use magic herself.

  She vaulted around the stack, crossbow at the ready. The Changer hadn’t gone far. He’d squatted beside one of the shelves, wrenched the arrow from the shoulder she’d sunk it in. There was a lot of blood. Definitely a dwarf. He’d transformed completely now — a full foot shorter than he’d been, stockier, with a long tangled beard and dark hair matted to his elongated skull. His eyes were wide open, staring in her direction. Not actually seeing her. But he’d heard the movement.

  “Please.” He jacked up to his feet, stumbled back. “I’m not … please. I couldn’t help it.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry.”

  She fired at his heart.

  It was over quickly, silently except for the thud when he hit the floor. She spun away and stalked toward the platform stairs she’d come down, grabbing the CB as she moved. With the volume restored, she held the call button and spoke into it. “Send a patrol team for a pickup. Warehouse at the corner of Vine and Jackson. I’m heading for Sawyer’s position.”

  “Got it,” Zen crackled through the device.

  Teague didn’t bother saying thanks. She jammed the unit back onto her belt and all but flew up the stairs, beyond irritated at having to draw this out thanks to her so-called responsibilities. That wasn’t a clean hunt.

  Part of her realized that the main source of her anger was having to look into the Changer’s eyes while she killed him. She’d never done that before. Never had one speak to her — not since the hell of Year One, anyway. She prided herself on taking them out humanely. Single shot, every time. Or nearly.

  This one had rattled her in ways she didn’t want to consider.

  She reached the small office, vaulted out the window. The horse was right where she’d left her. But there was something else … someone else. A girl, maybe nineteen or twenty, stood beside the filly trembling in place. Her arms were clasped tightly around her waist, and tears streamed down her face.

  Teague pulled the goggles off and walked toward the girl. “You can’t be out here right now,” she said in a clipped tone. “There’s a shelter three blocks from here—”

  “Johnny,” the girl said in a strangled whisper.

  Teague stopped short. “What?”

  “Johnny. My boyfriend.” The girl swallowed hard and took a step forward. “S-something happened to him,” she said. “And he … ran. In there. I saw you chasing him.”

  Her stomach tightened unpleasantly. “You need to get to a shelter,” she said.

  “Did you kill him?” The girl’s arms dropped to her sides. “Oh my God. Did you kill Johnny?” She shuddered all over, and then fell to her knees with a keening wail. Her hands flew up to cover her face.

  “I…” When nothing more would come out, Teague closed her mouth firmly and walked around the sobbing girl to untie her horse. Zen, she thought, not wanting the girl to hear her say this. Get those patrols here fast. They need to escort a civilian to shelter.

  “What’s going on?” Zen came back. “Shouldn’t you just take the civilian with you?”

  I can’t.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  Never mind. Just do it, she snarled silently as she swung onto the filly.

  The horse was happy to kick it up to a run. As they flew, Teague focused on the rush of wind, on guiding the filly toward Yukon Street, on breathing. On anything but the horrified look on the girl’s face when she understood what happened to the Changer.

  What happened … to Johnny.

  CHAPTER 12

  Bishop, Wyoming

  August 8, 12:10 p.m.

  The sun might’ve been temporarily gone from the sky, but it was still damned hot. Especially wrapped in a bunch of rags. Noah thought of it as the desert nomad look, but really they all looked like a bunch of filthy mummies who’d stolen clothes from trash cans.

  Mostly the rags were to hide their faces, to keep from being recognized. But today they’d also need them to breathe.

  “They’re coming.” Sledge, who’d been watching over the ridge with a pair of binoculars, shuffled his way toward Noah. “Three on horseback. No patrols with them.”

  Finally. Noah straightened from the half-crouch he’d been holding far too long and took the binoculars Sledge was holding out. “One of them is Julian, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Cocky bastard isn’t even wearing a helmet.”

  Darby looked over and grinned. “Really? He’s a dead man, then.”

  “Highly unlikely,” Noah muttered as he half-turned and trained the glasses on the walled city. Julian Bishop had every reason to be cocky. He saw them right away, three armored figures trotting their horses down the center of the empty road that dead-ended into the small field just inside the door. Julian in the middle with his big wooden staff in hand, flanked on the left by Liza Connor, the Knight who specialized in throwing knives. And to his right…

  “Grogan,” Noah said aloud. “Perfect.” Of course he’d have the hulking land mass in his personal detail. Grogan, the one they called the Stone Knight, was a deadly beast who still wore a man’s form — and the man alone was a bruiser. Like what you’d get if you sewed a bouncer inside a bodybuilder and reanimated the corpses.

  Sledge cracked his knuckles audibly. “The big guy’s mine,” he said.

  “We don’t engage them.” Noah glanced at him, then looked around at the others. “Defense only, except for Julian. I won’t risk losing anyone. Are we all clear on that?”

  A lot of murmurs responded, tense but agreeable. He knew they wanted to fight. But now wasn’t the time.

  “Okay,” he said. “Be ready to move. Oscar?”

  “Yeah.” Oscar put a hand up, and Noah tossed him the binoculars. “Channel 2,” he said. “Check your walkie.”

  Noah checked. “We’re good.” They only had the one pair of handhelds, but Oscar had rigged them to bypass the atmospheric interference, or something. He didn’t really know what the man had done with the CBs, but they did work during an Eclipse. That was the important thing. “All right, Isaac,” he said. “Let’s blow this place.”

  “Hilarious.” Smirking, Isaac drew his tall, lanky form past the ridgeline and made sweeping gestures at the rocky expanse before them.

  A long line of dust swirled along the ground about ten feet away and started billowing into thicker clouds.

  “Nice going, weatherman,” Sledge said.

  Isaac grunted. “Bite me.”

  “Not now, sweetheart. Maybe later.”

  “Move out, people.” Noah smiled and shook his head. At least they were still in good spirits. That’d probably change by the time they got down there, but right now he could believe this might work — or at least not get anyone killed.

  Everyone but Oscar scrambled over the ridge and formed a rough line behind the fake dust storm. Isaac pushed the wall ahead, started it movin
g down the incline, and they followed at a fast, steady pace, maintaining a ten-foot gap. The blowback stung a bit, made for watering eyes and a few coughs, but it was manageable.

  Noah glanced back and waited a beat for Diesel to catch up with him. “You’re sure about this,” he said to the big man. “I mean, we lost our archer. I wanted Indigo to cover you, but now we’re pretty much down to a slingshot in the long-range department. The guns aren’t going to work.”

  “It’s fine,” Diesel said. “I won’t need cover.”

  “What if he blasts you?”

  Diesel gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I can take it.”

  “Yeah, I know. But we don’t have Peyton here either, so I’d rather you didn’t have to.” Noah sighed, his breath hot against the loose wraps. “We’re crazy. All of us,” he murmured.

  “This is the right thing to do.”

  “Is it?” He tried not to sound bitter, but he couldn’t help it. “Most people disagree with that, you know. We’re terrorists.”

  “Not for long,” Diesel said. “Not once everyone knows the truth.”

  Noah didn’t respond to that, because he would’ve said what truth? No one really knew what was going on. It wasn’t like there were magic experts to consult, or old records to research any of this. Magic wasn’t real — and then it was. No explanations, no party stepping forward to explain what the hell happened. Just a bunch of dead dragons and Julian Bishop standing over the last smoldering corpse.

  The rebels, the Darkspawn, whatever they were … they’d all gone up against BiCo because of the drug, because of the way the company had taken over everything and started rounding up people who Changed through no fault of their own. Because the Bishop Corporation had become an empire, an enemy of democracy, opposing the freedom to choose between HeMo and death.

  But to most people, BiCo was salvation. They kept people from turning into things that were no longer people, at least sometimes. They killed the monsters. It was convenient to forget that the monsters were people, and someone had loved them.

  Noah would never forget that.

  “They’re outside the wall,” Oscar’s static-blurred voice said through the CB. “And you’re more than halfway there.”

  Noah grabbed the unit. “What are they doing?”

  “Standing there. Staring at the dust.”

  “All right.” He gestured at Isaac, signaling to push faster if he could. The Knights wouldn’t just stand there much longer.

  “I think Liza’s trying to get them to go back in,” Oscar’s voice said. “Looks like Grogan disagrees.”

  “And Julian?”

  “Still staring. He’s — wait, he just said something to Grogan. You guys are about a hundred feet back. Maybe … oh, shit. Grogan’s going to blast you. Move!”

  There was no time to ask where the Stone Knight was aiming. “Isaac, now!” Noah shouted. “You all know what to do.”

  With a bare nod, Isaac gestured sharply forward. The dust storm barreled away from them, engulfing the Knights, and everyone kicked up to a sprint.

  A sizzling red blast of magic flew past Noah and blew a crater in the ground, not five feet from him. Shards of rock from the spray rained down, and two or three big chunks struck him in the back. He snarled and kept running. A few bruises were a lot better than being reduced to human slag, which that blast probably would’ve done to him.

  He’d have to thank Oscar for that later.

  The dust in front of them cleared to Liza doubled over, coughing and spluttering, Grogan trying to calm a snorting, angry horse that was pawing at the ground. And Julian — ramrod straight, staff in hand, glaring at them all.

  At first Noah thought the sharp report from his left was thunder. It took a few seconds, even after he saw the cloud of dirt and fragments explode the ground in front of Liza’s horse and the animal rearing in panic, to realize that one of Darby’s guns had actually fired.

  The dry click and the string of curse words that followed said it hadn’t worked a second time.

  Grogan had his mount under control. He was moving in front of Julian, who’d started shouting at Liza to stand her ground — though the woman wasn’t listening to him anymore. She’d already opened the door leading back into the city.

  Then a searing blaze of white light swallowed everything.

  The sun. Noah squeezed his eyes half-closed and threw an arm up to shield them, even as he drew his sword. The Eclipse ended early. We lost our advantage.

  But the light faded and Grogan flew off his horse, smashing into the wall behind him hard enough to crack the concrete.

  “Fuck yeah!” Sledge shouted. “Blast him straight to hell, man. Hit him again!”

  Jesus. Noah could only think it. He was too stunned to speak. All that light, bright enough to temporarily turn the world back into daytime, had come from Diesel. He’d hit Grogan and Julian with that.

  And Julian hadn’t moved. Not an inch.

  Diesel snarled and ran forward, pulling an arm back for another blast. Julian merely watched him come. Grinning. Raising his staff.

  “Don’t!” Noah called. “Fall—”

  A dull thwack cut him off. Julian’s head snapped aside with the force of the blow, and the fist-sized rock that had struck his temple thumped to the ground. Blood streamed down his face from a nasty gash along his hair line.

  Blake. He’d actually hit the bastard with his slingshot.

  Fast as a snake, Julian jabbed the staff in Blake’s direction as he tried to load another rock. A jagged blue bolt shot from the end and struck the younger man square in the chest, launching him back to crash-land on the rocks twenty feet away.

  There was another white flash, slightly less intense this time. Enough that Noah actually saw the magic hit Julian — and watched as the staff seemed to absorb it.

  “Get out of there, now!” Oscar’s voice shouted from the CB. “You’ve got about a hundred patrols headed for the wall. Run!”

  At least Noah didn’t have to repeat the directive. Everyone heard, everyone raced for the ridge except Diesel, who headed for Blake. The big man scooped him up running, didn’t even slow his pace. Isaac hung back a fraction and threw another dust storm between them and Bishop, trying to cover their escape.

  Somewhere behind him, Noah heard the slam of the door opening, the sound of running feet. And he heard Julian’s command, clear as if the man were standing beside him.

  “Stop! Let them go.”

  What the hell? He almost faltered, almost turned back. Maybe he should’ve been grateful the patrols weren’t chasing them — but there was no room for gratitude in the dread he felt. That order made zero sense. With those numbers, and all of them on foot, Julian could’ve wiped them out easily then and there. He should have wiped them out.

  Which meant he had something far worse in mind.

  CHAPTER 13

  Yukon Street Clinic

  August 8, 12:29 p.m.

  It sure as hell didn’t look like Sawyer needed help.

  When Teague rode up to the clinic, it was to find a handful of officers loading bodies into the back of a cargo truck. There was one at every shelter to keep the dead out of sight until the Eclipse ended, and patrol captains used horse-drawn wagons to collect off-site casualties and get them onto the trucks.

  This one had maybe half a dozen Changers. Not exactly amounting to a small horde. In fact, there’d been more casualties in the first ten minutes of last year’s Eclipse than Sawyer apparently had in nearly an hour so far.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Teague caught a breath at the guttural voice behind her. She dismounted and turned, ready to shoot her mouth right back — until she took in Sawyer’s state. No helmet, no gauntlets, bruised eye and split lip. Blood on his armor, blood on the sword he clenched in his hand. “Zen told me you needed help,” she said carefully. “Where’s your horse?”

  “He’s resting. I said I was fine, damn it.” One of the patrol officers jogged up and ha
nded him a bottle of water. He nodded thanks, twisted the cap off with his teeth and drank half of it, then poured the rest over his sword and crushed the bottle. “You’re still here. Why?”

  “Because you don’t look fine.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He glared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and started walking toward her. “Are you even listening to the comms?” he said as he slowed, pulling something from the pouch at his waist. A rolled piece of paper. “Look, you shouldn’t be anywhere near here.”

  “I told you, Zen sent me.”

  “Well, she made the wrong damned call.” Sawyer unrolled a map of the city, laminated and marked with color-coded spots. He pointed to a red spot on the south end, roughly in the middle of three parks. “If you were paying attention, you would’ve noticed no one went through these parks yet,” he said. “Changers like to hide in there. Lots of trees. And here,” he said, jabbing a blue spot tucked into a curve of the North Platte River. “The park, the campgrounds, the museum. All vulnerable. The patrols only made one pass through there, half an hour ago. Then you’ve got—”

  “All right,” she snapped. “Point taken.” Not that she could’ve known any of this. She’d only been informed yesterday that she was stepping into this job … the one Sawyer had been doing for years. Of course he was prepared.

  Sawyer grunted, stowed the map and started walking away. “Just go,” he called. “I’ve got this. Unless you really think I can’t handle babysitting a teeny little nowhere clinic.”

  “Sawyer, wait.”

  He stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “What?”

  I’m sorry. I don’t want your job. She meant to say something like that, but what came out was, “I checked your truck. Only six dead? You told Zen it was a horde.”

  Now he turned, looking just as angry as he had yesterday outside the conference room. “It was a joke,” he said, biting off every word. “I do that sometimes, make jokes. Especially when I’m given a goddamned joke of an assignment.” He took a step toward her, and then visibly restrained himself from moving. “Get out of here, Harlow. You’ve got my job to do.”