In the Shadow of Dragons (Aftermagic Book 1)

by Sonya Bateman

  “S—” Teague stopped herself with a gulp. “Don’t,” she said. “We’ll find another way.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?”

  She couldn’t think of one.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Well, not really. But I’ll have to burn this identity anyway.” He faced the table. “You’re all hung up on her being a Knight,” he said. “But Knight doesn’t automatically mean Julian’s lock-stepping bitch. He didn’t grow us in his fucking labs. We’re people, just like you assholes. And some of us can even tell right from wrong, on occasion.”

  Darby was the first to pick up on it. “Us?”

  “Yeah. You know … Knights.” Sawyer took the cantrip off.

  “Holy mother of God,” Isaac said. “You’re Sawyer Volk.”

  Sawyer grunted. “You know, I’m getting a little sick of people telling me who I am. I know my own goddamned name, thanks.”

  “Um.” Darby’s features froze in wide-eyed shock — but she wasn’t looking at Sawyer. “Diesel? What’s wrong with you?”

  Teague let out a gasp. The big man had gone rigid and stiff, and his eyes glowed pure white. Tendrils of white mist rose from his body.

  “Knight.” The voice that left Diesel’s mouth was a clap of thunder, an earthquake. His glowing eyes were fixed on Sawyer. “Find the Seer in the dark place. The Seer speaks what is. The Orrin, the stave, restored. Burn the Bishop. Claim the stave, claim the Orrin. Knight, cast your light, find the dark beneath the dark place. Find me.”

  The glow vanished. Diesel shuddered and fell to his knees.

  “Diesel!” Teague ran to him, dropping to grab him just before he could topple over and smash the floor with his face. She couldn’t help him back to his feet, but she could hold him until he woke up. If he woke up.

  He groaned, stirred. His eyes opened. “Orrin,” he murmured. “I wish someone could tell me who or what the hell that is.”

  “Oh, God. You’re all right.” Teague hugged him tight, shivering, and drew back to look at him. “I mean … are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He actually smiled, a little. “Thank you.”

  “Well, it wasn’t much. I just saved you a bloody nose, maybe.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “Can you get up?”

  He nodded. She moved back to give him room, and he stood and offered a hand to help her. She took it gladly.

  Everyone in the room was staring. Even Sawyer was too stunned to speak.

  Diesel shrugged. “Let me answer your questions, save us all some time,” he said. “I don’t know, I really don’t know, yes it’s happened before, and yes the crazy voice is always right. If you can understand what it’s saying.”

  “I think I got it.” Sawyer shook himself and replaced the cantrip. “Most of it, anyway. So who still thinks we should stand around here arguing?”

  No one did.

  CHAPTER 62

  BiCo Ground Zero Facility

  August 14, 9:41 p.m.

  Orrin Bhasvaa opened his eyes again. This time he’d been out for probably five minutes. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I can’t seem to die. What was I saying?”

  “About the dragons,” Noah said carefully. Quite the pair they made, him and his cube-mate. One barely able to talk through the pain, the other barely able to talk before he passed out from the exertion. “How Julian didn’t kill any of them.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Julian.” Orrin’s eyes closed, but it was only a slow blink. “The two of them. I’d gone to confront them, and the elder had drawn a clutch of dragons through from my world. I did not expect that, I’m afraid.”

  “The elder … Royce?” Noah winced with more than pain. “You’re saying Royce Bishop brought the dragons here?”

  “Well, yes. But that creature hadn’t been Royce for many years.”

  “Creature?”

  “I forget how little you humans know.” Another slow blink. “It’s impossible to destroy one dragon, let alone a clutch. I did what I could. Turned them on each other. The only thing that can destroy a dragon, is another dragon.” Orrin drew a rattling breath and paused for a moment. “Then the younger, Julian, took my staff and destroyed the elder with it.”

  Noah let that sink in while he gathered the resolve to speak again. “Julian killed his father, locked you up here, and told the world you brought the dragons. That he killed you. So he’d be the hero, and no one could prove otherwise.” He would’ve shaken his head, but it hurt to move anything. “So his magic was already more powerful than yours? Since he got your staff, I mean.”

  The rusty wheezing from Orrin might have been a laugh. “Powerful? No,” he said. “Julian Bishop is a Null … a True Null.”

  Noah’s breath caught, and for a minute it refused to start again. He’s a Null. That was why none of their magic worked on him, why even Diesel’s full-powered blast didn’t touch him. Not because he was so much stronger than them.

  Because the ‘all-powerful’ Julian Bishop had no magic at all. Only a stolen staff — and that could be taken from him.

  He wasn’t the most powerful magic user on the planet. He wasn’t unbeatable.

  He could be killed.

  “You should know.” Orrin’s breathing was labored, his eyes fluttering. He was going to pass out again. “You should know about the other dragon.”

  Before Noah could muster the strength to say what other dragon?, Orrin had slipped under.

  He’d wait for him to wake up again. He had nothing better to do, no pressing appointments until Julian decided to come back for him. Meanwhile, he had plenty to occupy his mind.

  Like Royce Bishop. The ‘creature’ who’d brought the dragons. Noah almost wished Julian hadn’t killed him — because he wanted to do it himself.

  Royce Bishop had destroyed the world, and his son was actively furthering his legacy.

  Less than a minute after Orrin’s eyes closed, Noah heard the double doors to the cage room whoosh open. He didn’t bother trying to lift his head, because who else could it possibly be? Next, the cube door would open and Julian would pull his table out and ask him the name of the big man with the white magic. Noah wouldn’t answer. And he’d be wheeled away for a new dose of pain.

  The cube door opened. The table rattled forward. And Julian said, “Who is the big man with the white magic?”

  What do you know, Noah thought as he tried not to laugh. Sometimes my visions are right, after all.

  CHAPTER 63

  BiCo Ground Zero Facility

  August 14, 10:16 p.m.

  “Well, there it is,” Teague said when they reached the edge of the bowl valley.

  Everyone had come along on this mission, once they’d convinced them Noah was alive. They’d parked the vehicles around a half-mile out so the headlights wouldn’t give their approach away, and then walked the rest of the distance in a hand-holding chain with Teague at the front, leading them through the darkness until the glow from the facility was enough to light their way.

  Now they were waiting on her to tell them what to do.

  It terrified her, being the leader. She’d told Julian when he assigned her to lead the Casper team that she just didn’t want the extra work, told herself that she didn’t want the job because she belonged in Bishop. But fear was the real truth. She was afraid she’d let everyone down, that she wouldn’t be the kind of leader she herself wanted to follow. A leader like Noah.

  She had to save him, if only so he could take his job back.

  “All right,” she said. “I didn’t get a head count, obviously. But my best guess, Julian has around a hundred patrols down there, at least. There’s ten of us. We have magic, but they have guns.” She stopped, thought a moment. “The patrols are trained to stay back, group together and shoot when they’re up against magic users. A hundred guns against ten people means somebody doesn’t make it, statistically. So we want to keep them from finding out we’re there, for as long as possible. I don’t want to lose anyone.”


  There was a round of muttering agreement. “We can’t all knock them out, though,” Darby said. “I mean, we can stop them from fighting. But that won’t keep them from sounding the alarm — which brings Julian down on us.”

  “I know.” Teague released an unsteady breath. “That’s why we have to kill them.”

  Whether it was in light of Blake’s death, or that they understood it really was the only way, no one objected.

  “Okay.” So far, so good. “There’s a path to the bottom, do you see it? Just at the edge over there. It comes down near the barracks.” She pointed to the left, at the far curve of the bowl. “But we’re going to need a distraction. Something they won’t have to call Julian for, but still requires immediate attention. And it has to happen away from the barracks. Sledge?”

  He raised a hand. “Yeah.”

  “You see that shed, right here at the front gate?” She pointed below them and slightly to the right, to a small wooden building just inside the chain link fence that encircled the facility. The shed was actually built against the rock wall of the bowl, and the fence extended from it. “That’s a munitions shack,” she said. “Julian likes to have them at exit points for defense and retreat. I’m willing to bet there’s a tunnel that branches off the main tunnel, probably right underneath us, and comes out in the shack.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sledge said. “And you want me to…”

  “Make a rockslide. A little one,” she said. “Just enough to obstruct the building without too much damage, an annoyance rather than an emergency. The patrols aren’t allowed to bother Julian with annoyances. Can you do that? Say, from the top of the path over there?”

  He grinned. “Hell, yes.”

  “Good. Once we’re ready to start down, you make the diversion. We’ll head around behind the barracks and split up when we get to the perimeter fence. Me, Diesel and … uh, Rook will go in through the main entrance, find Noah somehow…”

  “I’ve got that covered,” Sawyer said.

  “Okay. I’ll trust that you do.” Teague looked down again. “Meanwhile, the rest of you don’t let any patrols inside. Isaac and Peyton, you’re by the door. Your magic is less flashy, so there’s a better chance you won’t be noticed. Oscar, find out if there’s a main tunnel and start hotwiring their SUVs, get them lined up and ready to move out so we can split fast — you can do that, right?”

  “Course I can,” Oscar said. “I’m just not so great at killing people.”

  “Right. Silas, you’re with Oscar. Get his back, keep him clear,” she said. “Sledge and Darby, you’re recon and border control. Move around, try not to be seen, and take out anyone who looks like they’re headed for our people.”

  “What about me?” Indigo said.

  “Air support.” Teague looked at her. “Fly low, keep watch and warn anyone who’s got incoming. Or take them out, if you can. The patrols aren’t trained to look up. And they won’t anyway, because of our cover. Which is also going to help with sound interference and decrease the chances they’ll hear us moving around.”

  Diesel raised an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

  “Darby’s going to make it rain.”

  “Well, damn,” Darby said. “You might be a genius.”

  Sawyer grunted. “Where was all this planning during the Eclipse?”

  “Shut up.” She managed a smile. “Anyone have any questions?”

  No one did.

  “All right. Let’s move.”

  As they all started for the path, Teague touched Diesel’s arm and gestured for him to hang back a minute. He waited. When the rest of them were out of earshot, she said in a low voice, “You have about half an hour until…”

  “I know.” There was a furious, determined look in his eyes. “By then I’m planning to be in the same room as Julian Bishop. We have to get that staff away from him.”

  She remembered what he’d said in that strange, booming voice. Burn the Bishop.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll make sure you are.”

  “Oh. And, er…” He slipped something from his shoulder. A small drawstring bag she hadn’t realized he was carrying — it must’ve been in one of the vehicles. “Could you hold this for me?”

  She took it. The bag had some weight, and what felt like fabric inside. Clothes. Because he wouldn’t have time to strip before he burst into flames.

  “No problem.” She slung the bag on her back. “Let’s go save Noah.”

  Sledge’s rockslide drew a dozen or so patrols to the munitions shack. Not as many as Teague had hoped, but more kept heading in that direction while they’d made their way down the path under a steady downpour. By the time they’d reached the floor of the valley, she’d counted at least twenty struggling to move the rocks.

  It was a start.

  She and Diesel had taken out two patrols each on the way to the main entrance. Diesel with small blasts that looked enough like lightning to escape notice, and herself with a more focused attack than the one she’d used to shred the patrols out in the Badlands. It was getting easier to control now. She’d dropped them with single shadow blades to the heart.

  With enough practice, she thought maybe she could create shadow arrows. Possibly a bow to fire them with.

  There was one guard outside at the front doors. Without consulting each other aloud, Isaac and Peyton took him out with a double-step attack — Isaac gusted him into a thick decorative hedge in the planter boxes that lined the front of the building, and Peyton strangled him with it, growing the hedge around his body to hide it.

  Before they went inside, Sawyer did … something. He gestured, and a wall of light around five feet long flashed briefly across the walkway leading inside, ten feet from the building. “Anyone coming inside’s going to hit that first,” he explained to Isaac and Peyton. “They won’t see it, and it’ll hurt, so they’ll be stunned long enough for you to take them out from hiding.”

  It occurred to Teague that she had no idea what kind of magic Sawyer used. She’d have to ask him about it sometime. If they lived through this.

  The doors led to a large, open area with a polished granite floor, brass accents, and a sign on the back wall of the vestibule straight ahead reading ALL PERSONNEL MUST LOG ACCESS WITH CLEARANCE CARDS BEFORE PROCEEDING. There was a freestanding terminal with a magnetic card swipe slot below the sign. And there wasn’t a single patrol in sight.

  That was suspicious at best.

  They stood there dripping rain onto the glossy floor, staring at the sign and the terminal. “Access to what?” Teague muttered. There was nothing here. Just hallways leading left and right from the entrance area.

  “Who knows,” Sawyer said. “Okay, I can find Noah. But I need a minute, so you’ll have to cover me.”

  “Right.” She didn’t ask what he was doing. Now wasn’t the time for questions.

  As Sawyer moved to the back of the vestibule, Diesel glanced at his watch. “Eighteen minutes,” he said. “We have to find him.”

  “We will.”

  There was a flare of red light from Sawyer’s direction. Teague looked over — and saw a silhouette of Sawyer traced in dark red Eclipse light. A red will-o’-wisp hovered a foot or so above the fiery shape.

  “Okay, it’s really hard not to ask questions right now,” she said.

  But Diesel was smiling. “Of course.”

  “Of course, what?”

  “He’s going to send Noah a message,” he said. “It will lead us straight to him.”

  There was another flash, and Sawyer was himself again. The will-o’-wisp stared floating away, to the center of the front area and down the corridor to the left.

  “Follow that orb,” Sawyer said.

  They headed down the hall. “You use will-o’-wisps to send messages?” Teague said. “Well. I guess that’s why there’s been so many lately.”

  Diesel nodded. “They’re—”

  A sudden, buzzing blare cut him off. At the far end of the hall, a blue light started fl
ashing in time with the repeating buzzer. Two doors about midway down opened immediately, and a handful of patrol officers spilled out, guns drawn.

  So that was what they needed clearance cards for. To turn off the alarms.

  CHAPTER 64

  BiCo Ground Zero Facility

  August 14, 10:40 p.m.

  Julian’s staff — Orrin’s staff — stood against the wall by the door to the torture lab. Noah wondered how long it would be until Julian started using it on him.

  He’d finally removed the slivers. They hurt just as much coming out as going in, but at least now Noah was back to normal levels of pain that only increased to horrific when Julian lanced him with the red-hot needle he was holding.

  If he wasn’t so furious, he’d have been impressed with the man’s creativity. The needle cauterized the wounds, so Julian could keep going with this for a very long time and not worry about him bleeding to death.

  The question of the hour had been changed from who’s the big man, to who are your informants. So far Noah had responded variously with nothing, Mickey Mouse, the president of the United States, and the little old lady who lives in the shoe. The most recent answer, in response to the needle through the top of his shoulder, had been silence. He hadn’t decided what the next one would be.

  Julian leaned over him and aimed the point of the needle at his left eye. “Who are your informants?” he said, his voice considerably less calm than when they’d started.

  Noah laughed until his skewered ribs burned with the effort. “Your mother,” he croaked, just before spilling into a fresh spate of helpless laughter.

  For a second he thought the sudden, loud buzzing sound was what happened when your eyeball was popped with a burning needle. Then, miraculously, Julian stood with a snarl and set the needle aside on the counter — without crippling Noah for the rest of his short life. Yet.