I dispersed the shield with a cry, surprised to find I wasn’t a charred husk.
“What’s happening down there?” Vega asked.
It took me a moment to get my breath. “Brian just realized he can’t use the efreet to attack me, so he’s using it defensively.” I started digging through my coat pockets. “He’s encased himself in a wall of fire.”
“Looks like a dome from up here,” Vega said. “Should we take a shot?”
She was referring to the police snipers. The ideal scenario was to keep Brian alive, but we had also agreed that if he endangered lives, we would drop him. I didn’t like the current setup, though. Even if the snipers’ bullets could penetrate the fire barrier, they would be shooting blindly, and there were tributes inside.
I seized a vial of ice crystals and pulled it out.
“Hold off,” I said. “I’m going to try something.”
As I removed the lid, I heard Brian take up his chanting again. Incredibly, he was trying to finish the dragon-summoning ceremony.
“Ghioccio!” I called, aiming the vial at the fire barrier.
The cone of sub-zero frost that blasted out met the barrier with a loud hiss and billowing plume of steam. But unlike with the wyvern, the cold spell had no real effect. As the vial petered out and the steam lifted off, the manifested fire remained. Hell, what did I expect? I was going up against a powerful efreet.
Brian continued to chant, the flames and heat seeming to excite his voice and give it more power. I dug desperately through my pockets, but nothing I encountered was going to do a damned thing.
I was gathering power for another force invocation, a stronger one, when the fire barrier dropped suddenly. Brian was standing at the edge of the pool, a water-logged Cameo slouched beside him. The tributes and members of the Military Federation of the Dragon were scattered, still recovering from the effects of the tear gas. But Brian had an expression on his face like he was somehow back in control.
Had he completed the summoning?
I looked down, but nothing stirred in the pool.
“Vigore!” I shouted, releasing the gathered invocation at Brian.
From nowhere, a tall woman appeared in front of him. She was black skinned with radiant auburn hair and flames set back in her dark eyes. My invocation broke around her in a flash of fire. The woman strode forward, but I knew it was no woman.
This was Sefu, the efreet.
32
For a moment, I could only stare at the efreet, the embodiment of elemental fire. Though she wore no clothes, her female form appeared as if it had been molded from obsidian and then smoothed over to remove the anatomical details. Looking at her was like looking on the face of a god, and she was beautiful. Not in any human way, but in the way a full-spectrum sunset or the majesty of the Milky Way on a cold, moonless night deep in the woods can steal your breath. She was that kind of beautiful.
But she had taken form in our world, and that scared the shit out of me.
“Is that who I think it is?” Vega radioed.
“Yes,” I said. “The snipers need to back off. Now.”
With the efreet out, a bullet through Brian’s head would result in one of the biggest detonations since the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Naturally, Brian had no clue he’d just made himself the detonator.
“I told you I was the superior wizard,” he taunted.
“Listen to me,” I said, my eyes still on the efreet, who looked back at me without expression. “You’re dealing with something you know nothing about and that you haven’t the power to control.”
“Then what do you call what I’m doing?” he shot back, still hiding behind the efreet.
“Shut up and listen. That phylactery in your possession. What do you think happened to the sorcerers who owned it before you? When the efreet got tired of doing their bidding, she found ways to kill them.”
I heard him swallow. “Well, then they were weak.”
“They were sorcerers, Brian. They commanded real magic. She’ll do the same to you, but in a fraction of the time.” I was exaggerating a little. She would wait until she was back in the phylactery first.
“No, she won’t.”
“Give me the phylactery,” I said.
“Oh, so you can control her?” He snorted a derisive laugh. “Not a chance.”
“No, so I can return her to her realm where she belongs.”
By unbonding the efreet from the phylactery, the being could go straight home, bypassing the need to discharge energy. Everyone would be happy, including, I assumed, the efreet. But she showed no reaction to what I’d said.
Beyond her, I caught Brian’s hand balling up the lap of his robe. He’d done that a few times, but now the gesture looked protective. For the first time I realized it was where he was keeping the phylactery. Probably tucked away in an inner pocket. If I could just snag it…
“Vigore!” I shouted, flicking my sword.
But the efreet moved more quickly, dispersing the invocation in another flash of fire.
“Nice try, Croft,” Brian sneered.
Dammit. Though the efreet was counting on me to help her—I was pretty sure of that now—she was still under Brian’s orders to protect him. I was going to have to somehow convince him to voluntarily give up the artifact.
“The snipers have switched to rubber rounds,” Vega radioed. “Two of them have a clear shot.”
That hadn’t been part of the plan, but Vega, who was still watching from the berm, was no doubt growing worried. She’d already watched me die once today.
“Stand by,” I radioed back, then returned my attention to Brian. “I understand why you got into this. You wanted power, respect, recognition. That’s perfectly normal, perfectly understandable. Even I crave those. But you have to listen to me. Holding onto the efreet will kill you. One way or another.”
“Ah-ha!” Brian cried. “You admit it!”
“Admit what?”
“That you crave the power I wield!”
“Go ahead,” I radioed Vega.
With the efreet taking form, the signal had gone out. The demons would be on their way. Though we still needed to handle Brian with kid gloves, we also needed to get the phylactery before the demons arrived.
Brian’s face appeared from behind the efreet, and he glared at me defiantly.
Shots cracked from the berm. Brian flinched. But feet from him, blinding white flares hissed in the air. The rubber rounds went up in twists of smoke. More cracks sounded, only to result in more flares. The efreet wasn’t letting anything get to her master.
Wonderful.
“Hold fire,” I radioed Vega.
When the shots stopped, I appealed to the efreet. “I can free you, but I need the phylactery that binds you.” She gave no indication she understood or even heard what I was saying. Not that I knew how to read a being as old as the cosmos.
Brian hustled around to the front of her now, his face red. “Shut up! She listens to no one but me! She does what I say!”
That was generally true of genie-master relationships, and yet somehow the efreet had been ignoring his order to attack me. And then it hit me. Genies would execute any order except ones that resulted in their own destruction. Somehow, the efreet knew that harming me would harm her own survivability. Whether it was from the summoning of Drage or the demon apocalypse, the efreet could sense an immediate future where, without my intervention, she would be destroyed. That must have been why Brian was freaking out. He knew he didn’t have complete control over her.
I decided to press that button.
“But you can’t make her attack me,” I said, stepping forward.
He barked a laugh. “I could have you incinerated right here.”
“Do it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then I challenge you to another duel,” I said.
Brian glanced around. Cameo, who had recovered from his near drowning, was watching, as was t
he rest of the Military Federation of the Dragon. The tributes who hadn’t fled were watching too. Though most appeared mesmerized by the manifestation of the efreet, Brian no doubt believed their attention to be entirely on him. Further, he believed their continued allegiance to him depended on what he did next. He seemed to gather himself before straightening and puffing his chest out.
“I accept.”
“Good.” I had him where I wanted him. “But this has to be a true wizard’s duel.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Offense only. I disperse my shield, and you order the efreet not to defend you.”
Red smudges grew over Brian’s cheeks as he glanced around at his audience.
“A true wizard wouldn’t hesitate,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear—and for Brian to know they’d heard.
“Yes, fine,” he said quickly. He turned to the efreet. “You’re not to protect me during the duel. In fact, you’re not to do anything.” He then whispered an addendum that, thanks to the acoustics in the quarry, I picked up: “But you will hit Croft with everything you have when I give the word.” He glared at her as though challenging the efreet to defy him. That’s when I knew just how delusional he was.
The efreet didn’t respond.
“Back to back,” Brian ordered me. “Move aside, everyone.”
“What’s happening down there?” Vega radioed nervously.
“Another duel,” I whispered. “If anyone besides Brian pulls a weapon, take them out.”
I dissolved my shield and turned so our backs were touching. It was the same position we’d been in just that morning. If only I’d known then what I knew now… I tuned into Brian’s muscle tone, an invocation on the tip of my tongue in the event he tried to get cute and drive a knife into my back.
“Five steps,” he said. “Cameo, give us the count.”
“One…” Cameo began.
“Protezione!” I shouted and spun.
My shield invocation covered Brian’s mouth, muting him. Another invocation bound his wrists and ankles. Brian implored the efreet with panicked eyes, but per his own orders, she wasn’t to protect him. When I moved toward him, he tried to hop-step away, but he lost his balance and fell to the ground for the second time that day.
Cameo took a step forward, but I warned him off with a look. Deciding he didn’t want to be blasted into the pool again, he stopped and showed his hands, including the right one bearing the dragon gauntlet. The others seemed to follow his lead and remained back.
I manifested a form-fitting shield around myself anyway and knelt beside Brian. He kicked and thrashed as I dug a hand into his robe, found the secret pocket, and drew the phylactery free.
Gotcha!
It was the same one as in the photo—the real artifact.
I looked over at the efreet, but she was following Brian’s order to the letter: you’re not to do anything. She returned my look with the same passive expression. For the first time, though, I thought I caught a flicker of passion in her eyes.
“Is he still with you?” I radioed Vega.
“He was until just a second ago…”
I was about to ask where he went when someone appeared beside me.
“Oh, Everson!” the man said. “I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to wait or come down here.”
The man was stooped forward, his face sagging in a confused sort of way—that much I had pictured correctly. But instead of white or gray hair, his was dark and parted in the middle, sending it down the sides of his face in two lanky curtains. He also wore a pair of glasses whose round lenses were tinted. The hair and glasses alone conspired to give him the appearance of an aging rock star, but his all-black getup completed the look.
And that wasn’t at all what I had pictured.
“Claudius,” I said, just relieved he’d come. It had been a challenge getting him to leave his phones and pile of messages, but I convinced him that this job made all of the others gnat-sized in comparison, which might not have been a stretch.
“Is that it?” he asked, walking over to me.
I nodded and dropped the phylactery into his hand.
This man who had told me just last night that his job had once been to work with complex bondings poked the phylactery around his palm. He hmm’d and grunted for several moments as he looked it over. The magical aura that bent the air around him was powerful but also disorganized. That worried me.
At last, though, he nodded.
“I’ve worked with something like this before.”
“Great,” I exhaled in relief. “How long do you need?”
“Oh, a couple hours. Maybe three.”
“Three hours?” I scanned the berm. “I’m not sure we have that much time.”
“Me neither,” Claudius said. “Oh? What’s happening over here?”
I thought he’d spotted a demon, but when I followed his gaze, he was staring at the body of water. It had started to froth. The cobalt color was shifting, turning an oily black, and the vapors drifting from it carried a scent of death. The members of the Military Federation of the Dragon moved closer. Even Brian, who was still on the ground, stared at the pool in a kind of trance. For the first time, I noticed the dragon bone was no longer on him. He must have dropped it into the pool at the completion of the ceremony.
At the edge of the pool, Cameo adjusted the gauntlet on his hand.
“The time is nigh!” he announced. “The return of Drage the Wise is upon us!”
33
I wheeled toward Claudius. “Can you stop the summoning?”
The senior member of the Order wrung his curtains of hair as he watched the water. “I’m afraid not, Everson. I mean, not without blowing up the lower half of New York state. There’s too much energy at the interface—”
“There’s no way to contain that energy?” I interrupted.
Claudius looked at me like I was crazy. “Between us? Heavens, no.”
I felt the same immense buildup of energy he did. It might not have been on the order of the efreet’s, but I understood the challenge of attempting to disperse that energy while at the same time preventing it from blowing out into our world. I had just been hoping an insight from Claudius’s vast years of experience might flash-bulb in his muddled mind, because I had nothing.
“We’ll have to wait for it to come through,” he said.
“And then what?” I was having to shout above the boiling pool now.
But instead of answering, he stared slack-faced at the water, where strange lights played under the surface now. He seemed to have forgotten all about the phylactery. I turned to the efreet. It was by her power the dragon was being called up. Could she put it back down? Brian would have to give the order.
My gaze shifted to the former software developer who had done time in a psych ward and was no doubt off his meds. From his knees, he stared, watching his plans come to fruition. A wonderstruck glow came over his face.
I’ve done it! I could practically hear him thinking. I’ve ushered in the new era!
There was no way I was going to be able to convince him to reverse the conjuring. And if I unmuzzled him, who knew what he’d command the efreet to do. Reclaim the phylactery? Transport them elsewhere? She was presently under orders to do nothing, and under the circumstances, that was probably the best-case scenario.
“What’s happening now?” Vega asked through our crackling connection.
“Drage is coming,” I said. “Get yourself and everyone back. Far back.”
The last part was buried in a burst of static. Black bands of energy were arcing from the water now, leaving harsh ozone trails. The atmosphere inside the entire quarry was turning brooding and electric, as if a massive storm were coming. More and more of Drage’s realm was spilling into the world.
Worse, this wasn’t going to be the wise and just dragon the sages had seen. Judging from the stench, whatever was emerging would be a monster whose ideal form had spent tho
usands of years in an underworld where forgotten beings went to die.
I hated being right sometimes.
A horned head broke the water’s surface and thrashed into full view. The Military Federation and its tributes drew back with gasps. I felt the air go out of me as well. It was the enormity of the head—I’d seen smaller houses—but it was also the grotesqueness. A vast disorganization of dark scales clung to rotting flesh. Hollow eyes peered out, black flames flickering in the massive cave-like openings. Drage released his first roar, a ragged sound that filled the quarry and vibrated to the depths of my bones.
Taloned hands clawed into view next, followed by tattered wings the size of ship sails. The dragon strained and twisted as though being birthed from Hell’s womb, his gigantic black teeth crashing together.
I turned to Claudius, who continued to stare.
“The phylactery!” I shouted. “Start working on the unbonding! I’ll deal with the dragon!”
When he didn’t answer, I shook him hard enough to skew his glasses. He straightened them and blinked at me. “Yes, yes,” he stammered. “The phylactery.”
“And watch the efreet!” I said. “If anything comes for her, get her and Brian the hell out of here!”
Back at the pool, Drage’s wings cleared the water. He beat them furiously, generating putrid cyclones throughout the lower quarry. I lowered my head, pushing my way toward Cameo. I needed to get control of the damned dragon.
The rest of Drage’s rotting body appeared from the pool, half scaly flesh, half skeleton. At last he whipped his tail free, water pouring off him as he rose. We all craned our necks back. Stan had said he would be the size of a city block, and he wasn’t too far off. As it was, the dragon blocked out much of the sky.
Cameo, who wore the dragon gauntlet, backed into me. Instead of commanding Drage, he was gibbering like a fool. When I seized his arm, he screamed and rounded on me, his eyes gaping with fear.
“Give me the gauntlet!” I shouted.
He pulled the armored fist across his chest. I drove a forearm into his chin.
Cameo’s legs crumpled. I grabbed the gauntlet as he went down—it slid off his limp hand with ease—and put it on my own. The warm metal gripped my forearm and hand. I hadn’t sensed its power before because it had been cloaked in the aura of the efreet, but now it pulsed down the length of my arm.
Power Game Page 25
