Firestorm

by William Stacey

  Char smiled, her eyes shining. "So, she can control it. Interesting." She took the child's hand in hers, pulled her out from behind the nurse's leg. "Come, young one. Stand with me. What are you called?"

  "Angie. Angela," the child whispered, moving away from the nurse. She kept Char's hand in her own.

  "So you are the angel, not I." Char smiled and then looked to Marshal, her face suddenly hard again. "Very well, man. You will have your peace, and the dragon’s will be done. There will be a Concord."

  "And the child?" Marshal asked. "I promised her father."

  "She will live here with me, my own daughter. If she can be taught control, we will do so."

  "There's ... things you need to know about her. Things she's ... there's been an incident."

  Char nodded, blinking once in agreement. "There always are when dealing with such power."

  Marshal sighed wearily, running his hand back over his bald head, looking both relieved and guilty. "There ... there are other children who can do ... things. The dragon said you could help."

  Ephix groaned, but Char nodded slowly. "They can touch magic now. They'll die without shades. Kill themselves or others."

  "Not our concern, sister," Ephix said.

  "Not so, sister. Our kind cast the Fey Sleep all those years ago. Now humans have no natural protection against the return of magic. It must be like a tidal wave that threatens to wash them away. No, we did this to them."

  "To protect ourselves until we had the strength to go home again."

  Char snorted. "This is our home now, sister. And we must make amends for what we have done." She considered Marshal for several long moments. "Bring your mage children to me. I will bond them with shades and teach them enough magic so that they do not kill themselves. In return, you will leave us in peace."

  "Deal," said Marshal, extending his hand.

  Char took it, gripping his forearm.

  Marshal removed something from his pocket and handed it to Char. "Give her this. Tell her it came from her father. Maybe it should have gone with her older brother but … well, too late for that now. He'd ... he'd want her to have it."

  Char nodded and took Angie’s father's watch from Marshal, the heirloom that meant so much to Angie.

  Lodin leaned forward, whispering in Angie’s ear. "And so was born your Concord."

  "I don't understand any of this. It makes no sense."

  "For that, we must go back further yet."

  The fog rushed back in, concealing Char and Marshal, and the child-Angie. When it cleared again, it revealed Quetzalcoatl's underground lair, his Black Pool. Marshal stood at the lake's edge with the child lying curled up near his feet, her young face devoid of emotion, her eyes empty. The dragon's huge serpentine head and neck rose out of the water thirty feet above. A red flare burned on the stony ground, painting the scene red.

  The adult Angie swayed in place on the other side of the portal, her confusion complete. "I ... I was here before?" she whispered. "Why don't I remember?"

  "Watch," Lodin spoke into her ear, his breath warm on her neck, his strong fingers gripping her shoulders.

  "Please," Marshal said, raising his arms to the dragon in supplication. "Help her. I owe her father. You have to help her." His voice broke with emotion, jarringly at odds with the normally granite military leader.

  "A child belongs with its mother," the dragon said, its deep voice booming throughout the underground cavern. "Not a dragon. Even a child such as her."

  "Her mother won't take her. She's afraid of her, refuses to even look at her after ... after what..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "She's gone, taken her boy and fled, leaving her with me, but I can’t help her. We keep her medicated, but she won't eat, won't drink … won’t even speak. No one wants to take responsibility for her. Everyone's afraid of her."

  Angie gasped. It felt as if a hand tightened around her heart, squeezing it. She stared in disbelief: Her mother was alive? And so was her brother? "But … but they died in the Food Wars. I know they died..."

  "No. They didn’t. This man lied to you," Lodin answered, his voice hard. "Everyone you've ever known has lied to you. But me."

  "I cannot help her," the dragon said. "There are others of my kind who would strike at me through her. If they were to learn what she was, the Twin Deaths would stop at nothing to cut her heart out. No, she is not safe with me. Bring her to the druid. Only she can help."

  "Please," Marshal pleaded. "She's ... she can't live like this, not with the knowledge of what she's done."

  What did I do? Angie began to pant, to hyperventilate, her heart beating like crazy. Spikes of pain coursed through her chest.

  "Calm yourself," Lodin whispered, his hand moving over her shoulder to rest against the skin over her pounding heart. To her surprise, she did calm. Her breathing did settle.

  The dragon lowered its massive head, darting forward so quickly Marshal fell back. The child remained still, lying on her side, seeing nothing. The dragon considered her, sniffed her hair. "This much, this little mercy, my magic can do." The dragon's thunderous voice softened. Then its huge eyes flared with eldritch power, a blue glow that blinded the adult-Angie. The child screamed, and then her cry petered out to a sob, and then a gasp.

  Once more the fog rolled in.

  "I ... what just happened?" she asked Lodin.

  "Dragon magic," he answered. "The wyrm hid the truth from you, wiped your mind of it."

  "What truth? What did I do?"

  The fog parted on a new scene.

  Angie watched the five-year-old version of herself lying on a bed in near darkness. The only light was a sliver of daylight coming through the nearly closed blinds over a window above her bed. Even in the dimness, Angie could tell it was a hospital room, or like a hospital room, almost a cell. There was nothing in the room but the metal bed, the thin mattress, not even a blanket. The child wore pajamas with cartoon characters on them and lay on her back, her tiny wrists and ankles strapped to the bed so she couldn’t move, couldn’t even sit up. Her face was streaked from dirt and dried tears. Her hair was disheveled, little more than a tangle of knots. A whiteboard tacked to the wall next to the window identified this place as the Naval Air Station Lemoore Infirmary. Her name and age were written on the whiteboard, as well as the underlined instructions: "Don't touch this child's skin without protection. Some form of contact infection." The handwriting was little more than a barely legible scrawl.

  "This is all wrong," Angie told Lodin. "I've never … this never..."

  She heard footsteps and voices raised in argument. Then the small room's door burst open, and she saw her father, disbelief and anger on his face. The hallway was dark but for sunlight coming from its far end, where a door must have been open. Her father still wore the camouflaged uniform he had left home in the last time she ever saw him alive, but it looked like he had been wearing it for days. He was unshaved, his hair was wild, and his eyes were lined with red. There were people in the hallway behind him; the same young medic Angie had seen earlier, as well as Marshal, looking just as disheveled as her father. And behind Marshal were her mother and older brother, clutching one another. Her mother had been crying, and when she saw Angie, she gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

  "God damn it," swore her father, sounding angrier than Angie could ever remember him.

  Her emotions surged at the sight of her parents and brother, and she would have fallen had Lodin not snaked his arm around her waist and held her tight against his chest. She shook her head from side to side. "I don't..."

  "Shhh," Lodin hushed her. "Watch and see."

  The child-Angie squinted at the sudden light and tried to raise her head to see.

  "I didn't know you were going to do this, not this," her mother said, glaring at the medic, her voice breaking. "If I had known, I'd have kept her at home, with me."

  "We've had to sedate her," the nurse said, her voice raw with emotion and exhaustion. "There are so many other patient
s, and this isn't a hospital. I'm not a doctor."

  Her father rushed inside the room and swept the curtains open, bathing the room in bright sunlight. The child-Angie cried out, closing her eyes, and tried to draw back but was unable to move with the restraints holding her in place. "Why is she restrained?" her father demanded as he unstrapped Angie's wrists and ankles.

  "Something happened to one of the orderlies earlier," the medic said. "She was trying to wash her, but when she touched her skin, she grew faint and passed out." The medic's voice broke. "We can't deal with an unknown infectious disease, not now. We can't cope with the problems we have. No power, no phones. No vehicles. Nothing runs." Her voice rose, became near hysterical.

  "Thank you, Petty Officer," Marshal said, placing his hand on the medic's forearm in a gentle gesture. "We know you've done your best. The situation has been difficult for everyone. You've saved lives."

  "Sir, please," the medic said. "We need help, some power."

  "We have no generators to spare," Marshal said, "but we still have power in the Bunker. We're going to move you and the other medical staff there. We've established an infirmary. There's medical supplies, food, and water."

  "Thank god." The medic wiped her forearm over her face, clearly near the breaking point.

  Her father finished removing the restraints and sat down on the bare mattress. The child-Angie hugged him, burying her face against his chest and sobbing. "I want to go home, Dad. I don't want to be here anymore."

  "We can't go home just yet, baby. But we're all going to the Bunker, to Daddy's work. You, me, your mother and brother, all of us. We're going to go where it's safe." Her father looked over his shoulder at Marshal, his face filled with barely concealed rage. Her father and Duncan Marshal had been best friends, but something had clearly stressed that friendship.

  "We knew there were going to be issues," Marshal said. "Q told us as much, that some of the ... sensitive ones might react violently once they had broken the spell—"

  "My own daughter? Jesus, Duncan. What if it was your child? We've made a deal with a devil!"

  "We had no choice, and you know it." Marshal's voice became sharp with emotion, as close to yelling as Angie had ever seen. "Q was right, right about everything. We were at DEFCON 1, Paul, DEFCON 1! When have we ever been that close? If they hadn't done it, we'd have launched a preemptive strike, and the Chinese would have helped the North Koreans. You know they would have." Spit flew from Marshal's mouth as he spoke. Her mother, brother, and the medic stared at him, their mouths hanging open. Marshal must have noticed them, because he lowered his voice, shaking his head. "No. Q was right. This is the only way we save the species."

  "God damn it, I just don't like it," her father said, holding Angie tightly against him, rocking her in his arms.

  Adult-Angie fell back against Lodin. She shook her head. None of this was real. It couldn't be. Tec had told her Marshal knew of the dragon, knew of the Awakening, but to see proof that her own father had been in on the end of the world as well ... It was too much.

  "My father was part of Project Grendel," she said, knowing it for truth. Her world was falling apart around her. "I don't want to see anymore. No more."

  "Courage, Angela," Lodin whispered. "We're coming to the end."

  The child-Angie's small hands shot around her father's neck, holding tightly to him. She gasped, shock on her young features. A moment later, her father's posture stiffened, and his eyes went wide, his mouth open. Adult-Angie gasped in horror, understanding what had just happened even if no one else in the room did. Her father fell, bounced off the mattress and onto the floor, his dead eyes staring up.

  The child Angie screamed. Her mother and brother screamed.

  Adult-Angie screamed.

  She had killed her own father, consumed his life force—years before the Shade King had bonded with her. Her. Not the Shade King, her.

  It had never been the Shade King.

  Always her.

  She didn't see as the fog drifted over the portal once more because she buried her face in Lodin's chest. She screamed and cried, her body convulsing in spasms. The portal fell apart, the stones crashing down once more as Lodin released his spell. Dust rose into the air.

  Her wails shattered the crimson night.

  Chapter 26

  Rayan Zar Davi waited in the dragon's underground temple, her hands clasped before her, as Aernyx stepped before the black dragon and bowed deeply.

  One of the few Aztalan aircraft, an old but sturdy bush plane, had been given to Rayan to speed her travel back and forth from the army HQ to the temple. There was a short airfield in the mountains above that was maintained by the Aztalans. Rayan had arrived at the underground temple only minutes ago. She disliked all the travel, but when the black dragon summoned her, she hurried to bow.

  And being indisposed was far preferable to having one’s heart cut out.

  The black dragon's breath rose in thick black smoke around her open maw. Her red eyes gleamed hungrily. "Well, Night Master, Lord of Vampires, have you killed the woman yet? Was she delicious?" As the dragon spoke, her long spiked tail swept back and forth. Had any of the servants been standing there, it would have crushed them.

  Rayan heard the mockery in the dragon's voice, as Aernyx must have, but his pale, youthful face gave no indication. He shook his head, sighing sadly. "Alas, no, Beautiful Mistress. I believe Elenaril has given her something, a talisman to shield her dreams, but now I can't even sense her at all. It's as if she’s simply ceased to be. Dead, I expect."

  Angela Ritter is dead? That was something Rayan hadn't known. She almost smiled, but then she remembered shoving her own hexed pulwar through the damned woman's chest and not killing her. The woman had a disturbing habit of surviving.

  Flames shot from the dragon's nostrils as she snorted. "Well, some good news finally."

  "There is more, Beautiful Mistress," Aernyx said. "Elenaril is dead as well. Slaughtered by Sudden Bloodletter. Coronado has fallen. Your army drives all before it."

  "Yet some escaped the demon. How?"

  Itzpapalotl always seemed to know more than she had any right to know, as had her brother Tezcatlipoca. Rayan had never understood how the dragons knew so much; dragon magic of some kind. They had taught the Tzitzime mages all the mages knew, not all the dragons knew.

  Aernyx hesitated. "Ephix Lamia," he answered. "She used magic to help the surviving elves escape. I do not know how, but I will learn soon enough. Elenaril's people currently flee to Fresno."

  "So," the dragon hissed. "The vermin yet flee my justice. That galls me. Your own kind, another lamia, defies me, offering the elven rabble sanctuary." Itzpapalotl licked the long claws on one of her powerful forearms. Her forked tongue was shiny and black, with waves of heat rising from it.

  "Ephix will die," Aernyx said with certainty. "I will end her myself."

  "I care not a whit about another lamia. Fey, humans ... you're all food." The dragon's head rose on her long neck, startlingly fast for such a large creature, and she glared down on them, sizzling spit dripping from her teeth to fall on the stones of the temple. "However, I do care very much about the Haanal X’ib. Where is the changeling? Scurrying to Fresno with the elven rabble, I suspect?"

  Aernyx went still, his mouth an angry slit. "I do not know for certain, but that seems most—"

  "She is in Sanwa City, Beautiful Mistress," said Rayan, the smallest of smiles curling the corners of her mouth. Even without looking, she felt the heat of the lamia’s eyes on her. She knew better than to humiliate Aernyx. The lamia was a clever and dangerous foe, but his servants were vampires, not humans. He could hunt whomever he wished in their dreams, but he did not have a network of human spies in Sanwa City, reporting via shortwave radio. Rayan did.

  "Sanwa City?" the dragon asked, watching Rayan. "Why? She is the eldest child of Elenaril. Shouldn't she be with the remnants of her filthy race?"

  "She spent more than a decade pretending to be human," Rayan sai
d. "She built the Brujas Fantasmas herself, not the real Constance Morgan." Rayan had killed Morgan on this very spot, using a magical whip of energy to cut her head from her shoulders; the memory sent a shiver of excitement through her. "Despite her years of deception, it seems she still has allies among the Nortenos—and the Commonwealth. Marshal and Carter have named her commander of their joint forces. She leads the defense of Sanwa City. Even the Jaguar Knight fights for her."

  "You think I care about a human servant of the feathered coward?"

  "No, of course not, Beautiful Mistress," Rayan said as meekly as she could. "I was just trying to give you as much detail as possible." Rayan cared about Teccizcoatl, even if the dragon didn't. The man had more lives than a cat, more than a jaguar. But his long-running battle with her would end in Sanwa City. There was no escaping the death coming for him.

  The dragon sat back on her hind legs, rising and extending her vast leathery wings. "I tire of excuses. Send the army north to crush Sanwa City. Bring me the changeling. Kill all the others. Then move to Fresno and end the Fey as well." With that, the dragon rose and casually crawled over the side of the temple, disappearing into the labyrinthine series of caverns and tunnels.

  Leaving Rayan alone with Aernyx, who regarded her sullenly. "You go too far, woman," Aernyx said softly. "You should have told me of the changeling. You made me look foolish. Be wary. It could easily have been your heart that brought the demon to this world. You might yet find yourself stretched naked over the sacrificial altar."

  "Not if I capture Wyn Renna," she said, glancing at the blood-stained altar. She shivered. "Not if I crush that city."

  And she would.

  Chapter 27

  Angie had killed her own father, and the revelation tore at her soul.