by Julie Kagawa
“Ember.” Garret’s voice was soft, hesitant. I glanced at him with tear-streaked eyes, and he gently put a hand over mine. “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes bright with sympathy. “But we have to move. The Elder Wyrm could be rallying her forces against us right now. We still need to find the stasis chamber, plant the explosives and get out of here.”
Dammit. Screw the mission. For a moment, a part of me rebelled, hating everything that had brought us here. I didn’t want to think about the clones, the attack or the mission. I wanted to find a dark, empty room, curl up in a ball and sob out my anger and grief, and maybe blast a few things with fire. I wanted to grieve the brother I had lost, the twin who had been with me most my life, whom I had always believed we could save in the end.
But the Elder Wyrm was still out there. Gravely wounded, perhaps even dying, but still an unknown. Still a threat. And we had a whole lot of people and dragons who were counting on us. Riley, Martin and everyone outside wouldn’t retreat or back down. The longer I sat here, the greater the casualties, and even more would die because of me.
With a shaky breath, I accepted Garret’s hand, letting him pull me upright. At the bottom of the steps, Tristan, Mist and Peter Matthews were gathering our packs and confiscated firearms, warily eyeing the vessels, who were now staring straight ahead without expression, ignoring the movements around them. Their last command, I remembered, was “Release the prisoners and stand down,” which they had done. Without someone to direct them, they were on standby, awaiting further orders. Orders that would never come—unless the Elder Wyrm or another Talon dragon returned.
I looked at Dante one last time, memorizing his face, remembering the last words he’d said to me. Not as a rival or an enemy or the heir of Talon, but as a brother. I didn’t want to leave him here, in this dark, cold room that would eventually explode in a blaze of fire and destruction if we managed to complete the mission. But there was no way we could take him with us, and time was dangerously short. The sudden thought that this was really the last time I would see him, ever, hit me hard, and fresh tears threatened even as I took a step back.
Garret took my hand, squeezing gently, and I turned away before I really broke down. We left the lair of the Elder Wyrm—me, Garret, Tristan, Mist and Peter Matthews—hoping to make it to our destination before the alarms were sounded. I looked back only once, glimpsing my brother’s limp body lying on the stage, and bit my lip to keep back the sob.
Goodbye, Dante. If there is an afterlife for dragons, I’ll meet you on the other side. Maybe sooner than we both thought.
Riley
I hit the ground hard, rolled and managed to get to my feet, just in time to meet the vessel who had slammed me out of the air. Dodging two raking claws to the face, I ducked and clamped my jaws around its throat, then held it down until it stopped moving.
Panting, I looked up. Dead dragons surrounded me, littered across the rocky ground, both vessel and hatchling alike. Scattered among them were the bodies of soldiers and guards, sprawled limply in the dust, either shot or torn open or blasted with fire. Looming over them all were two giant, motionless forms: the long, limp body of the red Eastern dragon, and one of the Adult vessels, as well, courtesy of a furious Jade tearing it apart.
We couldn’t go on like this. Almost all of my dragons were gone, and only a handful of soldiers remained, firing on the swooping vessels. Jade and the other Eastern dragon were both fighting for their lives with the Adult clones, and I didn’t know how badly the battle was going for them.
And then, a shot rang over the battlefield, making my ears throb, and the male Eastern dragon screamed. Stunned, I looked up to see the huge serpent falling slowly from the sky like a deflated balloon, seemingly unable to stay aloft. It wobbled in the air, trying to stay afloat, before an Adult vessel slammed into it and bore them both to the ground with an earthshaking crash.
My heart plummeted. That had been a shot from the Dragonkiller, which had been unnaturally silent until now. There was no way the sniper had hit the Eastern Adult by accident, not a dragon the size of a small airplane. That shot had been deliberate, and now the biggest dragon on the battlefield was fatally wounded.
“Dragon!” Martin’s voice crackled in my ear. “Dragon, come in. Cobalt, are you there?”
“Yeah,” I snarled. “I’m here. What the hell just happened, Lieutenant? I just watched your sniper shoot one of our dragons out of the air!”
“I know.” Martin sounded frustrated, as well. “Something must be wrong. I’ve been trying to contact Nicholas since those damned Adults showed up, but there’s been no response. We need to get to that ledge to see what the hell is going on. I’m heading there now—join me if you’re able.”
“What? Wait a second—” But the line cut off, and I snarled a curse.
Dammit. Gazing around at the frantic movements of vessels and hatchlings, I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to leave my underground to fight alone. The ledge in question was on the other side of the bowl, through a whole lot of dragons and gunfire.
An agonized wail shivered through me, coming from the male Eastern dragon as the Adult vessel tore into him relentlessly, and my stomach turned. If we took another hit like that, if Jade was shot down, then it really would be over.
“Cobalt!”
There was a streak of darkness, and Nettle landed beside me in a cloud of dust. The black dragon was panting hard, and red streaked the scales along her flank and shoulders, but a savage grin stretched her narrow muzzle as she gazed up at me.
“I think we’re putting a dent in the clones,” she said, making me blink in astonishment. “Kain is rallying who’s left, and we’re about to launch a counterattack with the rest of the soldiers. How are you holding up, leader?”
I shook myself out of my split-second daze. When the hell had my dragons turned into full-blown soldiers? “I have to check out something with Martin,” I replied. “But I’ll be back as soon as I can. You got this?”
She nodded and stepped briskly away, unfolding her wings. “Go. We’ll keep them off your back.”
Bounding forward, I launched myself skyward and headed for the cliff face.
Even knowing vaguely where it was, the exact location was difficult to find. They had set up the massive rifle behind camouflage, covering the metal to prevent reflection. Still, once you got close, it was fairly obvious: an enormously long barrel sitting atop a ledge overlooking the laboratory. From this vantage point, I could see the whole battle, the flashes of dragons as they darted through the air and the bursts of gunfire coming from the ground. But the gun sat empty, abandoned. There was no body, living or dead. No blood or churned earth indicating a struggle. No footprints or scorch marks or scrap of clothing. Nothing that pointed to what had happened here.
Footsteps shuffled behind me as Martin climbed the rise and strode across the rocks to stand beside me. I frowned at him. “That was fast.”
“I was close. Ward and I were near the gate, covering the wounded soldiers’ retreat.” He, too, frowned in confusion, gazing around for the missing sniper before looking at me. “Did you see anyone else?”
I shook my head, and the scowl deepened. “Impossible.” Walking to the edge of the cliff, he peered out at the battle, then spun back. “Something was here,” he insisted. “Shooting at our forces. They must’ve run when they saw you coming, but—”
I felt the ripple of energy go through the air, and my adrenaline spiked in warning, but it was too late. Behind Martin, a head rose on a long, snaking neck, as a familiar green dragon grinned down at the unsuspecting human, eyes glowing demonically as she towered over him.
“Martin, behind you!” I shouted, just as Lilith’s jaws closed over the human’s upper body. Martin’s legs jerked as the Viper lifted him into the air and shook him like a dog with a toy.
I roared and tensed to spring at her, but from within the dragon’s jaw
s, three shots rang out, making the Viper recoil with a shriek. Somehow, the lieutenant had the presence of mind to fire his weapon even while halfway down a dragon’s throat. Eyes blazing, Lilith turned her head and hurled the body over the cliff. The lieutenant arced lazily into the air, seemed to hover for a split second, then plummeted out of sight, falling several hundred feet to the rocks below.
I hurled myself forward, Shifting forms as I did, and collapsed beside the Dragonkiller, swinging the huge barrel toward the Viper. Lilith roared as she turned on me, blood streaming from her nose and mouth, one eye bulging out of the socket as she lunged, desperation and rage making her fast, but not fast enough.
“Eat this, bitch,” I growled, and pulled the trigger.
The boom from the huge rifle made my eardrums explode, and the recoil knocked me back a couple feet, nearly dislocating my shoulder. Pain flared, my head, shoulders and chest feeling like they’d been kicked by a Clydesdale. But the two-foot, armor-piercing, solid length of metal hit the Viper point-blank in the chest and went out the other side, leaving a massive hole behind. For a moment, Lilith gaped at the wound in her armor, clearly stunned. Her jaws moved, probably cursing me, though I couldn’t hear anything through the painful, high-pitched ringing in my head.
Then her wings shuddered and went limp, her eyes glazed over and her body slumped, sliding a bit on the rocks before losing balance entirely. With a last defiant cry, the leader of the Vipers tumbled backward off the cliff face and disappeared. I felt, rather than heard, the moment when she hit the ground, a shudder that rippled through the air and vibrated the earth.
As I lay on my back beside a gun called the Dragonkiller, waiting for the throbbing in my ears to go away, I allowed myself a small smile. In the split second before I’d pulled the trigger, when Lilith’s jaws had been a fraction too slow to end my life, someone’s face had flashed through my mind. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the face I would have expected.
“Dammit,” I sighed, my voice sounding muffled in my own ears. “I’m turning into a walking cliché. Mist, you’d better come back alive so you can taunt me about this later.”
Garret
I peeked around a corner and immediately ducked back as a hail of bullets shot toward me, peppering the corridor walls and sparking off the floor.
“Looks like security’s been alerted,” Tristan muttered, pressed into the wall next to me. Matthews, Ember and Mist huddled behind us as gunfire continued to ring through the corridor. “How many?”
“Two,” I answered, and raised my weapon. “Cover me.” I ducked out, firing down the hallway while Tristan and Matthews popped around the corner and did the same. The pair of guards in the corridor jerked and fell, guns clattering to the floor, and I turned to the others. “Clear, let’s go!”
As we reached another intersection, I turned the corner, and a pair of double doors loomed ahead, ominous and important looking. A squad of six human clones waited in front of them, three kneeling and three standing over their shoulders. As soon as they saw us, the three standing opened fire, while the ones kneeling Shifted forms—becoming sleek gray dragons—and charged.
I ducked behind a thick metal pipe across the hall as Tristan and Matthews jerked back around the corner. “Ember, Mist!” I barked. “Take out the vessels. The rest of us will cover you.”
The two didn’t hesitate. As the vessels drew close, a bright red dragon and a silver-white dragon bounded into the hall with a roar and pounced on the clones. As the snarls and shrieks of angry dragons filled the air, the rest of us ducked out of cover and fired into the remaining guards. I felt a bullet graze my arm, taking a chunk of skin with it, but the three human vessels fell back and slumped lifelessly against the doorframe.
I looked to where the fight between dragons still raged in the middle of the hall and raised my weapon to help, but it wasn’t necessary. Mist had one vessel pinned and was finishing it off with her jaws around its throat, and a few yards away Ember stood over two lifeless, bleeding dragon bodies, panting and glaring down at them. Her wings shook, either with fury or adrenaline, and her front talons were covered in blood. Tristan whistled softly.
Carefully, I approached the red dragon. “Ember,” I said, making sure she heard me before touching her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
Her head came up, green eyes wide and a little glassy, and my worry for her spiked. Losing Dante was hitting her hard, and she was taking out her rage and grief on whatever she could. I wished I could comfort her, but there was no time, and we both knew it.
“No,” she whispered, and Shifted to human form. Blood stained her fingers and was spattered across her face in ribbons, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I’m fine. Let’s keep moving.”
We turned to the heavy double doors. They were locked, but Ember slid the card she’d gotten from Dante into the slot below a touch screen, and the red window above it blinked from red to green. The doors groaned as they swung back, and a billow of warm, damp air hit us in the face as we stepped inside to gaze around in horrified awe.
“Son of a bitch,” Matthews commented, craning his neck up toward the ceiling.
The stasis chamber from the email video stretched away before us, massive and towering. The vats containing the Adult clones marched in neat rows into the dark, and the dragons inside seemed even larger up close and personal. I felt a shiver go through me as I stared at the sleeping army. So many. If they woke up, it would be hell on earth.
A shot rang out behind us, and a bullet ricocheted off the doorframe about an inch from where Tristan stood. The two of us turned and fired, and a pair of guards crumpled to the floor. But footsteps echoed through the hall, a moment before an entire squad of vessels rounded the corner and raised their guns in our direction.
“Close the doors!” I shouted, firing as I leaped back. The roar of assault rifles filled the hall, and we ducked behind the metal barriers, straining to push them shut. They closed with a moan and a loud clang, and the window above the touch screen on the inside flashed red, locking automatically. Raising my gun, I fired several rounds into the screen, until the touch pad was a smoking, sparking mess of wire and broken glass.
“That won’t stop them for long.” I shrugged off my pack, removed the case and yanked it open, revealing the deadly packages inside. Four each and, according to Mist, created with a special combination of explosives and dragonfire that would devastate everything around them. “Split up,” I told the group. “Try to cover as much of the room as you can. Pay special attention to structural features that could collapse the ceiling, but don’t spend too much time on any one thing. Regroup near that big central column when you’re done. We’ll have to do this fast.”
They nodded and melted into the room, vanishing between endless rows of vats. I followed, pausing only to attach a bomb to the first glass cylinder I passed. The device stuck easily to the glass, and when I pressed the button on the side, a row of numbers flashed to life on the screen.
Fifteen minutes, counting down.
A hiss behind me turned my attention to the entrance, where a thin line of blowtorch smoke was drifting up from the locked doors. Snatching the case from the cement, I slipped farther into the chamber.
“Stop!”
The shout came as I was planting the last explosive on a vat in the center of the floor. I whirled, raising my weapon, as a man stumbled out from behind a pillar and hurried forward, eyes wild. He wore a white lab coat and glasses, had thinning brown hair and looked like all the other scientists I’d seen in this room tonight. But instead of running from me, he rushed the vat where I’d just set the last charge, throwing out his hands as if to protect it.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, gazing up at the sleeping vessel, as if making sure it was all right. “You can’t be in here! Get out!” Suddenly catching sight of the bomb, counting down the seconds in ominous red, his face went pale. “Oh, God. What have y
ou done?”
“You need to leave,” I told him. “This whole place is rigged to explode. If you tamper with the devices they’ll just go off sooner. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“Dr. Olsen!” Pounding footsteps rang out behind us, and a younger man came to a gasping halt at the bottom of the vat, his white coat fluttering wildly. “Sir, we have to go!” he cried. “The vessels are coming, and those people have set bombs through the whole chamber. We have to leave while we still can.”
“No,” rasped the other scientist as my heart skipped a beat with the realization. “I won’t leave. You can go, but this is my life’s work! I won’t abandon them.”
Olsen. Something clicked in my head, a memory from not very long ago. Myself, and Martin in his office, staring at a name on a yellowed birth certificate.
Lucas knew your mother, Garret. That’s why he took you that day. Before he became a soldier, before she married a scientist and started working for the organization, they knew each other.
“John Olsen,” I said quietly as the younger scientist hesitated a moment longer, then fled, vanishing between rows of vats. I barely noticed him go. The older man looked up, and his gaze narrowed briefly in my direction.
“Do I know you, St. George?” he snapped, and when I didn’t answer, he dropped his attention to the panel again. “Look, whoever you are, you’ve done enough. If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. If not, I suggest you leave, before the vessels get here and bullets really start flying.”
I took a steadying breath. “You might know me,” I told the scientist in a voice that shook only slightly. “My name is Garret Xavier Sebastian. But I had another name once, a long time ago. Garret David Olsen.”
The scientist’s fingers froze over the panel. Slowly, he straightened and turned, as if seeing me for the very first time. Finally, one corner of his mouth twitched in a wry, ironic smile.