by Jamie Davis
“So you’re afraid to face them? Perhaps you don’t fear enough for your family’s safety to do what must be done.”
“It’s a matter of logistics, not fear, sir. We’ve lost nearly every helicopter currently in service. The dragons fly circles around them. Same for our antiaircraft artillery. For every dragon we’ve killed, we’ve lost twenty of the weapons we’d need to repeat it. The Army can’t maintain operations against those losses.”
Nils reached out and touched the edges of Couch’s mind. He wanted to punish the man but needed him too much. Was he misleading and misdirecting Nils in order to protect himself or his family? That was definitely possible.
He tasted the emotions lingering in the General’s thoughts. His mind was filled with fear, anger, and loathing. But not deception. Perhaps there was a twinge of loyalty left in the man after all.
“Well, if that’s the case, General, what do you propose?”
“We can hold the cities we’re currently occupying, but we should put our operations on hold against any cities still held by the rebels, at least until we regroup and come up with an effective counter to the dragons. We can fight off one or two of the creatures at a time, but if they appear in a herd then we don’t stand a chance.”
He had to conserve his human military forces, at least for now. The time would come when he’d no longer need Couch and his forces. Unfortunately, that time was still hovering somewhere in the near future, just out of reach.
“Perhaps it’s time to … ”
“Time to what, sir?” Couch asked after several seconds of silence.
“Time to bring a final resource onto the field of battle, General. I had hoped to conserve this particular resource from the Fell for a special occasion. But it seems that my hand has been forced.”
“It might help with morale if you could show us this new resource. Perhaps we could use dragons of our own to follow into battle.”
“That, General, is an excellent idea. It will solve several problems at once. Summon your available forces around the capital, then bring them to the Grand Avenue in front of this building immediately. I’ll even allow your family to accompany us above ground to see this.”
“What should I tell them to expect, Director?”
“Oh, it’s a surprise. You do like surprises, right General Couch?”
Nils laughed as Couch backed away, finally leaving him alone in the conference room.
Laughter turned into fits of hacking but Nils didn’t care. Despite the pain of the chest-wracking coughing, he had turned a corner. If the Fell wanted to see who was willing to go the furthest for their goals, it was about to see Nils Kane play his final and most powerful hand.
———
It took two hours for Couch to assemble the bulk of his army around the Grand Avenue sidewalks. The broad, tree-lined street ran down the capital with giant government buildings rising on either side.
Nils waited for the general with Mrs. Couch and his two children. The annoying woman kept offering her frightened spawn inane reassurances and platitudes to calm them. They didn’t like being this close to him, frightened by the twisted caricature of a human being he’d become.
He longed to swat them down like the bugs they were. Maybe soon.
General Couch pulled up in a military car then ran up the marble steps of the Red Leg headquarters. “Director, all the available forces are in position for your demonstration. Our remaining forces are required to monitor and hold the city’s perimeter.”
“Very well, General, you may join your wife and children. I think you will all want to see this.”
“Yes, Director.”
The General went to stand beside his wife. The little girl detached from her mother and wrapped her father in a tight embrace around his waist. He bent down and picked her up.
Good, Nils thought. She’ll have a much better view of the show from her perch.
He closed his eyes, reaching out for the red and black threads of the Fell’s power. It was harder to pull in and control than the Fae magic, alien in his mind compared to the pitch black magic.
Gathering additional power into himself, Nils could feel his body changing again. Painful cracking in his knee joints rang through his bones. He ignored the pain, drawing in the energy needed to put the next piece of his plan into place.
Nils nearly opened his eyes to identify the cackling laugh coming from somewhere nearby. But instead he focused on drawing power from the Fell.
He heard the laughter again, and this time Nile realized that it was him.
It’s time.
Nils directed his energy down into the street, casting a summoning spell that caused tremors for hundreds of miles in every direction.
The first cracks in the concrete and asphalt appeared before Nils.
Still he poured more power into the spell.
Cracks widened, shooting up and down Grand Avenue in both directions.
Pain and pleasure fill him completely as Nils released the rest of the spell.
The earth tore itself open before him, and Nils couldn’t throttle his cry.
The cracks continued to widen, no longer in feet but now in yards.
Trees toppled and fell into the chasm opening like a hole in the planet.
Soldiers ran from the widening gap, but most failed to make it in time, all of them screaming as they tipped into the hole like water down the drain.
A cacophony erupted from the chasm. Roars of desire and rage rang like hell’s bells as tentacles reached upwards all along the chasm to grasp the rocks and trees at the edge, wrapping the few soldiers still frozen with fear. The hapless victims were dragged into the depths, struggling against the flesh and muscle around them.
“Kane, what have you done?” Couch shouted. “My soldiers are dying!”
“A sacrifice was demanded.” Nils opened his eyes and fixed them on Couch. “My creatures have been trapped for too long. They needed sustenance. Your men are useless on the battlefield. At least here they can serve a useful purpose.”
Couch shoved his daughter into his wife’s arms and launched himself at Nils.
But the Director was prepared for the attack.
He waved a hand at Couch and a tentacle snaked up from the chasm, grabbing the man around his waist, and halting his advance in mid-air.
“As I said, General Couch, a sacrifice was demanded. I think that and your men and women will do.”
The tentacle holding Couch slid back toward the chasm as Nils laughed. The General’s feeble struggles were amusing. He didn’t seem to know when he was beaten. Nils called out:
“Have no worries, General. I won’t feed your wife and children to the chimera. I have special plans for them.”
General Couch roared in wordless rage at Nils, as he disappeared over the edge and into the chasm below.
A bellow behind him was followed by sobs.
Annoyed, Nils turned to look at Couch’s wife and children. “Silence,” he said with a flick of his wrist.
The woman and two children were torn apart, their arms bound by invisible flows of magic at their sides, mouths gagged by the bonds. The way their eyes darted wildly about in search of escape was amusing.
Nils laughed like a madman.
Still cackling with glee, he turned back to the chasm and watched as the first of the chimera pulled themselves from the chasm to greet Earth for the first time in millennia.
Sensing their hunger and thirst for revenge, Nils sent them the mental image of the dragons. Their deafening roars were all around them.
They recognized their ancestral enemies, and Kane realized that the dragons weren’t Fell creatures at all.
They were creatures of the Fae, beasts he’d known nothing about before now.
The connection with the chimera filled in the blanks, showing him the times in the past when the two sides had clashed over the planet’s control. The Fae had always prevailed, the last time, imprisoning the chimera and other Fell beasts for over two t
housand years.
Nils laughed and sent a command back down the link.
Hunt. Hunt and destroy!
CHAPTER 20
A knock on the door jolted Winnie from a night of tossing and turning.
“What is it?” She asked, rubbing her eyes. Winnie had hoped to sleep in, desperate to catch up after a string of restless nights.
The door to the room opened a crack and a teenage orderly relayed her message. “Pardon the intrusion. Captain DeSantos requests your presence in the command center.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s nine a.m., ma’am.”
Danny groaned but didn’t wake. He could sleep.
Winnie sat up and swung her feet to the floor.
“I’m up,” Winnie whispered. “Tell Maria I’ll be right there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Winnie waited until the orderly shut the door. Then she stood and stumbled to the bathroom alcove. She splashed cold water on her face, cursing when she stubbed her toe on a desk chair that she’d neglected to push in the night before. She hit it hard enough that the nail would surely be purple if not black by the end of the day. She licked her lips, tasting the blood. At least she didn’t scream and wake up Danny.
The week since the dragons were unleashed on the country had been tiring for everyone, but no one’s fatigue came close to Winnie’s. She’d tried again and again to regain control. She reached out with her mind, attempting to grab ahold of the magnificent beasts.
She could feel them, their emotions, and sense of freedom. But that connection didn’t help her communicate the Dusters’ concerns. They seemed puzzled at her repeated requests to return to Promise Point. It was no use: Winnie didn’t have the same level of control she’d had while wielding Excalibur.
She stopped short of drawing the enchanted blade. If she exerted her control with the sword, it might diminish the effect they were having on Kane’s forces.
That was what Victor and Maria kept telling her, constantly arguing for giving the dragons free reign.
And for the most part Winnie agreed. The devastation wrought by the dragons was substantial, and she couldn’t ignore the feeling that the death and destruction were at least partly her fault.
Winnie pulled on her shoes and a pair of jeans, then left the darkened room to find out what Maria needed her for.
In the command center. Maria waved her over to the viewing wall with its multitude of surveillance and communication windows.
“What’s up?” Winnie asked, joining the captain in front of the wall.
Dragons battled above a massive chasm in some unknown city, fighting creatures that were unlike anything that she’d seen before. Larger than other Fell beasts, with strange tentacles and bat-like wings.
Then she saw it.
“Is that the capital?” Winnie asked. “I thought we couldn’t open windows there.”
“We couldn’t. But we still try several times a day just in case something changes. And this morning, something changed. We think the arrival of a large flight of dragons in the city opened a link to their Fae magic, and that allowed us inside.”
A dragon was dragged down into the chasm by two of the tentacled creatures, despite the dragon covering them with its fiery breath. The beasts seemed unaffected by the flames. Impossibly, it seemed that other dragons were struggling to hold their own.
“What are those creatures?”
“We’re not sure,” Maria said. “We called you because the dragons are getting their asses kicked!”
“Kane’s obviously found a new type of creature to fight the dragons. One that can hold its own against them.”
As Winnie watched the scene unfolding before her, more dragons arrived in the skies overhead, diving down to help their embattled brethren.
Then more of the tentacled beasts climbed out or flew up from the chasm, adding to the overwhelming number of combatants.
Again Winnie wished for the counsel of someone like Artos, anyone who might know what these terrible creatures might be. She blinked back a tear, mourning the loss of her one-time mentor yet again.
More dragons arrived, and more Fell monsters rose to meet them.
The dragons could be destroyed.
Soon they might be all gone.
“We have to save them,” Winnie said.
Closing her eyes, she reached out, trying again to call the dragons home. An image of the new Fell monsters appeared in Winnie’s mind. A word formed.
Chimera.
The dragon consciousness was thick with a sense of fear and hatred for these beasts. These were their true enemy. The other Fell creatures were annoyances in need of extermination; the chimeras were enemies that the dragons wanted to fight.
But now they were losing.
Return.
Winnie tried to call them away. She could sense all the dragons in the land traveling to the capital, fast as they could.
On their way to certain death.
“I have to get Excalibur,” Winnie said.
“Why,” Maria asked. “I thought we decided to let them fight it out for now.”
“The dragons are flying towards that fight,” Winnie pointed to the central screen. “All of them, Maria. And they’re all going to die there if I don’t stop them. The dragons call those monsters chimeras. The two species are ancient enemies—this isn’t a fight that they’re willing to ignore.”
Maria looked at the screen. Another several more dragons were getting dragged down into the chasm by the chimeras.
“Go,” Maria said.
Winnie took off, running as fast as her legs would carry her.
She skidded to a stop at the lift tube. There was no metal disc platform waiting and she didn’t have time for one to arrive.
Drawing in energy, Winnie stepped off the edge into the vertical tube, hoping this worked.
She fell immediately, pushing down with her magic and trying to harden the air beneath her to create resistance.
She slowed then stopped as the next level’s opening appeared.
Stepping into the housing corridor, Winnie picked up speed again, running down the hallway until she reached her room.
“What the hell, Winnie?” Danny shouted, sitting up in bed as she ran inside.
“I need Excalibur. Now.”
“What’s going on?”
“No time.” Winnie darted across the room and pulled the magical blade from the wall brackets by her bed.
“Are we under attack?” Danny was already dressing, looking out the door for any sign of threat.
“The dragons are. I have to call them back before they’re all killed.”
Winnie turned and ran from the room, leaving a bewildered and confused Danny behind her.
Returning to the lift tube, she reversed the process that brought her down, rising back to the command level on a hardened column of air.
Maria had been joined by Garraldi and Victor by the time she arrived.
“You have to hurry, Winnie,” Victor said. “They’re getting annihilated out there.”
“I hope this works.” Drawing the enchanted Fae blade from its scabbard, Winnie held it up in two hands. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the dragons. She could feel them still streaming towards the capital.
Return, Winnie called out with her mind. We’ll fight the chimeras another time. And we’ll do it together. But now is not the time or place for this fight.
She tried to press her will against the dragons’ desire to battle their ancient enemy. Slowly, she began to feel them acquiesce, even as they waged an emotional war against the call.
The sword was a powerful talisman, and its control over the dragons absolute. In the end, they turned away from the capital.
Winnie opened her eyes and glanced at the central screen. The dragons were now fighting to escape their enemies, trying to comply with her call.
Most of them made it out.
Just before the signal from the capital fuzzed out, Win
nie spotted Kane standing by the chasm’s edge. “There,” she pointed at the screen. “Zoom in on those people by the chasm.”
The tech managing the viewer complied.
“Oh my God,” Maria said. “Is that creature Kane?”
“Yes,” Winnie said. “The Fell has taken him over completely.”
The figure was a twisted, evil version of the man who once served as the Director of Magical Containment. He had the hind legs of a goat, and his upper body, covered in coarse hair, was bloated and blotted in open sores.
But the face was unmistakably Kane’s, even with the tusks protruding down from his jaw and the horns sprouting from his forehead.
Winnie took a step back, but when Kane turned to look directly into the viewer window, he seemed to be staring right through her.
“Hello, Winnie,” he said. “I see you have witnessed my victory over your vaunted dragons. The chimeras will now carry my power everywhere throughout the country. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“We’ll defeat you,” Winnie shouted back, wondering if she believed it.
“We shall see, Kane replied. “I still can’t locate you, even through this strange window, but I’ll find you eventually. And then I will take everything from you until you beg to join me and learn the powers of the Fell.”
Winnie rushed at the window. She shouted through the failing connection. “Never, Kane. I’ll never join your side or learn to use your evil magic.”
Kane laughed, pointing at Winnie and saying something she couldn’t make out as the signal grew garbled and the window went black.
Winnie found herself gasping for air. A strange tightness wrapped around her throat, constricting the flow of air to her lungs.
She collapsed to the ground as her hands went to her neck, trying to pull away the bands of power choking her.
Victor shouted, “Winnie, what’s wrong?”
Hands lifted her then gently set Winnie on the round table.