Persia shrugged. “The same as us, I guess. They know that the dragon is often asleep but is more vulnerable when awake. Or perhaps they have come to kneel before the dragon’s power.”
I shook my head. “The Sentinel Order are no friends to Duffy or any other shade. Could we step aside and let them fight it out?”
“A coward can always come up with some excuse to run away.” Persia pushed me aside and opened the door. “I’m going in. Up to you whether you come with me.”
She walked inside and let the door swing closed behind her. I sighed, then I followed her.
“Using elevators is too risky,” Jo said. “Take the back stairs.”
Richard Sulle and Jo would have heard the argument over the radio, but they said nothing. I guessed that they would have spoken up if they intended to take my side, so I didn’t push for their opinion. Possibly, Sulle wouldn’t get the helicopter in the air, or the Order would Duffy attack before Persia and I revealed ourselves and we could sneak out the way we had come.
The back stairs were narrow and steep with only intermittent lighting. Climbing floor after floor of stairs quickly became interminable. Persia was leading—because of course she was—and it wasn’t long before I detected signs of her fatigue, though she tried to hide them. I wanted to offer to carry the heavy backpack, but I suspected she’d consider the offer to be an insult.
Exit at the next floor, a voice inside my head said.
I slowed. A moment later, Jo’s voice came through the earpiece. “There’s movement two floors above you. Looks like they could be heading for the stairs.”
Persia’s hand touched the crossbow at her hip. “Should we descend?”
“No,” Jo said. “Go to the landing above you, then exit there.”
Persia quickly did just that; I followed closely behind her.
“Continue down the corridor to the end,” Jo instructed. “Wait there until we see which direction these two men are going.” We’d only just reached the end of the corridor when Jo spoke again, more urgently. “They are exiting at your floor. Find somewhere safe to hide.”
I pointed toward an open floor office space filled with empty desks. We dashed for the first row of desks, ducked down behind them, then began to crawl further from the corridor.
Footsteps sounded behind us, hard soles clicking against tiles.
We passed through a doorway and into a darkened office, then we crawled behind a large wooden desk. I leaned my back against the desk. As Persia slid in beside me our shoulders touched, and she jerked away and instead positioned herself opposite me, her backpack against a window. We waited. Persia’s breath came fast, but her hand was steady on her holster. She might be tired but she was ready for action. The footsteps faded away.
Several long moments passed. “Okay,” Jo said finally. “You are out of danger. The men picked up some boxes and left the floor you are on, which from what I can tell is now empty. However, the upper floors are busy. I recommend waiting where you are for the present.”
“Let us know the moment things quieten down,” Persia said.
“Okay,” Jo said.
I shifted against the desk to get more comfortable. The voice which had given warning hadn’t been Jerome’s, and I didn’t want to think about who it actually belonged too. I reached down and pressed the button to click off the radio. The red LED went dead. I cast a significant glance at Persia.
After several heartbeats of thought, she, too, turned off her radio. “We shouldn’t leave them off for too long,” she said. “What do you want?”
“I hate that everything I say can be heard by Richard bloody Sulle.”
“Then don’t speak.”
I sighed. Persia’s unspoken anger was becoming hard to endure. “I want a truce,” I said.
“A truce?”
“You hate me and have every right to. But how well can we work together if you can’t look me in the eye, if you can barely talk to me?”
Persia glared directly at me.
“A die-now-scum stare wasn’t what I had in mind. How do I know you won’t look the other way if my life is threatened?”
“Because those I stand beside at the start of the battle are the same ones I stand with, or lie beside, at the end.”
In Persia’s mind, I had betrayed Noah, choosing our enemy’s side over his. It wasn’t that simple, but raking over old ground wasn’t going to help either of us. “I can’t undo what I did before.” Eight months alone had given me plenty of time to dwell on all the mistakes I had made. “I can only seek redemption through action. I intend on doing whatever I can to stop Duffy. And if I survive tonight, I’ll continue to fight against the Order.” Holliday had let me know that escape wasn’t an option for me. What I feared most was not defeat, but making bigger mistakes.
“You hide for a year, then you’re back a day and already you’re some big savior. Excuse me if I don’t kiss your feet.”
“Strangely, your angry words aren’t reassuring me that I can rely on you. Even if you just hesitate when I need you, that could nullify any help.” In honesty, I didn’t think Persia would actually be able to help much, even with her training and titanium weaponry, but having a silent raging person by my side felt like a heavy weight holding me down.
“A truce,” Persia said slowly, dragging the word out. Then she said it again, more confidently: “A truce.”
“Pretend you don’t hate my guts for one night.”
“I can do that,” she said. “If you agree to be honest with me.”
“About what.”
“I’m not sure yet. You first. You asked for this truce, what do you need from me?”
My first thought was to ask her what she thought I was hiding from her, but I decided to stick to safer ground. “Can you explain better what’s going to happen in Duffy’s reception? I’ve only the vaguest idea of our plan.”
“Jo or Sulle can tell you better than I,” Persia said. “They are in charge of planning this mission.”
“We switched off the radios.”
“We can switch them on again,” Persia said.
“Jo is staying in the van; she isn’t going into the dragon’s lair with me. And I have severe doubts that Sulle’s motivations are pure. I’d prefer you to explain it to me.”
Persia took a deep breath, then nodded. “It’s hard, you know, to tune down emotions. For me, at least.”
“For everyone,” I said. “So, this reception. I’ve been out of the city. I don’t understand why a dragon would host such a thing. Or why he’s allowed to. Why hasn’t the government reacted?”
“They are too afraid too,” Persia said. “It’s not just Lusteer that the dragon has in the grip of his terror. Throughout the country, fire shades under the dragon’s control have infiltrated government buildings, military barracks, police stations, and they have filmed themselves with bombs that they chose not to detonate. So far no acts of terrorism have been committed outside Lusteer, but a quick browse through YouTube shows what the dragon is capable of.”
“Duffy’s been much more proactive than I realized.” I remembered the store clerk’s devotion to Duffy. At the time, it hadn’t made sense Duffy would have such an advocate so far from Lusteer.
“He’s active mainly via his followers. Since arriving, the dragon has rarely been seen outside this building. He sleeps for weeks at a time.”
“But when sleeping, he is at his most powerful.”
Persia nodded. “It’s when he has most control over fire shades. Or so it’s been reported.”
“And these receptions?”
“This is the fourth or fifth one he’s hosted,” Persia said. “Each one has been a single night affair, and each time, the guest list shows the dragon’s growing power.”
“What kind of people turn up?”
“The great and powerful of the city come to pay homage to its ruler,” Persia said. “It’s disgusting. The dragon was a beat policeman before he became possessed, and he has taken pa
rticular pleasure in humiliating those who he felt had slighted him, most notably, the police commissioner and a superintendent, but also a prosecutor from the district attorney’s office and a commissioner from the mayor’s office.”
“Are these people forced to go?”
Persia shook her head. “I wish I could say they were. These people kowtowing to a monster speaks to the worse of human nature. At the first reception, only a few low ranking public servants appeared. Of course, those who attended shot up the ladder at the expense of those who refused an invitation. It turns out that a great many public officials will to do whatever it takes to hold onto their little corner of power.”
I grimaced. “What about Mayor Maxwell.” I had liked the man, and I hated the thought that he, too, was in Duffy’s pocket.
“The mayor hasn’t appeared before the dragon. He tries to keep the city running as best as possible and uses his position to countermand the worse of what the dragon’s sycophants would have happen. Still, he hasn’t spoken up strongly against the dragon either. Some question his courage and call him the worse kind of traitor; others think he’s making the best of an appalling situation.”
I wasn’t sure how what I had just learned would help me but at least I understood the situation better. “So Duffy hasn’t left Verge Tower since he’s arrived; my job is to lure him on the roof so Sulle can get his helicopter close enough to fire a titanium spear at him? That’s a lot of moving parts.” Even if I trusted Sulle—which I certainly did not.
“Defeating such a creature was never going to be easy. To be honest I’m surprised they came up with a viable plan at all,” Persia said. “Should we switch these radios back on? It’s been a while.”
I nodded, then flicked the switch.
“Switch on Lusteer News Network,” Sulle was saying just as the radio came back on.
“We don’t have a TV,” I said immediately.
“I was talking to Jo,” Sulle said. “Where did you two disappear to?”
“We went radio silent for a short time,” I said. “We needed to clarify some issues.”
“Is that what the young people are calling it these days?” Sulle asked.
“I’m married,” Persia said, her voice almost a growl. “And not to this fool.”
“What’s on the news?” I asked.
“I just started watching,” Jo said. Then, after a pause. “Fred Hanson just announced that Mayor Maxwell is due to arrive to acknowledge the dragon as the ruler of Lusteer.”
“Tyrant of Lusteer,” Persia muttered.
“And from what I can tell,” Jo continued, “Fred Hanson has cameras inside the reception. Rune, if you confront Duffy tonight, there’s a good chance it’ll happen on live TV.”
Chapter 13
Thursday 19:45
“Live TV? Is that good or bad?” I asked.
“Depends on whether you shit your pants or merely piss in them when you face the dragon,” Persia suggested. “Though either way, it could be worth recording for prosperity.”
“I thought Mayor Maxwell was refusing to meet Duffy,” I said.
“That appears to have changed,” Sulle said. “Though I heard no rumors that this would happen tonight.”
“For one reason or another, the whole of Lusteer wants to gatecrash Duffy’s reception, it seems,” I said.
“And those who aren’t there are watching everything unfold on their televisions,” Jo said. “Right now, Fred Hanson is breathlessly commentating on the fact that nothing is happening while the camera pans back and forth on a rapidly-filling room. The good news is that, with everyone heading to the reception, few shades are guarding or patrolling.”
“I also have good news,” Sulle said. “The helicopter is almost ready to fly.”
Persia pushed herself to her feet. “We should go then. This could be our opportunity.”
“Do you agree, Jo?” I asked. “Or is the extra attention going to make impossible something that was already difficult?”
Persia coughed, and the word “coward” was thinly disguised within that cough.
“I just don’t know,” Jo said.
Persia had left the darkened office, and she was crossing rapidly through the open-plan workspace. “And I thought you’d do whatever it took to undo you mistakes.”
That was what I’d said. I’d even thought that defeating Duffy, whether I lived or died, was the only possible path for me, flirting with the idea that dying in the process could be for the best. But with a confrontation with the giant beast so close, wriggling doubts banished noble thoughts. Still, I got to my feet and took after Persia, catching up with her as she entered the stairwell.
We resumed ascending the stairs in the darkness, Persia just ahead, me trudging up behind her. I paused to stick my head over the banister, looked up, then down, and could see no sign of the interminable stairs ending in either direction. The dry air was thick with dust. Elevators, not stairs, were intended to be used in skyscrapers, certainly for getting from the top to the bottom.
“Did you ever find the sentinel power, when you had it, a curse?” I asked, wanting to break the dark monotony.
“No,” Persia said.
“I did. Not always, but more often than not.”
“I would have liked a chance to make a decision for myself, not have my powers stripped from me.” Persia had shifted from refusing to talk to me, to aiming not-too-subtle barbs at me at every opportunity. It was an improvement.
“The ironic thing is that the Searing took power from every fire sentinel except the one I wanted most to deprive of power. Myself.”
Persia came to a sudden stop and turned. “And did you consider how selfish that was?”
“I wanted to do the right thing.” Why could I never do the right thing?
“Every fire sentinel in the world lost their power because you made a choice that you thought might benefit yourself.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Every. Single. One.”
We resumed ascending. After several more flights of silent climbing, Jo’s voice came through the earpiece. “You are two levels below where I plan for you to exit. Everything looks good, but be wary.”
“Finally,” I muttered. I had quickly come to a point where I didn’t care what faced me, I just wanted out of this stagnant suffocating stairwell.
I crowded close to Persia as she pushed open the stairwell door, and we both exited into a dimly lit corridor.
“I have multiple blind spots close to the reception room,” Jo told us.
“So we’re going to be running blind where we’ll most need your help,” Persia said. “You could have mentioned that earlier.”
“The top floors were rearranged by a rampaging dragon plowing through them, and in the process many security cameras were knocked out,” Sulle said.
“Luckily we can see what’s happening in the reception room via the television cameras,” Jo said. “Anticipation is growing. From what Fred Hanson is saying, they are expecting Mayor Maxwell to arrive at any moment.”
“Top floors rearranged—what exactly does that mean?” I asked.
“As you can imagine, the building wasn’t designed to be dragon-accessible,” Sulle said, anger flaring in his voice. “When the beast decided to make my headquarters its new home, it broke a hole in my roof, then smashed through floors and roofs to make a space big enough to house himself. Luckily, it was night and no one was killed or injured. Since then, workmen have added a makeshift ceiling and papered over some of the cracks.”
“Turn right up here,” Jo said.
Persia paused momentarily at the junction, then took the right Jo had specified. Just as I was about to follow her, I heard a noise behind me and turned.
I paused, seeing Ally, who had just turned the corner. I raised my hands, ready to summon fireswords, but Ally made no move to attack. Frozen mid-stride, she stared straight at me, a tense expression on her face. Although she had shot a fireball at me the last time we�
�d met, I lowered my hands and put all thought of fireswords from my mind. The child Ally had been wasn’t a violent person—far from it—and I didn’t want to encourage the tendencies of the elemental within here.
Ally shuffled forward a few steps, her lips twitching into the beginnings of a scowl, then she stilled. She turned and went back the way she had come.
“Slow down, Persia,” Jo said through the earpiece. “You are about to go out of view, but you’re close to the dragon’s reception room. Both of you, keep your voices low from this point on. Rune, why have you stopped?”
“I thought I heard something,” I said. I would have told Jo about Ally if I could have communicated with just her, but I didn’t want to mention her presence to the other two. Duffy’s control of the fire shades was reduced while he was awake, and he was likely distracted by what was happening around him. Ally had decided not to attack me, and I was willing to trust that she wouldn’t betray our presence, but it was hard to justify that decision to those who didn’t know Ally.
Persia was no longer in view ahead of me, so I sped up to catch up with her. The corridor turned to the left, and I came upon Persia, on her belly, snaking toward a jagged edge on the floor. The second half of the corridor had been ripped out. Opposite, horizontal and vertical scars showed where floors and walls used to be. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled after Persia. A bubble of noise rolled toward me.
Persia came to a stop, her head just short of the serrated end to the floor. I crawled alongside her, then I got down on my stomach and inched onward.
Persia grabbed my shoulder. “Not so close,” she whispered. “You’ll be seen.”
“Isn’t that the whole point?” I was to be bait after all.
“Not until everything is ready,” Persia said.
“I need to know what faces me.” I brushed Persia’s hand off and snaked forward until I could peek over the edge. My view was half blocked by a mess of cables which had been sheared off when the floor was destroyed. I figured those cables would do a good job of hiding me from view against a casual upward look.
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