Black City Dragon

by Richard A. Knaak

  BLACK CITY DRAGON

  ALSO BY RICHARD A. KNAAK

  Black City Saint

  Black City Demon

  BLACK CITY DRAGON

  RICHARD A.

  KNAAK

  Published 2018 by Pyr®

  Black City Dragon. Copyright © 2018 by Richard A. Knaak. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover design and illustration by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke

  Cover images © Alamy Stock Photos

  Cover design © Start Science Fiction

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  Pyr

  c/o Start Publishing

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Knaak, Richard A., author.

  Title: Black city dragon / by Richard A. Knaak.

  Description: Amherst, NY : Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books [2018] I “This book includes bonus material: A Nick Medea short story “Black City Shadows” © 2017 by Richard A. Knaak, first published in Grimdark Magazine, Issue 13, October, 2017.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018027948 (print) | LCCN 2018030874 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633884953 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633884946 (paperback)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3561.N25 (ebook) | LCC PS3561.N25 B573 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027948

  “Black City Shadows” © 2017 by Richard A. Knaak, first published in Grimdark Magazine, Issue 13, October 2017.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my sister, Arlene

  CHAPTER 1

  “Mind your head, Master Nicholas! He’s got himself to the ceiling!”

  I’d lost my head once. It’d been horribly painful for the brief moment before death had saved me. I’d sworn I’d never let it happen again.

  I managed to bring Her Lady’s gift above me just before the inky whip-like appendage reached me. Instead of my head being severed, a good three feet of the Wyld’s limb went flying. I might’ve been happier with that result if not for the other five appendages already shooting for me.

  I was saved from one of those limbs by a familiar four-legged shape. Fetch tore into it with his usual gusto, teeth and claws ripping it apart. He might’ve looked like some cross between a greyhound and a wolf, but those similarities were only superficial. Once, he’d been a servant of Her Lady, executing her enemies in Feirie at her command. His one failure had been me and for that she’d condemned him. I’d ended up saving his life when he himself had been condemned and he’d been a loyal associate—for the most part—since then.

  Fetch’s attack made the Wyld hesitate just a little, which was all I needed. I turned the gleaming blade toward the center of the black mass that was the Wyld and sliced off the ends of two more limbs.

  The Wyld withdrew all its appendages. It quickly spread over the ceiling, no doubt seeking escape. I couldn’t let that happen. It hadn’t been on this side of the Gate very long, but it’d already claimed a night watchman before the warehouse owner had contacted the advertisement in the Chicago Daily News about “ghosts.” He thought the man had fled out of fear, but it’d taken me only a moment to recognize what’d happened. There’d never be any trace found, so I’d chosen to let the flight story pass. What I couldn’t do, though, was allow the Wyld to have another chance to feed.

  Let me burn him! demanded the voice in my head. Eye will burn him!

  “And the rest of the warehouse, too,” I muttered, as I maneuvered under the Wyld. “No.” I’d once granted him complete control over us. People of Feirie still called that the Night the Dragon Breathed.

  Humans called it the Great Chicago Fire.

  Eye would take care, he insisted, his voice now beguiling. He had had no concept of names before becoming part of me, and so without any body to call his own he had chosen to title himself after that part of him I relied upon most. Eye would be most cautious, Eye promise!

  I ignored him. All I wanted from him was what he’d just granted me. My own eyes had given way to narrow, burning reptilian ones that viewed the world in emerald. They enabled me to see what remained invisible to the mortal world, especially the Wyld.

  “Ungh! I think I’m going to upchuck!” Fetch blurted, slipping into a bit of the human slang he’d grown so fond of since being exiled to this side of the Gate. “Tastes like rotted fish!”

  Such poetry in his language, the dragon mocked as we move toward the other end of the warehouse.

  “Quiet.” The jeweled sword glowed crimson, the only thing in the dragon’s world that wasn’t colored emerald. It could sense the nearby Wyld, sense it and hunger for it. There were times when Her Lady’s gift seemed almost alive, a thought that didn’t comfort me.

  Fetch suddenly stood beside me. “We charge him, Master Nicholas?”

  I’d long given up trying to make Fetch just call me “Nick”— which wasn’t my original name, anyway—but being of Feirie, he insisted on calling me by a more formal title. Kravayik was the same. I didn’t like their deference, but they refused to change.

  “No. Cut it off, Fetch. We can’t let it get out.”

  “And how!” Fetch race forward, moving a lot faster than any wolf or dog.

  I didn’t wait for him to reach the far end. I estimated the distance to the ceiling. The tall crates stored here would only get me halfway up, but that was a start.

  I thrust the Feirie blade back into my overcoat, where it disappeared into that pocket world only I could draw it from.

  At least let me give you a hand . . . or two, my unseen companion suggested.

  As much as I hated it, he had a point there. “All right.”

  I didn’t look at my hands as they twisted and reshaped. I’d seen that transformation and so much worse many times over the sixteen hundred years since I’d become guardian of the Gate. I’d learned never to trust even the smallest shift, including the eyes. It didn’t matter whether we were in the midst of danger; the dragon would always be seeking an opportunity to seize command.

  Still, I couldn’t argue with how fast I was able to climb to the top now. I positioned myself, willed my hands back to normal, and then drew Her Lady’s gift.

  It glowed brighter, the closer proximity to its target stirring it.

  Something shook the crate.

  I lost my balance. Still clutching the sword, I toppled back over the edge.

  My entire body shook as I hit the floor and something cracked loudly. I grunted in pain, my world spinning for a moment.

  “’Ware, Master Nicholas! ‘Ware!”

  I fought back the tears of pain blinding me just in time to see two black appendages converging on me. I didn’t know how the Wyld had managed its trick with the crate, but if it thought I’d be senseless after that fall, it didn’t know how much pain I’d learned to suffer over the centuries.

  I had the sword pointed up as it struck. This time, I didn’t attempt to slice off the tip of either limb. Instead, I plunged the tip as deep as I could into one of the appendages. />
  The Wyld’s howl filled the warehouse. I might’ve been concerned about discovery, but no one outside would hear even so much as a whisper from this struggle. There were both benefits and drawbacks to being guardian of the Gate.

  Her Lady’s gift pulsated. It now had a strong hold on its prey. It now could feed.

  The howl nearly deafened me. I didn’t care. All that mattered was holding tight while the sword finished the job.

  The Wyld’s body twisted like taffy. It began seeping from the ceiling into the glowing blade. I managed to get back on my feet, then braced myself.

  The last of the inky creature peeled away from the ceiling. It poured like a stream into the blade until nothing remained outside. For a brief moment, Her Lady’s gift was as black as the Wyld . . . and then the blade returned to normal and the glow faded away.

  I exhaled.

  “Behind ye, Master Nicholas!”

  I spun around. A second Wyld loomed over me. This one was a shadow with a single large silver eye in the upper middle and a round black gap with sharp teeth running around the inner edge.

  It wasn’t the ugliest Wyld I’d seen, but it came damned close.

  I had the sword pointed at it when suddenly something like a scythe severed the top half—including the eye—from the rest.

  The mouth gaped for a moment, then the entire shadowy body collapsed in a heap.

  I didn’t bother with the dead Wyld, more concerned with what had done him in so quickly. The answer to that also hovered over me, a thing as much of shadow as the two dead creatures . . . and why not, since he was from the same place? With the all-encompassing hood and cloak, he looked just like the grim reaper, a resemblance made doubly so by his use of the scythe. For all I knew, one of his kind had been the basis for the legend.

  I still had the dragon’s eyes, but they helped little in piercing the interior of the cloak. I could make out a blur of a face with deep, soulless pits for eyes, and that was it.

  The figure adjusted the scythe, revealing that the weapon was actually the combined ends of both arms. Then, with an almost casual shake, the scythe dissipated and two sinewy hands with only four digits formed. Another shake and sharp nails as long as the fingers sprouted.

  Gatekeepers . . . a rasping voice murmured in my head.

  Fetch and Kravayik called the thing a Feir’hr Sein and did so with tremendous respect. From Kravayik, especially, that meant a lot. Me, I called him Lon since he reminded me somehow of Chaney’s most recent creation, the Phantom of the Opera.

  “What’re you doing here, Lon? What’s Her Lady up to?”

  The Feir’hr Sein bristled, in part due to my disrespectful tone toward his mistress, but also because of the moniker I’d given him. For some reason, it meant something significant that I’d named him. I noticed that he’d obeyed my orders a few times when clearly he would’ve chosen otherwise. I could’ve tested the limits of that right here and now, but I wasn’t much more keen on his company at the moment than he obviously was keen on mine.

  One skeletal finger pointed at Fetch, who now stood at my side, teeth bared and tail taut. Back in Feirie, Fetch would’ve had the full powers of a shapeshifter at his beck and call, but here in the mortal world he was pretty much limited to his canine shape. Still, I had no doubt he was willing to take on Lon if necessary.

  The Gate is breeched. . . they are crossing . . . he is warned. . .

  “Hmm?” I glanced at Fetch, who growled. It took me a moment, but I realized what Her Lady’s enforcer meant . . . and that Fetch was guilty.

  Of course, I wasn’t about to give Lon that benefit. “Careful who you order around here, Lon.” I purposely used the name again just to prod him a little. “You’re not in her domain. This is my territory. She’s getting a little too familiar with it. Something’s letting Feirie intrude much too much into this world, and I know it isn’t me.”

  The Gate is breeched . . . he repeated. The hand withdrew. She has spoken . . . he is warned. . .

  “So you said. Was there something else, Lon? You didn’t follow me down here just for that, did you?”

  “Careful, Master Nicholas,” Fetch muttered. “Don’t trust this torpedo.”

  “He wouldn’t try anything on me . . . would you, Lon?” When the Feir’hr Sein didn’t answer, I continued, “What is it? What?”

  He shimmered. I’d never seen him like that before. I could almost swear that he was nervous.

  One hand slipped into the darkness surrounding him. A moment later, it reappeared with something in the narrow palm.

  Lon tossed the object toward me. Not trusting him overmuch, I let it fall to the floor with a light clatter.

  Suddenly, from the other end of the warehouse, there came a slight but definite movement.

  The Feir’hr Sein hissed and looked past me. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder in the same direction.

  Near the warehouse entrance, a shape briefly moved.

  “Fetch!”

  He didn’t waste a moment. As he raced toward where the figure had been, I quickly glanced back to Lon. “You’d better—”

  He was gone.

  Feir’hr Sein weren’t cowardly sorts. In fact, they were pretty arrogant in their power. That arrogance had cost Lon’s predecessor dearly when he’d gone hunting Oberon, Her Lady’s former husband and her rival for power. Oberon had tortured the Feir’hr Sein, then left him to the mercy of something even creepier.

  I had no more time to concern myself over Lon’s odd behavior. Keeping Her Lady’s gift ready, I charged after Fetch.

  When I got to the entrance, the door was open. The owner had given me the three hours I’d requested upon arrival at midnight, and so far I’d only used one. Unless something had gone awry, he’d still be at the diner a mile away, chain-smoking Chesterfields and downing another cup of java. The “ghosts” he’d come to believe were haunting his warehouse had made him a nervous wreck; at least, that’s what he thought. Like others I’d met over the centuries, he had a touch of sensitivity where the supernatural was concerned. Just enough to bother him when Wyld had made this place their sanctum.

  Taking a risk, I kept the blade in front of me as I exited. A look both directions gave me no clue as to which way Fetch had gone.

  Allow me. . .

  I nodded. My nose twitched. I was glad there wasn’t a mirror around. Suddenly, I could sense all sorts of odors. Most I recognized instantly, especially Fetch’s musky scent.

  But one I had no idea about. It trailed in the same direction Fetch’s did. I started after—

  The same odd scent wafted past my nose from right behind me.

  I ducked. A pale hand reached past where the back of my head would have been.

  I didn’t hesitate. Whatever I smelled, it wasn’t human. It also clearly wasn’t friendly.

  I spun and thrust. Her Lady’s gift cut into my attacker’s chest with even more ease than I was used to. I drove it deep, not wanting to take any chance.

  Only . . . nothing happened. Her Lady’s gift didn’t stir. It remained dormant.

  And the figure I’d run through just stood there, close enough to touch. A slim man in a black overcoat shirt and pants, with a pale, nondescript face quite the contrast to my swarthier one. Maybe thirty years old if I was naive enough to think he was merely human. Short brown hair mixed with a touch of gray hinted at a greater age.

  His watery black eyes blinked once.

  “And so?” he murmured dispassionately.

  In my head, my constant companion abruptly roared, Why do you stand there waving that elven toy at empty air? Eye see nothing! Why do you pretend you fight?

  That bothered me even more. This might’ve been a stunt to try to somehow trick me into releasing him, but I doubted it. He honestly could not sense the figure any more than it seemed the sword did.

  Still expressionless, the slim man began to back up. He left nothing on Her Lady’s gift. Not blood, bits of flesh . . . nothing. After sixteen centuries of b
eing haunted by Diocles, I knew what a ghost was, and this was no ghost. Not just because he was solid. There was life here, of a sort, or at least the imitation of it.

  Maybe a thrust couldn’t stop him, but I wondered how well he would do if I used the edge. I saved him the trouble of backing up farther and withdrew the blade.

  A whine arose from the other direction. I recognized it as Fetch’s and hesitated.

  The pale figure blurred. It was nothing the matter with my— our—eyes. He was literally blurry.

  I took a swing, but it was already too late. Her Lady’s gift went right through him.

  And then he was gone.

  I turned and ran toward where the whine had come from. Fetch had gotten too far away from me, which meant he could only bark or howl. The same magic that bound me to the power of the Gate also allowed him to speak only when he was within a certain range of me.

  A four-door coupe suddenly turned the corner ahead and sped past me. The dragon’s eyes enabled me to see it was a fairly new Oakland, likely the 6-54A. It looked as emerald as everything else, but I knew the main body would be that telltale blue the auto company was now famous for.

  Only because of the dragon’s eyes was I also able to catch a glimpse of the driver.

  And only because of his eyes did I see that the thug behind the wheel was the same figure I’d just unsuccessfully run through.

  I let that curious fact slide for the moment. The Packard was around the same corner from which the other auto had just come. There was no chance of getting to it and following. Besides, there was still Fetch . . . at least, I hoped so.

  He let out another, quieter wail as I reached the corner. The moment I came upon him, I could see why.

  “Easy, Fetch. Easy.” I returned Her Lady’s gift to that other place inside my overcoat, then knelt by him. I reached a hand to him, but at the last second, he managed to speak.

  “’Ware, M-Master Nicholas. Don’t ye be . . . t-touching me.”

  February had started out cold, but the glistening frost covering Fetch from head to toe clearly had no natural cause. He lay sprawled on the sidewalk, not only unable to move but obviously in pain as well.