But she didn’t.
A heartbeat later, she found herself near the bottom of the stairs, wondering when she had even set foot upon them.
RESIST, the Shade King repeated, and a chill coursed through her as she realized something else had been directing her movements, compelling her to come down the stairs.
Something magical.
Something powerful.
She froze, one hand resting on the metal handrail. Here, the walls weren't even rough-hewn but natural. The stairwell had been carved into a natural fissure in the rock, and she hadn't even noticed until this moment. A single light bulb hung from a cord attached to the wall, but its glow seemed weakened, barely able to light up the surrounding area. She had been sleepwalking—or more correctly, spell-walking.
She stepped away from the stairs and onto a natural cave surface. A vast cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites loomed before her.
"Is anybody there?" she asked the darkness.
Silence.
From far away, she heard water dripping. Once again, she used her life-sense magic, but this time in place of life, she sensed a great … void, an artificial emptiness—more magic, she was certain of it, but like no magic she had ever experienced, worlds beyond what even Char could have done. Something was very wrong here.
"Angie!" Erin's fear-filled voice called down to her from above. "What the hell are you doing down there?"
"I … I'm not really sure," she yelled back up the stairs. Moments later, she saw flashlights and a rush of movement as all the Seagraves, including Jay, with Tavi in the rear, hurried down the stairs to meet her.
Rowan glowered at her as he reached her. "You okay?"
"There's something down here." She stared into the darkness. "Something powerful," she added.
"Something dangerous?" Rowan asked, bringing his rifle to his shoulder and peering over the sights. "Eyes sharp, people. Angie says we're not alone."
A small metal pail sat several paces away. Within the pail were a score of road flares.
"Why is this place here?" she asked Rowan.
"This cavern or the underground complex?"
"Both."
"Not a clue. But we don't need to find out. We can just take a truck and drive away."
She inhaled deeply, anxiety clawing its way through her. She shook her head. "No. Something brought me down here for a reason."
"Angie," Erin said in a worried tone. "Don't be an ass—"
Angie bent down, took one of the flares, and lit it before she changed her mind. The flare hissed and burst into bright-red light as Angie threw it ahead of them, illuminating the cavern in a brilliant red glow.
The cavern was much larger than she had realized, hundreds of yards wide. Stalactites hung from its curved natural ceiling a hundred feet or more above them. We must be deeper than I thought, she realized. Way more stairs than I realized.
"There's another tunnel over here," Rowan said, pointing to their right.
She took another flare and lit it, this time holding it before her. It warmed her hand but didn't burn her. Angie approached the tunnel Rowan had found. Unlike the other tunnels, this one was almost natural, but it had crude steps carved into it, leading down, the walls worked by primitive tools. Angie approached the tunnel, and Rowan walked beside her.
"You sure you want to do this?"
"No, not really," she said, but she kept going anyway.
They followed the tunnel quite a bit farther than she would have expected. Here, someone had painted the sides of the passage with crude wall paintings. "Who lived in these parts before Europeans came?" she asked.
"Not sure," Rowan answered. "Some native tribe. Apache, maybe?"
"Maybe."
The paintings depicted groups of men and women bringing live animals into the cavern, leading them to … something, a vast twisting shape illuminated by what appeared to be flames.
"What is that?" Rowan asked. "A bonfire?"
Angie shook her head. "I don't think so."
They carried on, coming to the end of the tunnel. It opened into another cavern, this one even larger than the first had been. It was so wide that Angie's flare couldn't light all of it. At the far end of the cavern, taking up most of it, was a smooth black lake, its surface broken only by stalagmites thrusting out of its depth. Piles of ancient bones littered the edge of the lake, so old they had turned black.
"I don't like this smell," said Jay. Erin and Casey mumbled their agreement.
"We should get the hell out of here," Casey said, holding his rifle tight to his shoulder as he tried to watch all directions at once.
"Oh shit," whispered Rowan. "They built everything because of this cavern, the bunker and the base above it. I'm certain of it. All for this place."
He was right, she knew, but she stepped closer to the black lake anyhow, her heart hammering. There was power down here, like nothing she had ever experienced before. She had no doubt now that Tec's master, this Q, was here.
She just didn't think it was a Fey lord anymore.
The dark waters of the lake rippled as something monstrously huge moved beneath its surface. The waters erupted as a massive head the size of a truck rose on a long, snakelike neck covered in dripping feathers, the long, sinuous body uncoiling as it rose above them. Massive wings, at least a hundred feet from barbed tip to barbed tip, snapped out, spraying a torrent of water. Like the creature's serpentine body, brightly colored feathers covered the wings, creating a mesmerizing complex pattern akin to twin starbursts. The creature's head, a cross between a serpent and a bird of prey, swept back and forth on the long neck. Its clever eyes, each the size of a dinner plate, glowed red under the flare's light as it regarded them. Twisting horns curved back from its spiked skull. Its vast maw opened, revealing rows of teeth the size of Angie’s leg. Its forked tongue darted out, easily longer than she was tall.
"Greetings, humans," the dragon said, its thunderous voice reverberating through the cavern. "I am Quetzalcoatl."
Chapter 35
Primal fear washed over Angie, held her as if she were encased in ice. She stood frozen, staring up in disbelief at the dragon's head as it swayed high above her. Then the Shade King's presence pulsed in her mind. BE CAREFUL, SOURCE MAGE.
No shit, she thought, her heart jackhammering in her chest. The others all stood like statues. Rowan even held his rifle on his shoulder, pointing it at the dragon. Ever so slowly, Angie pushed Rowan's rifle barrel down. He didn't resist, didn't even blink. Each of them, the Seagraves and Tavi, stared at the dragon with open mouths and wide eyes, like mice cornered by a lion.
"Do nothing," she whispered to them.
"They will not," the dragon said in a voice that sounded like crushed rocks. "Their awe holds them in thrall. A minor glamour, yet useful when calm is necessary."
"You speak English," she said, at a loss for anything but the obvious, stalling for time as she wrestled with the implications of speaking to a creature of legend. Eighteen years ago, when the four dragons had appeared in the sky over Mount Fuji, one of them had been a winged, feathered serpent—this one; she knew it in her very soul. She stood before one of the four great dragons that had broken the Fey Sleep, awakening humanity to the magic and Fey around them and bringing about the collapse of civilization, killing untold millions, maybe billions.
And she was speaking to it.
"I speak most of your languages, far more than you could imagine. Many are now dead tongues, like those who spoke them. But all things die in their turn."
"You are … you're Q, aren't you? Tec's master?"
"Teccizcoatl, the Jaguar Knight, serves me. And yes, I am Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent."
"What are you?"
"Ancient. I was old when your kind huddled about fires in caves. Long have I dwelled here, sleeping away the centuries, bored by the passage of time. Once, your kind worshipped me as a god, but lest you become offended, know that your primitive species interpreted me in the only manner they could."
<
br /> "You're a dragon."
"A word created by Fey to describe us, but the term is as apt as any other. I am what I am, a creature of ether and magic. But now, I am among the last." The dragon's head darted forward, moving much faster than Angie would have thought possible, to loom a foot from her, close enough to swallow her in one bite. Its teeth were like sword blades. Its huge nostrils quivered as it inhaled her scent. "I smell such power in you, such as I did not believe still existed beyond my kind. You walk in step with an ancient being, one as old as I, mayhap older. How interesting. Names are power, but I have shared a name with you. Will you not share one with me?"
She forced herself to keep eye contact with the dragon, somehow knowing that to look away was dangerous. "Angie. Angela." She resisted a hysterical laugh at the thought that a dragon might be more impressed by her full name. "My name is Angela Harriet Ritter."
The dragon exhaled, its breath a furnace on her face. Then its colossal head drew back once more, considering her from above. "I know this name. You are the adopted daughter of the Fey Sorceress, Chararah Succubus?"
"I am."
"Greetings, Angela Harriet Ritter. Welcome to the Black Pool, my lair."
"These are the Seagraves." She motioned to the werewolf family who stood frozen behind her. "And this is—"
"Mago Diputado Octavia Maria Navarro." The dragon cut her off.
"You know her?"
"Of course. The Brujas Fantasmas are warriors of honor. It was I who sent my champion, Teccizcoatl, to help them battle the Tzitzime, agents of the Twin Deaths and their Aztalan puppets."
"Dragons. Tec said the Twin Deaths behind the Tzitzime were dragons like you."
"Not like me!" the dragon roared, and fear clawed through her. "Enemies," it continued in only a slightly calmer voice. "The Tzitzime, the Children of the Star-Eater, believe them to be gods, but they are no more deities than I am. Their Tzitzime worshipers have named them Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly; and Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Smoky Mirror. I name them the scourge of this world. I name them folly and cowardice. I name them kin-slayer."
"And Mother Smoke Heart? Tec said her real name was Rayan Zar Davi?"
"She is their champion, as Teccizcoatl is mine. The Twin Deaths have taught her and her cultists powerful blood magic, sacrificial magic—more than enough to control the Aztalan Emperor. To my champion, the Jaguar Knight, I have bestowed my own gifts."
"What is he ... exactly?"
"Exactly? That word is as slippery as an eel. He is a warrior. A champion for good. We dragons rarely face one another in battle. We are engaged in the deadliest of all duels. In our lairs, we reign supreme, can lie dormant throughout the ages, slumbering and recovering from all wounds. Yet the moment we leave, we expose ourselves to both the ravages of time and the final death. We rarely face one another in direct confrontation. The risk is too great, our lifespans too precious. Yet the machinations of the Twin Deaths must be opposed, else they risk all life. So we wage a proxy war through our champions."
All life? Tec said the great dragons broke the world to save it from nuclear war, but they still broke the world. They're still responsible for all those deaths—including my parents’. All for this proxy war, this game they play.
Her indignation burned through her like a wildfire, incinerating her fear, her common sense. The dragon could swallow her whole, but Angie's emotions were in control now. She trembled with anger.
"Tec told me what you did. You broke the Fey Sleep. You caused the Awakening, the collapse of civilization." She practically spat the words at the dragon. It was surreal, as if she were standing outside herself, watching as she confronted the most powerful creature on the planet.
Yet if the dragon was offended, it gave no indication. "I did," Quetzalcoatl answered simply.
"Why? You destroyed humanity."
"No. We saved the world. Saved all its inhabitants, human, Fey, and animal. Saved them from your kind, your petty foolishness, your warlike nature. And we have paid the ultimate price for our charity."
"I don't understand."
"You humans were on the brink of a firestorm that would have ended all life. The only way we could stop you was to shatter the spell that the Fey cast upon you, knowing the backlash of cosmic energies would break your civilizations. And it worked. Your weapons lie dormant in your silos, unusable forever more. The world heals because of us. The forests grow back. But in saving you from yourselves, we exposed ourselves to our enemies, the Twin Deaths, and they have hunted us relentlessly, slaughtering my kind. Now, only I remain. Here, in hiding. And if Itzpapalotl and her brother Tezcatlipoca were to find me…"
Despite her indignation, a part of her knew the dragon was speaking truth. Had there been a worldwide nuclear war... the implications were staggering, a seismic shift in accepted logic, but this was not the time. "Why?" she finally asked. "Why are they hunting you?"
"The simplest of all motives—revenge. Our war began a thousand years ago, when their sire, the great wyrm Memnog, sought to extinguish all life on this world. Memnog was an evil like nothing this world has ever seen, more powerful than any other dragon. Only a coalition of our kind was able to defeat him. I played a small role in his defeat, even though I was the weakest of us all. We bested Memnog, though it cost us dearly. We cast magic the likes of which no dragon or Fey could ever duplicate, and we turned him to stone. But ever since, the Twin Deaths have hoarded his petrified carcass, seeking the knowledge and power to undo the spell."
"Another dragon?"
"Among my kind, Memnog was more akin to a god, albeit one of ashes and appetite. Pray that the Twin Deaths do not break our spell. It would truly be the end of all things."
Angie shivered, barely able to conceive of a creature that could terrify other dragons. "Why the Seagraves? Why do the Tzitzime want Erin?"
"The blood of werewolves holds power—particularly in their beast form—far more power than mere mortal blood."
"They murdered Lewis Seagrave. I think they sacrificed him to draw a demon to the world."
"Gouger of Faces. I felt his filth even from here. I am sorry for your friend, but there will be many more such atrocities if the Tzitzime are not stopped."
"Why Erin?"
"There is an ancient prophesy. On the same day my brothers and I defeated Memnog, an Olmtec prophet, a seer, had a vision. She predicted that the blood of a being she called the Haanal X'ib held the power to undo the stone binding of the treacherous wyrms. The second she voiced this prophesy, she fell over dead, but her people recorded it, recognizing its importance. It was lost with the Olmtec people but resurfaced again a hundred years ago in an ancient text. The Tzitzime discovered it and were cunning enough to realize that it could only refer to Memnog and the spell we cast."
"I don't know anything about Olmtec people or a ... what did you call it, a Haanal X'ib?"
"A female who is changed, Angela Harriet Ritter. The Tzitzime must believe this refers to your friend Erin. Or at least they did. I do not know if this remains the case."
"Why?"
"Because they'd never stop until they had her. They'd launch their war to get her, yet they haven't. Instead, they have moved against my champion."
"And Constance Morgan."
"Yes, but I believe she was ... how do you say, collateral damage. They have taken the Jaguar Knight almost certainly to drive me into the open, where the Twin Deaths can move against me. That cannot happen. I am the last of my kind to stand against them."
His words registered then, making her scalp tingle with realization. "Wait. Taken? Not killed?"
"The Jaguar Knight lives, and I know where they hold him."
"You're certain?"
"I'd know if my champion were dead. We share a connection that only death can sever."
Angie struggled to make sense of this. They had never found his body or Morgan's. Erin insisted she shared a similar bond with her brothers, and she had known the moment Lewis died. As hopeless as it se
emed, Tec might very well be alive. Her face burned with shame. And we were going to just go live somewhere else, to abandon him, after he saved us, repeatedly.
"Where?" she asked, a wave of cold anger washing away her fear.
"There is a place in the southern mountains of Baja California built upon a site of great power, a chasm in the mountains that leads below ground. Within this chasm, far underground, is an ancient Olmtec temple called Zolin. This is where the Tzitzime have taken my champion. No doubt they torture him."
"Then do something!" Her anger spiked, pushing her to confront a creature that could crush her with a gesture. "Save him."
"I cannot. If I leave this cavern, I make myself vulnerable to attack. The Twin Deaths know this. They seek to draw me out into the open. No, if I leave, I die."
"I'll go," she said, surprising herself with how quickly she made her decision. "I'll save him."
"You are worthy of your adopted mother Chararah Succubus, Angela Harriet Ritter, but know this: I do not know what else hides within Zolin. If the Twin Deaths have set a trap for me, what chance have you?"
"I don't care. I can't just leave him to be tortured. I owe him my life."
For long moments, the only sound in the cavern was the dragon's bellows-like breath. It watched her, its crimson eyes glowing. Finally, it hissed, in appreciation or annoyance, Angie couldn't tell, but it spoke once more. "Raise your left hand in the air."
She didn't ask why, merely did as the dragon told her, and held her hand palm-out toward the winged creature. The dragon's eyes flared with such radiance that it blinded her. A searing heat scored into the flesh of her palm, and she cried out in agony, falling to her knees and grasping her burned palm against her chest. The flesh of her palm was red, glowing with an eldritch light in a strange tear-shaped design akin to a dragon's fang. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she gasped for air.
"What … why…"
And then, just as quickly as it had come, the pain vanished. She stared at her palm, but the strange pattern was already fading, and the skin was unblemished and whole. Only the trace of the tear-shaped rune remained, like a scar.
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