"What?"
"We need to go," Erin said.
Angie stared at the cavern entrance. As the dust began to settle, she saw it was now completely blocked by rubble. With any luck, we just buried that thing.
When she heard its angry roar reverberating through the cave-in, she knew they hadn't.
"Come on." Erin grabbed her arm and pulled her along. "It might have another way out."
Minutes later, they reached the others, all standing and waiting on the same ledge they had rappelled down to earlier. Rowan was speaking into his radio, his face filled with worry. Wyn Renna, the elven changeling, sat up, staring in confusion, with the three surviving elves around her. They had lost most of their comrades—and their commander, Constance Morgan—yet they had accomplished their mission.
"Where the hell did you get to?" Tec demanded.
"Had to do something." Angie didn't wait for his reply. She was getting a bit tired of others treating her like she was made of paper. They heard the rotors then, and Angie leaned back to look up the chasm’s wall as a dark shape appeared in the sky and blocked out the stars.
"Watch out!" Rowan yelled as two ropes dropped, falling so fast they'd have hurt anyone they hit.
The elves helped secure Wyn Renna to a rope with a harness. Before Angie could object, Tec and Erin were doing the same thing with her, looping the rope through the harness she still wore around her hips. "Wait," she said, putting her hand on his bare chest. "We came here to rescue you. You should go—"
They both stepped back as Erin spoke into her radio. Before Angie could object any further, she flew up into the air, drawn up the cliff face at breakneck speed by the winch on the helicopter, spinning as she rose. In moments, she was out of the chasm and into the prop wash of the aircraft. Just below her, she saw Wyn Renna drawn up as well.
Within seconds, Angie reached the open cargo door of the Shrike, and Tavi and Jay were hauling her into the cabin.
"Hey, Angie," Jay yelled, his teeth flashing as if they had just happened to meet while out on a stroll.
She unclipped her harness and helped them pull in Wyn Renna on the other winch. Then they sent the ropes back. Two of the elves came next, and then the other and Erin. Rowan came last. The elves secured Wyn Renna in a seat, putting a seat belt around her. Jay sat behind one of the miniguns, an elf the other. Then Rowan stormed into the cockpit, yelling at his brother. "Punch it!"
The aircraft lurched as Casey engaged the powerful turbine, and they began to quickly climb away. Excitement coursed through Angie, set all her nerves tingling. Oh my, God. This actually worked?
"Contact rear! Contact rear!" Jay screamed, panic in his voice.
Angie spun about to where he sat behind the minigun. She gripped a cargo strap and hung her head out the open cargo door just in time to see the dragon fly from the chasm and wing toward them.
Chapter 42
The dragon sped straight at the helicopter like a missile. Casey banked right, dropping altitude, and Angie, unable to hang on, flew away from the open door. But Erin, one arm wrapped around a cargo strap, caught Angie's wrist, nearly wrenching it from its socket as she stopped her from smashing into a bulkhead. Jay opened fire with the minigun, and Angie saw the glitter of hundreds of spent casings fly as Jay sent a long stream of tracers stitching through the dragon. The dragon roared but swerved away from Jay's fire. And then Angie was tossed about again, held in the air by Erin's grip on her wrist as Casey executed another maneuver that helicopters shouldn't be able to do. Alarm sirens screamed from the cockpit, bringing Angie back to the night she’d crashed.
My god, she thought, her terror spiking, what are the chances I'll die in another crash?
"Fire!" someone yelled.
At first she thought they meant the helicopter was on fire, and fear twisted her gut, but as Casey banked the aircraft once more, this time turning it on its side, causing Angie to hang in midair—stopped only from falling out by Erin's grip on her wrist—a barrage of orange flames flashed past the open door, and the forest they had been flying over erupted into a firestorm. Dragon's breath, she realized. It's breathing fire at us.
"Coming around again," someone yelled.
As Casey leveled out once more, Angie fell to the bulkhead, still held in place by Erin, but her wrist felt as though it had been crushed. Then she saw the dragon again, this time coming straight at them from the other side, where one of the elves manned the other minigun. The elf opened fire a moment before the dragon breathed its flames. Angie, frozen in terror, watched the flames coming right at them, impossible to avoid. Someone screamed, and the fire washed over the elf in the doorway, incinerating him and the minigun in a flash torrent. She closed her eyes, knowing this was the end.
But she didn't burn. No one did.
The flames never filled the cabin.
I AM FIRE, the Shade King roared in triumph in her mind.
A moment later, the aircraft rocked wildly as the dragon flew past and they were caught in its turbulence. "Fire, we're on fire!" Casey yelled. "Engine's out."
The helicopter began to fall.
"Autorotate. Autorotate. Autorotate!" Casey's voice was oddly calm.
A very small part of Angie, the part that wasn't petrified by fear, remembered that helicopters could land without engine power by performing an autorotation, a maneuver in which the rotor blades were powered by the upward flow of air. Theoretically, Casey should be able to bring the aircraft down without engine power, but it was going to be little more than a controlled crash.
They dropped into a steep dive, the trees seeming to fly up at them from below. Someone was screaming again, and this time she thought it might be her. Just before they thundered in, Casey pitched the nose up, transferring their forward movement into the rotors. The nose leveled out before it hit the trees. Metal shrieked in protest, and this time Erin let go of Angie's arm, and she slammed into someone—Tavi, she thought, but their shades shielded them from harm. The helicopter spun about on its nose, and she felt the tail assembly rip free. The spinning stopped, leaving the aircraft sitting on an angle but on the ground.
It took a moment for her brain to process the fact they were alive.
Then Erin and Tec were hustling her out of the aircraft, each hauling on an arm as if she were an invalid. "I've done this before," she yelled at them, but they weren't listening. Although if she were being honest, she had fallen out of her last helicopter before it crashed.
Still.
The others rushed out after them. The aircraft smoked but didn't burn. Maybe the autorotation had extinguished the engine fire. When they were clear of the wreck, Casey, a wry grin on his face, shook his head in wonder. "Well, any landing you can walk away from…"
"It's coming back!" Tec yelled, pointing to the sky.
The dragon had banked to come around again, clearly taking its time now. The others opened fire, but there was no way such small-caliber bullets were going to do anything more than piss it off. Angie's blood ran cold, but she moved in front of everyone. "Get behind me! Hurry!"
She didn't know if the Shade King had the power to protect them a second time, but it was all she had.
The dragon rushed toward them, gliding in on its massive wings, looking like the apex predator it was, a falcon about to land on a field mouse. Fire blossomed in the dragon's maw.
Angie’s left palm throbbed.
And her terror was replaced by wonder as a second dragon dropped out of the night sky, coming in on the first from above in a silent descent.
It was Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent.
Chapter 43
Quetzalcoatl's strike was perfect as it dove into the unprotected rear of the other dragon, ripping and clawing at its wings and head from behind. The dragon screamed in pain and surprise, and they fell together, their tails whipping about. The crash as they hit was like an earthquake, shattering trees and throwing up a deluge of dirt.
"Run!" someone yelled, but Angie didn't need the encourageme
nt; no one did.
They bolted away, propelled by terror as the two titans fought. Trees fell like chaff, shattered by forked tail, wing, and claw. Angie ran, pain spiking through her lungs, but never had she run faster. Once again, Rowan carried Wyn Renna. A flying tree hit one of the elves, crushing him into a smear, and Angie felt the Shade King protect her once more with another shield, but she didn't have time to stop. Her every thought was focused on one goal: escape.
The roars of the dragons pursued them. Their epic battle flattened trees all about them, reducing much of the surrounding forest to splinters. Angie, unable to run any further, with her lungs feeling as though they were about to burst out her throat, reached the others, who had taken shelter within a gully. She dropped beside Tavi, rolled over onto her belly, and peered over the lip just as Quetzalcoatl, hundreds of meters away, bit into the other dragon's throat and shook it savagely, tearing chunks of scaled flesh loose. Fire blossomed about the wound, but the winged serpent kept its death grip, shaking the other dragon. The dying dragon's tail flapped about wildly, severing trees, but in moments, the beast stilled, its neck bitten almost entirely through.
"He came," Tec whispered in reverence. "Despite his premonitions, the risk he was taking, he came." He looked to Angie with eyes wide with awe.
"Oh shit," said Casey in fear, staring up into the sky above Quetzalcoatl.
A third dragon dropped out of the sky. This one was larger than both others, its scales black like night—and it had the advantage of surprise and height.
"No!" screamed Tec, rising to stand but unable to do anything.
The third dragon, its black wings spread wide, its talons larger than a man, struck Quetzalcoatl from above with a thunder that shook the earth.
Tec tried to run to help, but Casey and Erin tackled him and held him down. Pain flared through Angie's skull, and her left palm throbbed with fire. She dropped to her knees, crying out and gripping her hand against her chest. The fight was over before it began. The massive black dragon ripped Quetzalcoatl apart, tearing its snakelike feathered head from its body in a gristly wrench of its powerful maw.
Angie remembered little after that, her pain and loss overpowering her. Someone carried her, and she remembered flashes as they hurried away through the trees. It felt like a dream … a nightmare.
Sometime later, they stopped, and Erin gently placed her down next to a stream and splashed water on her face. Tec lay nearby, carried here by Casey, and Tavi and the single surviving elf tended Wyn Renna. The sun had risen, its glow golden, and the stream gurgled happily, as if unaware the world had just lost a champion it couldn't afford to lose.
"I think we're in the clear," Rowan said. "It didn't even try to come after us. Maybe it didn't see us."
"Or it didn't care," Casey said.
"Both," Tec said, his voice breaking. He sat up, still naked, and stared at his palm. Tears ran down his strong face, and Angie realized she, too, was crying. "They were both in Zolin," continued Tec, his voice breaking. "Tezcatlipoca and his monstrous sister, Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly."
And then Angie crawled to him, embracing the were-jaguar, burying her face in his neck. "He came to save you," she whispered. "To save us all. He knew. He knew it would be his death, and he came anyhow."
Tec embraced her, his sobs wracking his powerful body.
Once they were certain Itzpapalotl, the black dragon, was gone, Angie and the others returned to the wreckage of the Shrike, taking what they could recover: a handful of sub-guns, some ammunition, and the aircraft's survival and first aid kits. There was a satellite phone in the kit, but the last satellite had long ago ceased working, nor was there anyone to contact with it anyhow, so they left it with the wreck. Each still carried their tactical radio, but they were deep within enemy territory and hundreds of kilometers from anyone they wanted to talk to. There was damned little food and almost no water, but the Seagraves claimed water was plentiful in the mountains, and they could hunt for food. When there was nothing else left to take, they set off north.
It took two days before they found the first settlement, a small Aztalan village. Wyn Renna was unhurt but quietly somber, still in shock from her ordeal. Tavi seemed awkward around the woman she had always known as Constance Morgan but who had never really been human. It would take her time to accept this, Angie knew. Everyone’s world had changed.
Angie's dragon-mark was cold now, as was Tec's. Tec was beyond morose, barely speaking and only when directly addressed, but he did explain in halting words that the mark Quetzalcoatl had bestowed upon her had not only saved Angie’s life by gifting her with the healing powers of the Black Pool but had also linked her with the feathered serpent. When she had realized one of the dragons was in the cavern, Quetzalcoatl knew it as well and had left his lair, preparing himself for battle.
She didn't know if the dragon had known he was outnumbered and had come anyway, but she suspected it.
The farming settlement was eerily quiet, and Erin slipped closer to scout it out. She returned bearing stolen clothing for Tec and Wyn Renna, stating that she had only seen old men and women and children; there were no fighting-aged males. Despite the lack of men, Rowan decided to avoid the settlement entirely, and they moved north.
Three days later, their tactical radios picked up the first communications, snatches of Spanish, not the Spanglish so prevalent among the Nortenos. Tavi, her hand covering one ear, listened to the broken transmissions, her face turning pale. When she finally looked up and met Angie's eyes, her lips trembled.
"What is it?"
"Aztalan military communications. The invasion has begun."
The End
The story concludes in Firestorm: Book 3 of the Awakened World Trilogy.
Book 3 Firestorm
Chapter 1
26 August 2053
The underground temple of Zolin, Baja California
Eighteen years after the Awakening
Two days before the full moon
While the human woman prattled on about the war, the ancient black dragon daydreamed of immortality.
The dragon's true name was lost to the ages and now known only to her, and she barely remembered it herself, but her Tzitzime cultists called her Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly. The name was apt. Foot-wide black scales covered her underbelly, forming a coat of armor. Three-foot-long curved black claws jutted from her powerful arms and legs. Her magnificent dark wings were formed from near-impenetrable black membranes with wing fingers tipped with black bone spikes. Her powerful, long body was covered with pebbled black hide almost as tough as her scales. Her long black horns curled back from a serpentine head the size of a truck, with dark eyes that saw everything. Long black spikes ran down her spine to a powerful spiked tail that could shatter stone. Her teeth … ah, her teeth … they were her finest attribute. Each was longer than a sword and stronger than steel, and each tooth was the same beautiful black as the rest of her. She was darker than a starless night, darker than the depths of the sea … almost as dark as her daydreams.
Yes, as far as names went, Obsidian Butterfly would do.
Itzpapalotl was black death.
The woman, overweight with fleshy jowls and short dark hair, was named Tlaco and was her new Mother Smoke Heart, the new high priestess of the Tzitzime, the cult of human fools that worshipped Itzpapalotl. For a high priestess, so far, this one had been a dismal disappointment, considerably inferior to the previous Mother Smoke Heart, Rayan Zar Davi, who had served Itzpapalotl and her brother for more than two hundred years. But Rayan Zar Davi had failed the dragon and allowed intruders to attack the underground temple of Zolin and steal away the only prize that mattered, the Haanal X’ib, the elven changeling whose blood held the power to free Itzpapalotl’s sire, Memnog the World Eater, from his prison of stone. And for that, Rayan Zar Davi had to die. But this woman … Stars and Fire, she prattled on. Itzpapalotl grew more annoyed as the woman described the unimportant details of the recent fighting far
to the north. She had more pressing concerns than the inevitable military victories of the Aztalan Empire.
"I don't care about that," Itzpapalotl said, interrupting her, her voice a powerful hiss. "I should devour you for wasting my time."
The fear scent, the prey scent, wafted through the cavern, pleasing Itzpapalotl, and she shifted position, her scales grinding against the stones of the underground temple's surface. The other Tzitzime servants wisely drew back, as far from Itzpapalotl as they could get atop the wide stone surface of the temple of Zolin.
Itzpapalotl’s dark eyes narrowed on the woman before her, who was now shaking in fear. Her brother Tezcatlipoca had always believed fear ruined humans’ meat, made it too tough, but Itzpapalotl preferred her prey chewy. She liked it when, days later, her tongue would work free a morsel of tough flesh wedged between her teeth. Those morsels were always a special treat.
"Where are those who defiled my temple?" she demanded. "Where is the Haanal X’ib? Nothing else matters."
"We..." The woman's fear scent grew stronger, becoming near irresistible. "We have found their wrecked helicopter. They will never escape Baja California."
Itzpapalotl shifted one of her forelegs, and her clawed talons scraped across the temple's surface, scoring a groove in the stone. She sighed, her breath like a bellows. "It’s been three days now. I grow weary of your useless promises."
"They can't escape, Beautiful Mistress," said Tlaco. "Not on foot."
"Yet so far, they have."
Itzpapalotl curled her powerful wings tighter about her frame. Even with her wings wrapped about her, her beautiful body covered most of the temple's surface, leaving little room for her advisers: the woman briefing her, a handful of other cultists, and Aernyx, now pretending to be a young human man with pale white skin and long dark hair. Aernyx was so ordinary in appearance, humans often failed to see him until it was too late.
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 58