The Awakened World Boxed Set

by William Stacey

  But that was an evolutionary design. Aernyx was as much a predator as she.

  "And what of your children, Aernyx? Have you done as I asked, or do you disappoint me as well?"

  The young man stepped forward. He wore a simple brown toga and was barefoot. Unlike the humans, he did not have the fear scent—he was wary; she could smell his cautiousness—but he wasn’t terrified of her. That was a mistake. But it wasn’t yet time to teach him the error of his ways.

  That would come when she no longer needed him.

  Aernyx inclined his head in respect—albeit not enough, never enough for her. The worm should grovel on his belly before her. "I have, Beautiful Mistress," he said in a quiet, calm voice designed to put others at ease. "Each military outpost within two hundred kilometers now contains one of my Night Kin. I will know what they know."

  "Good," the dragon rumbled, steam hissing from nostrils a foot wide.

  She wanted to punish those who had dared attack her temple, but she needed the female changeling back, the elven woman who wore a human face—Wyn Renna, she was named, the daughter of the elven queen Elenaril Cloudborn, which meant that Elenaril herself must have sent the intruders, the stupid elven cow. They had dared to assault the underground temple of Zolin, slaughtering her servants and stealing away the elven changeling. And they had lured her twin brother Tezcatlipoca out into the open, where he had been ambushed and killed by the feathered serpent, the coward Quetzalcoatl. But Itzpapalotl had avenged her brother, ripping the feathered serpent's craven head from his snakelike body. She should have been relieved.

  She wasn't.

  More than two thousand years ago, an Olmtec Seer—one blessed with the magic to see the future and known as the Golden Dawn—had predicted the blood of the Haanal X'ib, the female who was changed, held the power to undo the stone binding of the treacherous wyrms. That could only mean that Wyn Renna's blood would free Itzpapalotl's sire Memnog the World Eater, a being so powerful he was more akin to a god than a dragon. Memnog had been basely turned to stone by a cabal of other great dragons. But prophesy was a tricky matter, and the Golden Dawn's predictions had been originally recorded in ancient Olmtec and then translated into Mayan and Aztec. Mistakes became inevitable. Itzpapalotl herself had studied the translations, and she knew something even her twin brother hadn't: there was another part of the prophesy, one known only to Itzpapalotl—"the feathered serpent would forecast doom for the dark butterfly."

  Quetzalcoatl might kill her.

  There could be no other meaning. But Quetzalcoatl was dead at her own claws, so perhaps the translation had meant something subtly different, that Quetzalcoatl would doom the brother of the dark butterfly? Or perhaps it referred to the Jaguar Knight, the human champion of Quetzalcoatl who had also been rescued during the raid on the temple. Prophesy was maddening, but one thing was clear: Itzpapalotl was now the last dragon on Earth, the last of her kind. She had nothing to fear.

  But the prophesy...

  And there was another matter that bothered her. When her brother had pursued the fools who had attacked their temple, he had breathed fire on their aircraft. Dragon’s breath should have melted the aircraft to slag, but it hadn’t. Something had shielded the aircraft with magic. Her enemies were keeping a secret from her, and what she didn’t know might kill her. Her anger burned white hot. No. She would never die. She would devour her enemies and free her sire. And when Memnog the World Eater, the dragon god of destiny, was free, he’d reward Itzpapalotl with her own divinity: true immortality.

  Her eyes narrowed on the Tzitzime blood mage Tlaco. "Rayan Zar Davi," she said, her voice like thunder. "She lives still?"

  "Yes, Beautiful Mistress. The traitor is in a cell awaiting punishment."

  "Good. Rayan Zar Davi has served us faithfully for more than two hundred years. It is fitting she serve us one last time. I wish to summon Sudden Bloodletter, the Death Bat."

  Tlaco's fear scent surged deliciously.

  Chapter 2

  Fog covered the broken ground as the two women slipped through the old graveyard, edging past the weathered, crumbling tombstones. The night was pitch-black, the southern stars obscured by clouds, but Angie Ritter wore a set of fourth-generation night-vision goggles—NVGs—strapped to her face and saw the ancient cemetery in crystal-clear shades of green. Her companion, Erin Seagrave, didn’t wear NVGs but probably saw more clearly than Angie thanks to her werewolf condition, which also gave the young red-haired woman enhanced hearing and smell, as well as near-superhuman speed and strength. Angie was a small, superbly fit woman, but Erin was like a Greek goddess come to life, all muscle and beauty. Both women wore camouflaged combat uniforms, with their faces and hands darkened by camouflage paint, and each carried a silenced sub-gun, but Angie also wore her hexed side-sword Nightfall on her hip. She had wrapped a piece of cloth around its polished hilt to hide its shine.

  The small village’s graveyard sat at the base of an old Catholic church. The church, with its tall steeple, was surrounded by an eight-foot-high stone wall and sat atop a hill overseeing the small mountain village through which Angie and Erin had passed. They had neither seen nor heard a soul. Both village and church were dark and silent, hopefully fast asleep. With luck, she could use her magic to scout out the church, and then both women could return to the others.

  Weeds grew wildly in the graveyard, some reaching their knees. The wooden fence had fallen apart in places, and many of the tombstones had collapsed—or been kicked over. It was clear that no one in the village had maintained the graves since the arrival of the Aztalan military garrison in the church. The Aztalan government had contempt that bordered on hatred for what it termed the "New World" religions—meaning any religion that had its roots in Western civilization and not Mesoamerican culture. The distinction was pointless in Angie’s mind. Eighteen years after the Awakening—after the great dragons had brought down the Fey Sleep, awakening humanity to the supernatural that had been hidden from it since the Spanish Inquisition—there was little point to terms like New World, Mesoamerican, or Western civilization.

  There was only the Awakened World now.

  Angie took care to avoid stepping on the graves, but Erin walked where she'd make the least noise, not that the other woman ever made a sound anyhow, even with a bullet wound in her hip. Fortunately, the bullet had only torn through the muscle, creating superficial damage, and Angie had helped Erin’s oldest brother, Rowan, stitch it closed. Erin claimed it was nothing, but Angie was pretty sure if it had been her, she wouldn’t have been able to walk on it, let alone sneak through the wilderness. But Erin wasn't like other women, maybe because she was a werewolf, maybe because she was a badass who had grown up surrounded by warrior brothers. Angie was just glad she was her best friend.

  As they slipped closer to the hillside, Angie tasted sweat beading on her upper lip. Even this late at night, almost two a.m., the air was muggy. After days of hiding and hiking through the mountains of southern Baja California, her clothing chafed her skin. She was pretty sure she smelled worse than a Feral tribesman. They needed to get out of the wilderness and get to safety. If anywhere was still safe during an invasion.

  When Erin froze, Angie did the same, her breath catching in her throat. What was—

  Less than a dozen paces away, two large dogs, their eyes flashing green in Angie’s NVGs, stepped out from behind a set of crumbling tombstones. The dogs’ hackles were raised menacingly, their teeth bared in a silent growl. Both dogs looked wild, but if they barked this close to the fort...

  Angie's finger drifted over the trigger of her sub-gun, but she didn’t want to use the weapon. This close, even a suppressed gunshot would awaken the fort. Erin stood tall and glared at the dogs and then growled, baring her teeth. Goose bumps rose on Angie’s skin. The dogs' heads dropped in frightened submission, and a moment later, both darted into the underbrush. Erin looked over her shoulder and smiled at Angie, her teeth flashing.

  Dogs didn’t mess with werewolves.<
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  Erin moved on, and Angie followed. They approached the worn path leading up the hill to the church and its high stone wall. Angie did her best to walk as Erin had taught her, setting each foot carefully along its outer edge and then rolling forward on the foot’s edge—ghost walking. She was getting better at it, even she realized that, but she felt like a lead-footed clown next to Erin. Angie had been a soldier, a mage in the Commonwealth of Cascadia’s Home Guard, and she had been trained in fieldcraft, tactics, and weapons, but she’d never be as stealthy as Erin. Erin could sneak up on a squirrel without it noticing. But then, Angie had been the unit S2, the intelligence officer, while Erin and her brothers had been the unit’s elite door-kickers, a family of werewolf assault troops. Of course, that had been before Angie and the Seagraves had become traitors to the Commonwealth. If they returned home now, they’d be hanged on sight.

  It was a price Angie had been more than happy to pay to save her friends.

  It was hard to see from the base of the hill, with the stone wall surrounding it, but Angie knew the old Catholic church was a large single-story structure with a high bell tower. The church was ancient, probably well over a hundred years old, and built of wood and adobe, a sun-dried brick of clay and straw that didn't really age very well. Once, it had been whitewashed, but the paint had long since faded away through exposure. Old or not, the church remained the highest place in the mountain village and easily defensible. This close, she now saw that a tall radio antenna rose above the church tower—The fort has a radio?

  After the Awakening—or A-Day, as it came to be known—the magical backlash that followed the breaking of the global Fey Sleep spell had also destroyed most of the planet's electronics, plunging humanity into a new dark age. Some electronics had survived, the rare equipment that had somehow been shielded, and some others—the simpler stuff—had been rebuilt by the survivors, but working radios, much like functioning generators, were always hard to come by and worth more than lives. If the Aztalan military could afford to put a radio in a small outpost like this, so far removed from the war, then they were far better equipped than anyone suspected.

  And that was a disturbing thought.

  Erin brought Angie up the path to the stone wall and wrought iron gate, closed and locked, of course. From this close, the scent of wood smoke was strong, most likely the embers of a still-smoking campfire.

  Rowan had estimated the garrison’s strength to be no more than a section of men, eight to ten soldiers with a senior sergeant in command, but they needed to know for certain. Erin had tried to scout out the church from a higher vantage point a kilometer away but couldn't see much over the wall. She had seen horses and a makeshift wooden stable next to the church, which was what had interested Rowan the most. Here, at the southern end of the Baja California peninsula, they were more than a thousand kilometers from safety, deep within hostile territory with the Aztalan military actively hunting them. If they wanted to escape, they needed horses. Two of their party didn’t even have footwear, and there was no way they were going to walk a thousand kilometers barefoot.

  No, she mused. We need the supplies and horses inside this church.

  Erin dropped to a knee behind the wall, motioning Angie to drop as well. In the darkness, Erin’s eyes flashed like a wolf's as she nodded at Angie. Erin's job had been to get Angie close enough to the church to use her special magic, her life-sense ability. Now it was up to Angie.

  Angie closed her eyes and sent out her consciousness, probing the area for life forms. In a flash, every living thing within a couple hundred meters flared into existence within her mind’s eye, glowing like candle flames. The smaller life forms, the birds, mice, and vermin, she ignored, instead working her way through the larger creatures, counting only men or horses. Rowan’s estimate had been good. There were eight men inside the church, a section. Most of the men lay prone, sleeping, but two men were upright and moving. One stood in the bell tower, while the other patrolled the interior wall of the church. Two sentries, then. One would have been better, but two was doable.

  She exhaled and opened her eyes, nodding to Erin and holding up eight fingers and then making fists before holding up two more fingers—eight men, two sentries. Erin nodded. They had all the information they needed. A section of men was far more reasonable than they had any right to hope for. Hell, Erin could probably take out both sentries herself right now. That would be stupid, of course, and Rowan would be furious. But she could.

  What would Tec think if Angie and Erin foolishly risked their lives?

  Would Tec even care?

  The strange were-jaguar warrior had been uncharacteristically morose since the death of his master, the dragon Quetzalcoatl, and had barely said a word to anyone in the days since. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she found herself watching him almost constantly in the days since escaping the temple of Zolin. Her thoughts always drifted to him, as if he were a magnet and she iron fillings. It wasn't just that he was good-looking—hell, he was probably the sexiest man she had ever seen—but something else was going on between her and him, something ... screwy. The other night, she had lain on the hard ground, watching his face as he slept, and she had been inexplicably aroused, wanting nothing more than to pull her pants down and jump his bones. No man was that good-looking, not even a were-jaguar with mesmerizing green eyes. Yet even now, her thoughts drifted to him, to his powerful biceps, to his—

  Erin shoved her shoulder again, her eyes slits.

  Angie's face heated beneath her night-vision glasses, and she mouthed the word "sorry." Erin shook her head and led her back down the hill, through the graveyard, and into the sleeping village.

  Rowan and the others waited for them in the mountains to the south of the village. Their party consisted of Rowan and Erin's other two brothers, Casey and Jay, as well as the elven changeling Wyn Renna and Deldin Gar, the only surviving member of the elven Phoenix Guard that had helped raid the temple; Octavia "Tavi" Navarro, a Norteno combat mage, one of the famed Brujas Fantasmas, the Ghost Witches; and Tec, the man who filled Angie with inappropriate thoughts.

  Erin led Angie through the village and then out into the surrounding woods. Erin, in her element, moved quickly and silently, but Angie almost walked into Erin before she realized the other woman had stopped.

  Erin dropped to a knee, pulling Angie down with her. They had come to a small mountain road, little more than a hardened dirt path through the woods that led to the village, but now Angie heard the clopping of horses' hooves and the jingle of harness. Riders were coming, and by the sounds, quite a few. The two women remained in place, hiding behind bushes. A horse nickered, and a moment later, horse and rider came into sight, moving down the path toward the village. More riders followed, a long line of mounted soldiers, all carrying rifles.

  Angie held her breath, and Erin eased her sub-gun into her shoulder, her finger resting on the trigger guard. Angie forced down her anxiety and closed her eyes, casting out her life-sense magic once more. She counted a dozen horses and riders as well as a long line of people walking alongside the horses. Many were children, she recognized with a start. The soldiers were herding prisoners. She opened her eyes and saw the prisoners now, bound neck to neck, including the children. There were thirty of them, mostly women, and at least a third were children, some as young as five or six. What the hell is this?

  The mounted men were Aztalan soldiers, but the man leading them wore a heavy cavalry saber on his hip. She guessed his sword was hexed, which made him a mage. Only hexed weapons could slip past the magical shields a mage's shade—the supernatural spirit-like entity that shared a mage’s body—created to protect their mage host. Shades helped mages survive the caustic effect of using mana to create magic. In return, the shade kept the mage alive, shielding him or her from just about any threat—other than a hexed blade. If this man was a mage, then he was a Tzitzime blood mage and would be dangerous. He’d know magic spells she didn’t.

  As the prisoners mov
ed past, Angie saw they were Ferals, the savage tribes who were all that was left of those people who couldn't find safety within the protected zones and walled cities after A-Day. Without laws or structure, the Ferals had degenerated into primitive cultures, the ultimate dog-eat-dog society, literally. She had never seen Feral women and children before, only the fighting-age males who attacked the walled farming communities, but now, seeing the misery on their faces, Angie felt pity for them. When one of the children stumbled and fell, the nearest rider beat him with a stick, eliciting howls of pain. Angie held her breath, her body rigid with anger.

  She and Erin couldn’t take on so many foes, not by themselves.

  The long line of prisoners and soldiers moved past on their way to the village and then the church atop the hill. There was no way Rowan would want to attack that church now, not with so many soldiers and a Tzitzime mage. As Erin rose and led Angie away, Angie couldn’t stop thinking about those prisoners. And what the Aztalans—infamous for their bloody sacrifices—were going to do to them.

  There was no way Angie was going to let that happen.

  Chapter 3

  Moss-covered boulders, some as large as wagons, lay strewn about the mountain gully where the others awaited Angie and Erin. As the two women came closer, a dark shape stepped out from behind one of the boulders, surprising Angie.

  "Ha! Got you," said Jayden "Jay" Seagrave, the second youngest of the Seagrave family.

  "Hardly." Erin brushed past him. "I smelled you two hundred yards back. Jesus, Jay, find a stream. You smell worse than Casey."