Then, just on the other side of the open doorway, Marshal and Carter staggered down the hallway. Marshal had been walking with a cane, with Carter holding his arm to help him. Here, amidst the fighting, the two elderly leaders had been reduced to spectators. And Marshal had looked like death.
Erin touched Angie's arm. "You okay?"
Angie startled. "Yeah. I'm fine. I have to talk to someone. Watch the egg for me."
"Of course."
Angie caught up to Marshal and Carter in the hallway. "First Councilor," she said, her pulse quick. "Colonel ... Duncan. We need to talk."
The man who slowly turned to face her was a pale reflection of the leader who had set up the first protected zone, established the Concord with the Fey, and had started the long process of rebuilding humanity by establishing the walled cities and the Commonwealth of Cascadia. Presidente Monique Carter, Marshal's long-time rival in the Democratic Republica Mexicana Del Norte, looked almost as tired as Marshal. No, she corrected herself, that wasn't true. Carter looked her age, but Marshal looked like he already had one foot in the grave.
HE'S DYING, the Shade King said softly. SICKNESS TAKES HIS LIFE. THESE ARE HIS FINAL DAYS.
Shock coursed through her. The Shade King was right. She saw it now. He must have been sick the last time she had seen him, when he had visited her at the hospital after the attack on her life by the Tzitzime assassins.
"You're dying," she said, more to herself than to him.
Carter's lips parted, but Marshal placed a hand on her arm. "Monique," he said in a voice little more than a rasp. "Perhaps you could leave me with Angela for a few minutes."
"Of course," the elderly black woman answered, but she flashed Angie a look of warning. "I won't be far." She left them alone.
"I have a study down the hall," he said, unable or unwilling to meet her eyes. "It's quiet. Perhaps we could sit?"
She took his arm. "That would be nice, Duncan."
Angie slowly led him down the hall and into the study. The small chamber was in disarray, with empty ammunition crates and supplies placed haphazardly, but a comfortable couch remained, and she helped ease him into it before pulling up an empty wooden ammo box and sitting in front of him.
She barely recognized him, and he wouldn’t look her in the eyes.
When she had been a little girl, he had been like a superhero, filled with endless energy, drive, and optimism. He had nearly singlehandedly saved tens of thousands of lives, maybe more. He had been bald even then, but now his ears and nose seemed too large for his skull, his skin hung like loose drapes, and his red-rimmed eyes were filled with pain. Moving, speaking ... it was all taking a toll on him. A part of her felt guilty for what she had to do next, but another part of her was angry; he had masterminded the deception that had been her life.
Angie took his hands, held them firmly. "I know," she said simply.
He finally met her eyes. "How much?" he asked in a voice little more than a rasp.
"I think ... just about everything. Project Grendel, the dragon, the truth behind the Concord ... how my father died." She still couldn’t bring herself to say out loud that she had killed him. "And how the dragon erased my memories."
"I'm sorry." His voice broke. "I couldn't ... couldn't do anything to help. The dragon..."
She shushed him. "It's ... it's not okay, but it wasn't your fault. It wasn't even my fault. It was just … how I was born. Fate. An inevitable result of this thing I was born with, this..." She bit her lower lip, her emotions surging. "I don’t want to call it a gift or a curse. It just is what it is. I'm a source mage. I take my magic from the life force of others. There was no way I could control it, not back then. I see that now. If the dragon hadn’t blocked my memories of killing my father, I'd have killed myself, or worse, become a monster like the other source mages."
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts—"
She squeezed his hands. "Yes, Duncan. Yes. But that didn’t happen. I'm still alive, and I have the power to help others now. And maybe, just maybe, I can bring a good dragon back into this world. God knows we can use one now."
"I don't..."
"Don't worry. Your fight is over. You've brought us this far. We'll take it the rest of the way."
"Angela, my precious child. You were like a daughter to me. I lied to you."
"I know, but I forgive you."
"Forgive ... forgive yourself ... for your father." He pulled his hand free and gripped her wrist, turning it to look at the old Beobachtungs-uhren observation watch. "He’d be so proud of you."
"I'm working on it." She gently pried her wrist free. "Duncan. Where's my mother and brother?"
He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down his cheek. "New Seattle. She's ... she has a new family. She remarried. Her new name is Cassidy. Her husband is ... he's a good man. So is your brother, trained as a doctor, I'm told. Your father would be happy. He was a good man, too, Angela, a great man even, a far better man than I am ... was."
"You did your best, Duncan. You always did your best."
"I'm ... I'm sorry about Nathan. I was so wrong about him. He ... he wanted to kill me. He almost killed you. I'm so sorry. I … I thought he’d take over after me, be a better leader than I ever was. I was so stupid, such an old fool."
His thin shoulders shuddered with emotion, and her heart went out to him. If she had been like a daughter to this man, Nathan had been his golden-boy son, a handsome, brave warrior, but fundamentally flawed ... broken, filled with hatred and racism.
"Hey," she said, putting a smile on her lips and lifting his chin so that he met her eyes. "At least you didn't sleep with him."
He chuckled and then began to cough so badly that she sat beside him on the couch and rubbed his back. She pulled his head against her shoulder, comforting him. Now he was a child and she the parent. When had the world changed?
When he finally spoke, it was just a whisper. "What do I do? I don't know what to do. What to do."
"Do nothing," she said softly. "You do nothing, sailor. Your duty is over." As she held him, her eyes lingered on the watch she wore, her father's watch, a heirloom of the Ritter family, the watch that this man had taken from her father's corpse and given to Char to give to her—even after she had accidentally killed him. The inscription on the back read, Pflicht, Familie, Liebe—Duty, Family, Love.
"But what will you do?" he asked.
She smiled, tenderly holding his head against her shoulder. "What we Ritters always do: fight for those we love."
Rayan Zar Davi studied the city's walls. The early-afternoon sun beat down on her, making a bad day insufferably worse. The trucks had long since burned out in the fields, and their blackened hulls mocked her. The early-morning attack should have worked, would have worked if not for the arrival of the helicopter gunship. Now, her spies in the city reported that the helicopter had carried the Seagrave werewolf family and that they had brought ammunition to bolster the city's defenses. Rayan wasn't sure which arrival was worse, the ammunition or the Seagraves. That family held near-legendary status in the city. Their presence would stiffen resolve, and resolve was critical in the fighting. Without it, the city would fall with a whimper; with it, they’d resist to the bitter end. There was nothing in this world Rayan detested more than heroes.
Damn that cursed family.
Once, she had had all of them, blinded and in chains. If only she had slit their throats then.
Damn, damn, damn.
And then there was that insufferable Ritter woman. Her spies reported she too had been on the helicopter with some strange golden object the others had made a fuss over. That one had proven herself a dangerous foe, much more powerful than she should have been. Rayan had driven her pulwar right through the woman’s chest—and yet she lived. What was her secret? And how many times would Rayan have to kill her before she finally died?
As many as it takes, she told herself bitterly. This time, Rayan would cut her head off and stick it on a spike on the wall
.
She had ten times the forces needed to capture the city. They had set up a half dozen anti-aircraft heavy machine gun positions around the city. If that helicopter tried to fly again, they’d shoot it out of the sky. Her forces were mustering for one last prolonged battle. It would start soon, just before three p.m., and it would continue until the city fell and her enemies were dead—except for Wyn Renna. When the time came, Rayan would take her alive personally.
A man behind her cleared his throat.
Irritated, she turned and immediately recognized the man standing behind her as one of the Tzitzime cultists she had left back at the temple. He was one of the promising young mages, thin and dark-haired with a shiny face covered in tattoos and a large jade stud through his bulbous nose. He wore an elven longsword, no doubt taken from the plunder of Coronado, on his hip. He wore multicolored robes, with his arms bare, but carried a large bundle in a green duffel bag. Muluc, she remembered. His name is Muluc. He has ambition, this one. She was aware another bush plane had arrived earlier but had assumed it carried orders from the dragon. Clearly it had also carried a passenger.
Her eyes narrowed on the duffel bag he carried. "Why are you here, Muluc?"
"Mother Smoke Heart," the man said obsequiously, his gaze lowered. "The Beautiful Mistress herself has sent me. I bring her gift to you, as well as her words."
"Show me." Rayan's heart quickened.
Muluc knelt, setting the duffel bag on the ground and unzipping it. He pulled out what looked like a thick motorcycle jacket but built of an oddly textured material consisting of shiny blue-green plates the size of her fist. She gasped in wonder when she realized what she was looking at: a jacket reinforced with handcrafted scales, dragon scales. "That's..."
"Built from the scales of the Lord of the Smoking Mirror, Tezcatlipoca," Muluc said in reverence, holding the jacket up for her. He showed her the green pebbled interior. "The lining is made from the skin of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl. Armor built from not one but two great dragons."
Rayan held her breath as she trailed her fingers over the material, partially created from the scales of her mistress’s own brother. As Rayan’s fingers touched the scales, power coursed up her arm, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
"It's beautiful. Breathtaking." And it was. Chararah Succubus and Elenaril Cloudborn had spent their lives amassing relics and artifacts of magical power, but neither had ever possessed anything so majestic.
"And here are our mistress’s words," Muluc said. "This gift is to our most beloved servant, Mother Smoke Heart. She is to don it in the battle to come. It will safeguard her. No steel, even hexed, will penetrate this armor, but in return, she must bring us the prize, the Haanal X'ib."
"I ... yes, I'm honored," she said breathlessly. The sunlight glittered off the blue-green scales. It was mesmerizing, like staring into a cobra's eyes.
"If she fails," Muluc continued, "she will die in this armor."
"I will not fail."
Now the final battle couldn't come soon enough.
Chapter 46
Just after three p.m., the enemy attacked.
Angie stood on the walls with Tec as the Aztalan army advanced from all directions. Bullets cracked overhead, but she was in no danger; the Shade King would protect her. Rowan knelt nearby, using binoculars to scan the terrain surrounding the city. This time, Wyn Renna remained in the headquarters in City Hall, the egg with her for safekeeping. The defenders waited until the enemy had closed to within two hundred meters and then opened fire, bringing the attack to a crawl. They had been resupplied, but the ammunition would only last so long, especially when fighting on all sides.
Rowan keyed his microphone—the Seagraves had taken the liberty of "borrowing" more tactical radios from Tec's stash—and Angie, listening in on her own earpiece, heard Rowan's instructions. "Casey, Erin, you two in position?"
"Roger," Jay replied, all business. Jay was with Erin somewhere on the wall, acting as her spotter.
"Roger dodger," Casey replied.
"Okay, little brother, pop up and draw some attention."
"Commencing first gun run," Casey replied in a bored tone.
She spun about as the Blackhawk rose into the air and shot forward, passing twenty feet overhead before banking and lining up on his target, one of the assault groups. Casey opened fire with the Gatling gun, cutting apart scores of Aztalan soldiers and sending others scurrying for cover.
Almost immediately, two of the heavy machine gun positions opened fire, sending streams of red tracers at the helicopter. Casey spun in place, turning the aircraft's nose and releasing one of his hellfire missiles before banking once more and flying back into the city, dropping out of sight behind the walls. His missile detonated in the far woods, at least three hundred meters away, near where Angie had seen some of the tracers originating. If Casey had hit a machine gun position in the split second he had had to aim before ducking back again behind the wall, then he really was as good as he bragged.
"Target identified," Jay said. "Engaging."
"Come on," Tec said, peering over the wall.
A moment later, Angie heard the loud detonation of a heavy-caliber weapon, the 50-caliber anti-materiel rifle Erin had brought along. Seconds later, they heard another gunshot, followed moments later by a third.
"Got it. She's got the gun," Jay said over the radio, this time with a trace of excitement in his voice. "I think maybe Casey hit the other with his missile. Pretty good shooting for a first time."
Erin, Angie knew, was aiming for the heavy machine guns themselves, trying to destroy them—and even a glancing hit with a 50-caliber bullet would do the job.
"Don't get cocky," Rowan admonished. "And don't take unnecessary chances, Casey. You're a much bigger target than they are."
"You're not wrong," Casey said in his bored tone. "Took some light damage to the air frame on that go, but she's still airworthy... I hope."
"Okay," Rowan said. "Jay, you and Erin move to the eastern wall, find a shooting angle, and we'll go again in ten."
"On it," Jay answered.
Angie rested her hand on Tec's shoulder. "This is going surprisingly well."
"That's what bothers me. No plan ever works out once the shooting starts."
She snorted, smiling despite the death around them. "I'd hardly call this idea a 'plan.' More like an act of desperation."
They only needed to take out a few more of the gun positions, and then Casey could concentrate his attack runs on the enemy's main thrust, the assault on the breached gates along the southern wall. Tec, Rowan, and Wyn Renna had already concluded that this was where the enemy would focus their efforts. Angie was certain they were right. There had to be at least two Aztalan brigades moving forward, with another two in support to the rear to exploit a breakthrough.
They couldn't allow a breakthrough.
All too soon, Jay radioed in that he and Erin were in position along the eastern wall. Rowan keyed his handset. "Casey, show them your big ass again."
The radio beeped. "That's just mean." Then the Blackhawk's engine whined as the aircraft took off again from Veteran's Square. Casey shot out over the city, flying straight for the eastern wall. The moment he cleared the wall, he opened fire with his Gatling gun. From their position along the southern wall, Angie and Tec could see very little, but they heard the whine of the Gatling gun.
When Jay's voice came over the radio again, there was a hint of excitement in it. "Okay, bro, we've located the gun. Get out of there. I think you're trailing smoke."
"Trailing more than smoke," Casey answered calmly. "Got a warning alarm. I think I'm good though. Just need to put her down for a look-see."
Angie stood on tiptoes, her pulse racing as the helicopter banked to come around and return to the city. Jay had been correct. The aircraft was trailing a thin line of smoke. She had no idea how serious it was, but any smoke couldn't be a good thing. And then she heard screams of alarm coming from others along the w
all. She spun about.
"Dragon!" someone yelled, the word sending a dart of fear through her heart.
Dropping out of the sun was a large dark shape—the black dragon Itzpapalotl, the same monster that had razed Coronado and killed Quetzalcoatl.
Defenders opened fire, but there was no way a bullet could hurt such an armored beast. It breathed fire on the city, burning an entire block of buildings before altering course and flying right at Casey's helicopter.
"Evade, evade!" Rowan yelled into his radio.
But there was no chance. The clawed talons of the dragon's forelegs ripped through the Blackhawk's tail rotor assembly, the blades snapping off. The Blackhawk spun, trailing a thick plume of black smoke. It was going to crash just outside the city walls.
"Well, shit," was Casey’s only transmission.
She never saw the helicopter hit, but she heard it, saw the smoke rising behind the eastern wall.
"No!" Angie screamed in anguish, her heart shrinking. She took three running steps along the wall before Tec caught her, wrapping his arms around her and bringing her down, covering her with his body. She was furious with him—until she saw the dragon flying along the wall toward them, fire blossoming from its throat.
Flames washed over them.
Rayan Zar Davi wasn't expecting her mistress's arrival, but she recognized the opportunity the dragon's surprise appearance had given her. As the dragon's fire swept over the southern wall, the gunfire directed at her lead brigades ceased. Burning humans fell from the walls, screaming before striking the ground. The beautiful black dragon beat her wings, gaining altitude and turning for another strike.
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 91