Dragon Spawn

by Eileen Wilks

  Lily decided not to ask what that meant. Gan would try to tell her, and then she’d really be confused. “So you think Ginger and Weng have to travel to reach a spot that correlates with the realm they want to cross to? One that doesn’t open up underwater or inside rock?”

  “Sure. That’s what the black dragon thinks, too. I don’t know what the other one—Reno—thinks. I don’t talk to him ’cause I don’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno. How come none of the wolves are going as wolves?”

  Rule answered that. “I’d wanted some to go four-legged, but there won’t be enough of us for that to work. Wolves can’t carry children.”

  Or use weapons or ride motorcycles. And Dis had no moon. No moon meant no Change, so whatever form the lupi were in when they entered the hell realm, that’s how they’d stay until they left.

  “No,” Grandmother said firmly. “I thank you, but I will not wear that.”

  Lily looked over her shoulder. The rest of their party was lined up on the path: Cullen on his dirt bike, then Cynna’s bike—she wasn’t on it at the moment—followed by Benedict and his passenger on a dual-sport Suzuki, then Mason and Max on the last adventure-style bike. Behind them were Carlos, Daniel, and Jude on dirt bikes.

  Benedict had room for a passenger because his Uzi—a nice little Vector Arms, full auto—was holstered under his arm. His extra clips were in a custom-made ammo belt he wore commando-style across his chest. He did sheath his machete on his back, but his passenger had assured him she could manage.

  His passenger was Grandmother. In full biker gear.

  Li Lei Yu wore the jeans Lily had seen her in at Sam’s lair with her own shoes, as they hadn’t been able to find boots to fit her. But her jacket, on loan from a young Nokolai still at terra tradis, was the real deal—black leather with zippers. With it she wore wraparound sunglasses and the boy’s helmet—black also, but with flames. Grandmother loved it.

  Cynna had been handing out necklaces with charms attached. Lily wasn’t wearing one because she couldn’t use charms—her magic ate theirs—but everyone else was. Everyone but Max, who insisted he couldn’t be affected by mind magic. And indeed, his mind was as slick as oil to Lily. Max—and Grandmother.

  “Take it,” Cynna urged. “You may be able to protect yourself from mind magic, but why spend that power if you don’t have to?”

  “You do not understand the nature of my protection or my power. I do not explain. I will not wear the charm.”

  “But the other one, the sleep charm—”

  Grandmother snorted. “If I cannot put someone to sleep without a charm, that bit of metal will not help.”

  “I’ll take it!” Gan piped up. “I’ve got shields, but a little extra protection won’t hurt. How do they work?”

  Cynna grimaced and looked up at Gan. “The first one shields against mental attack. It doesn’t work on passive magic, but it’s aces on blocking active attacks. I’ll activate it when I put it on you. You have to activate the sleep charm yourself. You do that by licking it, then you hold it against the skin of the person—or being—you want to put to sleep. You can’t take your hand away or they’ll wake up.”

  “Huh.” Gan wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to be close enough to anything we meet in Dis to touch them.”

  “It can also be used to keep someone who’s wounded asleep so they don’t suffer.”

  “It would be better if we didn’t get wounded. Demons like to eat the wounded ones. They shouldn’t eat you, and lupi are like humans, so they shouldn’t eat them, either, because of it making them go crazy, but with Xitil dead the rules won’t be working, so some of the stupid ones will—”

  “We won’t let them eat our wounded. Do you want the damn charms or not?”

  “Yes!” Gan held out both hands. “Throw me the necklace.”

  It is now time for silence. The gate builders commence.

  Quickly Cynna tossed the necklace up at Gan, who caught it. Then she hurried to her bike, which was leaning against a handy bit of rock. Apparently real dirt bikes, as opposed to the type of hybrid Lily was on, didn’t have kickstands.

  Lily peered around Rule’s shoulder to watch the clearing below.

  Twice she’d seen a gate opened. The first time it had been three Rhejes and Cullen doing the opening; they’d used chanting and candles, though Cullen had also done something with his athame. The second time a gnome had drawn an elaborate pattern involving runes.

  Runes and gnomes seemed to go together. This time, ten of the gnomes squatted in a circle, each with a rune laid into the dirt in front of him or her. The runes were as slick and dark as if they’d been ink-drawn on smooth paper rather than rough ground, but she hadn’t seen how they’d been formed. Gnome Number 11 stood at the southernmost point of the circle holding a small, glowing globe. If she was doing anything with that globe, it was nothing Lily’s eyes could see. Byuset made a slow circuit of the runes, pausing now and then to make some tiny adjustment with a long, thin blade.

  Go, go, go.

  Lily thought about Toby and wished desperately she could reach into that other realm with her mindsense—how in the world had Sam done that with Gan?—and tell him they were coming.

  Byuset moved to the center of the circle. He made a gesture with his blade. Slowly the runes lifted from the dirt . . . and began to rotate, moving clockwise—and inward, she realized as their movement quickened, guided by Byuset’s oversize athame. They were spiraling toward the center, moving ever faster. Any moment they’d smack into each other.

  She felt Reno’s sudden descent before she saw him—felt his mind plummet toward them. Rule shifted and kicked their motorcycle to life and she leaned into him the way she’d been told, arms around his waist. The roar from their engine was quickly joined by those behind them even as they were buffeted by wind and debris from dragon wings—and then she couldn’t see anything but dragon. Reno landed with his wings held high, his wingspan being wider than the clearing, furling them along his back as the rush of his landing carried him forward on four feet—straight for an almost invisible shimmer that suddenly loomed in the air, tall as a house, which made it just big enough for Reno when he lowered his head.

  As he hit that shimmer, he vanished—head gone, then neck, shoulders, belly, and tail—as if someone had scrubbed a reality eraser along the whole, enormous length of him. Then the tip of that tail reappeared, flicked once, and vanished again. That was the signal.

  Rule opened the throttle. Dirt flew from their passage, too, as they aimed for that shimmer. Her heart in her mouth—go, go, go!—Lily leaned forward with her mate and went roaring into hell. The shimmer shook her as they passed through, as if every cell in her body shuddered at once in a somatic scream, but quick as a thought, they were through. And the world changed.

  This world was slightly lower than the one they’d left. Their bike sailed through empty air to land with a jolt. Rule held them upright and accelerated. Around them, dirt and rocks—a rolling land, mounded here, dipping there. And empty. No plants, no grass, no demons, no—wait, were those trees? Lily caught only a glimpse as their bike growled up one of those low mounds half a football field away from where they’d entered. And stopped, the motor idling.

  It was cooler here. Not cold, but maybe ten degrees cooler. Overhead, an eerie sky glowed, devoid of sun, moon, or stars. Off to the right—the east, that should be—the trees she’d glimpsed. Only now she saw they were but the stripped skeletons of trees, dead black spears ranked along the rolling ground. Everywhere dirt and rocks. Off to the right, distant mountains were ghostly blue shadows against the glowing sky. Ahead the land was deceptively open. The gentle swells of earth could conceal any number of attackers, so she nudged the coiled-up sense in her gut and sent it out to check. And found nothing.

  “Where’s Reno?” Rule said as Cullen stopped beside them,
with Cynna’s bike right behind. Lily looked over her shoulder and saw Benedict and Grandmother heading toward them. Farther back, a shimmer in the air winked at her and gave birth to Mason and Max on a battered black motorcycle.

  “Overhead,” she said automatically.

  The air winked again and Carlos shot out.

  There was plenty of air, too, wasn’t there? It smelled dusty and dead, tinged with the exhausts from their bikes, but they had no trouble breathing it. Nor was there a firestorm. No demon hordes or demon princes . . . at least none she could see.

  Cynna pulled up beside Cullen; Benedict’s bike climbed to a stop on Rule’s right, and Carlos opened his throttle to catch up. Behind him the shimmering air birthed Jude, then Daniel . . . and stopped winking.

  “No minds nearby,” Lily said, “other than ours, not for thirty yards or so . . . shit. What’s he doing?”

  “What?”

  “Reno. He just shot off to the north. Northeast,” she corrected herself. “He’s in a hurry, too.” She quit fighting the pull, and immediately her mindsense shot out after him in a way that felt tactile to her, like reaching out a hand on an arm that stretched and stretched. Just before it connected, she made that hand into a fist—probably Sam would call that a metaphor, but it felt like a fist—and used her knuckles to rap on the icy crags of a mind mostly hidden. Cold on top, that mind, like Sam’s, but with her mindsense clenched in a fist, she couldn’t sense anything else about it . . . which was the point.

  This was how she’d gotten Sam’s attention without opening up mindspeech herself—use a fist, not fingers. Her physical fingers took in magic. Her mental fingers did, too, though it was only mind magic they absorbed. She’d decided her mental knuckles lacked the sensitivity of fingertips, that touching with them would not draw her into that rapt, trapped fascination.

  It had worked with Sam. It worked with Reno, too, but he didn’t answer her knock. She drew her mindsense back. “Reno’s ignoring me. Unless he mindspoke one of you instead—”

  “No, but—he went northeast?” Cynna pointed. “That way? That’s where Ryder is. Maybe he sensed something. Maybe he went to stop them—Weng and whatshername. Ginger.”

  Lily frowned. “That’s the right direction, but why—”

  “Wow,” said a new voice off to the left. Gan. The former demon had arrived in her own way and stood about ten feet away, looking around. “This place sure went downhill after I left.”

  “Looks like bloody Mordor,” Jude said, “only instead of a cute little hobbit, we got Gan.”

  “I’m better than a hobbit,” Gan assured him, then added, “What’s a hobbit?”

  “Come on, Frodo. Better climb aboard.” Jude held out a hand.

  “Okay.” Gan scampered to him and let him pull her aboard the bike.

  “There’s no magic,” Cullen said suddenly. “We’re right next to a node. I should see sorcéri all over the damn place, and I don’t. A ley line, sure, a big one, but . . .” He frowned at the ground as if it had offended him. “Odd. Damned odd.”

  Lily frowned. “No magic, no big, bad demon prince trying to smother us or fry us . . . is this what a territory in Dis looks like when it doesn’t have a demon prince?”

  “No,” Gan piped up. “At least, I don’t know what it would look like without a prince, but somebody’s claimed this territory. They’re just doing a lousy job.”

  “What do you mean? How can you tell?”

  “There’s rules. They feel different than they used to. Sort of slippery, ’cause some of them don’t apply to me now that I’m growing a soul.” She sounded smug about that. “But there wouldn’t be any rules if there weren’t a prince.”

  “We need to go,” Cynna said. “Now.”

  They did.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ROCK and dirt, eerily glowing sky. No sun and no moon, and the loss of the Lady’s song made Rule’s stomach quiver, but he’d survived that loss before. He kept his gaze out front and his ears tuned, although not much could penetrate the roar of the noise cloud they moved in. Air whipped by, smelling of dirt and exhaust; Lily stayed flat against his back as she’d promised. The warmth of her comforted him . . . and made his wolf quite smug.

  Of course his mate was with him. Why did he keep having to learn that lesson?

  We’re coming, he told his son. Hang on. We’re coming.

  Of all of the lupi present, he was likely the least skilled at off-roading. Earlier he’d taken this bike for a spin to remind his body what to do. The dance of throttle, clutch, and shift had come back to him, but he was rusty. He hadn’t been on a bike of any sort since before Toby was born. Because he was probably the slowest, it made sense for him to take the lead, set the pace. He did not set the direction, however. That was Cynna’s job, and she rode at his right.

  There was another reason for him to take point: his passenger would sense the minds of any who lurked ahead in ambush. They’d agreed on that in advance. So far, Lily had issued no warnings. The land seemed as empty to the mind as it was to the eye and nose.

  We’re coming, Toby.

  At any moment, the kidnappers might take his son and the others beyond reach. Rule wanted desperately to open the throttle and find out how fast the bike could fly, a need held in check by the thin rein of reason—thin, but made strong by memory. He’d crashed a bike once. When he was young and stupid, he’d let himself be pushed off the road by a semi whose driver had probably never even seen him.

  A human wouldn’t have survived that crash. Lily wouldn’t have survived.

  Rule kept his speed within reason and his gaze ahead. The land swelled and dipped, pocked by rocks large and small and by twiggy revenants of what had been plants and bushes. What manner of death had swept this land? Nothing moved. Nothing grew. Had there been a fire?

  No fire now. No firestorm upon their entry, either. No attack from demons. No demon prince standing gravity on its head or sucking out all the air. No demons at all, so far. Reno had been wrong.

  And where was Reno? Why had the dragon flown off without a word? Reno didn’t like talking to humans and seemed to make no distinction between humans and lupi. Had he flown ahead so he wouldn’t have to talk with them? Did he think he could single-handedly destroy the kidnappers without harming the children?

  Maybe he could.

  Had it been Sam with them, Rule wouldn’t have worried, but he was uneasily aware of how little he knew about the green dragon. Did Reno care about the children, or only about catching up with the dragon spawn?

  Ahead, the ground rose sharply in a jumble of dirt and rock and dead vegetation. The ridge curved on their left, growing into mounded boulders. On the right was dense growth, which would be hard to get a bike through, especially without leathers; it blended into the dead forest. He went straight, gunning the engine to pick up speed. He couldn’t stand on the pegs, not with a passenger, so he gripped the gas tank firmly with his thighs and leaned into the climb. The slope was rough and bumpy, but they crested the ridge without major problems, and—

  Rule did not lock up the front wheel. Quite. He braked hard, but let up almost immediately, skewing the bike to the left as they skidded to a stop.

  What had been a slight rise on one side was much greater on the other. More abrupt, too. You might call it a cliff.

  “That was exciting,” Lily said, breathless.

  He snorted in unplanned amusement. A quick glance told him Cynna had safely come to a stop, too, though she’d veered right instead of left. He looked out . . . movement. Shit. In the distance, but still—“Cynna, get back down. We’re too visible.” He made a gesture that told the others to stop. “Lily. Get off and get flat.”

  She slid off. He shut off his engine and wheeled the bike back down the slope far enough for it to be out of sight, put down the kickstand, and crept back to the top of the ridge, which was about ten feet wide
here.

  Lily lay flat looking out. He joined her. A glance told him more than he wanted to know. They were about a hundred feet up on this side—and the drop-off could readily be called a cliff. Below, the dead forest spilled out over the plain, though to the left there seemed to be a path . . . a dry streambed, he thought. And on the horizon, the lower half of a mountain squatted, black against the sullen glow of the sky. Given their elevated vantage point, Rule guessed that oddly singular peak must be four or five miles off. “Getting down will be even more exciting.”

  “Can we?”

  “Not here. Cynna—is that where we’re headed? That weird peak?”

  “Yes,” Cynna said tersely. “The children are there . . . no, not quite there, but they’re really close to it. Is that movement near the base of the peak, by those boulders?”

  “Yes.” Too late. The words, the knowledge, beat at Rule. They were up here; the children were down there and four or five miles away. Surely the caldera was their enemies’ goal—and Rule still had to figure out how to get down. He looked around. Cullen had flattened himself next to Cynna; everyone else had stopped their bikes in place partway up the hill. “Benedict, bring me the binoculars. Carlos, Daniel, leave your bikes and look for a way down, preferably one fit for the bikes.” He didn’t want to abandon them. If they did, the lupi would have to run ahead, leaving the women to catch up as best they could. He hated that idea. Hated it fiercely. But they were running out of time . . . “But we have to get down, with or without the bikes. Carlos, head to my left. Daniel, go right.”

  “Shit!” Cullen half raised himself from his prone position. “It’s all going there. The magic. I can’t imagine how they did it, but all the magic is being drained from the land into that caldera. That’s why everything’s dead.”

  “A caldera?” Lily said. “That’s like a dead volcano, isn’t it?”

  “More like the bloody eye of Sauron,” Jude muttered under his breath.

  “That’s where Xitil’s court was,” Gan piped up from the back of Jude’s’s bike. “In a dead volcano. Mostly dead. Sometimes she stirred it up.”