Starlight (The Dark Elf War Book 1)

by William Stacey

  He never went all the way, never embraced all the mana he could hold. The more he considered the matter, the more certain he became. He just hadn’t drawn in enough mana.

  But how could he conquer his fear? When the answer came, he realized he had known it all along. Drugs. It was so simple. Drugs could help him use more mana, just as drugs had helped him cope with the pain of his life.

  Duncan had been thirteen the first time he had gotten drunk, stealing booze from his stepmother. From the very first sip, alcohol had provided the answer to his misery, at least until his father had caught him. Then, his dad had taken a cane to his backside. His father didn’t do things in half measures. The bruises had been there for weeks, and everyone at school had laughed at him. After that, the liquor cabinet had been kept locked. Fortunately for Duncan, there were lots of other drugs out there. Ecstasy became his go-to drug, and getting a steady supply of it was way easier than anybody realized. Kids at high school sold it; you just had to know who. And while drugs didn’t make him any less lonely, they did take the edge off his misery. Soon, every dollar he made working at the A&W went to feeding his growing drug habit. But the money from flipping burgers wasn’t enough, so Duncan started dealing as well. He still didn’t make much money, but he did manage to keep himself supplied. That was enough.

  But ever since the evening of the lightning storm, he had been too frightened to use. He had passed out at work but had woken up again within a couple of minutes. Someone had called an ambulance, but he had refused to go to the hospital. He knew they wouldn’t let him use there. They might search his stuff and take his stash—maybe even report him to the police.

  Soon after, he had accidentally levitated a small object. At first he had been terrified, but he quickly realized how cool this all was, and he began showing off at work. Word spread quickly—really quickly. When McKnight had shown up at his home, telling him he could serve his country and be a hero, Duncan couldn’t believe his luck. Finally, he was going to be special. And at first, he was. The scientists made a huge deal about him, documenting every little thing he did. But then Elizabeth showed up and immediately outshone him, making him look like a fool. Then Cassie arrived, and even she was stronger than he was. Suddenly, he wasn’t special at all.

  Stupid bitches! Screw it. I’m doing this. Time to man up.

  He jumped up off the bed and began rooting through his duffel bag. He pulled out the small plastic bag stuffed into an old running shoe. The bag only held three tiny pills of Ecstasy, but it was all he had left and would have to do. If the army had bothered searching his stuff, they would have found the drugs easily enough, but why would they? He wasn’t a prisoner; he was a volunteer. Duncan opened the bag, his fingers trembling, and pulled out the pills, cupping them in the palm of his hand and staring at them. His tongue darted out, licking his dry lips.

  He hesitated. Should I? Then, in one quick moment, he brought his palm up to his mouth and swallowed all three pills. He lay back down on his bed and waited for the buzz to start, terrified and excited at the same time. It only took a few minutes. He felt his heart beating faster and faster. A layer of sweat drenched his skin. Then, he felt the first stirrings of the high.

  Sighing, he closed his eyes. He loved this part. But now he also wanted a smoke—needed a smoke—to enhance the high.

  Jumping up from his bed, he grabbed his cigarettes and stormed out of his room. If he lit up inside, as he had done on his first night on base, he’d set off the smoke detectors again and get everyone pissed at him once more.

  Shit—how was I supposed to have known? Should have told me. A-hole soldiers.

  In the darkened hallway, he passed one of them, a big dude with bodybuilder shoulders. Duncan nodded eagerly at him. “Wassup?”

  The soldier simply walked past without saying a word.

  Arrogant motherfucker. I could set your ass on fire. Except he couldn’t set anything on fire—he was too weak for that. For now.

  He descended the stairwell, pushed open the exit door, and stepped out into the cool night air. There was a picnic table with a butt can just beside the door. Duncan sat on top of the picnic table and lit a cigarette. There was no reason he couldn’t be great, no reason he couldn’t be better than the girls. Then they’d want him. They’d fight over each other for the chance to polish his knob. Maybe he’d let them. He grinned, feeling his erection grow.

  All he had to do was seize his destiny. He opened his cigarette package and emptied its contents onto the picnic table, a little pile of cigarettes. Time to get great.

  He channeled mana. At first, as always, he held back. But then, he forced himself to draw in just a trickle more than he was used to. It felt… wrong, like an overfilled balloon, but he forced himself to keep going. Then, he began to levitate the cigarettes. In moments, he had each of the cigarettes spinning about his head. He exhaled and forced himself to draw in even more energy.

  Nothing terrible happened. The cigarettes continued to spin about his head, faster and faster. He felt the heady rush of euphoria as he realized he had been holding himself back and could do so much more. He pulled in even more mana, far more than he’d ever held before. Again, nothing terrible happened, and the cigarettes began to spin so fast they blurred together.

  “Way too easy,” he said.

  Throwing all caution to the wind, he filled himself with as much mana as he could possibly hold. His heart pounded against his chest, the sweat poured down his back, but he kept going, taking long deep breaths. He wasn’t a man; he was a racehorse, a thoroughbred. He could do this—he could so do this. He could do anything.

  The picnic table vibrated, jerked in place.

  This is great.

  The picnic table lurched into the air—first one foot and then another. All the while, the cigarettes continued their mad spin in front of Duncan’s eyes.

  “I’m doing it! I’m fucking doing it!” he cackled.

  He thought he heard someone yelling, but he just didn’t care anymore. Nothing would stop the joy he was feeling at that moment. He was great; he was powerful. He had been holding back. Everybody had been wrong about him, all wrong, especially his dad. Duncan wasn’t a loser—he was awesome; he was a wizard.

  What had Elizabeth told Cassie? Let the mana heat within you and then channel it out? Okay, he’d try that and light the cigarettes on fire.

  He concentrated and soon felt the mana begin to heat. He released just a trickle of mana, instantly setting the spinning cigarettes on fire in a glowing red whirl about him. Sparks flew off into the night. His joy was profound.

  “I’m fucking awesome! Suck it, Dad. Fucking suck it, you cock-eating bat hole! I am special! I am!”

  But then the heated mana began to spill out on its own, suddenly blanketing his skin in torment. He screamed, but when he did, the heat roared down his throat. Unimaginable pain lanced through his body. Terrified, he tried to release the mana, to dissipate it, but instead, it flowed over him, burning him.

  He was burning.

  The picnic table crashed back to the ground, and Duncan fell onto the grass, spinning and screaming. Someone beat at the flames covering him, trying to roll him over, but he was too far gone to care anymore.

  * * *

  From the grass outside the barracks, Cassie watched the medical staff move Duncan’s covered body onto a gurney and then load it into the back of an ambulance. Elizabeth stood beside her, silently watching. McKnight, Alex, and Buck stood removed, talking silently among themselves. It was still dark out, still early morning. There were no police cars, no police officers—just the base’s medical staff, the ambulance, and Duncan’s dead body. And soon, when the ambulance drove away, it would be as if Duncan had never been there, had never been alive at all. She stood in place, shivering, wringing her hands in front of her, not sure what she should do.

  Duncan was dead. He had been drawing so much mana it had woken her from her sleep. She had run downstairs just in time to see the flames erupt over his b
ody. She had tried to roll him over, to put out the flames, but they had been too intense for her.

  Well, now we know what happens when you draw in too much magic: you die. She shivered again, her teeth chattering.

  “What was he thinking?” Elizabeth softly said.

  “I’m not sure he was,” Cassie answered.

  “I keep thinking back to yesterday, outside the gym. Was he…?”

  “Jealous? Who knows?” Cassie hugged herself. “Maybe.”

  They were silent for a while. Elizabeth finally spoke. “Yesterday, when you and I were channeling, linked together, we drew in a lot of mana. How close do you think we came to… you know, this?”

  Cassie shook her head, feeling sick to her stomach. “There are no answers to this, Elizabeth. Who knows what our limits are, or what Duncan’s limits were? We’re in uncharted territory here.”

  “Why would God select him for these amazing new abilities and then let… this happen?”

  “God didn’t do this, Elizabeth. Duncan did this. He made a choice, and it turned out very, very badly.”

  “I didn’t know this could happen, or that this gift was so dangerous.”

  “Still think it’s God’s glory?” Cassie asked, knowing she was picking a fight but unable to stop herself.

  To her surprise, Elizabeth reached out and hugged her tightly, burying her head against Cassie’s shoulder. At first, Cassie just stood there, too surprised to move. Then, she tentatively wrapped her arms around Elizabeth and hugged her back. The medical staff closed the rear doors on the ambulance. In moments, the vehicle moved away, disappearing into the night. McKnight, Buck, and Alex stopped their conversation long enough to watch it go.

  How are they going to hide this?

  Chapter 30

  For days, Maelhrandia had been spying on the manling camp, noting their sentry patterns, watching their wondrous war chariots as they arrived and departed, and estimating their strength. Now, she was balanced atop the branch of a large tree overlooking the metal fence that surrounded the camp. Gazekiller waited in the bush below. The sun had set hours ago, but lights illuminated the camp, revealing all its secrets.

  They had built their camp along the shore of the river. To her considerable surprise, she had noted that the manlings had actually dammed the river. Impressive. No longer were they the savages they had once been, living in caves, huddled around fires, hiding from her people. After her mother was done with them, some might make useful slaves.

  For the hundredth time, she considered the layout of their camp. From this distance, it appeared utterly indefensible, but her intuition warned her this was not the case. The metal fence ran the entire length of the camp, all the way to the riverbank. They had cleared the ground of trees and bush within the camp but had allowed the forest to approach almost as far as the fence. Had the manlings no enemies? They should have created a kill zone on the other side of the fence and built towers all along its length. For that matter, why a fence? Why not a stone wall? Truly, they were bizarre. Even the buildings within the camp seemed foolishly laid out with each one standing separate from the others so that in an attack, they might fall quickly, one after another. That made no sense. Had the manlings never fought a war before?

  They did patrol the perimeter of their camp, sending both foot soldiers and their war chariots. They even varied the timing of the patrols, making it impossible for her to guess when the next one would come by. The last war chariot had roared past only minutes before, belching smoke. She didn’t know when the next would come by, but it would be at least a while yet.

  Perhaps her mother would be interested in those wondrous constructions. She was nothing if not practical. Such a terrifying machine would help subjugate the slave races. Most of the fae seelie, though, would consider them to be abominations. Her people abhorred mechanical creations. Only a dwarf or gnome could love such a thing.

  She ran her fingers over the hilt of her dagger. She had seen enough. It was finally time to act.

  Lithely climbing down, she landed silently next to Gazekiller on the forest floor. She ran her fingers over his scaled head. Using the mind-tether, she sent him a single command: the fence.

  Gazekiller surged forward, ramming his head into the fence. The metal links popped and snapped under the impact. Gazekiller gripped the broken edges of the fence in his jaws and thrashed his head back and forth, ripping entire segments of it from the ground. In moments, Gazekiller had ripped loose an opening large enough to cross through.

  Walking beside the basilisk, cloaked in Shadow-Soul, Maelhrandia entered the manling camp.

  * * *

  When the perimeter alarm went off in the base’s Tactical Operations Center, the TOC, the three soldiers on duty stared at it then at each other. The perimeter alarm never activated. The duty officer moved to stand behind the soldier manning the monitors linked to the infrared security cameras.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Zulu-7, sir,” the soldier answered, pointing to a monitor.

  The duty officer leaned over the soldier, his eyes growing wide. The giant lizard, the basilisk, the same creature that had attacked the hospital in Fort St. John and then disappeared, was ripping apart their perimeter fence. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “Okay. Go to Alert One. Make the announcement and vector in the Rapid Reaction Team. Let’s see how tough it is against an armored vehicle.”

  The soldier reached for the microphone.

  * * *

  Cassie had been watching television in the common room when the alarm went off. A red light on the ceiling that she hadn’t noticed before began to flash. The two female soldiers who had been watching television with her, Clara and Ginger, turned and stared at an intercom on the wall, waiting. Moments later, a clearly excited voice came across the intercom. “Attention, attention. The base is under ground attack. The base is under ground attack. We are now at Alert Level One. All duty personnel are to report to stand-to locations. All nonduty personnel are to remain in their present locations.”

  The two soldiers jumped to their feet and ran for the door.

  “What do I do?” Cassie yelled at their backs.

  “It’s probably a false alarm,” Clara yelled over her shoulder as she went out the door. “Stay here.”

  Alone, Cassie stared about her. Under attack by whom?

  Just for a moment, she felt panic well up within her, but she forced it back down. She went to stand beside the doorway, watching the hallway. Within moments, the barracks came to life. Half-asleep soldiers burst from their rooms, pulling on body armor as they ran out. Each also carried a M4 carbine. Cassie was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was unarmed and defenseless. Within minutes, the barracks emptied, leaving Cassie alone. She stood in place, wondering if she should stay or go back to her room, when Elizabeth appeared, dressed in track pants and a T-shirt.

  “What should we do?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Hang out, I guess. They’ll come and get us if they need us.”

  Elizabeth bit her lip and nodded.

  Then, from a distance, Cassie felt flows of mana being manipulated. It was coming from outside. Fear spiked within her. The last time she had felt this mana use was the attack at the hospital.

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Who?”

  “You feel it, too?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Cassie felt her legs tremble. “I think it’s the basilisk.”

  “What? Why?”

  Cassie moved to stand beside the window. She looked out into the darkness.

  “Us. It’s here for us.”

  * * *

  In the ready hangar, Master Corporal Jennifer Stark, the Rapid Reaction Team leader, ran for her MRAP with Groeker and Williams right behind her, their boot steps pounding across the cement floor. Groeker was her gunner, Williams her second in command. She reached the vehicle first and threw herself into the co-driver’s seat. Rico, her driver, was already seated with the engine running. He glanced at
her as she slammed the door closed, excitement in his eyes.

  She pressed the transmit button on her radio. “Zero, this is Harper-1. We’re mobile. Over.”

  Out of her side window, she saw other soldiers running for a second MRAP—Mark and his backup team. They’d be a few minutes yet. They needed to mount their weapon, load ammo, check radios. Whatever was going down, it would be her show. Outside the hangar doors, she saw other soldiers running for their stand-to locations. It was hard to think clearly, but she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, reminding herself she was a professional soldier.

  “Gear up,” she ordered as she strapped on her helmet and lowered the GPNVGs over her face. She flicked the power switch on, turning her vision green. Beside her, Rico, already wearing his helmet and GPNVGs, was watching her with his four telescopic eyes. Although the TOC, call-sign Zero, had yet to reply to her transmission, she ordered Rico to head out. She knew her job and knew what to do. The defense of the Magic Kingdom was her responsibility that night.

  The MRAP was almost at the hangar entrance when the radio activated. “Harper-1, this is Zero. Stop what you’re doing and wait for an additional passenger. Acknowledge; over.”

  Jennifer frowned and glanced at Rico. With the GPNVGs on, she couldn’t tell if he was as confused as she was. She activated her MBITR. “Harper-1, roger; over.”

  “Zero; out.”

  Rico threw the transmission into park. “What the hell?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t know, but we wait.”

  She turned and looked over her shoulder at the remainder of her team in the rear of the MRAP. Groeker was already in his gunner’s seat, staring intently at his monitor, the control for the machine gun, a joystick, in his hand. Unlike the others, Groeker wasn’t wearing his GPNVGs. The night-vision device would only get in the way of his targeting, and his machine-gun monitor targeted through an infrared camera anyway. Williams got out of his seat and moved closer to Jennifer, so she wouldn’t need to shout.