He’d taken to shaving his hair and stood out in the chill with the bronze of his perfectly-shaped masculine scalp exposed to the winter air. A slight hint of warmth rose from his skin and shimmered in the air around his face.
Andreas pointed at her belly, but smirked. “You need to stay warm.”
Mira laughed. “Rysa’s little sister is fine, Grandpa Andreas.” Rysa had taken to calling him “Grandpa,” and it only seemed appropriate that Mira keep up the new tradition.
Andreas’s smirk turned into one of his charming, utterly disarming smiles.
“I would hope so. Sandro was quite specific with his orders.” Andreas returned his attention to the box, but pulled back. “Doctor’s orders, in case you think your husband has a big head and an unwelcome attitude.”
Mira patted his arm. “I don’t need a seer to understand what you meant.” America was not the Roman Empire, nor was it the America of twenty-two years ago, when she carried her first child conceived with Sandro Torres.
She refused to suffer the rest of her long immortal life with foolish men and the monsters they allowed to flourish. Sandro understood.
Nor would her daughters suffer under the control of monsters.
Andreas pointed up the drive, at the house. “Do you want to call his number again, or are you up for adding a hike to our little breaking and entering?”
Mira stuffed her mittened hands into her pockets. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Luckily, the tall fence only extended about twenty feet into the trees. Andreas vaulted the low posts first, then helped her over.
They walked up the drive together.
“My mother has much to answer for,” he said. He didn’t look at Mira; he watched the house. “Daisy’s a First.” He shook his head.
What Daisy might become was anyone’s guess, though Andreas had a theory, one Mira agreed with—the natural progression of Shifter abilities suggested manipulations on a larger scale than healing a singular human.
But no Fate could tell for sure. And with Dunn missing, Daisy had no one to activate her First ability, anyway.
So yes, Dunn had a lot to answer for.
“As does my father.” Ladon and AnnaBelinda were the only two Progenitors with any real connection to the world. Only they had built lives surrounded by people.
“Do you understand what’s happening?” Andreas stopped walking. “The changes? All of Aiden Blake’s ramblings about new this and new that?” He looked up at the sky. “About the end of the world?”
“No.” She wouldn’t lie to her friend. She wouldn’t act like she comprehended more than him, or that she had any answers to give. “But I think Trajan is involved.”
Andreas sniffed. His lip curled. “And here I thought he was conquered territory.”
Mira rubbed her elbows. “When has Trajan ever been conquered? He does the conquering. He is the Emperor, after all.”
Andreas did not laugh. He started walking toward the house again. “One of the emperors.”
“Ah, yes.” One must not forget about Hadrian—or Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov, either. “My gut is telling me they will not fight each other.”
Now Andreas did chuckle. “I’m not worried about our publicly wandering emperors.” He shrugged. “Or the other men of power my dear mother has made long immortal over the centuries.”
There were stories. “Why couldn’t she make useful people immortal? Like the Roosevelts or Nikola Tesla?”
Andreas’s charming smile returned. “Tesla was, as the kids say these days, batshit insane.” He shrugged again. “Though I think your husband could have helped and still kept the genius flowing.”
Dunn was never one to think things through. “Yet we have Romans everywhere.”
Andreas tipped his head toward her. “How long do you think it will be before Dmitri assassinates Trajan and Hadrian?”
Mira laughed. “I do hope he waits until we get the answers we seek.”
They fell silent for several paces. Up ahead, pools of light from the circle in front of Eric’s house came into view.
“I feel as harassed by ghosts as Ladon did when we found him,” Andreas said.
“I think we all do.” Perhaps there had always been a fog in the what-was-is-will-be. Perhaps, up until now, that fog had been so far in the distance no one noticed. But now it was on top of them, and the map they’d been using wasn’t nearly detailed enough to get them through.
Because of Burners? Because of Trajan? She doubted Eric would have the answers they needed.
Ghosts, she thought. Echoes. Revelations.
Phantoms and gut instincts.
“Andreas,” she said. “I don’t think it’s Eric we need to speak to.”
He looked toward the house. “I suspect you are correct, Mira of the Jani.”
Look down the hill, her present-seer whispered.
Mira whipped around. Up here, near the house, they had a somewhat elevated view over Portland. Not a lot, with the trees and the hills, but some.
The loud, echoing whomp whomp of a helicopter hit them first, then the brightness of a spotlight shining down onto a building not far away.
Andreas unsnapped his holster. “That’s a Praesagio copter,” he growled, not asking her. Not expecting an answer, either. He knew as well as Mira what a helicopter meant.
“Where is it landing?” he asked.
An image popped into her present-seer: The gas station they had passed on the way in, at the corner of the two major roads on the edges of Eric’s swanky suburb. The building was a good two miles east.
The image wasn’t clear, and looked more like a television news broadcast than any vision with her normal present-seer intensity, which usually meant a Burner’s involvement. Even after an explosion, their chaos often affected the immediate post-Burner present as if they were still functional. But with the fog, she couldn’t be sure.
Except she knew Eric’s sedan was parked at one of the pumps. She couldn’t see it—her seer wasn’t outlining for emphasis the way it usually did—but she knew. Eric was at the station, as was Daniel-Adrestia, and a Shifter who frightened them both.
“Something big is happening at the gas station we passed on the way in,” she said. “Eric and Dan-Addy are there.”
Andreas nodded once and ran down the hill.
“Andreas!” Mira called. “So is your mother.”
Chapter Eleven
Moments before…
“Do you smell that?” Eric said, just as a sharp, bitter whiff of acidic horror—spoiled eggs mixed with industrial solvent mixed with just-about-to-ignite gasoline—tickled the end of Daniel’s nose.
Burner! Addy hissed.
“Shit…” Eric whispered. He knew, too.
Daniel swung around in the cold air under the canopy over the gas station’s pumps just as the door into the convenience store slid open. The middle-aged woman who’d been filling her coffee ran out, her coat open and her fifty-dollar designer-engineered travel mug held out behind her as if it could, somehow, shield her from the evil lurking inside.
Eric took a step back from the door. He puffed up his chest and lifted his arm at the same time, holding out his splayed hand in front of Daniel, as if to say “Stay back, weak female!” Then he pulled in the hand so that he could reach his phone, and totally missed Daniel’s behind-his-optimizers eye roll.
“We need a containment unit,” Eric said. He’d already called up some Praesagio number off his speed dial.
The middle-aged woman started her car and pulled away from the pumps with her door still open and her car shrieking its warning about seatbelts and potential hazards.
Daniel now had a clear-ish view of what was happening inside.
“Eric,” he said, “please tell me these things have a magnifying option.” He tapped the side of his optimizers.
They do, Addy’s seer whispered. No seer would help in the presence of a Burner, but the tech at his disposal might offer some benefit.
&nbs
p; Yes, his seer whispered. No information as to why, but his future-seer clearly wanted an upgrade.
Eric looked up from his phone. “It’s disabled on the civilian version.”
Of course it was. “Turn it on,” Daniel said.
Eric held up his hand again. “Corner of Smith and County Road 45,” he said into the phone. “I’m taking the asset and—”
“I am not an asset, Eric,” Daniel said.
Take the Burner, Addy said. Blow us sky high.
So she’d decided that if she couldn’t rid her body of him, she’d kill them both. Daniel’s gut tightened, and this time it wasn’t his cramps. Or perhaps it was, and dear Addy simply tightened them down just that little extra amount.
He fought the need to buckle over with the equally distinct—yet new—need to vomit.
“Eric,” he said, as he grabbed the shoulder of the good doctor’s coat, “turn on my optimizers’ full capacity. Right. Now.”
“Mark on my phone’s GPS,” Eric said, then ended his call. “You’re not carrying all the software.” He peered at the side of Daniel’s head. “This set has more than enough onboard memory. I had the techs upgrade them to maximum capacity to help with the cortical implant.” He shrugged. “The lenses aren’t opaque, either. That’s an added-on film because it was easier than changing the lenses. If I upgrade you, the display will reactivate. It might be a distraction to your seers. I don’t know.”
Eric held up his phone. “Research and Defense is working on field download protocols for optimizer upgrades. I have access.”
The gas station’s internal fire alarm shrieked on. Eric cringed. Daniel covered his ears. Inside, the sprinklers kicked on.
All he could see was a body dancing around inside the building. A body setting small fires, even with the water falling from the ceiling.
And a cowering man behind the register.
The clerk was still inside.
Let him burn, Addy shrieked. Burn him and his leers and his smirk!
Allowing the clerk to die would be the same as handing his body back over to the whiny little psychotic murderer with whom he shared it. Such responses were what the world expected of the particular set of breasts he sported, and no one—Eric, Ladon, AnnaBelinda, even the handsome Andreas Sisto—would believe Daniel had the wheel if he allowed any Adrestia-like evil.
“Turn on the upgrade, Eric,” Daniel said, and braced himself for whatever screeching technological madness was about to descend onto his head.
Eric shrugged. “All right.” He tapped something, then waited a second, then tapped something again. “It should be pretty instantaneous.”
The snow resolved from a flat pale gray into arching, cracking piles of blue-tinged white mixed with browns and blacks. The gas pumps between Daniel and the door took on a level of glint and shine that no metal had shown up until now. The glass in the door resolved into visible instead of implied. Daniel could see the fingerprint smudges—and the individual rivulets of water coiling across the store’s floor.
“I will never forgive you for withholding this upgrade from me,” Daniel growled. Never. If anything, it cemented his worst fear that Eric was nothing but a Praesagio lackey. Son of a bitch, Daniel thought.
Addy snickered.
I will free myself of your vile ghost, bitch.
My body. You pay rent, not me, lover boy. Addy stepped up. She flung wide her arms and reached upward for her seer.
Daniel slapped her back down where she belonged.
When was the last time you fought a Burner? she asked. You need me.
Inside, the clerk pressed himself against the back wall. The Burner twitched and talked to himself, and gestured wildly as if directing an orchestra—except he moved to the left, then to the right, then back to his original position.
Not an orchestra; he moved as if delivering a lecture.
“Eric,” Daniel said. “He’s not moving like a normal Burner.”
Eric scowled. He pouted too, obviously put off by Daniel’s unforgiving attitude.
Poor little boy, Addy said.
“Stop giving Adrestia reasons to mock you, Eric,” Daniel said. “It’s distracting.”
The Burner stepped to the side.
A phone sat on the second shelf of a display, protected from the water flowing from the ceiling. The screen faced outward and clearly showed the Burner and his dancing—and a LIVE icon in the corner.
Eric’s pout turned to anger. “If you—”
“Eric!” Daniel pointed at the Burner. “He’s broadcasting!”
“Burners don’t do that.” Eric paced between Daniel and the store. “They don’t—”
Daniel grabbed him by his shoulders, turned him toward the Burner, and pointed. “Look.”
Eric stiffened. “This cannot be good.”
Broadcasting meant shares, and shares meant the entire world would soon know what a Burner was. And once the world knew about Burners, they’d know about Shifters, like Eric, and Fates, like Daniel.
There was no backing out now. No way around it. Even if it couldn’t see the specifics, Daniel’s future-seer all but shrieked the truth.
Eric clasped his hand. “We need to go. You can’t be here. I can’t be here.” He pulled Daniel toward their SUV. “We’ll go home and—”
This time, the interruption did not come from Daniel. This time, it appeared out of nowhere as a small woman who seemed to manifest from the fabric of the universe itself. A compact woman, one no larger than AnnaBelinda, with similar dark, curly hair and oddly metallic eyes and wearing an indigo-violet jacket.
She stepped between them and the store, but she utterly ignored Eric—and the Burner.
Where did she come from? Daniel hadn’t heard a vehicle approach. He looked around. The gas pumps crawled with local police. He hadn’t heard any of them approach.
The police moved around them as if they didn’t see Daniel, or Eric, or the woman.
Did the download affect his hearing? He didn’t think so—he heard the cops’ clipped yelling as they moved around the building.
The woman watched three officers approach the door. “I take it Trajan’s new empire hasn’t seen fit to share Ambustae protocols with the local civilians.”
Eric’s mouth opened and closed. “You’re an enthraller.”
Her eyebrow arched, and she smirked. “Good grandson,” she said, and patted his cheek.
Idunn! both seers screamed. Daniel shook, and did his best not to yelp.
She peered at Daniel’s optimizers. “Not so blind anymore, huh?”
“That Burner is broadcasting. He’s live and he’s telling the world about us.” Daniel pointed at the store.
The Mother of Shifters frowned. “I figured it would happen soon enough.”
She looked up at Daniel’s face again, then out at the cops. “Pull all your personnel back from the building and close the road,” she said.
Her enthralling instantly filled the entire area under the canopy—all her specifically-targeted calling scents meant for the police officers. All her voice enthrallings meant to reinforce her scents. No one could resist.
Every officer stopped where they stood, and every single officer retreated.
Two new voices Daniel recognized rang out through the space under the canopy, but Dunn’s calling scents told him he was not to pay attention. He had other work. When the roar of a helicopter added to the din, she made sure he ignored that, too.
“We need to go, too, ma’am,” someone standing right next to Daniel’s shoulder said.
Daniel’s hand rose. He had the unknown person around the neck before the word “ma’am” passed his lips.
A lean, handsome, familiar face smiled down at Daniel. “Still quick on whatever feet you happen to be standing on, I see.”
“Harold?” Marcus had to be nearby. “Where’s my brother?”
Daniel’s future-seer pulsed outward in search of its triad mates.
The world changed.
H
e was in the clouds. Burner acid rolled along his arms, the tip of his nose, over his optimizers. Then it rained down on the plateau below.
Was the place below him a long-ago-destroyed outcrop on the flank of Vesuvius? The Dragon’s Rock, by the Dracae’s home? Shades slithered along its surface as if the soil itself was alive.
He’d been down there before. He’d come every time over the last century just before he took control of Addy’s body, and more recently when he semi-consciously felt the seers and soul of Rysa Torres.
But now he hung over this place and dripped acid onto the world.
And Timothy. He stood among the shades, a flickering phantom that looked as much an artifact of Daniel’s optimizers as any true ghost.
“We are all Dragons’ Legion,” Timothy called. “We protect our home.” He flickered again.
Someone gripped his face, and someone not hanging with him over the plateau but in the real world, asked questions. “What are you seeing?”
“They’re coming,” Timothy called. “I’m coming home.”
“Burners?” Daniel asked.
“No.” Timothy was right there, right in front of Daniel where he floated in the clouds. “This is all I can do,” he said, and jabbed his finger into the optimizer port on the side of Daniel’s head.
Chapter Twelve
The helicopter had already landed by the time Andreas pulled off the road across from the gas station. No one obvious had been standing outside when they drove by, though Mira did recognize Eric’s sedan. Three police cruisers blocked all the entrances, and for a moment, Andreas considered using calling scents to get past them.
Then he sensed the precisely targeted ‘move back’ for the police. A generalized ‘ignore’ blanketed the entire area, with specific pockets of ‘ignore the ignore’ around the pumps. But the calming blend of ‘alert competency’ calibrated for a Prime triad told him just how correct Mira had been.
He didn’t directly sense his mother. No one would; she was the Progenitor—and best—of their kind. If she didn’t want to be sensed, she wasn’t sensed. They couldn’t see, either. The station was lower than the road; from where he parked, only the top edge of the canopy over the pumps was visible.
The Burning World (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 7) Page 8