The Burning World (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 7)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Terry laughed. “The briefings were right! He’s a bright one!”

  The enthraller kid jogged up. “It’s time.”

  “The Ambusti Prime, little dead Fate.” Terry stuck out his tongue.

  Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “He wants Rysa.”

  Rysa, whose might-have-been was to become the Prime Fate of the Burners, was the smart trigger Harold spoke of, because only a singular Fate could optimize the present in order to maximize the best future.

  But that didn’t explain Terry’s obsession with Daniel’s optimizers.

  A forklift drove up the ramp. Daniel, Marcus, and Harold stepped to the side.

  Terry waved one last time as the forklift carried the unit to the helicopter.

  Daniel wrapped his finger around the Tsar’s gaudy ring in his pocket. He still carried it, as Dunn had requested.

  He was supposed to give it to the Whispering One. He’d know when. He’d understand then.

  The ring, like the data in his optimizers, was not his. He was the courier. Only the messenger.

  Daniel unplugged the optimizers from the port in the back of his head and pulled them off his face. “Kid!” he yelled.

  Addy’s present-seer pinged though the cold air. He wouldn’t use his future-seer on the enthraller. He didn’t want to see the man’s death. Besides, the fog would likely block any seeing, anyway.

  The enthraller jogged up.

  Daniel handed over the optimizers. “Give these to Mr. Barston.” He nodded toward the forklift loading the unit onto the helicopter. “When you open the door.”

  The kid nodded, then ran toward the copter.

  Though something told Daniel that the data wasn’t for Billy, or Terry, for that matter. The data was for their energy weapon’s targeting system.

  May she place them upon her face and see the best way to save them all.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Wyoming…

  “You should sleep.” Ladon lifted his hand off the bus’s giant steering wheel and reached out to Rysa.

  “No you don’t.” She pointed at the wheel. The eastward driving conditions weren’t all that bad—no new snow and the sky remained clear—but it was four in the morning and he should keep his hands where they were needed the most.

  Officer Seaver still drove in front of them, and his cousin behind. Seeing their lights helped somehow. Perhaps knowing other humans still lived out there, and that the bus hadn’t become the last lifeboat on Earth.

  Other people made the driving doable.

  Ladon dropped his hand back onto the wheel. “Maybe I should pull off for a while.”

  Rysa sat on the most unsafe place on the bus: the steps down to the door. If they hit something, she’d go splat against the windshield. If Ladon braked too hard, she’d go splat. Hell, she was likely to be going splat soon enough anyway, so it really didn’t matter.

  Yet it did. She’d dropped her butt onto the painfully pokey tread of the steps because if she was about to die, she was going to spend her last few hours on Earth as close to her husband as possible.

  “Hey, my Lovely Sexy Dirty Toes.”

  Rysa looked up at his face.

  “We love you.” He reached for her again, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

  His fingers glided along her cheekbone and she leaned into his touch. She cupped his hand in hers and pressed first her cheek, then her lips into his palm.

  An image of burgundy roses followed from Dragon.

  “I love you, too,” she said. “Both of you.” She stretched out her fingers toward Dragon.

  The beast and his sister rested as an intertwined mound of dragon at the back of the bus. They said they wanted to continue their synchronization, though Rysa suspected that they didn’t want to think about what was happening any more than any of the humans on the bus.

  He lifted his head and an acknowledgement flickered across his crest, down his neck, and onto his sister. She also lifted her head to look toward the front of the bus. A new flash moved between her and her brother, then they both returned to their snuggling.

  If Rysa could snuggle with Ladon, she would, but he drove, so their small touches were all she was going to get.

  Daisy napped, as did Andreas. Anna stared out the window at the same time she kept an eye on the dragons. Anna was, right now, more involved in their dragon conversations than Ladon, mostly because Ladon drove.

  They’d be leaving the interstate soon. The base was hidden deep in the wide-open spaces not far from the Wyoming-Nebraska border, and taking a massive bus—even a high-tech Praesagio bus—onto frozen back roads in the middle of the night was a daunting task best left to one of the Dracae.

  “Love,” Ladon nodded toward the back, “go rest. We’re at least two hours from the base.”

  He worried that she might try to use her healer or her seers and trigger a fever. If she was asleep, then she wouldn’t be tempted to help.

  “I’m okay,” she said. She didn’t tell him that her stomach had started growling about half an hour ago. He didn’t need the extra layer of worry.

  Besides, in a few hours, Daisy would be whipping the midnight blades into some sort of Burner-projectile cannon-cage, fever or no fever for either of them. Activating or over-activated made no difference.

  Daisy had had a vision after her mother vanished into new-space—a vision she’d managed to hold onto, which was something Rysa hadn’t yet been able to do well.

  Daisy now knew how to build the cannon that would close the Incursion, even if she didn’t understand the physics. No one understood the physics, or the properties of the midnight blades that allowed them to focus Burner chaos upward. The base’s architecture would help, but mostly it was up to Daisy and her mother in new-space.

  And Rysa. Daisy wouldn’t tell her how she fit into this, and her seers couldn’t see. But she’d guessed.

  Her dark Fate was the Ambusti Prime, the Prime Fate of the Burners. Who better to tell a Burner when to die?

  A helicopter was bringing in Billy and his guest. Hadrian said that the base’s structure would give Daisy and Rysa protection. That they’d be able to hide in the tunnels and the base’s silo would help focus the blast.

  It’s not that simple, her dark Fate whispered.

  It never is, she thought. Maybe they thought that as a Fate, she’d already figured out her role. Or maybe they didn’t want to upset her to the point that she caused an ADHD-fueled scene. Or maybe they didn’t want Ladon to know the reality of what was about to befall his wife.

  Why coddle her? Why coddle Ladon? They were adults.

  Adults with issues. She didn’t dare use her Fate or Shifter abilities until they could replace her sniffer-bots. Ladon had a track record of not handling crises well.

  You and I both know the truth, her dark Fate said.

  Yeah, she knew the truth. “I’m not going to make it through this, Ladon,” she said. No matter how many long immortals mentioned “briefings.”

  No matter what she’d been telling herself. She was the cannon’s targeting system. Fate had abandoned them. She needed to put two and two together and accept that the answer was five.

  He frowned. “Not if we can help it.” He nodded toward Dragon.

  Rysa closed her eyes and leaned against the pole anchoring the small wall between the front passenger seat and the open exit area. He wasn’t taking her seriously.

  No wonder no one wanted to tell them the truth.

  “You’ve never future-seen this as the moment of your death.” He kept his voice low.

  “Fog,” she said. None of the multitude of Fates who had died today had seen their death coming. “And I can’t look.”

  Ladon inhaled and slowly exhaled. He glanced in the mirror at the dragons—and his sister—in the back. “We will face this trial to the best of our ability. We will maximize our chances of survival.”

  He looked her in the eye. “You are not going to die.”

  He and Dragon would put themselve
s between her and death. They’d take it for her, because to them, their lives meant nothing compared to hers.

  She sat up. “I swear to God if any of you—” Rysa pointed into the back of the bus, at the napping Daisy and Andreas, and at Anna and the dragons, “if any of you try to nobly sacrifice your lives to save your Draki Prime, I’m going to haunt you! I’ll make Daniel’s hijacking of Addy’s body look like a stroll in the park, got it?”

  Anna grinned. “If you hijack me, all I ask is that you not have sex with Brother.” She made a disgusted face.

  Ladon shook his head. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Please don’t hijack me,” Andreas said. He rubbed his face. “I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity listening to you complain about suddenly becoming tall.”

  Rysa chuckled.

  Nothing like a little gallows humor, her dark Fate said.

  Ladon dropped his voice again. “You’re not going to die.”

  “I’m going to be in the center of this,” she said. They all seemed so sure she’d survive. “My energy blade’s talking instruction manual knows so,” she said.

  Ladon’s frown resurfaced, but this time his jaw tightened with anger. “She’s lying.”

  That got her dark Fate’s attention. Pretty boy thinks I’m lying to you, huh? The blade manifested around her fist. The energy quickly expanded up her arm and around her shoulder. Why would I lie?

  She’d lie because she was the Ambusti Prime. She’d lie because she was jealous. She’d lie because…

  Rysa’s dark Fate had no reason at all to lie. One dead version of Rysa meant every version of Rysa would end up dead. Dead and gone and leaving behind a broken husband who would rampage and get not only himself killed, but also his dragon.

  And right now, the Earth needed her dragons.

  Perhaps Daisy and Billy were doing everyone a favor by coddling them.

  Ladon stared out into the blackness outside. “Nate remembered you.”

  He’d never referred to his hijacker as “remembering” her. Sad and obsessed with her, yes. But never as if Nate’s additions to Ladon’s thoughts were memories.

  He glanced over at her. “Future and past affecting the present, remember?” He waved his hand. “That’s what Dunn said.”

  “Yes,” she said. Praesagio’s people were throwing around words like “time travel.”

  She was going to meet someone named Nate and he was going to have a crush on her old lady self.

  What if she made it through this and Ladon and Dragon died? What if she ended up the one alone? Would she step fully into her dark Fate blade and kill everything in her path?

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said. No seers to guide her way. No healer to calm her mind’s agitation. Just her dark Fate picking at her fingernails.

  Got any cookies over there on the dark side? Rysa thought.

  Her dark Fate rubbed her hands together. Monster cookies, darlin’, she drawled.

  Of course.

  “Shit,” Ladon growled.

  Rysa looked up. “What?”

  There on the eastern horizon, two hours before the sun was to rise, a scarlet-red arch pushed over the limb of the world.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The Scottish copter pilot’s lovely accent flowed through the containment unit’s speakers. “One hour ‘til the base,” the man said.

  He was a Fate, and a pretty powerful one at that. Called himself Connor McJanison, which made Billy wonder if he was some long-lost relative of Rysa’s. Every time Connor’s seer washed through the cargo compartment of his Praesagio warbird, Terry giggled.

  “Copy that,” said Billy’s unnamed enthraller handler. The kid sat in a jump-seat just outside the window. He stared at the copter’s opposite wall as he leaned against the vibrating metal behind his head.

  Daniel-in-Adrestia’s specs sat on his lap, and like Billy and the containment unit—and Terry—they vibrated with the regularity of the copter’s rotors.

  Billy counted: four, five, six…

  The kid snatched the glasses higher onto his lap. His fingers released. Billy counted again, and once again the kid readjusted their position so they wouldn’t fall onto the floor.

  Sentinel Two, Sentinel Six, hold for push vector.

  Billy watched the rhythm of the enthraller and listened to the beat of the chatter. They were a clockwork, the people of the Intrepid and the nameless enthraller kid tasked with watching over Billy and his pinned companion.

  Momma bear Intrepid began talking to her cubs about vectors shortly after the forklift loaded the containment unit onto the helicopter. Billy sort of understood roll and pitch, and remembered something about yaw from his one time in a cockpit, but slide and push were new.

  Or more likely, new.

  Copy that, Intrepid.

  The copter’s rotors ground and whooped at decibels that would deafen a normal. The containment unit cut some of the volume, but the warbird’s sonic heartbeat continued to fill the belly of the beast.

  Billy pressed his back against his gouged-out out seat. Poke’s tape-wrapped point clicked against the seat’s inner metal, adding yet another vibration to Billy’s life. Poke’s equally tape-wrapped grip and guard stuck out of his front like a giant grey wart.

  Terry continued to babble in German. His chaos danced in front of Billy’s eyes as wavering rainbows. At least Billy didn’t have to deal with his Progenitor asking questions about the other voices in his head.

  All Sentinels, final systems testing will begin on my mark.

  A screeching tone filled Billy’s ears.

  Terry’s frothing cartoonish weirdness froze in front of Billy’s eyes. Little pink and lavender stars stopped their slow looping. Tiny Saturns and crescent moons held their positions between Billy and the containment unit’s glass.

  A new voice spoke over Intrepid radio: This is Medical Isolation Bay Two. All personnel are in place. We’re ready down here.

  Copy that, Medical.

  Medical? Billy leaned forward. Up until now, only the Sentinels had been communicating with their Momma.

  Terry’s chaos manifestations popped one at a time, moving from the outer edge of Billy’s vision to the center.

  “Tell me, Billy my boy, who are you listening to?” Terry sing-songed inside Billy’s ear.

  “You,” he said. He was not about to spend his last hour on Earth explaining the military voices to a German psycho.

  “Lügner,” Terry said.

  Billy understood Lügner. “Liar? And how am I lying?”

  Terry tried to grip Poke’s hilt but his hand went right through the material. It pinned him, yet he could not change its position. He could affect the rock of Vesuvius, and he could murder another Burner, but the rest of the real world seemed to be beyond his reach.

  Except that Billy was sure it wasn’t. He felt Terry squirm, and he felt a pull when Terry leaned out of his body. If Terry wanted to dissolve Billy away and be left only with Poke in his side, Billy was pretty sure he could do it.

  Best not to tempt fate, no matter how it had deserted them all, so no giving his Progenitor ideas. No talk of the details of his pinning, and no talk about the Intrepid.

  Billy’s Progenitor growled. He swung at the air, perhaps hoping that momentum would pull him free. Perhaps simply to cause Billy discomfort. “I feel it,” Terry hissed.

  Brown, dead-looking chaos oozed over Billy’s eyes. He closed his eyes and counted. When he opened them again, the chaos had vanished.

  “Feel what?” Billy asked. “Poke between your ribs? The wind in your hair and the sun on your face?”

  “You are not the only change,” Terry huffed. “Wrong date. Wrong hour. They’re coming in faster. The angle is different. Roll, pitch, yaw, slide, push. Halten Sie sie ruhig, wie man sagt. Hold her steady, as they say.”

  “Then we do our best.” A platitude, but right now, platitudes felt like the floats on a life jacket. You can do it! and That’s a
good boy! were all Billy had left.

  “Have you ever fired a gun in a hurricane?” Terry sounded all too pleased with himself.

  “A gun in a hurricane?” Billy said. “While standing on the deck of a rocking boat, no doubt.” Shooting at the fucking sky.

  Terry laughed.

  “I have,” said the kid.

  Billy looked up.

  The kid gripped Dan-Addy’s specs to his chest as if he was holding a teddy bear. “1944, Pacific Theater. It wasn’t a hurricane.” He shrugged. “Though the edge of a typhoon is bad enough.”

  The kid stared off into space. “We took a hit. Henry got caught in the gunner’s nest. We couldn’t get him out. Hitting water’s like hitting concrete.” His face strained between the hurt of an etched-in memory and the pain of containing it inside. “There were a lot more sharks then than there are now.”

  He inhaled and sat up straight and pointed at the window. “So you tell your passenger that yes, firing a gun from inside a lifeboat in a storm isn’t easy. But sometimes we need to do it, and you need to do it right.”

  Terry grumbled in indeterminate German.

  All Sentinels, this is Intrepid. Commencing final vector testing.

  The kid held up the specs. “That Fate told me to give these to you. Fates only do that when it’s important.”

  “Spicy,” Terry whispered.

  “Tell us why those specs are so important!” Billy yelled at Terry. He unbuckled his seatbelt and flung both himself and Terry out of their seat. “I don’t care if you don’t think the Shifter’s plan will work, just stop lying about it!”

  Terry lunged at the window, but snapped back to the blade. “I want the enthraller,” he hissed.

  Billy closed his eyes. Terry wiggled and wriggled and jiggled his insides and yes, hunger gnawed at his guts too. But no one would be eating the entourage today.

  “Mr. Barston?” The kid had also stood but he’d kept his wits and stayed back from the containment unit.

  “Sit down,” Billy said.

  The kid sat.

  “I am hungry, Sohn.” Terry hooked his fingers and swiped at the window, most likely trying to grab hold the way he did when the jet landed.