In the Shadow of Dragons (Aftermagic Book 1)

by Sonya Bateman

  Naomi convulsed briefly and shoved a fist in her mouth. Sawyer had killed Scott. Of course he had. Only a Knight could’ve been capable of gutting a centaur with a sword like that, of breaking what were essentially a horse’s legs like twigs.

  Oh, God. Had she led him to Scott?

  As her mind raced, trying to remember if she’d said anything to Sawyer that would have clued him in about this, the captain said, “Did you hear that? There’s someone in here.” More rattling. She could envision him shaking the paper with her bloody footprint on it at Sawyer. “We need to cordon the barn and search it.”

  “No, you damned well don’t,” Sawyer growled. “I’ll search the place. Get out of here, Ayers.”

  “Not until I’m satisfied there are no more perpetrators on the premises.”

  “Fine. I’ll satisfy you. Get out of my way,” Sawyer snarled.

  There was a rustling sound, a series of metallic clinks. Then blue-white light burst into existence, bright enough to wash most of the shadows that surrounded her away.

  A line of light hovered in the air, maybe a foot away from her face. And everything in that light was laid bare, inside and out, like some kind of powerful x-ray. There was a microwave on the ground, with the door closed, but she could see the shards of the broken glass plate inside it.

  If Sawyer moved that light over the fridge, they would see her.

  Her lungs burned with the effort to hold her breath. After endless seconds, the light started moving. Away from her. It rippled slowly, sweeping the space beneath the loft from floor to ceiling, revealing every object in every layer. She watched until she could no longer see the light.

  He was going to circle the entire barn with that … whatever it was. And it would come back.

  A dozen plans raced through her mind, none of them viable. Play dead. Find a weapon and attack them. Claim she had no idea what happened. Fake amnesia. The ideas got more insane with every iteration — but there was nothing she could do. Not with Sawyer here.

  He’d already threatened to kill her.

  Finally, she caught the light returning in her peripheral vision, rippling back into the space. Headed for the fridge. She stayed motionless, not breathing. All she could do was hope to die faster than poor Scott had. And how she hated Sawyer. Not just for killing her dearest old friend, but for torturing him first. Breaking his legs. Leaving him to die slowly from a gut wound.

  The x-ray light stopped just behind the other end of the fridge and switched off.

  Naomi’s head throbbed sickly. He hadn’t scanned the fridge. Why? If he’d simply forgotten where he started the scan, and just happened to miss the six feet of space that would’ve turned up what he was looking for — that was a hell of a coincidence. She couldn’t believe that her life had been accidentally spared.

  Then she thought the captain was bound to notice that he hadn’t completed the circuit.

  “All right. You’re satisfied,” Sawyer said, returning to the subzero tone. “Now go. And if you think I don’t know what happened here…”

  The captain snorted. Naomi’s heart lurched, sure he was going to point out that Sawyer had missed the fridge. But he said, “What about the loft?”

  “Do you see a goddamned ladder there?” Sawyer shouted. “Get. The hell. Out.”

  After a long pause, people started moving. Footsteps, muttering, something on wheels. The awful sounds of moving a dead body. Eternity until engines started outside and vehicles drove off.

  Cold silence. But she didn’t dare move, because she hadn’t heard the roaring glass-pack muffler that announced Sawyer’s arrival start up and drive off.

  The silence stretched. Finally, she heard something. Slow, careful footsteps headed in her direction. She wanted to scream, to burst out from behind the refrigerator and run at him, pound on him, hurt him the way he’d hurt Scott. As if she could actually damage the man. But she didn’t move.

  The footsteps stopped. There was a quick, hitching breath.

  “I’m leaving. I’ll be back.” Sawyer’s voice was a slow rasp, the words torn free rather than spoken. “You have ten minutes.”

  Apparently he didn’t expect a response, because his footsteps immediately walked away.

  Naomi made herself wait a full minute, counting the seconds in her head. There was a horrifying breath of time when she thought she wouldn’t be able to move at all, that she’d just stay here frozen in terror until Sawyer came back and killed her. But she broke free and sprinted blindly from the barn, across the yard, not looking at anything until she reached her car, started the engine and drove like hell.

  She would make it home before she fell apart completely. She owed that much to Scott.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Badlands

  August 11, 11:40 p.m.

  Diesel had come into the room maybe ten minutes ago, back from wherever he’d gone with Noah. Teague thought about pretending to be asleep, since she’d been trying to get there without success for over an hour now, but she’d been rude enough to him today. She turned on the cot to face him, waited while he lit a small candle on the table by his mattress, and said, “Hey.”

  He grunted and sat down, head hanging. Still mad at her, then.

  She didn’t blame him.

  “Uh … Diesel.” Not the best conversation starter, but she had to say something. She tossed the blanket off and sat on the edge of the cot, facing him. “I’m sorry about today,” she said. “I didn’t mean…”

  She trailed off, no longer sure what she didn’t mean. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Or to be horrified, or to suggest that he was a monster.

  She didn’t mean to be here. She shouldn’t be here.

  He raised his head slowly. “I know you didn’t,” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “It’s fine.”

  The man was completely wrung out. It made her wonder what he’d been doing with Noah, but she didn’t ask. He wouldn’t have told her anyway. “It’s not fine,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I mean, Blake told me about your … problem, and I should’ve thought about that before I opened my big mouth.”

  “My problem.” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Teague, you need to be quiet.”

  She bristled a bit. “Fine. I was just trying to apologize.”

  “No.” He met her gaze firmly. “You need to be quiet. As in, just sit there and don’t say anything. I’m not sure you’ve ever done that, but you need it.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. I can’t keep my mouth shut.” She tried to dial the irritation back. “Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, just say so.”

  “Be quiet.”

  He leaned over and blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.

  “Seriously? You want me to just sit here in the dark,” she said. “What is this, some kind of forced meditation?”

  Diesel didn’t answer.

  “Yeah, that’s great. I’m not the meditating type. So I guess we’re going to sleep, then?” As if she could. There was nothing relaxing about this place, especially being in a room with Diesel.

  Still nothing. She didn’t even hear him breathing.

  “This is stupid,” she grumbled. “If it’s some kind of weird-ass training, I don’t get it. Sorry. You’re probably a great teacher, but I’m a hopeless student. You could’ve just said hey, I’m going to sleep. I mean, you’re obviously exhausted, but … Diesel?”

  Be quiet.

  This time the words came from her own head, in her own voice. The babbling was starting to get on her nerves. So yeah, fine, she could be quiet. She’d prove it. She didn’t have to talk if she didn’t want to.

  So why are you still talking?

  Because I’m scared.

  The words exploded in her mind like a revelation, leaving her breathless. She’d spent years facing the horrors that came to the world without warning, fighting through it with no hesitation. Refusing to admit that she was anything less than the stalwart warrior, the perfect Knight. Never acknowledging
that beneath it all, she was terrified.

  Of the dark.

  Of herself.

  Her breathing evened, and the solid nothing in front of her open eyes seemed to take on shape and texture. A curved edge here, a pitted surface there. Black on black on black, but with depth and form. Not a blank, flat void. She could see Diesel, still sitting on the mattress, facing her. Staring through the black. She could see his eyes.

  Shadows. The darkness was made of shadows, and it was hers.

  She didn’t have to be afraid.

  “I killed my family.” Suddenly it seemed essential that she claimed her own actions, here and now in the shadows. More for herself than Diesel, but the idea of telling him didn’t bother her. “My parents, my brother. They Changed. Tried to kill me. I was screaming, and the darkness … it came into me. It was my weapon and my shield, my survival, and I threw it at them. I couldn’t help it. I had no choice.”

  She didn’t elaborate, but it didn’t feel like she had to. The details didn’t matter. How the magic left her hands as jagged streaks of shadow, black lightning, and tore them into bloody fragments. How she’d come out of her terrified trance and tried to put her brother back together, covering herself with his blood as she scrambled to undo what could never be undone. How, in her grief and panic, she’d set the house on fire before she ran outside screaming, so she wouldn’t have to bury those gruesome remains.

  It only mattered that she’d finally acknowledged the fear. It was part of her, like the darkness.

  “I can control it.” She stood, sure of her place in the shadows, and held a hand out palm-up. Her Magesign glowed a muted violet. She gathered shadow in her hand, formed a sphere, tossed it toward the ceiling to explode harmlessly back into the dark. “It’s okay to be afraid,” she whispered.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Instead of startling her, Diesel’s voice was a welcome comfort. “Thank you,” she said. “So much. I think … I think I can sleep now.”

  “That’s good.”

  He didn’t try to praise her, or to offer awkward sympathy for her family. He simply accepted the peace she’d made with herself. It was the perfect reaction, the only reaction.

  She could have kissed him for it. She might have wanted to.

  But she didn’t. She lay down on the cot, finding it easily in the world of shadows, and let her body relax in the security of darkness.

  She’d find a better way to thank him tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Badlands

  August 12, 1:17 a.m.

  There was a will-o’-wisp hovering a few feet from where Noah sat alone in the main cavern, a red one. From Rook.

  He’d been staring at it for half an hour now. He didn’t want the message. It couldn’t be about the insanely dangerous, stupidly pointless prison break, because that had gone off without a hitch. Isaac had returned last night and reported that he’d found their target five blocks away, assembling a motorcycle out of nothing. The lunatic had flashed Isaac a thumbs-up before he sped off east, toward the main camp.

  He really didn’t want to know what awful kind of magic Amba Vardiss had.

  Since it wasn’t about Amba, the message was probably another assignment. And Noah was tired. Of everything — the raids, the orders, the out-fighting and the infighting, the hiding and the constant terror of discovery. The endless succession of nasty surprises that was his life. Wondering every day if this was his last.

  Damn it, he was just an investment banker. He was supposed to be a forty-something white collar professional, spending forty hours a week in a glass-walled office, getting paid to help other people make money so he could go home to his low-six-figure house and his Helen, his world, and relax until it was time to return to the glass walls. The only visions he ever had were what the stock market was going to do next week, the only cause he’d ever fought for was his wife’s survival. He’d lost that fight. And he was going to lose this one.

  How the hell did he go from punching clocks and crunching numbers to leading a magic-using rogue terrorist faction in the desert?

  Unfortunately he knew exactly how, and why. The Bishop Corporation. Sick to death as he was of all this, he’d keep going until the people were actually safe, not just hiding under the false blanket of BiCo’s security. Until Julian Bishop was dead.

  He pushed himself from the chair, hating every step he took toward the will-o’-wisp in spite of his resolution. He might not be giving up, but he didn’t have to like it. And here was another thing he hated — remembering all the stupid passwords. Rook, of course, used chess terms. He’d changed it from ‘battery’ two orbs ago.

  Noah touched the bottom of the message. “Checkmate.”

  The will-o’-wisp spun and shot up a few feet, flickering as it projected the holo. Rook appeared in his messages as a dark red, glowing silhouette, the color of Eclipse light. His voice was a distorted growl. Almost as disturbing as the man in person.

  Whichever man he happened to be at the time. Rook used cantrips every time he went face-to-face with any of the rebels. Not even Jaeger knew his true identity.

  “Noah. I’m sorry for the short notice.”

  There was a hollow note in the distorted voice that chilled him. Something terrible must have happened, because Rook never sounded anything less than in complete control.

  “I need your help. There’s going to be a patrol raid on the Yukon Street clinic in Casper tomorrow, four p.m. I can’t be there—” He broke off, and the message actually shut down for a few seconds. As if he’d had to stop recording and start up again. “There will be people there,” he said. “Staff. Patients. The patrols are supposed to search the place for evidence of rebel sympathies, but they’re authorized to use deadly force if necessary. And no matter what, they’re going to find it necessary. You have to save those people.” He paused again. “Please.”

  The holo fizzled out.

  Noah stared at the spent orb. Rook wasn’t a crazy egomaniac like Jaeger, but he was usually cold and straightforward. Do this, here, at this time. Never so much as a greeting, let alone an apology for the inconvenience. And that ‘please’ at the end … that was personal.

  There was someone at this clinic Rook cared for, very much.

  Even without the knowledge of how much this meant to the informant, Noah had no qualms taking this assignment. As bad as the arrests, the disappearances and the Eclipse massacres were, this was a new low. BiCo was planning to kill innocent people. Not even Changers or people with Magesign. Just regular people taking their HeMo and trying to preserve all the normalcy they could, in a world where nightmares came true on a regular basis.

  He’d wake everyone early so they had time to prepare. And he’d probably let Teague join this one. The last thing he needed was to drag an exhausted team back from Casper and find that girl wandering the middle of nowhere, trying to tag along. Or dead.

  She had spirit. He’d give her that. He just wished she would channel that spirit into something more productive than resenting him for saving her life.

  Maybe someday, she’d grow up.

  CHAPTER 42

  The Badlands

  August 12, 2:40 p.m.

  Teague wasn’t sure how she felt about being included in this mission.

  She’d been surprised and more grateful than she expected this morning when Noah told her she could come along. Until he’d added that she had to be blindfolded on the way there, because she was still on probation. And apparently everyone but Diesel and Blake disagreed with Noah’s decision to bring her. She’d been feeling the resentment all morning.

  They were going to the clinic in Casper, the one she’d sent Sawyer to guard during the Eclipse — just a few days ago, though it felt like months since the beginning of her decline from Knight to unwelcome rebel. She’d been assigned to the back of a jeep next to Blake, with Isaac driving and Darby in the passenger seat. Noah, Diesel and Sledge were on four-wheelers. Everyone else had stayed behind, despite Silas’s pr
otests that he should be going instead of Teague. Indigo couldn’t, and Oscar and Peyton weren’t that interested.

  A few minutes ago, after she’d ridden half an hour blindfolded in a jeep, fighting the vertigo of lurching and bumping around with no visual warning, they’d stopped at what Blake told her was a rally point. The midway mark, thirty minutes from here to their target. At least they’d let her take the blindfold off while everyone got out and stretched, waiting to time the attack with the patrol raid on the clinic.

  They were at the peak of an open ridge, with a sprawling view of the North Platte River curving around the edge of Red Butte and up into Casper. Just looking at it made her homesick. She belonged down there with the Knights, with Julian, not up here with a bunch of cave-dwelling magic users who didn’t even want her here, preparing to attack what she’d spent so many years defending.

  It was maddening to be so close to freedom and unable to take it.

  She sat in a puddle of shade on the ground next to the jeep, Blake beside her, Darby cross-legged in the sun across from them. Isaac and Sledge stood a few feet away, looking out over the ridge, and Diesel had called Noah away to look at some problem with his bike. She should probably strike up a conversation, try to get more information out of someone. But she wasn’t sure where to start.

  Before she could pick a topic, Blake turned to her and grinned. “So. I hear you’re a shadow user,” he said. “Never met one of those before.”

  She reminded herself not to get angry. “I guess I am,” she said. “What about you?”

  “Slingshot boy thinks he’s a were-tiger,” Darby put in with a smirk.

  “Well, I could be.” The remark didn’t diminish his enthusiasm. “My thing is wood, though. You saw Darby’s water, and Sledge is stone, Noah’s wind … well, you get the idea. Nobody else is shadow.”