Dragonsword

by Chloe Garner

  “I can’t,” she said. “I have to sleep until I wake up.”

  He smiled without looking at her.

  “That doesn’t sound like you.” He paused, then rubbed her arm and squeezed her. “Wake up now.”

  The dream vanished, and she was in the dark. She couldn’t breathe. She was in cold water, and in darkness, with a sheet of ice over her head. Swirling currents tossed her about, corrupting her balance, keeping her out of control.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  There was a moment of decision: panic or anger, then anger won. She slammed her fists into the ice, even as the current dragged her along it. She gritted her teeth, kicking and hitting and biting…

  “Sam,” Jason said, holding her wrists. She jerked away before she realized she was awake. She kicked at the sheets again, feeling constrained, then pushed the overreaction away.

  “What time is it?” she asked. Sam sat up groggily next to her. He yawned and Jason left, bringing back two cups of coffee.

  “Almost dawn,” Jason said. “Sam set up your lab.”

  She looked where Jason had indicated, where a pair of boards were stretched across crates. Vials and bowls and plates were scattered across them, and it looked like Sam had done the prep work he was capable of doing. She looked at him as he took his cup of coffee.

  “Sleep,” she said, feeling the weight of exhaustion that tugged at him. “You did good.”

  He yawned again, and she looked at Jason.

  “Both of you. I’ve got hours’ worth of work to do. I’ll wake you up when I’m ready to go out.”

  “I wrote down what I saw,” Sam said, cover his mouth for yet another yawn. “My notes are over there.”

  “I see them,” she said, putting her fingers through his hair. His eyes rolled up into his head. “Sleep well,” she said as he slumped back onto the bed, asleep within moments. She rescued his cup of coffee on the way down, untangling it from his pliable fingers and taking a breath. She wasn’t fully restored, but she was much better. She looked at Jason.

  “I meant it,” she said. He nodded.

  “I get it. Don’t go out on your own.”

  She nodded, watching him lay down. There was a moment of struggle that showed on his face, then he managed to turn off the sleep control and his body collapsed. She nodded to herself and took the pair of coffee mugs over to the impromptu desk, feeling like Christmas morning. He’d thought of a great number of things. Not everything, but some things she wouldn’t have considered. His notes were highlighted and marked with the things she needed to see first. Potential affiliations, known appetites, demons Sam had recognized them with. It was a great list. She felt his mind, distant, sleepy, dreamless but present, and smiled to herself, then got to work.

  <><><>

  Samantha stood in the center of the room with her hands on her hips, breathing. They would be here in a few hours. She had taken Doris’ advice and gotten food. It might have helped, last time. Jason was outside, getting a feel for where all of the doors were and where the streets went. Sam was sitting by the door to the conference room with Kelly. It had just occurred to Samantha that if one of the people coming were involved in the plot to take Carter, she was presenting an excellent opportunity for them to attempt to assassinate her. Telling a bunch of people where she was going to be almost a week in advance. It was too late to worry about it, though. She trusted all of them not to team up with a demon in the pursuit of power. Mostly. Well, none of the bad demons, anyway.

  She shook her head. It was going to be a long day, and she wasn’t sure she actually had the power to master it. If she lost here, she deserved to lose the whole thing.

  Nuri had loaned her a few demons to help set up, and the building management had janitorial staff who had been there in the morning had gotten the tables where she wanted them. No chairs. Chairs turned into weapons too easily. She wavered, wanting to go back to the apartment, pull her hair down, and work on her research with Sam. Maybe she had missed something. Maybe she would find the crucial key, with just a few more hours’ work. Sam kept her so much steadier. It was startling how jarring it was to be alone in her head again, after just a few hours with the bond back.

  “Sam,” he called. “It’s going to be fine.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t have the strength of will to do this. Sure, she was stubborn, and she and Carter had stood toe to toe over a lot of things over the years, but that was just her and him. Put her in a room with the rest of them… It was so complicated.

  He laughed.

  “Yes it is,” he said. “Stop arguing with me.”

  She frowned at him. She had a few hours to organize her thoughts and get all of the politics settled in her head. She had put off thinking about it, because she would think about it here, with nothing to distract her and nothing else to do. It was still overwhelming. The boundary disputes - some of which would have happened since she’d left or heard last - and the personal slights… She needed to know how to play each of them against each other. There were so many moving pieces, and from where she’d put herself, she wouldn’t have any allies. Carter hadn’t needed allies, but he was Carter. She was not.

  She was so not Carter.

  There was a shuffle as the door opened.

  “This place is a tactical nightmare,” Jason said. “Doors everywhere.”

  “It’s a convention hall,” Samantha said. “I want everyone to be able to get out without bumping into each other.”

  “I still think…” he started, then Samantha heard everyone stop breathing. She closed her eyes, her chest shifting to feel the harness that held Lahn and her other weapons. Ambush.

  “Anadidd’na Anu’dd,” a man said. She turned, kneeling.

  “Parroah’na Anana’nae,” she answered.

  “It’s time.”

  She looked up, sharp.

  “Say what?”

  He raised an eyebrow. Her heart rate spiked.

  “No. It can’t be time.”

  “I thought you would want to be rid of it,” he said. She shook her head, mind racing.

  “No. I do. I just… I have things…”

  “There are always things,” he said. “I thought you above everyone would know that.”

  “No, I do, but…”

  “What’s going on?” Jason broke in. Trust him to interrupt a conversation with an angel.

  “It’s time,” Mahkail said again.

  “Got that,” Jason said. “What’s time?”

  “To take my brothers home,” Kelly said. “We can’t do it here.”

  Samantha scanned her mind for likely spots.

  “Central park?” she asked. Mahkail bowed.

  “We will meet you there,” he said, vanishing.

  “No, wait,” Samantha said. Jason looked at Kelly.

  “Who is we?” he asked.

  “The others,” Kelly said, looking at Samantha. “How long do you have?”

  “We need to be quick,” she said, making the decision. It might be months before another window opened. She wasn’t going to pass on this one just because it was inconvenient.

  Very inconvenient.

  Risk Carter or risk the angeldust?

  She was through the door. No more time to worry over it. Sam, Jason, and Kelly followed her. Maryann appeared in the hallway.

  “Is it time?” she asked. Kelly showed a remarkable lack of reaction to her.

  “Not yet,” Samantha said. “You aren’t going to be able to come with us. Will you stay here and keep watch? If anyone shows up that you don’t recognize, I want to know about it when I get back.”

  “Where are you going?” Maryann asked.

  “Heaven,” Kelly said. Samantha realized that he had a warrior’s eyes. There was a fierceness to them that hadn’t been there, before. She glanced at Maryann.

  “There are going to be angels around. You shouldn’t be there.”

  Maryann grimaced at Kelly, who glared back. Samantha smiled to herself. That w
as how that was supposed to work.

  “Of course, Mistress,” Maryann said. Samantha glared and Maryann disappeared. She shook her head and kept on.

  “Where are we going?” Jason asked.

  “When we get close, Kelly will know,” Samantha answered. At least, she hoped he would. She hailed a taxi and got in the front, letting Sam, Kelly, and Jason cram into the back. The drive to Central Park was grueling, all stoplights and traffic, and it always took less time than it seemed. By the end, Samantha felt like she could have walked faster. She paid the cab driver and got out, looking at Kelly. He looked uncertain for a moment, then smiled.

  “Platinum,” he said, starting forward. She glanced at Sam, who looked mystified.

  “They use platinum to open an angelgate,” she murmured.

  “Angelgate?”

  “Humans are the only part of this that are interesting,” she answered as they followed Kelly. “Everything else comes paired. Angeldust and demon ash. Hellsgates and angelgates. If there’s one, there’s almost always the other,” she said.

  “You’re going to cross, physically?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can we come?” Sam asked. She noticed Jason’s head tilt. He was listening.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I know that it exists, but I don’t know a lot about them. The gates. Angels keep secrets. Demons spread lies.”

  Kelly led the way through a twist of pathways and then off between trees into a small clearing. Four angels, three of whom she recognized, were pushing grass out of a circular space marked out with square, silver posts that were laid on the ground at intervals. Platinum.

  Samantha had reached the full extent of what she knew about angelgates. If anyone had opened one in her lifetime, she didn’t know about it, because the angels only worked with people who weren’t going to be public with the knowledge. Like with hellsgates, though, it required a human intentionally and voluntarily execute the entire process. Mahkail stopped what he was doing and approached.

  “They are safe?” he asked. It was a formality.

  “They are uninitiated,” she answered.

  “Are they capable?”

  “No.”

  “Very well. The gate is of twelve, by sevens and ones,” he said. She quickly tried to do the math. What were the combinations that would hit all twelve posts? Were those the only ones?

  “What are the marks?” she asked. He gave her the list by sevens. It was a lot of details, but she had to get it right on her own. The first time. A hellsgate was something Carter could bomb-proof a building to withstand, but a botched angelgate had the power to level most of Manhattan. Mahkail reached the end of the list then looked at her. She nodded, and he shook his head.

  “That isn’t all, child,” he said. This was the sound of empathy. Alarm bells went off in her head. “You must draw by symmetric curve for the ones and twice-radius for the sevens.”

  “I’m doing the hellside curves?” she asked, exasperated.

  “Blasphemy,” one of the angels hissed. Mahkail put his hand out toward the angel, his face twitching just enough to betray humor.

  “You thought you never had to learn them,” he said. “I’m afraid that the straight lines are all on our side, this time.”

  “Shaman,” she muttered. “I know them. I’m just in a hurry.”

  He started to reprimand her, and she held up a hand.

  “I know the consequences. I always take care. Leave me.”

  He nodded and withdrew, and she approached the ring, now clear of grass. The bare earth was dark with moisture that the grass had held down, and it smelled of healthy life. She breathed the clean air, the smell of trees and dirt and water, and fancied for a moment that that’s what creation smelled like, then looked over at Sam and Jason.

  “It goes without saying it, but you guys shut up from this point on.”

  She found the center of the circle, calling the curves into her mind’s eye, tracing out the path she would be drawing. It made seven full circles of the middle, in all. She would have to focus to get the curvature right the first few passes. After that, it would be obvious, but it would be easy to get it wrong for the first few. She looked up.

  “You have the lamb’s blood?”

  “She thinks we would leave the gate open by mistake?” the ‘blasphemy’ angel, the one she didn’t know, said. She turned to face him, posture stiff.

  “It is,” she started, with full formality, “my responsibility the moment I begin this gate that I control it. Beginning to end. Show me the blood.”

  Mahkail picked up a silver container resting under a tree and brought it to her.

  “Kelly,” she said, summoning him. He glitched to her side. “Verify it.”

  He hesitated, afraid of insulting Mahkail, but the older angel nodded to him. He put his palm over the surface of the dark fluid, closing his eyes.

  “It is as they say,” he said. Mahkail gave both of them a small smile, then turned and left. Samantha nodded to Kelly, dismissing him, then started at the first post again in her mind, going through the entire process.

  “Bring me the amalgam,” she said. An angel that she had played games with routinely on the Paradise plane brought her a pitcher with a very narrow pouring spout. She looked into it, finding the semi-liquid mercury alloy. It was, at least, easy to identify on her own. She took the pitcher, formally, then set it at her feet and stood, offering her palms.

  “Bless me.”

  The angel covered her hands with his own.

  “I bless you with knowledge.” This was the important one, working with mercury. The human body was designed to react aversely to it. She bowed her head, accepting the blessing, then turned to face the next angel.

  “Bless me,” she said. The woman approached, brushing her hair back off of her shoulders. She had taught Samantha her first Angeltongue.

  “I bless you with wisdom,” she said, drawing her hands across Samantha’s. She withdrew, and Samantha turned to the testy angel.

  “Bless me,” she said. He approached slowly.

  “I bless you with restraint,” he said. She couldn’t hide the grin that flashed onto her face, as she dropped her head.

  “Thank you,” she said. She turned to Mahkail.

  “Bless me.”

  He stood before her for a long time, holding her eye. The urgency of the day fled as she looked into the eyes of the warrior of God. He covered her hands with his, squeezing the sides with his thumbs.

  “I bless you with power,” he said. He held her hands in his own for a moment, then backed away. She turned to Kelly. His head snapped to look at Mahkail. By rights, Mahkail should have been the last one. Mahkail closed his eyes and shook his head, indicating that Kelly should face Samantha. Samantha waited until Kelly looked back at her.

  “Bless me,” she said. He walked forward slowly, clearly unprepared. She held out her hands and he put his hands on hers, pausing.

  “I…” His voice cracked, and he swallowed. “I bless you with friendship.”

  There was a deep, poignant pain at his words, low in her chest, and she braced herself, refusing to let her feet move.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. He met her eye and pressed his lips in an attempt at a smile, then backed away. She drew a deep breath, looking down at the amalgam, then nodded.

  “It begins.”

  <><><>

  She went to stand at the first post, picking it up and placing it against the soil. The ground gave way underneath it, letting it drop a foot into dirt before coming to rest. She held it with both hands, looking up at the height of platinum above her head. Even at only a square inch in cross-section, she was glad the angels had arranged the posts for her beforehand. It was hard to lift them gracefully. She held the post in place for a moment, focusing, then closed her eyes and crossed.

  O’na Anu’dd stood in front of her. She was in a modest marble room with an open doorway into a hallway that she recognized. She
frowned at him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled.

  “Did you think I would let you take this on without a friend on this side?”

  “But… Your job. This isn’t your responsibility.”

  He hugged her.

  “You forget, the same as they,” he murmured into her hair as his wings closed around her. “I am still one of them. They are my brothers, as well.”

  “You know what else is going on?” she asked. He nodded.

  “I have opened more gates than anyone,” he said. “My connection to your side is strong enough that I am often called to participate. You pick your pace, and I will match it.”

  She turned to look back at the single platinum post standing behind her. He opened his wings again and she looked at the faint images of the angels and humans standing around the gate-to-be as they stood, frozen in the time differential, inscribed on the walls.

  “I’ve never seen it from this side,” she said.

  “And you likely won’t again,” he answered. “Take your rest.”

  “I am ready,” she said. She’d gone through it in her head, and she was mentally prepared. She wasn’t going to get any better. She bowed low to O’na Anu’dd, then offered him her hands.

  “Bless me.”

  He put his hands under hers and kissed her palms, one, then the other.

  “I bless you with success,” he said. He pressed her hands together between his own, then rested his forehead against hers. “You can do this.”

  It broke with decorum, but she appreciated it all the same. She nodded, feeling his head mirror her own, then took another breath and dropped back across the boundary. She let go of the post and counted seven around, one past halfway, and went to lift the next one. She was strong, the result of consistent training even through everything else, but the posts weighed more than a hundred pounds each. She needed to lift and place them cleanly, in exactly the right spots, in order to open the gate cleanly, and by the fifth, her back burned. By the eighth, her legs ached and shook, and by the last, she wasn’t sure her hands would hold. No one stepped forward to help her, and she was glad. She let the last post drop home, then walked around the circle to inscribe the first symbol on the ground, walking the path she would take, by sevens, through the circle to draw the rest of the symbols. She got back to the first post and spoke the sequence, feeling the buzz of power as the posts became a live gate. It wasn’t open yet, but like a circle of iron posts marked correctly, she could feel the potential of the place. She retrieved the amalgam, then started at the first post with the pour.