by Eric Asher
Gaia turned her head toward the shadowed mass, even as it faded behind us in the strange time-space of the Abyss. “Some things do not have names, Damian Vesik. And some things never should.”
A distant groan that sounded more like a thunderclap half a state away echoed through the starry darkness. I couldn’t stifle a shiver.
Gaia’s stride slowed. “We are here, when you are ready.”
I nodded.
“Be safe. There are things in the darkness you cannot see.”
And with that reassuring message, Gaia released my hand.
CHAPTER THREE
I was always a bit concerned when Gaia was dropping me off at a military facility. It seemed likely that if I appeared in the wrong spot, I’d probably be deflecting bullets, or just be catching one in the back of the head and that would be that. I’ve always been an optimistic person.
In this case, though, Gaia had returned to one of her favorite delivery methods. As the Abyss disintegrated, a cinderblock wall appeared right in front of my nose and didn’t have the courtesy to stop. I turned my head at the last second, and my cheek smacked into the wall before the rest of my body thumped into it as well. I cursed and frantically felt my nose to make sure it wasn’t broken. Foster could heal it in a snap, most of the fairies could, but it hurt like a bitch.
“Fucking A,” a surprisingly unsurprised voice said behind me.
I sighed in relief as I grew sure the cartilage of my nose was intact before raising my hands away from any threat I might have concealed about my person. My backpack grazed the cinderblock wall as I turned, and I smiled when I saw Casper standing in the hallway with a sheaf of papers.
“Why don’t you just use the front door like a normal person?”
“I was in Ireland. I didn’t really have that choice.”
Casper blinked.
I paused, waiting to see if she would say anything. When she didn’t, I asked, “Is Park around?”
“Ireland?” Casper said.
I nodded. “That’s where I was. But now I need First Sergeant Park.”
Casper narrowed her eyes. “That’s a nice travel plan. You’ll have to show me how to do that one day.”
“I’m not sure how well that would work,” I said. “And it would be a pretty bad way to die. Or I suppose, more accurately, die over centuries, maybe millennia?”
Casper’s curiosity vanished. “Let me grab the First Sergeant.”
“That would be great. I don’t want you shooting the dragon.”
Casper hesitated beneath the bright fluorescent light that washed out her already pale skin. Both her eyebrows climbed a little bit higher. “It certainly doesn’t get boring here,” she said, and vanished down the hallway.
She poked her head back around the corner. “Are you coming? I’ll just take you to his office. It’s probably simpler.”
I hurried down the hall and joined her. She’d become something of a celebrity among the water witches. I don’t think she realized that herself, as the witches tended not to mingle with humans very much. Or at least they tended to avoid non-magic-using humans, those we called commoners. While Nixie had landed the final blow against Lewena, it had been Casper who had taken the shots that truly ended the battle.
I frowned at the walls as we continued deeper into what I had thought was their temporary base. But the small cinderblock buildings the military had constructed in Saint Charles didn’t have hallways as long.
“Where are we?”
The cinderblocks gave way to old foundations, giant quarry rocks like those that had been used to construct the foundations of some of the oldest homes in the city.
“Underground,” Casper said.
“Underground where?” I asked.
Casper looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know exactly.”
“It’s dangerous to dig in this area,” I said. “You might find things you’d rather not.” I glanced behind me, frowning a little deeper at the flickering shadows and the small gray orbs that danced around the corners of the hall. “Or you might wake something up you don’t want.”
“It’s been okay so far,” Casper said. “Aeros helped us carve out a long network of tunnels. We added onto it a bit ourselves, but now we’ve got an easily defensible location.”
“Be pretty easy for the water witches to drown you out.”
Casper shook her head. She pointed to a door as we passed by, and I cursed when I saw the hatch. It looked more like something I’d expect to see on a submarine than an underground base.
“Waterproof?” I asked.
She nodded. “One hundred percent.”
We turned another corner and a very familiar voice, a very familiar angry voice, echoed through the hall.
“I don’t give a dead rat’s fucking ass what that reporter promised you,” Sam said, her voice echoing off the walls. “You can’t trust Emily Beckers.”
The knot of dread sank into my stomach at the mention of the reporter. Emily had once come to Death’s Door, seeking answers to the video of a fight we’d once had with a blood mage. It had gone viral, and not even the Watchers had been able to stop it. Granted, that was because Ezekiel had carved through a great many of them, but still.
The reporter had covered darker things.
Park’s response was calm, even reasoned, but that didn’t stop Casper and I from jogging the rest of the way down the hall. She stopped outside and knocked, as if she planned to formally introduce us. But once I heard the words that came out of Park’s mouth, I didn’t hesitate to barge in ahead of Casper.
“What reason would that reporter have to lie to us about a dragon? Maybe it wasn’t an actual dragon. Maybe it was some kind of Fae creature that we need to be ready for. Something you and Foster haven’t yet prepared us for. I can’t risk standing down.”
“It’s a dragon,” I said, pushing in to stand next to Sam.
Sam cocked her head to the side and blinked. “Demon, are you sure?” I knew what Sam was really asking. She wanted to know if we were going to tell Park exactly what was going on.
“Yes, it’s Vicky. I mean Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Jasper. You’re talking about the dragon by the Arch?”
Park nodded.
“That’s our friend. Tell your men not to engage her.”
“Her? The dragon’s a her? What does that have to do with anything?”
“The girl,” Sam snapped. “The girl Emily mentioned.”
I squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “Vicky is still supposed to be in hiding with her parents. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing.” I turned to Park. “But do not attack her. She has a very murdery guardian.”
“Sorry to break protocol,” Casper said. “Damian sort of appeared in front of me.”
Park gave a hesitant shake of his head. “This job is going to kill me.”
“In all fairness,” Casper said. “It probably won’t be the job.”
Park released a humorless laugh and rested his forehead on his palm. “Give the order. No one is to engage the dragon.”
“Glad it’s not the other dragon,” Sam muttered.
Park’s brow furrowed into a look somewhere between irritation and exasperation. “Other. Dragon?”
I gave him an awkward smile. “Drake.”
“We haven’t heard any reports or sightings of Drake. Not from the troops here, and not from the troops stationed around Falias. I’m not sure if I should be happy about that, or concerned.”
“We’ll know next time we see him,” Sam said.
“This is a pretty nice underground base you have,” I said, hoping to catch Park off guard with a violent change of topic.
Park raised an eyebrow at Sam. “You didn’t tell him?”
“You said not to,” Sam said. “It didn’t exactly seem like a critical bit of information.”
Park pursed his lips. “Yes, after last year’s assault burned our camp to the ground, we decided to put some safety measures in place.”
“Smart,” I
said. “I especially like the submarine-looking doors.”
“They don’t just look like submarine doors,” Park said. “They’re made of the same material, and they’re deep inside the stone thanks to Aeros.”
I waited to see if Park would elaborate. He didn’t, so I let it drop. “Where’s Foster?”
Park started to say something, but looked at Casper instead. “Did you leave him there?”
Casper frowned.
“Shit,” Park and Sam said at the same time.
Park jumped to his feet. “We left him with Ms. Beckers. There’s a tunnel that leads to the archives. We’ll find them there.” He dashed out of the room.
Sam gave me an awkward wave and then rocketed through the door, catching Park in an instant. Casper and I followed.
CHAPTER FOUR
The walls around us changed from the ancient stone of long-forgotten foundations to the cinderblock I was so used to seeing in the temporary military constructions. The hall faded to nothing but dirt with stone arches placed every ten to twenty feet. They were unnaturally smooth, and I had little doubt Aeros had built this section.
“How far?” I asked as we closed on Park and Sam.
“Quarter mile at most,” Park said, his voice barely betraying any sign of exertion.
“You don’t think Foster would do something stupid, do you?” Casper asked.
Sam released a sharp laugh. “How many months have you known him now? Do you even need to ask? We’ll be lucky if that reporter’s head’s not on a pike.”
Casper’s eyes went wide.
“She’s totally exaggerating,” I said. “Totally.”
But in the back of my mind, I wondered how far Foster would go. Emily hadn’t directly sabotaged us in the past, exactly. But she was certainly part of the media machine. The media could be a serious pain in the ass when you were the underdog in a Fae war.
Park took a sharp left, and we followed. Around the corner was an old concrete staircase. Our boots echoed as we started up the flights. Two floors, four, and we finally found a door on the fifth flight. Park pulled the iron bar off the center of the door and shouldered the creaky hinges open without ceremony. The dim light of the tunnels gave way to the harsh fluorescence of what looked like a room full of floor to ceiling filing cabinets.
“Come on.” Park dragged us out of the room into another hallway, refocusing my mind on our task. Park nodded to a middle-aged woman who didn’t need any further prompting.
“They’re in administration.” Her calm façade crumbled into hand wringing. “Please calm them down.”
Before anyone could respond to the woman’s words, raised voices echoed down the hall. Foster’s words rang clear as we closed on a room with a frosted glass window set in the top half of the door.
“I don’t give a shit if it’s a local newspaper,” Foster shouted, his voice growing shrill. “You think they won’t have people watching this?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Emily snapped back.
Sam pulled the door open, and Park stalked through, followed by the rest of us. For all Foster and Emily took notice, we might as well not have been there.
“The only people in the video are Nudd and the dark-touched,” Emily said, her voice rising to a savage note. “There’s no way he’d know who shot it.”
Foster’s hand flashed to his sword where his knuckles whitened around the hilt. “Or maybe he knows exactly who shot that video, and you just handed them a death sentence.”
“I’m putting your friends at risk?” Emily asked. “You’re the most suicidal bunch I’ve ever seen. And I’ve covered some pretty horrible black ops shit.”
“You think you can take her, Foster?” I asked. “I give you 50/50 odds.”
The focus of the entire room turned to me. Park frowned before slowly raising an eyebrow.
“Hi,” I said, giving Foster a sideways smile.
The fairy narrowed his eyes. “We’re just talking.”
“And before you even start on me,” Emily said, meeting my gaze with steel in her eyes, “I didn’t’ steal anything from the base. An anonymous source sent that video to me.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Ha!” Foster said. “Ms. Beckers published a story on Vicky, and in the process has likely got Enda and her family killed.”
“I gave Ms. Beckers permission to run a story about Casper,” Park said. “It was supposed to be a propaganda piece, to complement the campaign you’ve seen.”
Foster stomped across the newspaper on the desk he was standing on and unsheathed his sword. He used it as a pointer. At first, I thought he was indicating the headline. But his sword moved to the photo included in the article.
I cursed.
“Christ,” Park said.
Sam leaned over the table. She frowned at the photo for a moment before her gaze shot up to the reporter. “That’s surveillance footage that Enda shot. That only Enda could have shot!”
“You’ve put that entire family at risk,” Casper said. “Send word to the Obsidian Inn. Get them out.”
“You don’t have to worry about the dragon. It was eating Fae.” A knot twisted in my stomach. If any ally of Nudd’s had already seen this, Liam, Lochlan, and Enda were in terrible danger. “If anyone gets Vicky or my friends in Falias hurt, you can’t even comprehend the pain I’ll rain down on them.”
I struggled to keep myself in check. I knew the dead in the city, and I could call on most of them without having some awful flash of knowing I hadn’t already experienced. It might be more dangerous around them, and sometimes I feared it made me more unstable, but I pulled my aura back together, even as it tried to reach out to the ghosts.
To Emily, it might have simply looked like I was trying to intimidate her, and she wouldn’t be wrong. She’d caused me more than one headache over the years, and now she was putting my friends at risk. And that was unacceptable.
“Ms. Beckers,” Park said, “you’re coming to interrogation with me.”
“I know my rights,” Emily said. “This is beneath you.”
“Nothing is beneath me in this war,” Park said. He tipped his head toward Casper, and she moved into action. She placed one hand on Emily’s wrist and the other on her shoulder. To the untrained, it might look like she was gently escorting her out of the room. To me, it looked like she could break the woman’s arm in a split second and put her face into the dirt at the same time. Casper knew how to be prepared, and she was someone I’d never want to cross.
Park waited a beat before he turned around and closed the door. He stared down at the image in the local newspaper and cursed. “How fast can you get someone to get Enda and her family out?”
Foster flexed his wings and grimaced. “I don’t know, but I’ll send word now.”
“It’s time to go see Vicky,” I said.
“Let me know if we should expect any more dragon sightings,” Park said, glancing at the newspaper.
Sam stepped closer to Park. “Your soldiers are more than capable of handling a leak to the newspapers. Get them on it. Damian and Foster and I can handle the fairy stuff. Concentrate on what you know.”
Park sighed. “I know more than I wanted to know. Just when I think I have a handle on it, something else crops up. Dragons, reporters, and I don’t even know which is worse.”
“I have to go see Vicky,” I said. “I think it’s time to talk to her family, too.”
“What?” Foster and Sam said at once.
I nodded. “There’s too much at risk. There’s too much that puts her at risk. I need to be sure they understand everything going on.”
“Uh huh,” Sam said. “You mean about how you traveled to an alternate dimension and killed the being that was taking over their dead child’s soul before you brought her back to life? I’m sure that’ll go over great!”
I fidgeted and rubbed my hands together. “Okay, maybe they don’t have to hear all of it.”
“You want us to
come?” Foster asked.
I shook my head. “Stay here. The training is one of the most important things we have going for us right now. More soldiers mean more allies.”
“Except for the soldiers that want to kill us,” Foster said. “I’m literally training some of these assholes to kill me.”
I glanced at Park.
He gave a half shrug. “A few, yes. Most of the troops are quite fond of Foster, though. At least those that aren’t terrified of him. Stabbing that private probably didn’t help.”
Foster grunted. “I assumed that idiot knew his right from his left. Bet he won’t make that mistake again.”
“We’ll stay,” Sam said. “But if you need us, you call. Frank’s doing PT with some of the privates. He’ll be here too if you need him. You know he will.”
I paused. “Who’s running the shop? I thought Frank was there today.”
“Aideen is,” Foster said. “She’s back from the Obsidian Inn. Business still hasn’t picked up as much as we’d hoped since the battle with the water witches, so she’s comfortable running things by herself.”
“Good. Good.” I nodded to myself as if I was silently trying to pump myself up for going to Vicky’s house. I suppose that’s exactly what I was doing.
“But we’re clear?” I asked, turning to Park. “No shooting the dragon?”
“You see,” he said, “this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. I’ve been having a relatively normal day, but now I have to tell my men not to shoot at the dragon. A dragon!”
I nodded sagely. “The dragon’s quite friendly. But if you have any collectible Barbies around, I’d probably hide them.”
Park muttered under his breath. “No shooting the Barbie-eating dragon.”
Sam and Foster chuckled as I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER FIVE
I walked to the main hallway, my boots echoing around me as I left the dead acoustics of the filing cabinets behind. The light grew brighter, until the sun streaming through the windows washed away the harsh fluorescent light that had surrounded us before.