Witch of the Midnight Blade

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  I didn’t shake. “Where the hell have you been?” I said. “Aren’t you all Fates? Shouldn’t you have stopped Vivicus from killing Mrs. K?” I pointed up the road. “Intervened somehow? Helped out?” Then back at the bus. “Done something? Anything?”

  Three of the purple-shirts dragged Metus toward one SUV, while three more dragged Timor toward another.

  Cordelia’s face took on the same annoyed look my mom used to get when the boys were little and kept asking the same stupid question over and over. “We’ve been busy.”

  Half the planet was on fire. We had a dragon infestation. We’d all been busy.

  It was still a shitty excuse.

  “This is the first time since you left Paradise Homes that we have been able to get a clean fix on your location.” Cordelia pointed over her shoulder. “You’ve been carrying a Midnight Blade.” She said it in such a way as to insinuate a huge dose of duh.

  I frowned right back at her.

  “Janus made Metus and Timor visible via normal surveillance when he used a cell phone to give them Daniel’s location.” She pointed at Antonius. “Right about the same time he got a fix on three suits traveling northeast from the same position.”

  A medic helped Marcus down the bus’s steps and toward Cordelia’s SUV, and once again, Antonius was not covering his emotions well as he watched Daniel. Harold was more concerned about Marcus than watching Antonius.

  Daniel, still on the other side of the road, looked as if he was about to explode.

  The purple-shirts either didn’t notice, or they didn’t care.

  I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. I wouldn’t.

  “Come,” Cordelia motioned for me to come with her toward the same SUV. “We will debrief on our way to Portland.”

  “Oregon?” I asked. I wasn’t going to Portland with this woman. “I’m going to Cheyenne.” Could I walk away from these people? Would they allow me to go? I wrapped Mrs. K’s blanket around my head and tried anyway.

  “I told you to keep Cheyenne to yourself,” Cordelia barked at Antonius.

  The Seraphim flipped from being sweet otter boy to saber-toothed giant otter menace with a sniff and a snarl.

  He might be cute, but he was a Seraphim, and he obviously did not appreciate orders from someone who was outside his normal chain of command.

  Cordelia ignored him. “You cannot leave, Ms. Parrish!” She followed me as I walked away from the bus.

  Antonius decided to take out his frustrations on Harold. “Give me the weapons.” He got between Harold and his attempt to follow Marcus to the SUV and made a grab for the gun.

  “No!” Harold pulled the gun and the bag away.

  All this time, Daniel had stayed on the side of the road. He hadn’t approached Antonius, or asked him real questions, or made any overt admission of the emotional distress he clearly carried in his shoulders.

  “An individual dragon ship landed near the bus,” Daniel said. “We have video, or had video, until that EMP hit. Those two jets took care of the problem, correct? Did you kill that dragon or take it prisoner?”

  Other than stopping and standing perfectly still, Cordelia made no other sign that she knew about the dragon. No facial changes. No twitches. Nothing.

  Which meant she knew.

  Daniel walked toward the bus. “If we respond the way they respond,” he pointed at Antonius, “to every dragon, we won’t have a chance.”

  The sniff and snarl flickered across Antonius’s face again. He twisted his head and thrust out his chin, and his hood closed over his face.

  Daniel looked much more satisfied than I would have expected from a man who’d just re-met his long-dead husband.

  But like Antonius said, he wasn’t Daniel’s Antonius.

  Antonius hit the bus. He danced around Harold and flat-out punched the side of the bus.

  Harold did not move. He looked at the dent, then at the Seraphim. “You done?” he asked.

  Cordelia pinched the bridge of her nose. “We go to Portland,” she said. “I will not have any of you in harm’s way.” She moved toward Daniel. “We need to look at your hand.”

  Daniel continued to stare at Antonius. Not real-stare, but he wanted everyone to know he was using his seers, and who was the target of his seeing.

  “Can we trust you?” I asked Antonius. He was still a Seraphim. All the lovey-dovey otter eyes meant nothing if he was still Vivicus’s man.

  Could I trust any of them? Even Harold, who was the only other sorta-normal person in all of this.

  I’d trusted that damned sword, and look where it’d gotten me.

  “Do you know where Leif is?” I asked anyway. What else could I do? “They took Nax. He needs medical attention. Janus said he was going to trigger the Final Protocols.”

  Surprise registered in the tightening of Antonius’s handsome cheekbones and the momentary widening of his big brown eyes. “What did you say?”

  “Our version of your Judicial High Commander stole my Midnight Blade. He said it was his talisman. Then he took it, Leif, your crazy-ass commander, and Nax because he’s going to somehow get himself and his prisoners up there.” I pointed at the sky.

  “The Dragonslayer,” Antonius said. He tapped at his sleeve. “It’s here?” He pointed at Cordelia. “We need immediate satellite confirmation.”

  She nodded.

  Antonius waved at the group in general, but he pointed at me. “I need detail—”

  His suit pinged and a shimmer coiled like a sand snake across his chest.

  An emblem appeared over his right collarbone, one that looked a lot like the emblem Alt-me had seen on their Judicial High Commander’s suit, except this one had wings.

  Someone had activated his Seraphim insignia.

  He twisted his head as if listening.

  Cordelia reached for her gun, but he tapped his arm again, and held up his hand.

  He’d turned on speakers, so we could all hear what was coming in over his comm. “Terra est humanum,” Leif said. “Nostrum terra est.”

  “That’s Leif!” I said. “He’s alive!” Alive and not speaking English. “Was that Latin?”

  “Earth is human,” Cordelia said. “Earth is ours.”

  Why would Leif say such a thing?

  Daniel pulled Harold away from Antonius. At the same time, Cordelia stepped between me and the Seraphim.

  “Ego Dracones Legio,” Leif said.

  Antonius lifted his chin high.

  “I am Dragons’ Legion,” Cordelia said.

  What was Leif doing?

  Antonius looked up at the sky. He reached over his shoulder. The baton expanded into a spear the moment his hand grasped the shaft. He spun it as he lifted, and it hissed through the air.

  “Nos non Seraphim.” Leif said through the comm.

  I knew what that meant. He was no longer Seraphim. Leif was taking command.

  Antonius slammed the end of the spear into the pavement. Dust and ice puffed, and a flash pulsed up his arm, to his shoulders, then back again.

  “Antonius!” Leif shouted through the comm. “Et sumus Legio.”

  The Seraphim symbol appeared over Antonius’s left breastbone again. It pulsed twice and vanished. “Et sumus Legio,” he repeated.

  A new symbol appeared.

  I’d seen the same design before, in the little metal dragon insignia that Erik had given Mrs. K back at Paradise Homes. The same insignia I now carried in my pocket.

  Two entwined dragons sat over Antonius’s breastbone. Two dragons that shimmered and pulsed with colors and patterns very much like the dragon who’d threatened us—and had likely been killed by the jets that set off the weapon that killed the bus.

  Dragons who had destroyed our planet.

  Except The Legion was supposed to be good. The Legion was the people who could help. And they used the invaders as their symbol?

  Cordelia inhaled sharply. She tapped her ear. “This is agent zero-zero-six. Inform the Emperor that Leif Ladonson has taken c
ommand of the Seraphim.”

  She said it in a way that suggested that someone somewhere had already figured out that Leif would take charge.

  “You knew this was going to happen,” I said.

  She looked me up and down. “Not the details of why.” She stepped away and pointed at the SUVs. “You heard the man!” she yelled. “We are now operating under Legion interaction protocols.” She waved for her men to get Daniel and Harold into the SUV. “Our original mission has not changed!”

  “Original mission?” They weren’t playing the same game as the Seraphim. They weren’t playing the same game as Janus, or the Dragonslayer.

  They were one of the planet’s largest corporations, and I was pretty sure they were the seeds of the other timeline’s government.

  And only a fool would trust an empire called the Mundus Imperium.

  Daniel signaled for me to follow him into the SUV.

  I held up my hands. “I’m done, okay?” I said. “I’m not part of this anymore.” I didn’t trust the Fates, and I damned well didn’t trust Antonius or any League of Dragons.

  “No, you are not.” Cordelia pulled me toward the SUVs. “You have a mission to complete.”

  I pushed her away. “Fuck. Off.”

  The symbol on Antonius’s suit vanished. He flipped the staff around his hand and poked me in the hip. “They’re at the airport,” he said. “Move.”

  Cordelia moved so fast I didn’t see her hand whip around to grab me by the back of the neck. “We will extract Maria Romanova from new-space,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  No explanations as to how I was to help, or what I was to do. No asking for my participation, or my help. Just more using and abusing.

  She pushed me toward the SUV. “Now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Leif….

  Another jumbo passenger airliner roared into the air over the Denver International Airport main terminal. This one banked, and instead of heading over the mountains, headed east. Three F-15s followed, swooping and swerving around its wings and nose.

  “See that,” Leif said to twitching Nax. “I bet it’s part of the first major search and rescue operations into dragon-controlled East Coast territory.” He hoisted Nax a little higher on his shoulders. They’d made it onto the road to the terminal and should be well within security camera range.

  Nax groaned. The cold air wasn’t helping bring down his core temperature and sweat had begun beading under the neck of Leif’s suit.

  “When you’re awake,” Leif said, “I’ll tell you about the Nippon Airways pilot who landed a 787 in a field under Mount Fuji.” Maybe he’d be able to show Nax the images. “She took on more passengers and got that plane in the air again.” It should have already happened here, in this version of Earth.

  Nax responded with an unconscious gurgle.

  “I can’t give you another shot,” Leif said. Another anti-Burner-venom injection might bring down Nax’s fever, but it wouldn’t help with his body’s response to two adrenaline shots in a row.

  Nax needed a healer, and he needed one now.

  Where was security? “Hold on, Emperor.” Leif said, then into his comm, “You might want to get your asses out here and give us a…”

  Two armored trucks peeled down the ramp to the passenger drop-off area in front of the terminal.

  “… hand. About damned time.” Leif’s suit was still in “outgoing only” communications mode. He had no idea who drove the vehicle. He’d just have to trust that they wouldn’t shoot him or Nax on sight.

  One truck screeched to a halt ten feet away. Three individuals—a driver, an armed passenger, and a Shifter rounding the back—left their doors hanging open as they exited, as if expecting to need the shielding.

  They were either regular Army or National Guard, which meant the Shifter wasn’t powerful. Only a handful of powerful Shifters were un-aligned with the Shifter- and Fate-controlled groups at the time of The Incursion’s opening, and the few who weren’t hadn’t been in the U.S. military.

  “You a healer?” Leif called as he set Nax on the ground. This world wasn’t his, though, and maybe they’d get lucky.

  The woman pulled off her gloves as she jogged toward Nax. “Class-two.”

  Better than nothing, he thought. “He’s fighting Burner venom.”

  Like a lot of Shifters, she had a nondescript face, with warm brown eyes, a straight nose, and brown hair coiled back and up under her National Guard knit cap. She’d be difficult to describe or pick out of a lineup.

  She leaned over Nax but stopped with her hands just off his neck. “How is he not dead?”

  Leif looked up at the big driver and his equally big passenger. Unlike the Shifter, they were normals, and armed to the teeth with military-issue rifles and body armor.

  “No one briefed you?” he asked.

  The driver shook his head. “No.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re one of them future types,” the driver said. “There are seven of you.”

  “Six, now.” Leif pointed at the healer. “You know what she is?”

  The passenger walked around to the other side of Leif and Nax. “She’s a special.”

  A special.

  There’d been issues when the world first became aware of Shifters, Fates, and Burners. Issues that had gotten several low-powered Shifters murdered. The murderers liked to call Shifters and Fates “specials.”

  The healer didn’t respond and dropped her hands to Nax’s throat. The two guards spread out, taking up positions on either side of Leif.

  “Flanking me isn’t going to do you any good,” he said.

  The passenger tapped his rifle.

  Nax coughed.

  Leif pointed over his shoulder. “Do your comrades understand who’s under the horse?”

  The driver shrugged. “More specials.”

  These two normals were going to be a hindrance to any useful action. Or they’d get themselves killed.

  Leif turned back to the healer. “Do you understand who’s over there?”

  She quickly nodded yes. “He’s cooling down,” she said.

  Taking Nax back toward Janus and Vivicus could get him killed. Leaving him with these two wasn’t any safer.

  “I’m going to put him in the back of the vehicle.” Leif’s retinal display still said outgoing communications only, but the diagnostics and reboot had given him limited tactical camouflage. “Then we are going to discuss the correct protocol for dealing with the Fate and the two Shifters over there.” He nodded to the three also-armed-to-the-teeth men exiting the other vehicle about thirty feet from Janus’s frozen body.

  The driver snorted. “You’re going to give me that sword, that’s what you’re going to do.”

  The reboot had reactivated the magnetic holds on the back of Leif’s suit. Stab and the scabbard now clung securely to his back. Neither normal would be able to pry it off.

  “Is there anyone in your command chain who has a clue?” Leif barked.

  Now the buddy snorted.

  “Don’t be an asshole, Jeff,” the healer said.

  The driver shot her a look Leif had seen many a man give his aunt when her back was turned. The same How dare you, woman thin lips and narrowed eyes. The exact sheep-like weakness that signaled they prized intimidation over doing the work needed to understand the environment around them.

  The Legion—all of the Legion, even Vivicus—never tolerated such behavior.

  Leif was taller than both men, and wider at the shoulders. Sometimes a good bout of physical intimidation sidelined the intent of assholes long enough to get everyone through an emergency.

  “We have a situation here and you will do as I say, do you understand?” Leif squared his shoulders as he stood.

  Jeff’s face continued to carry the same hard, semi-angry self-righteousness as it had the moment he’d opened his mouth. He tried to stare down Leif while his partner watched the other vehicle, as if the two morons b
elieved they had control of the situation.

  Nax blinked. He opened his mouth, but the healer threw him a stern look and leaned farther over him. “Yes. We need to move him to the truck,” she said.

  Jeff the driver looked down at Nax. He frowned and looked back at the other vehicle. “What’d you bring down on us, special?”

  Out by the statue, a man with a rifle poked Janus.

  The air around Janus changed. A small, dim wave pushed out from his body.

  Janus was awake.

  “Get down!” Leif yelled.

  Warning! screamed across Leif’s retinal display. External override attempt detected.

  Someone was trying to take control of his suit.

  Leif slapped his hand onto his sleeve keypad, squeezed twice, then slapped his suit directly over his chest connector tattoo. “Full isolation mode!”

  His suit immediately powered down all receivers and powered up what control he had of his active camo. His hood closed over his face. He was now isolated from all data streams and relying on the suit’s visuals. He’d be running one hundred percent cut off now. No access to positioning data, or pings from the other suits. Janus would need physical contact to take his suit and do any damage.

  Nax grabbed the healer. He nodded once to Leif and took her with him into a glamour. They scuttled toward the truck, invisible to Jeff and his buddy, but visible as a smudge in the air to Leif and his suit’s filters.

  The buddy whipped up his rifle and aimed it at the statue.

  Janus vanished. The soldier who’d poked him jerked and his rifle swung around.

  Pop! A spray of blood and brains burst from the back of the head of the nearest soldier. He dropped to the gravel and snow. Pop! The second also took a headshot and crumpled to the ground. The remaining soldier tried to get control of his rifle. Pop! He dropped, too.

  “What the fu—” Jeff said.

  Pop! Jeff’s blood hit Leif’s suit as a spray hot enough in heat vision that it would render his camo useless. He dove for the last soldier anyway.

  Pop! The buddy dropped.

  The rifle flipped again. Janus aimed down and to the side of the useless SUV. Three pops followed.

  He’d just shot Penny.