Witch of the Midnight Blade

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Leif stared down at me. “No,” he said.

  “Fine,” I responded. I wasn’t going to get into a fight with a six-four Seraphim. “Which way is the coast?” I asked Daniel.

  He pointed.

  “Thank you.” I peered into the haze, then at the soft glow to the north. If I kept the glow to my left and a little behind me, I’d stay on Daniel’s path.

  “Del!” Nax stepped in front of me. “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving,” I said. “I’m not needed anymore. I’m going down to the water and waving my arms until someone comes and picks me up.”

  Daniel handed me the phone. “The moment you have a connection, send the video to anyone on the contacts list. It’s the only way to get someone to come get you.”

  I nodded and stuffed it into my pocket.

  “There’s an extra insignia in there,” Daniel said. “Marcus carried an extra in the case pocket.”

  “Okay,” I said. Not that it mattered.

  “For luck,” Daniel said.

  Nax looked between Daniel and me. “That’s it? You’re walking off?”

  “Go with her,” Leif said. “Both of you.” He nodded toward Antonius. “We can move faster without civilians.”

  Daniel patted Nax’s arm. “Go.”

  “Daniel,” Leif said.

  “I am as much Legion as you,” Daniel responded.

  I picked my way toward a break in the rubble.

  Leif held out his hand. “Wait.”

  I stopped walking. He was about to question my choices. Maybe tell me to calm down. He might be handsome, and generally kind, but he was still just as much of a douchebag as Otter Boy. I’d keep telling myself that for as long as I needed to get through this.

  Even in the haze Leif’s eyes were still the sexy night-sky blue. “Be safe, okay?” He handed me one of his knives.

  It was about five inches long and thankfully in a scabbard. I picked it up and tested its weight. “It’s better balanced than any cooking knife I’ve used.” I said. I’d only used cooking knives. I honestly had no idea what to do with it.

  “My father gave me that knife. It was made by a master craftsman in St. Petersburg. Russia, not Florida,” he said. “Dmitri brought it in.”

  Pavlovich, I thought. “I’ll say hi when the Red Army comes to my rescue.”

  Leif smiled. God, he really was handsome. He squeezed my hand. “Move quickly. Once you reach the shore, look for a waystation. Citizens here set up several as soon as they realized they needed to funnel people to the northern islands.” He nodded in the direction we were supposed to go. “Some had shortwave radios.”

  I nodded.

  “And stay next to Nax.”

  I nodded again.

  “I’m glad I met you, real Del Parrish.”

  The sniffle came out of nowhere. I rubbed at my eye and held it down. It made no difference now. “You can come, you know.”

  He looked out at the haze. “No, I can’t.” He shook his head. “We brought the suits here. We’re responsible for your Janus stealing one. At the very least, we need to keep them out of dragon hands.”

  I didn’t nod this time. “I’m glad I met you too, Impossible Son.”

  And then I was gone, away from them all, vanishing into the haze with only my new knife and a man they called Lesser Emperor at my back.

  Chapter Twenty

  Leif…

  Maybe we should let them. Five words spoken by everyone except Daniel, the future-seeing Fate who still seemed to believe that this timeline was salvageable.

  How many times in his long life had Leif ignored the glaring truth about the world and done exactly what his family’s Prime triad told him to do? How many times had he seen his father and his dragon ride into impossible situations on Daniel’s word only? How many times had he come home beaten and bloody, singed by Burners, damaged and in agony, for that one victory?

  More times than Leif wanted to admit.

  Such were the lives of the Dracae and their Legion.

  So, once again, his dilemma was one of ancient consistency: How was he, the eldest heir of the Dracae, the Impossible Son as Del said, to deal with fixing so many timelines?

  Tokyo crunched under his boots. Back in a version of the world where he wasn’t impossible, Denver had also crunched under his boots. Cairo, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Mexico City—they’d all crunched. And when that crunching had turned to lifting clouds of dust, what had once been grass had turned into wiggling masses of dragon plants. What had been mice become shimmering, scurrying hell-mice. What had been dogs and cats and horses became hellhounds.

  The planet left the Anthropocene and entered the Dracocene.

  All that time, humans had an orbiting weapon that was theoretically capable of not just long-distance faster-than-light space travel, but also time jumps. Humans had, up in the sky like the goddess she was, a Dragonslayer of not just a ship of indecipherable technological superiority, but also a genie in a Trinzi-Bower incursion cage-bottle.

  Which wish could that genie grant? Stopping the war? Starting the war? Setting off nuclear fimbulwinters? Avoiding those winters, like this timeline might be able to do? Genocide on the other side?

  Then their Philadelphia Parrish sent away the ship and Leif ended up here looking for a way to stop the stealing before it happened.

  And now Daniel was telling him the obvious—timelines without Progenitor-activated cycles were the worst.

  Part of him had long wondered if the opposite was true. That they should break the cycles. Maybe send back a completely different set of Sentinels, or none at all, or just outright stop, and let time heal herself. Why did this have to be so complicated? He had no real information about what to do, not really, just faith in Daniel’s future-seer.

  Janus had not run off after he’d punched Del. He’d stayed, which meant Vivicus was here too, somewhere. Leif and Antonius were in lockdown, which meant no communications. In all honesty, Janus might have damaged Leif specifically to keep him from triangulating with Antonius. Blocking only Antonius would have been much easier—and much less likely to catch Daniel’s attention—than blocking both of them.

  Janus and Vick had managed to stay out of sight and out of suit detection on the other side of the rubble pile. But they were listening, mostly via the seer tentacles that snaked their way around the rubble.

  Janus’s seers were thick and viscous again, like a jellied ocean, or a volcanic fog. They roared too, like the ocean or a volcano, but in a resonant kind of way, as if someone had autotuned the deafening pounding of the Earth.

  Janus truly was a step beyond any other Fate. The Shifter Progenitor had been the same way: she’d been all that was Shifter—morpher, enthraller, and healer—compacted into one small body incapable of containing all that power. For her entire twenty-three centuries, she’d been a neutron star in the process of exploding.

  Janus was the same, except Janus wasn’t a star. He was a black hole.

  But this black hole snaked his seers around the rubble and right up to Nax, or Daniel, or Del. Then they’d wiggle and almost-touch before yanking back. Janus was reading without setting off another Fate or Shifter’s auditory-sensed alarm of being read.

  Leif had sidestepped a touch or two. He watched Janus stroke Antonius with his seers. He saw the tentacles almost touch Nax. But mostly he saw the resonance building inside each wave.

  “Come out!” Leif shouted.

  Daniel stepped closer to Leif. His shoulders tightened. “I’ll take a knife as well, if you don’t mind sharing.”

  Leif released one of the smaller knives from its magnetic hold against his thigh. “It’s sharp,” he said.

  Daniel rotated it around his hand, then pulled it from its sheath. He held it out in front of his face as if he could see its design and shape.

  His future-seer sang through Leif’s mind. He sighed. “Were you this brazen in your timeline?”

  “Of course,” Leif said.

  Daniel
shook his head and pointed toward the narrow open area on the other side of the concrete overhang.

  Vivicus’s suit cycled down into the same flat gray as Leif’s. He leaned against the concrete, one foot crossed over the other and his arms clasped behind his back. His suit’s hood had returned to repair mode, but major damage like Adrestia’s rip took time to heal. He’d also found his missing glove.

  He made a show of stretching his now-intact back. He winked, pointed, and clicked his tongue like some dive bar greaseball.

  Every time Vivicus “died,” he came back a little different. Not full-personality different—they were never that lucky—but a tad bit changed. Happier, once. With a shorter attention span several times. More religious. Less religious. With an extra scoop of snide.

  This time, he seemed more… obnoxious. Louder, stupider, more dramatic.

  He was about to spend half his time prancing around and yelling “Yeah, man, but it’s a dry apocalypse!” at every dragon they came across.

  Leif turned to Antonius. “You can still follow Del to the shore,” Leif said. “You too, Daniel.”

  “I already told you—I am as much Legion as you,” Daniel answered.

  He should ask if Addy understood. If her body died, her brothers would suffer. Was it his job to sentence her to a final end? Was it Daniel’s?

  “She says she is willing to die if it means being rid of me,” Daniel said. He closed his eyes and his lip twitched. They were arguing, but he shared no more.

  Antonius rolled back his hood. “Go,” he said. “Please.”

  Daniel inhaled through the fabric of his t-shirt. Slowly, he exhaled. And just as slowly, he touched Antonius’s chest. “I don’t think so.”

  Vivicus clapped. “Alrighty, then.” He walked toward Leif. “So you three are onboard with going full Atlanta on their asses?” He winked again. “Why the change of heart?”

  “No,” Leif said.

  Vivicus guffawed. “You think there’s going to be a compromise?”

  This whole damned thing was a compromise. “We will help you get the targeting data.”

  Janus was going to get the targeting data no matter what Leif did, and he was going to take Stab and the numbers up to the Dragonslayer. If Leif went along for the ride, he could at least protect this timeline.

  He’d try, if not for his family, for this world’s Del.

  “Janus is mad that you sent away Nax,” Vivicus said.

  Leif stepped between his former commander and his Legion men. “Stop lying. We all know he doesn’t give a shit about taking Sentinels along for the Final Protocols.”

  Vivicus laughed.

  Leif danced his fingers over the control pad on his sleeve. “My suit is in combat mode.” He’d have to wait until it fully repaired itself before he could drop into full camo again, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t set it to shock the shit out of anyone who got too close.

  “Tony, too?” Vivicus asked.

  Leif waved his hand at his friend. “Sorry, man,” he said. “It’s all or nothing with the suit lockout.”

  Antonius shrugged. “I guess we won’t be hugging it out until this is finished, huh?”

  Vivicus chuckled. He pointed at Antonius but grabbed for Daniel at the same time.

  Daniel didn’t twist away, or hit, or scream, which was probably what Vivicus was expecting. Daniel danced into Vivicus’s arms as he thrust the knife between the Shifter’s fourth and fifth ribs.

  His suit slowed the thrust to the point that only the first five centimeters of the knife made it through the fabric. It should have been enough to make Vick react. To twitch, at least.

  He grinned and laid a big, wet kiss on Daniel’s mouth. “Addy, you miss me, baby?” he asked.

  Daniel pushed harder on the knife’s hilt.

  Vivicus shoved him away. The suit had gripped the knife, and it stuck out of his side like a pin in a voodoo doll. He plucked it out, wiped it on his thigh, and handed it back to Daniel. “You’ll need this more than me, sweetheart.”

  Janus manifested right next to Daniel, so close that he, too, could have laid on a hideous kiss. “Grandson,” he said.

  Daniel stood his ground. No flinching or yelping, just a death stare and knife ready for yet another set of ribs.

  This was the Daniel Leif remembered. The brilliant man with a belly full of anger, a lightning-fast wit, and an even faster strike.

  Daniel flipped the knife around but held it at his side. “Get out of my face, old man,” he said.

  Janus laughed. “Are you squished in there? Adrestia is a good five inches shorter than you.” He stepped back and looked over Daniel like a designer checking a suit’s fit. “Your new center of gravity is not doing it for you, is it?”

  He was trying to get Daniel to take a swing. Daniel, thankfully, did nothing. He stood there, knife in his hand, staring at Janus.

  “Enough.” Leif held up his hand, palm up and pointed at Janus. “All that shit you did to my suit?” he said. “I’ll do it to yours if you don’t back away from Daniel. Now.”

  Janus’s seers pushed outward with such force both Leif and Daniel cringed.

  “Hmmm…” Janus said, as he stepped away from Daniel. “Leif here seems to think I’m all-powerful.”

  “You can target incursions,” Leif said. That much was obvious to everyone.

  “So?” Janus said.

  “If you set up feedback that will hide the activation of your incursion from the Dragonslayer’s automatic systems, we’ll go with you.”

  Vivicus hmphed. “Why should we do that?”

  Lying would do no good. “Because I want Del to live.”

  Janus laughed. “Nothing about this timeline matters. You know that.” He waved away Leif’s annoyance. “Once Stab is in physical contact with their systems, she will facilitate a hack. The Dragonslayer will scrape the data she needs. The only incursion control I will do will be to open up our way there.” He pointed at the sky.

  They’d get more than homeworld targeting information. They’d get systems and operational data. Structural details. Plans. Crucial details that back home, they’d lacked. And maybe, just maybe, once they were on the ship, Leif could stop Janus’s all-or-nothing, death-to-this-world refusal to work with the iterations Daniel seemed so keen on making sure happened.

  Information would be gathered. No more death would rain onto this timeline. And what? Faith would win the day. Faith in his family’s fates. Faith that the people of this timeline had the talent, science, and psychological wherewithal to do it right this time. Faith that he and Antonius could salvage something of themselves and be good men of The Legion.

  Maybe this timeline did have a chance. Maybe all the timelines had a chance.

  Janus sniffed. “Which I will do on the back of the ship’s hyperactive responses.”

  There it was, the true center of “nothing matters.” Janus needed nothing to matter so he could justify destroying this timeline’s tiny glimmer of hope.

  “You fix that wave so the Dragonslayer sees smooth seas. Understand?” Leif said.

  Janus stared into the haze.

  “You’ll need us to open the airlock,” Antonius tapped one of his n-EMP discs. “One on each side to activate explosions at the same time. It’s the only way.”

  Vivicus shrugged. “Short of a level of firepower we do not have, it is.”

  “Get through the outer door and the systems will be naked enough for Stab to do her work,” Daniel said.

  “You going to battle the hellhound at the gate?” Leif said. “Because they all have mean ones. All of the airlocks on all of the spikes.”

  “You need us,” Antonius said.

  Now Janus hmphed.

  “You will stop the ship from blowing the spike. Once on the Dragonslayer, you will transfer all gathered information to the Seraphim operatives now working with Praesagio Industries,” Leif said. “Lara and Manu will help this timeline decipher what we never could.”

  Janus nodded. �
��Fine,” he said, as if he’d been planning all along to share what they stole.

  He was lying. He had no intention of saving this timeline. But the lie gave them time and it gave Leif access to information that might just allow him to do what Janus would not. “We will not commence with this strike until Daniel says it is safe,” Leif said.

  Now Janus frowned.

  “You’re the one who messed with Leif’s suit,” Daniel said.

  A hard, pinched expression with narrowed eyes and flared nostrils flashed across Janus’s face before he got control.

  Twenty-three centuries of life on Earth, of manipulating and destroying, of shepherding and building, of honing history as best as the universe allowed him, and this moment of a great-grandson telling him that he messed up still triggered a toddler-esque anger.

  All that time had not given Janus perspective. It’d given him entitlement. And Daniel had just given Antonius and Vivicus proof of that entitlement at a crucial time in their planning.

  Janus was no longer the default leader. Daniel had just taken that role from his shoulders and set it on Leif’s.

  “Now we wait,” Leif said.

  Vivicus tugged on his glove. “Why?”

  This version of Vick’s personality was as blatantly childish as Janus’s was covertly so.

  “Oh!” Vivicus wagged his finger in the air like an old-time politician. “He wants the Lesser Emperor and that witch out of the blast radius just in case.” He winked at Janus as if to say I got your back. “He’s sweet on her. She’s feisty. Reminds me of Leif’s aunt, but in a people-person kind of way.”

  Daniel’s future-seer chimed outward, and a loud, brazen laugh erupted from his throat. “You’d better go up to the Dragonslayer with Janus. Otherwise this timeline’s Dracae are going to make sure you wished you’d stayed home.”

  Vivicus glared at Daniel.

  “We will wait until your suit returns to full functionality,” Janus said.

  Leif bowed his head. “Then we get the ship her data.”

  Chapter Twenty-One