Air of Darkness

by Rose O'Brien

  Her whip lay coiled on the floor in front of her. Beside her was a carefully stacked pile of shimmering black pieces. The things were so dark, they seemed to pull in light and swallow it.

  Her long blonde hair was done in a severe French braid, and she was head to toe in fairy leather. The top was high-necked and long sleeved, with a zipper in front. Tight pants were tucked into the tops of knee-high boots. Her expression was grim as she ran the stone along the black blades of the fan. She looked ready for war.

  Alex opened his mouth to tell her about what he’d been up to, when she rose quickly to her feet.

  She put her arms around and him and said, “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said. “I wish you felt like you could tell me about that part of yourself.”

  “It’s just that...for once in my life, someone saw me for who I really was, beyond the command, beyond the power, and you wanted me anyway,” she said softly. “You have no idea what that means to me. I was terrified that the curse would push you away. It’s pushed everyone else away.”

  His hands came up, cradling her face.

  “I never want you to feel fear with me, Alayna. I love you.”

  She kissed him then, wrapping her arms around his neck. It was a gentle kiss, at first. As he put his arms around her waist, something sparked between them. Her mouth opened for him and he slipped his tongue inside, desperate to taste her.

  Her caresses became urgent, and his grip on her hips became hard. He lowered himself to the mat and pulled her after him until she was straddling his hips. Her breath was coming hot and fast as he reached for the zipper on her top. He slipped it from her shoulders and sat up slightly to take one of her perfect, hard nipples in his mouth. He sucked hard and scraped it lightly with his teeth, pulling a breathy moan from her throat.

  Her fingers twined in his hair, holding him to her. She ground her hips against his and he could feel how hot she was for him through his pants and her leathers.

  “I need you, Alex,” she said, her eyes closed and head tossed back.

  He practically tore off his jacket and shirt. His boots and pants disappeared, as did hers.

  Alex lay back on the mat, as a gloriously naked Alayna rose above him. She touched her breast, caressing the nipple he’d had in his mouth just a few moments before. His erection was straining, and he was desperate to get inside her.

  She took him in hand, stroked him solidly, and he thought he might come right there. She raised her hips and circled the head of his cock around the silky, hot folds of her sex. She was so ready for him.

  He caught her hips in his hands and thrust upward. She moaned as the head of his cock entered her and took a ragged, halting breath as she slid the rest of the way down his length, taking him fully inside her.

  He pulled her lips to his, taking her mouth as fully as he took the rest of her. He thrust his hips against her hard and felt the delicious friction between them. She threw back her head and moaned again with her ecstasy. The fingers of her right hand danced over her clit, and she was so close to climaxing he could feel it in the way her muscles gripped him.

  Just as he felt her pleasure crest, he let his own orgasm take him. With several powerful thrusts he filled her with his release. He collapsed back against the mat and drew her down on top of his chest.

  Completely spent, she draped bonelessly across him. She lazily kissed his neck and absently traced a swirling pattern across his chest with her index finger, whispering in a language he didn’t understand. It was beautiful, though.

  Gradually, his heart slowed and his breathing normalized. His thoughts floated somewhere out of reach and his limbs felt heavy. Too heavy.

  With a sudden moment of panic, he tried to sit up and found that he couldn’t move.

  “Alayna?” His voice was slow, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth.

  As she lifted her hand from his chest, there was a flash of green light and an intricately drawn ward sparked to life on his chest.

  “What...is…”

  She rose from his body and his softened erection slid from her.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” she said, a deep sadness in her voice. “This is the only way I know to keep you safe.”

  He tried to speak, but found he couldn’t move his jaw. He could only lie there and plead with his eyes for her to let him go. She had no idea about the blood, his plan to save her.

  A strangled and frustrated noise escaped his throat as she began to put her gear back on. The whip went in her right boot.

  She knelt down and stroked his face, like she was trying to memorize it.

  “You’ll be safe here. And in a few hours your powers will dissolve that ward. When they do, I’m begging you not to come after me.”

  From somewhere she pulled a blanket and settled it over him. Mentally, he strained against the ward holding him. His mind was working overtime trying to figure out a way around it.

  She leaned over him and met his eyes.

  “If I don’t come back from this, please, just...take care of yourself,” she said softly. “And remember me the way I was.”

  She kissed his mouth. He longed to return it, to pull her into his arms and tell her not to go, not to leave him.

  “I love you, Alex,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, touched by unshed tears.

  No! He screamed internally, trying to transmit his thoughts with his eyes. It couldn’t end like this. This could not be the last time he saw her.

  She rose from the floor and gathered her weapons and the dark material he had noticed earlier. As she began strapping it to her body, he realized it was armor. There was something like a chainmail shirt that went over her head and past her waist and elbows. It glittered like scales.

  With a start, he realized they were scales—dragon scales. She was wearing armor made from Z’s scales.

  She strapped on forearm and shin guards. From a cabinet along the wall, she pulled out a heavy black leather belt with holsters and strapped two Desert Eagles to her thighs. The war fans went in holsters at the small of her back. She added grenades and two large hunting knives to her belt.

  As she turned to head downstairs, she said, “Goodbye Alex. If I don’t make it out of this, my last thoughts will be of you, knowing that you’re safe.”

  And then she was gone, her stormwind scent the only thing marking that she had ever been there.

  ***

  Alayna’s eyes were swimming with unshed tears as she left Alex lying on the floor. She knew the ward wouldn’t hold him for more than a couple of hours. She’d been careful to weave some serious protection into the ward as well. Nothing would be able to touch him while it was active. She’d built in a fail safe design that would cause the ward to dissolve at dawn, just in case.

  By then, everything would be decided, one way or the other.

  If his lìthseach abilities caused it to fail before then, she just hoped he would stay away from the fight she was walking into. She had hurt him with that move, badly, and she hoped it was enough that he would write her off.

  It was killing her to leave him behind, and she felt a sharp painful spot in her chest. Her eyes burned from unshed tears. But she wouldn’t be able to do everything she needed to do tonight if he was with her.

  Worry for his safety would occupy her thoughts and might get her or someone else killed. And if she needed to perform the Reckoning in order to destroy this ring of evil motherfuckers, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to with Alex there.

  He was everything she had ever longed for: love, connection, companionship...happiness. In the past couple of days, basking in the glow of his love, she’d let herself fantasize about the future, a future with him in it. How would she be able to cut herself and watch that future bleed away now?

  She checked the straps on her armor again. The scales had been painstakingly collected from Z for more than ten years.

  Together, they had created her whip, her battle fans, and her armor. The a
rmor responded to her words and molded to her body, leaving no gaps. It could heal itself, given time. She just wished she had more of the stuff to make armor for her team, but Z shed scales so rarely.

  Her thoughts turned to the big black dragon and tears almost overwhelmed her. If she didn’t survive the night, she wasn’t sure what would happen to him. They were connected on an emotional level. Would he feel it when she died? Or would he be left wondering what had happened to her?

  There were tales of some mages’ familiars who died when their mage died because it was so traumatic when the connection was severed. But no one else had ever had a dragon for a familiar.

  She was sure Z would survive if she died, but she worried what he might do after that. She pushed thoughts of the dragon going on a revenge spree out of her mind and focused on what was in front of her.

  Oh, Z, I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye, she thought.

  She moved quickly to the garage and fired up the Hyabusa. With a roar, she shot out into the night. If she hurried, she could rendezvous with the rest of the team at the rally point near the warehouse. Dumeril was scheduled to open the portal between headquarters and the rally point in fifteen minutes. She wanted to be waiting for them when he did.

  The ‘busa’s engine revved beneath her as she turned on to Bee Cave Road, a vast winding thoroughfare that moved through the western part of the city. As she hit the freeway, she gunned it and let all of the motorcycle's considerable horses run.

  This time of night, there wasn’t much traffic, but there was more than she expected. The engine of the big bike roared as she wove between cars, pushing her speed over a hundred miles per hour.

  As she pulled the bike onto the exit ramp, the traffic thickened again. It was nearly midnight; what were all these people doing out?

  It dawned on her that tonight was the opening night of the city’s largest music festival of the year. Every club downtown would be packed and streets would be shut down for outdoor stages and street parties.

  She cursed as she rerouted the bike. And then her stomach sank as she thought about the proximity of the warehouse with the mysterious wards to the now-crowded downtown. It was just six or seven blocks away.

  Alayna hoped to hell that it was just a coincidence, but she’d never been that lucky in her life. Something big was in the works and it had the potential to hurt a lot of people.

  But not if she could help it.

  She revved the engine again and shot through the underpass of Interstate 35. Within a minute, she had pulled up at the empty lot where the team had agreed to rally. She was the first one there.

  ***

  Burdock checked his weapons one last time as the team, minus Alayna and Alex, waited on the training floor for Dumeril to open the portal.

  Dumeril’s long, silver-white hair gleamed in the overhead lights. He’d plaited it in war braids at the temples and tied them at the nape of his neck to keep the rest out of his face.

  Dumeril’s back was to them as he concentrated on the space in front of him. He moved his right hand in a circular motion, muttering under his breath.

  The air in front of Dumeril began to ripple, like heat distortion on one of Austin’s hundred and ten degree summer days. Burdock took a deep breath and braced himself. He’d never liked portal travel. It always felt like he was falling and being turned inside out at the same time.

  Burdock fingered the Desert Eagles on his hips. The guns were heavy, but necessary. He had speed loaders on his belt outfitted with various rounds, some silver, some incendiary, all deadly. He had a submachine gun with the grenade launcher attachment strapped to his chest over his body armor. The grenades were strapped to the small of his back. He had everything from flashbangs and smoke grenades to some really nasty frag grenades he’d put together himself.

  Strapped to his back, he had two tactical shotguns with shortened barrels. They were loaded up with extended magazines and hand packed shells full of silver shot. The stocks stuck up above his shoulders and crossed behind his neck.

  The phrase armed to the teeth didn’t even begin to cover it. Burdock had always believed in preparation above all things, but he also knew that even the best laid plans went to hell upon first contact with the enemy.

  In those cases, superior firepower usually won out.

  He looked at Ellie to his right. The little gnome was draped in dark blue, the cloak pulled around her and the hood obscuring her face. He knew that cloak hid a hundred deadly things, including, somehow, the vicious sniper rifle she favored in cases like this.

  She had a hand held computer clipped to her belt that would put anything the NSA had to shame. If they ran into anything electronic, she’d be able to hack it with that little machine. As they waited, she pulled a set of goggles from her belt pouch and fitted them over her large eyes. She could see perfectly in the dark, a common adaptation of subterranean dwellers like her. Bright lights and flashes, like the ones from gunfire or his grenades could blind her momentarily. Ellie was probably the only creature that had to wear shades to a night fight.

  Beside him, Lu had already assumed her loosely lupine form. She stood on two legs for now, but he knew that hulking from could drop to all fours and run like the wind. Her wickedly sharp black claws clicked against the concrete floor and he could hear the rasping of her rough footpads as she shifted her weight. The knees on those legs were reversed, just like a wolf’s.

  The torso, which was covered in black fur the same color as Lu’s hair, was huge and her shoulders and arms bulged and rippled with dense muscle that reminded him of a pit bull. Her hands still held a vaguely human shape, retaining the opposable thumbs. The fingers were impossibly long, with an extra knuckle joint thrown in the middle.

  The claws at the end of those fingers were black, curving nightmare knives.

  Burdock had worked with Lu for years, and the sight of those claws still made him slightly nervous.

  He glanced at her face and looked away, his stomach twisting.

  Her eyes had become large, round and bright yellow. The eyes of a predator.

  Her face had elongated into a horrifying muzzle. It was long like a wolf’s, but the jaw was bulky and square, like a pit bull’s. And the teeth. They protruded over the thick black lips, various sizes and lengths, but all razor sharp.

  Burdock turned back to Dumeril as he heard a series of pops. The swirling air had changed colors, taking on blue and purple tones, with white and yellow flashes. The portal began expanding and Dumeril motioned them through.

  Budock went first, to secure the other side.

  As he stepped through into the empty lot, he had a moment of disorientation and nausea, but it passed quickly after a few deep breaths. Even though they knew the layout of the warehouse, thanks to Alayna’s astral walking, they had decided not to open a portal inside the warehouse. Too risky, since they had to come through one at a time and the portal gave away their position to easily.

  Alayna was waiting for him.

  She was a vision, a contrast of darkness and light. In the moonlight, her platinum hair, pulled back in a severe braid, looked almost white and glowed slightly. Her pale skin looked like porcelain against her dark clothes.

  She was covered from neck to foot in fairy leather and dragon scale armor. From her shoulders hung the traditional black mage battle robes. The robes didn’t cover her arms, instead looping under her arms and hanging from clips on the back of her armor.

  The robes wouldn’t impede movement in the slightest, but they helped conceal weapons and hide movement. They also obscured the outline of the body just enough that projectiles were more likely to miss. The material was also well spelled with protections.

  She looks like a goddamn avenging angel, he thought.

  “If I’d known we were dressing up, I would have dug my robes out, Commander.”

  “This is just a little bit of show,” she said. “I don’t expect it to get anyone to back down, but a little intimidation factor
never hurts.”

  And it might be the last chance she ever got to wear them. The notion hit him like a punch to the solar plexus and he tried to shake it off. If she went out tonight, at least she’d do it looking every inch the mage battle commander she was.

  After a moment she added, “Besides, yours are covered in scorch marks. That standard issue stuff doesn’t stand up to your flame slinging.”

  He chuckled and smiled. She was right about that.

  Lu came through the portal next, and Alayna helped her pull a large black cloak over her eight-foot frame. She hunched down close to the ground to hide her height, but she was still massive. Luckily, they didn’t have far to go, and this side of town was almost deserted with the festivities in full swing a few blocks away.

  Ellie was next through and Dumeril was right behind her. He shut down the portal in just a few seconds.

  “Where’s Alex?” Dumeril asked Alayna.

  “I asked him to sit this one out. He’s at my place. If I don’t make it through this, I’d appreciate someone checking on him,” she said.

  “I’ll just bet he took that real well,” Dumeril said sarcastically. “And you can be the one to unchain him in the morning, because if anyone is coming out the other side of this, it’s you, Commander.”

  He smiled at her, but she didn’t return it.

  She nodded and Ellie began throwing her best glamour around the group. They moved like silent shadows toward the warehouse a few hundred yards away.

  ***

  Alex lay in the darkness, struggling against the ward that bound him. It was like the thing was blocking all the signals his brain was sending to his muscles. No matter how hard he told his hand to move, it remained stubbornly still.

  He could still blink, swallow and breathe, but that was about it. Over the past hour or so, he’d gained more control over his breathing and could tighten the muscles around his vocal cords so that he could make strangled little noises in the back of his throat, but he couldn’t open his mouth to scream.