by R. J. Blain
“She’s out. He caught her in the Oakland hit.”
I flexed my hands. “I need you to do me a favor, boss.”
“What?”
“How many can you carry as a dragon?”
“Two or three. I’ve a rig I can use. Why?”
“Take Eddy, my parents, Donners, and however many others you can to Las Trampas. That should be safe enough from the blast. At least give me that much while I handle things here.”
“Some peace of mind is better than no peace of mind?”
“And if you can find a linker, have them do what they can. Even if it’s a light in the dark for them to cross over when this is done.”
“Understood. I’ll ferry over a generator and medical supplies, too. Despite appearances, I’m certified.”
“As what? A lunatic?”
“Ironically, a nurse.”
“You’re a nurse?” I blurted.
“We were all something before World War III, Olivia. I just happened to be a nurse. But then the magic happened, so I brush up on my skills in evening and refresher courses, and I volunteer in a pinch. I can take care of your family, so you worry about Euthal. At least I can do something useful. I’m a dragon, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good in a firefight.”
“Some dragons are peacekeepers and guardians. Some are fire. You can’t be both.”
“Right you are. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Mind feeding my ducks?”
“Sure, Olivia. I’ll go feed your ducks. And if things go south, well, they’ll be taken care of.”
It was the small things that mattered when everything else went wrong. “Thanks, sir.”
I hung up and set my phone aside.
“That didn’t sound good.”
“We’re fucked.”
“I’d gathered that much. How fucked are we?”
“San Francisco is about to become the next New York if we don’t neutralize Euthal’s threat immediately if not sooner. It’s UN sanctioned.”
“They’re going to nuke him?”
“With the kind of bomb no one walks away from.”
“That’s what they said about New York,” he reminded me.
I didn’t want to remember. It hurt to breathe, but I pushed back my terror, anguish, and grief so I could focus on hunting Euthal. “He hit law enforcement before heading to Strawberry Hill. Most of the FBI is out. He’s taking out the fire departments. He’s targeting large groups of people.”
“He doesn’t want anyone stopping his plans, and after you lanced him, he must have decided he needed to start now before you had a chance to strike again?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Ever stolen a motorcycle before?” Raymond asked.
“No, I can’t say I have.”
“There’s a dealership right down the block. Get your badge ready. It’s time to confiscate some motorcycles. This cruiser is about to be too slow, and unlike Euthal, we can’t just teleport where we need to go.”
“You’re not going to leave?”
Raymond snorted. “Where would I go? We win, or we die. Shit happens, and so does life—and death. Way I see it, I may as well go out doing something worthwhile.”
In that, we were birds of a feather. “Then let’s go steal some motorcycles. But is it really stealing them if we confiscate them during an emergency?”
“For some reason, I don’t think we’ll be giving them back.”
“Good point.”
It was easy to steal motorcycles when everyone in the dealership was out like a light. I hadn’t thought the area had been hit yet, but I’d seen their condition before at the Oakland City Center. I clenched my teeth at the evidence of Euthal’s move, walking into the building and being careful not to step on the few people sprawled on the floor.
“I’ll leave a note,” Raymond announced, and he wasted no time digging through the pockets of the employees until he found a set of keys that got him into the storage case for the motorcycles on the lot.
“You’ve been here before, I see.”
“It’s a cop favorite. I haven’t bought a motorcycle from here, but I know plenty who have, and I drove some of them here and paid attention.” The cabinet they kept the keys in could be spotted from the lobby, and the thick steel would make it a challenge for someone without the keys to access.
Within five minutes, we were armed with keys for two motorcycles, and Raymond checked the tags for where they were parked. I thought they looked like motorized death traps, but all things considered, all riding the bike would do was bump my death up the schedule somewhat.
“Today, for the record, sucks, and I’m going to be pretty pissed if I miss our scheduled seduction.” I took the keys for my ride, started the engine, and mounted. “I don’t have a helmet, I haven’t ridden one of these damned things in years, and I’ll probably wipe out.”
“You’ll be fine. Just be easy on the throttle. This model will go when you tell it.”
“Great. Sounds good. How much go does this baby have?”
“Enough go you’ll want to take it home with you, give it some cutesy name, and pet it in your garage.”
“What counts as a cutesy name for a motorcycle?”
“Good question. I wasn’t planning on naming mine if I get one.”
“All right. Let’s get this show on the road. I have one rule for this, Raymond.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?”
“No. You won’t.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Once it’s show time, get the hell out of here to a safe zone. It’s not because you can’t handle yourself with that gun of yours or anything like that. But if I start tossing my magic around, I don’t want to worry about extra fatalities. It’s entirely possible I could kill you by accident. When we hit the end of the road, the best place for you is out of the danger zone. We can even have a spectacular fight over it later, if you want. But unless you’re bringing the magical equivalent of a nuke to the table to take this asshole out, I need you to get to safety.”
“This isn’t self-sacrificing bullshit?”
“No. It’s not. I really don’t feel like dying today, but I might not get a choice in the matter. Ideally, we’ll get to the library, and you’ll get the hell out with Luke and his quad.”
“If they’re not being hit next.”
I nodded. “They’ll be strong targets, and they’re being tracked. If—” I blinked, grabbed my phone, and chucked it across the parking lot. My second phone joined it a moment later. “Yours, too.”
“You think he’s tracking the phones?”
“He systematically took out most of the FBI. You tell me.”
Raymond sighed, grabbed his phone, and joined me in tossing it across the lot. “I needed a new one anyway.”
“Let’s bail before he decides to teleport here, too.”
Raymond led the way, and it didn’t take me long to remember how to drive a motorcycle without feeling like I’d tip over at any moment. Despite the warning Euthal was taking a stroll through San Francisco, when we hit the first large group of victims, I needed to swallow to keep from throwing up.
The Oakland City Center hit had tested city resources. Unlike those victims, the ones littering the streets were living on borrowed time without someone to make certain they wouldn’t die while suffering through Hypnos’s powers. I had no idea what would happen without someone like Elizabeth to help guide the lost back to their bodies.
Damn it, I needed a miracle, and the only god I knew of in the city was the reason I needed a miracle.
Euthal had beaten us to the library, and I found Luke and his quad on the upper floors in the mythology section. The quad leader held a book in his hands, and I took it, careful to leave the page open to what he’d been reading. I skimmed the words, which referenced Hypnos as a gentle god who’d lived in Hades surrounded by hypnotic flowers.
According to myth, Hypnos had the power to defeat even Zeus and send h
im to sleep, but nothing in the reference painted him to be a malevolent, hungry power.
Nothing inside indicated if anything could defeat the god.
“What does he want?” I clacked my teeth together, fought against the urge to fling the book across the library, and placed it on the table beside Luke’s head. I drew in a long, slow breath. “We’ve been completely and utterly outwitted.”
“He obviously planned this meticulously. We’re just dancing to his tune.”
“But what is his goal?”
“I think Donners was right about wanting power.”
“Just how much power can he get from an entire city?”
“Another good question I don’t have an answer to. Hell, you’d be better able to answer that than me. I’m as ignorant as it gets when it comes to the serious magic.”
“I’m running out of options, and I hate being out of options.”
“You and me both.”
I could think of one way to catch the warlock’s attention, and it involved heading for the water and doing what I did best. I wasn’t really a dragon like Eddy, but I could shape water to be a dragon, which was almost as good.
And through my water, I could see all. I’d push my limits scouring the city for Euthal, but once I found him, I wouldn’t lose him again, not as long as my water touched him.
Without a linker, I wasn’t even sure if I could find my way back to Hypnos’s dark sea.
All I could do was try. “You know that saying about desperate times and desperate measures?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I hate that saying.”
“Me, too.”
I sighed, and if things soured much more, I wouldn’t have long to stew on what might have been had I just killed Euthal at the dealership. “It’s time for you to go. Head for the hills where few people go. Hide out until this blows over or they drop the bomb.”
“Are you sure?”
That he’d stay meant more than I cared to admit. “There’s no point in both of us kicking the bucket. I’ll do my best not to kick the bucket, but I’ve lived through that miracle once, and I doubt I’ll survive another bomb of the type they’re planning to drop.”
I already had too much magic. Any more, and I’d bet everything I loved I’d become one with the water and never again remember I’d once been human. History repeated itself, and that’s what happened to survivors like me.
I’d live, but I’d live in a new way, I supposed.
“All right, but if you miss our scheduled seduction, I’m going to be very cross with you, Olivia. We’ll have a spectacular argument.”
For him, it’d be one sided, but I’d accept the promise for what it was. “I’ll deserve a solid scolding.”
“Is there anything I can do beyond run with my tail between my legs?”
“If you see Euthal, shoot him.”
Raymond narrowed his eyes. “I’d have to stay in the city to do that, but I know my way around a sniper rifle if you can lure him out somewhere. It’ll be trivial to find good high ground here.”
I scowled. “You want to snipe Euthal?”
“I could write ‘fuck you’ across his face.”
I liked that idea a little too much. “Think ‘asshole’ would fit, too?”
“I could make it fit with some work, but he wouldn’t have much of a face left after I was done with him.”
“Tragic.” I thought through the options, but I couldn’t come up with a single realistic scenario that included Raymond shooting Euthal in the face with any hope of survival. “If you stay here, chances are, you’ll join me as a nice pile of radioactive dust by the time this is over.”
“Everyone keeps telling me it’s good to go out with a bang.”
I groaned. “I’d say this is not the time for god-awful jokes, but it really is the best time for them. But that was awful.”
“Truly. The odds you can lure him out?”
“Microscopic, really. And even if I do, I’ll try to lure him out to the water anyway. That way, if they do drop a nuke on my head, it might not kill as many people.”
“That is the definition of suicidal.”
“I don’t have a lot of options, and I’m hoping I pissed him off enough to lure him out. If you can get out of the area and get a hold of Washington, you could always tell them to drop the nuke out over the ocean if I can lure the bastard out.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to give anyone an order to drop a nuke on your head.”
“It’s not my idea of a good time, either.”
“But you’re considering it.”
“If I have to make a choice between me and millions, I’m going to go out with a bang. And I can’t take you out on the water with me while I do this. I really might accidentally kill you.”
“Is the best place for me outside of the city?”
“Probably,” I admitted. “I appreciate your willingness to stay.”
“I’m still going to shoot him if I see the bastard.”
“Good. It’s a part of your job description right now. I’m also expecting you to take care of my ducks.”
“I’ll make sure they’re taken care of.”
I grabbed a slip of paper and wrote my boss’s number on it. “Once you’re somewhere safe, call my boss, make sure he has all tracking off his device if you can get a hold of him. If not, well, you heard my directions. Do what you can.”
“You got it. Be careful, Olivia.”
It was a little too late for caution, but I humored him with a nod. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
I didn’t lie to him. I’d be as careful as I could in the face of disaster.
Chapter Sixteen
I waited until Raymond left, and I wondered if I’d see him again. It wasn’t like me to put too much thought into the people leaving my life. I didn’t have time to worry about what might have been if only things had been a little different.
For a few days, I’d been hopeful for something new and different, a life with more than my quad members flitting in and out of my office and working to keep my city safe and peaceful. Most weeks, we did all right.
With one little statuette and more ambition than any man needed, Euthal done more than just threaten my city. He’d broken apart my chances to be something other than just a bad daughter with a hard job. In the coming hours, the death toll would rise. Without the fire departments able to address incidents, fires would sweep through the streets. I could drown the entire city if I wanted, but I’d kill more people extinguishing the flames.
No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t win without paying some form of sacrifice. I’d either sacrifice innocents to buy some time to make a plan, or I’d sacrifice myself trying to lure the bastard out. Some decisions were easier to make than others, but until the bitter end, I’d carry the regret of the unknown on my shoulders.
Even if I somehow came out on top, I expected the United States government would drop a nuke on my head just to make sure Euthal stayed down. The government liked taking things to extremes.
The United States had spearheaded the irradiation of Australia, destroying most of the world’s nukes. It didn’t surprise me it had gone straight to the UN for permission to construct and deploy the kind of bomb that’d left New York a smoking ruin.
If I could lure Euthal out over the ocean, I could limit the damage. I wouldn’t hedge my bets on survival, but I would do what I could.
Which wasn’t much.
Without Raymond under foot, I pilfered paper and a pen to write Luke a note. The tidal wave the nuke would generate would do damage to my city, but it would kill fewer people than the nuke dropped on the city.
Saying goodbye hurt, but he was my best contingency plan, and while he’d hate my job, he cared.
He’d do the work in my stead if I didn’t come back.
I didn’t expect to come back, but stranger things had happened in my life.
Leaving the library, I drove my pilfered motorcycle to the
water, expecting it would come to an unpleasant end by the time I finished my attempt to lure Euthal out and deal with him. I left the keys in the ignition, another black mark on the potential end of my career, and I stepped onto the water.
The ocean welcomed me as it always did, holding me on its surface when anyone else would’ve slid into the depths. It wasn’t a singular entity; too much life lurked beneath its surface, but as I closed my eyes and listened, the sea reflected the city.
Everything slept.
I dove into the water, slicing through the currents on my way to the deeper oceans. Hypnos’s range must have grown; even miles beyond the shore, I found evidence of the fish’s power.
I’d heard of kraken as the thing of nightmares and legend, but I’d never expected to find one sleeping in the kelps before the ocean floor dipped too deep for the vegetation to survive. In most ways, it resembled a giant squid—if squid grew to over fifty feet long. Unlike a squid, it only had arms instead of also having tentacles.
Generally, I didn’t really care if sea life had tentacles or arms. Did it matter where the suckers were located and why?
Each one of the kraken’s arms possessed a dagger-like barb easily over a foot in length. I bet a ship, even a steel monstrosity, wouldn’t last long if the kraken took offense to it.
With such a monster hunting the ocean, I’d think twice about going on an evening swim in its territory.
Then again, perhaps the kraken might make a good ally in the face of a fish god and the warlock using it for his own means. I wouldn’t tell anyone I’d dared to touch an actual kraken, but I sat between its eye and mantle, hoping the location would make it difficult for it to snatch me in its arms and squish the life out of me or eat me as a light snack.
Maybe it would be grateful if I woke it up.
The kraken didn’t stir when I touched it, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on its presence in the water.
It shone like a beacon in the darkness, its presence stronger than anything else I’d ever encountered lurking in the ocean’s depths. Not even whales or dolphins came close.
Great. The kraken was probably smarter than I was.
Then again, if it was smarter than I was, perhaps I could turn it into a temporary ally, assuming I could figure out how to access Hypnos’s dark sea and join the fray.