In the Shadow of Dragons (Aftermagic Book 1) Read online

  There was one more long, bone-chilling background scream that dwindled down to a gurgle. Jaeger’s image looked over his shoulder and faced forward again. “By the way,” he said. “If any of your people have experience with brass instruments, send me their resumes. I seem to have an opening for a new trumpeter.”

  The image froze on Jaeger’s smug green face.

  “Terrific. Thanks for the advanced notice,” Noah muttered as he deactivated the will-o’-wisp. He’d have to get a team together now, and spend the next few hours strategizing. They could head out right after Diesel’s issue ended tonight and make Casper with at least fifteen minutes to spare.

  He didn’t exactly look forward to hearing from the ‘mutual informant,’ which meant Rook. No one knew the man’s identity or what he looked like. Whoever he was, he was powerful, and mean as a rattlesnake. But his intel was always right.

  At least they had a chance to get more resources — though knowing Jaeger, he was as likely to send a goddamned box of chocolates as he was weapons or personnel. Still, it was worth it to stay on the King’s good side.

  As the thumps and screams in the message attested, Jaeger Storm’s bad side was a terrible place to be.

  CHAPTER 33

  The Badlands

  August 10, 2:50 p.m.

  At least now Teague knew where the drill sergeant part came in.

  Nearly two hours ago, Diesel had requested the pleasure of her company in a larger cave off the main cavern, away from the tunnel and the bedrooms. And by requested, she meant demanded. She’d gone along only because it was another opportunity to prove she didn’t need training. She was combat-ready, prepared to go out with the group. And get the hell away from them.

  This cave was set up for physical training, with workout bars and crude weight stations, exercise mats, even an obstacle course — which was a lot of rocks and rapidly changing terrain. She’d already resented her way through enough pushups and pull-ups to leave her arms burning, done wall-climbing and hanging sit-ups, and run the obstacle course until she stopped sliding and falling every time she got to the sand portion. She hadn’t uttered a single complaint out loud.

  But she drew the line at using magic.

  “Look, you’re all crazy.” She stood from the rock she’d been sitting on and paced in front of Diesel, who was seated on a larger rock. “I can’t control it, okay? Magic just … happens. I’m not doing this.”

  “You can control it, and you are doing this,” Diesel repeated for the hundredth time. At least he was calm about this. Not so much when he’d been barking at her to run faster and fall harder.

  Still, no amount of patience on his part was going to change her mind. “I can’t, and I won’t.”

  “Sit down.”

  She stopped pacing and glared at him. “Why? So you can tie me up and make me use magic again?”

  He sighed. “Sit down, please,” he said. “So we can talk.”

  Talking was an even worse idea. But if she had to listen, maybe he would too. Maybe she could make him understand that she’d never be able to control it. That the magic in her did horrible, unspeakable things.

  She sat with a huff. “Okay. Talk.”

  For a moment he didn’t. He only looked at her, with eyes she realized were a startling shade of crystal blue she’d never seen before. Almost unnaturally blue. Finally, he said, “You had a bad experience with magic. Obviously.”

  Yeah. I slaughtered my family. She refused to let him see her react. “And?”

  “And I don’t blame you for being afraid,” he said. “People always fear the unknown, until they understand it.”

  “There’s no understanding this.” She wanted to scream it right into his placid face. “That’s why it’s called magic. It’s not supposed to be real!”

  “But it is real. It’s here, and it’s not leaving.”

  He almost sounded sorry for her. That just made her angrier. “I know that. Don’t patronize me,” she snapped. “Yeah, it’s real. And we shouldn’t mess with it. It’s like trying to cut the right wire on a ticking bomb, when you’ve never seen one in your life, and hoping you don’t blow yourself and everyone else up.”

  “That would be true, if we knew nothing about magic,” he said. “But we do. We’ve lived with it for years, and we haven’t blown ourselves up yet.”

  Right. This handful of near-savages who hid in caves and trained with rocks understood magic, while Julian and his billions of dollars, armies of researchers, and the world’s top scientific minds knew nothing. “I guess you’re just lucky, then,” she said.

  “Really. And how do you explain what Darby did?” He folded his arms and arched an eyebrow, the only indication of his patience running out. “Lucky for her, there happened to be a rain cloud forming at that moment, over her head and nowhere else.”

  “Extremely lucky,” she muttered.

  “It’s repeatable, and it follows rules.” Diesel waited until she looked at him. “For most people, magic is anchored to an element. Darby’s is water. Isaac is wind, Peyton is nature — plants and animals. Noah is mind.”

  A faint chill shivered down her spine as she remembered the Warrens. Noah blasting the leader of that gang. Not injuring him, but making him forget who he was and what he was doing. Affecting his mind.

  Maybe he wasn’t completely wrong about this.

  “Elements,” she said slowly. “Okay, so what’s your element?”

  Stone silence replied.

  “Let me guess. It’s heart.”

  Still nothing.

  “Right,” she said. “You’ve sure got this whole thing figured out, don’t you?”

  “We’re not here to talk about my element.” A low warning crept into his voice. “We’re here to find yours, so you can learn how to use it.”

  If he wasn’t three times the size of her, she would’ve called him on his bullshit. Instead she rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. What’s my element?”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as you use your magic, so I can see it.”

  Pure frustration drove her to her feet, one hand outstretched, already calling on the sleeping beast inside her. Letting the memories of what she’d done flow through her. Purple fire traced the black Magesign down her arm, and she sent a darkly glowing blast at the ceiling on the far side of the cavern. The blast sheared through a massive stalactite, easily five feet through at the base, and brought it down in a cascade of rubble.

  She plopped back down on the rock. “There you go,” she said. “Magic.”

  At least she’d wiped that dreadful, calm look from his face. Diesel stared open-mouthed at the jagged rock pile, the dust still rising from it, and then faced her with shock in his eyes. “Shadow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your element is shadow.”

  Before she could ask him to elaborate, movement somewhere to the left caught her eye. She turned to find Noah scowling at the smoking rubble. “I’m not even going to ask,” he said. “Diesel, I need you. We have an unexpected mission in Casper tonight.”

  The big man nodded and stood. Teague followed suit, hanging back as Diesel headed across the cavern. “What is it?” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” Noah growled.

  “But I can—”

  “I said no.”

  Her lip curled, and she forced herself not to shout. “How am I supposed to prove myself if I’m not allowed to do anything?”

  Noah shared a look with Diesel, and then laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “So you can be logical when you feel like it,” he said. “Look, you’ve been here for one day. You’ll get your chance, but there’s plenty of time. Stay here and train — and don’t bother me again, because you’re not going tonight.”

  With that, he turned and left the cavern. Not even Diesel said goodbye.

  She stayed in place, glaring after them. Damn it, she was not going to stay here. She couldn’t. Everything about this mission was bad, and getting worse by the
minute. If she didn’t get out now, she might never leave.

  So she’d go anyway. She just wouldn’t tell them. She’d find out everything she could about what they were doing, where they were going, and follow them to Casper. Back to where she belonged. With Julian.

  Maybe then she could shake the terrible suspicion that Julian Bishop might be the wrong side of this fight.

  CHAPTER 34

  The Warrens

  August 10, 8:42 p.m.

  By the time she actually got to the Warrens, Naomi had upgraded her opinion from ‘probably a very bad idea’ to ‘definitely a horrible idea, why am I doing this?’. But she was here now. On the path to the dark side, and finding it wasn’t as dark as everyone thought.

  Except in the Warrens.

  She couldn’t find a way to drive into the neighborhood, so she’d parked a block or so from the half-destroyed bridge that served as an entrance and walked inside. The distance under the bridge was only twenty feet or so —but she came out worlds away from where she’d left. Clean, bright order to dark, crumbling chaos.

  The shadows of what this place used to be lurked beneath a surface of graffiti and grime, blown street lights and discarded possessions. Houses that were already crowded together spawned colonies of ramshackle dwellings. It was quiet, but not peaceful. The silence was a held breath waiting for disaster.

  And the people were losing their humanity. Slowly, willingly.

  She’d tried to talk to a few of them, even managed to ask one or two if they knew where she could find Goddard. If they did, they weren’t inclined to share. She’d made her way from squalid residential blocks to a slightly less crowded, downtown-like area with traffic lights that either flashed endlessly yellow, or had gone dead, to be replaced with crude handmade stop signs. The foot traffic was a bit more active here, too. People in small groups, rather than singles hurrying with their heads down.

  Everything in her screamed to leave this place, but she was determined despite the fear. She spotted a convenience store on the next block across the street that looked open and headed that way. Maybe if she bought something, whoever worked there would be inclined to help her — or at least speak to her.

  She was about to cross the road when a voice behind her said, “Hey. Lady. You’re lookin’ for pr’tection, I can tell.”

  Her heart leapt into her throat as she whirled toward the voice. It belonged to a hunched figure in a filthy yellow jacket, with a cowboy hat pulled down to his ears and … pink slippers? He must’ve come from the alley beside the building she’d just passed.

  “Er. Hello,” she said cautiously. “I’m not exactly looking for protection, but—”

  “Sure you are. And I got what you need.” He opened a coat flap with a harsh jangling sound. The inside was loaded with strange coins, tiny carved figures, random buttons … and silver chain necklaces. Cantrips.

  She blinked. “Are you Goddard?”

  “You’ve heard ’a me. Well, then. You must know my merchandise is one hundred per-cent guaranteed.” He grinned, and she caught a glimpse of brown teeth with fangs. “Only you need something special. I got just the thing—”

  “Wait,” she said as his gnarled hand dove into a pocket. “I need to find the Darkspawn. Can you help me?”

  Goddard froze. The jovial smile dropped from his face like a stone, and he took his hand out slowly. “You don’t want to say that name, dear,” he said in a rasping whisper. “Not here, and especially not out there.”

  Gooseflesh rippled along her skin, and she suddenly had the intense feeling of being watched. “I won’t. But I have to find them,” she said. “I have … information. Something they need to know.”

  “Can’t help you. Sorry.”

  For just a moment, anger trumped fear. He did know how to find them. She was certain of it. “Listen, I’m trying to help—”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  It was impossible to miss the warning in his tone. She bit back an angry retort, reached in a pocket and produced the business card she’d brought along in the hopes of making a connection. “Call me if you change your mind. Please,” she said. “It’s important.”

  After a moment, he snatched the card and made it disappear. The salesman’s smile returned, but it was guarded this time. “Sure you don’t want to buy some of these fine magical charms?” he said. “They work. One hundred per-cent guaranteed.”

  “Yes, I recall you saying that.” The feeling of being watched hadn’t gone away — it was getting stronger. Something was urging her to leave this place, right now. And she was going to listen. “I have to go,” she said. “Please consider my offer. I’ll be waiting.”

  Near shivering now, she turned and headed back the way she’d come.

  Goddard watched the pretty lady hurry down the block and out of sight. Naomi Talbot, M.D., according to her card. He felt bad that he couldn’t help her, but she wasn’t Darkspawn material. She wasn’t even magic, not even a little — which was strange, because she wasn’t on HeMo, either.

  He’d been about to sell her the wood splinter, the one that worked without priming. The one he found just outside Bishop the other day when he was wandering around, minding his own business and definitely not watching anyone attack any Knights. And once the excitement he wasn’t paying attention to died down, and the dust storm he hadn’t seen anyone create settled, there was the splinter. Lying on the ground, magicking away. He put it in a pretty little glass vial so it wouldn’t magic the rest of his charms.

  But once she said Darkspawn, he decided not to sell it to her. Or anything else. She shouldn’t be involved in all this.

  She was a nice, normal person who could still have a life.

  With a faint frown, he took out the card she gave him and stared at it. The Yukon Street clinic in Casper. So she wasn’t just a doctor, she was a HeMo doctor. But she didn’t take it herself. Strange.

  Someone snatched the card from his hand. He bristled, looked over — and quite suddenly decided he wasn’t mad after all. “Erm. Hullo, Rook,” he said with extreme caution. “What brings you up here?”

  “I’m following someone.” Rook was a very large, very angry man, no matter which of his four or five cantrips he was wearing. He looked at the card he’d taken for a minute, produced a Zippo, and set the small white rectangle on fire, holding it by one corner until the flames consumed it. Then he dropped it on the sidewalk and ground it to ash under a boot. “What did she want? And don’t lie to me, Klein.”

  “Well. Naomi there—”

  “You’re going to forget her name. Right now,” Rook growled.

  Goddard swallowed hard. “That strange lady there,” he said. “She was … uh, she was looking for the Darkspawn.”

  “What?”

  Goddard shrank back from the roar. “You told me not to lie,” he whispered.

  “Yeah. I did.” Rook closed his eyes and made a hard effort to compose himself. “Tell me exactly what she said. All of it.”

  Goddard told him.

  “Goddamn it,” Rook said when he’d finished. “She’s going to get herself killed, or worse.”

  “That is ’zactly what I was thinking.” In his relief to still be alive, Goddard slipped unconsciously back into his street patter. “I told her sorry, can’t help you. Didn’t even sell her anything. See, I got this—”

  “Shut up.”

  He shut up.

  Rook made a highly unpleasant sound. “If you see her in the Warrens again, you tell me. Immediately. And then get her the hell out,” he said. “Understand?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  “Meanwhile, don’t even think about her. Ever. Far as you’re concerned, she doesn’t exist.” Rook sighed, and for a second his anger looked a lot like misery. “By the way, keep your people clear of the county jail tonight,” he said. “There’s going to be trouble.”

  “No problem,” Goddard said, and waited.

  Rook finally left without saying anything more.
/>   He decided to stop selling charms tonight and hit Five Cowboys for a drink. A lot of drinks. Maybe he’d even buy one for Selby.

  Mostly he was grateful not to be a smoking crater in the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER 35

  Natrona County Jail

  August 10, 11:55 p.m.

  Noah crouched near the mouth of the alley between the municipal building and a darkened office complex, watching the jail across the street. From here he could see the front and back entrances of the boxy standalone building with its sprawling extensions, built after the Eclipse to hold a growing population of people who hadn’t done a damned thing wrong.

  Behind him, Diesel and Isaac waited. He’d kept the team small to minimize exposure, bringing only the essentials — Diesel for muscle, Isaac for cover and the other thing he did, the one from his old life. They all wore bandannas on the lower half of their faces. No desert rags, and no cantrips. The charms required more power than they could afford to waste. Trying to fight while wearing a cantrip was a short trip to a lot of bruising and internal bleeding when the magic exceeded the body’s physical capacity.

  They had two four-wheelers and a jeep parked at the other end of the alley, waiting. Rook had already contacted him in the usual way. When they parked the vehicles around back, a woman in a business suit had come out of the office building, handed Noah a cheap cell phone, and walked off without a word.

  The phone had one text message: Amba Vardiss, cell block D. Back door, turn right. Wait for my signal before you go in. The message was accompanied by a photo of a black-haired man with a long nose, angular features, and a smug expression not unlike Jaeger’s.

  So now they were waiting.

  Loud male laughter caught his attention. Noah watched as a tall, muscle-bound man with a sword strapped to his back headed for the front entrance of the jail. Two young, giggling women flanked him, and he had an arm around each of them. He looked utterly shit-faced, and very familiar.