In the Shadow of Dragons (Aftermagic Book 1) Page 28

  “You don’t get to talk!” Darby was practically vibrating. Tears welled in her eyes and slipped down, one after the other. “You’re a Knight,” she hissed. “The one they never name, the one who never leaves Bishop.”

  “Please.” She couldn’t think of anything but Noah, of how there was still a chance to save him. “We have to—”

  “There is no ‘we’.” Diesel, flat and cold. “There’s us. And there’s you.”

  Her spine rippled. “But Noah—”

  “Noah is the only reason you’re not dead,” Darby snarled. “If he wasn’t right there, I’d have shot you in the back the second your name came out of his mouth.”

  Teague stilled. “Kill me, then,” she said. “I won’t fight you. Just let me help you get Noah back first.” She looked at Diesel, the one she’d finally realized meant the most to her. More than anything in her old life. “I do know Julian,” she said. “And that means I can help you save Noah. Please … before it’s too late.”

  She thought something changed in his eyes, just a little. But before she could interpret it, Sledge snapped, “Not a chance. Peyton, do it.”

  Peyton, red-eyed and silent until now, raised an arm glowing with green fire. “You’ll wake up,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

  The blast of magic seared her eyes briefly, green shutting down to black.

  CHAPTER 57

  On the Road

  August 14, 7:42 p.m.

  The vision was back.

  Chess board on the Badlands, white bishop with Julian’s face. Noah’s black king clearing the way, Julian bestowing the key on him as he passed from the board, out of the vision.

  Don’t stop. Show me…

  The vision shimmered, faded, and then pulsed back brighter than ever. Noah’s king slid down the board, past the black pieces still standing. Blake’s pawn sacrificed, off the board on Julian’s side, where the white haze hung in the air behind everything. The locked panel drawing closer.

  Another shimmer. Noah seized at the vision, straining to hold it.

  Show me.

  The key in the lock, turning. The panel opening. And lying in the shadows of the recess beneath the panel, a single chess piece. A gray knight.

  With Teague’s face.

  The vision suddenly jerked and pulled back with dizzying speed, the chess board shrinking into the distance as the surrounding Badlands spilled into view. The white haze began to solidify, to take shape, clarifying at last when the board was a postage stamp on the desert.

  A white king. Faceless and gargantuan, towering on the horizon. Growing until the head of the piece blotted out the sun — and turned the light dark red. Eclipse red. Jagged cracks raced across the ground, spilling ominous red light, turning the Badlands into a blasted apocalyptic landscape.

  The chess board shattered and crumbled slowly into the abyss that formed beneath it.

  Noah gasped back to consciousness, his mind clicking like tumblers in a lock. Teague was the key Julian had given him, the unaligned piece with the power of shadow. She was a Knight. Julian must have sent her as a spy — it explained nearly everything about her. But she’d turned on him. At the last moment, when he’d broken her loyalty with a blast of his staff.

  If he was certain of nothing else, he knew Teague never would have raised a hand to any of them. It was etched on her face the instant the arrow flew. She really had believed Julian only wanted to negotiate. The monster had charmed her into submission, the way he’d charmed the world to see him as a hero.

  But it was the last piece of the vision that struck terror into him. The impossible, faceless white king, standing tall enough to block the sun. To eclipse the sun.

  Julian Bishop wasn’t even the real enemy.

  With his eyes still closed, Noah tried to move and found he couldn’t. In fact, he couldn’t even feel his arms. The last cushions of unconsciousness dissolved to a glow beyond his eyelids, the groaning purr of an engine, juddering vibrations. He opened his eyes slowly.

  He was in the front passenger side of a souped-up, two-seat sandrail, his arms wrenched behind the seat and handcuffed. The Badlands stretched ahead, a largely flat rock area he didn’t recognize. The sphere of the sun rested on the horizon to his left, which meant the vehicle was headed north.

  Julian Bishop was driving.

  “Don’t bother trying to blast me.” Julian spoke without so much as a glance at him. “Well, I suppose you can if you want to. But you’ll only annoy me more, and cause yourself more pain than you have coming.”

  Noah failed to suppress a shudder. So he was going to be interrogated. He might’ve been able to hold onto a shred of hope for rescue, if they were in the city. But this was nowhere at all. He’d never be found. Hell, his body would never be found.

  Of course Julian would kill him when it was over. The only thing in question here was how long he’d take to realize Noah wasn’t giving him a damned thing, no matter what the bastard did to him.

  “Nothing to say? That’s fine.” Julian still wasn’t looking at him. As if the idea of paying that much attention to his captive was beneath him. “You may as well save your strength. There’s a lot you’re going to tell me,” he said. “The location of your base. Everyone in your group. And the name of the informant who keeps sending you to stop my raids.”

  That was already a death sentence by itself. He didn’t know Rook’s name, and no amount of questioning was going to change that.

  “You think you’re going to withstand it,” Julian said. “You’re wrong. Noah Delaney, my father’s old friend … still carrying his knife in your back. Yes, I know you.” He finally turned in Noah’s direction, his expression chillingly calm. “I know why you hate me. And yes, I killed the monster that used to be your wife. That’s what I do, you understand. I kill monsters.”

  Julian fell silent, looked away again. “If I’d known what you would become, I would’ve killed you too, all those years ago,” he said. “But you shouldn’t worry. You’ll be joining your wife very soon now.”

  Noah had to bite his tongue, but he managed to keep the scream inside. This wouldn’t be an interrogation.

  It would be torture.

  CHAPTER 58

  Yukon Street Clinic

  August 14, 7:45 p.m.

  Naomi hadn’t meant to stay this late. She’d opened today, but not until well after noon, and only for a few hours to see a handful of regular patients with critical needs. Once again, she’d told Aileen to stay home. It was Friday, after all, and they were always closed on the weekends. Maybe if her assistant had four days to rest, she’d be mostly all right on Monday.

  As for herself, Naomi wasn’t sure she’d ever be all right. But she was trying to get there. Seeing a few patients had helped, and after that she’d called an emergency repair service to fix the front door, taken the supply delivery she forgot about scheduling, spent a while restocking and cleaning and given serious consideration to Scott’s placebo suggestion.

  While she waited for whenever Sawyer got in touch with her again, it was the only step she could take toward fixing things — though ultimately, she’d rejected the idea. People still needed to mask the symptoms, because BiCo would arrest them and make them disappear if they didn’t.

  The problem wasn’t just HeMo. It was everything associated with the Bishop Corporation.

  She’d just shut down the computer at the front desk, turned off most of the lights, and was headed for the front door to lock up when someone knocked at it.

  There was still cardboard over the freshly replaced glass, so she couldn’t see outside. She debated not answering, maybe making a run for the back door. After last night’s conversation with Sawyer, everything seemed suspicious now.

  More knocking. Finally, she decided she wasn’t going to spend one more minute fearing for her life in her own clinic. She turned the knob, opened the door.

  And Sawyer nearly fell through it.

  “Oh, God!” she said. “Don’t even think about tell
ing me you’re fine.”

  He smirked. “I’m thinking about it.” He’d barely caught the door jamb, and his knees sagged to half-mast. He was filthy and bruised, his jeans spotted with blood, a hole burned in his shirt at the shoulder with blistered red skin beneath. “How about I’m mostly fine?”

  “You’re not.” She wedged herself beneath his arm, the one without the nasty burn. “Come on. Back to the exam room with you.”

  He moved with her, but his resistance slowed the process. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m following someone, and it’s extremely important. If I wait much longer I won’t catch them. But if you don’t mind dropping me in a chair by the door for a minute?”

  “Well, if it’s extremely important.” She maneuvered him to the closest seat. “I really should drop you,” she murmured as she lowered him down. “You’re an impossibly stubborn man, Mr. Volk.”

  “Right back at you, Dr. Talbot. Except for the ‘man’ part.” He grinned, but the expression took a downshift into a grimace. “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he said. “But while I’m here, would you consider patching up my shoulder? The big guy nailed me pretty good. Went right through my armor.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what big guy.”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she sighed. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

  Naomi headed for the nearest exam room for burn cream and bandages. The wound should’ve been washed first — gently, in a bath. She could see flecks of grit embedded among the blisters. But Sawyer would never sit for that. One of the things he’d impressed on her last night was not to question him if he said he had to leave. For him, a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

  Though it wasn’t easy, she’d honor his request. If only to ease some of the strain of living with death breathing constantly down his neck.

  When she returned to the lobby, he’d taken his shirt off. The burn completely covered his left shoulder, front and back. It almost looked like someone had held a blowtorch to him. She couldn’t even imagine how much that had to hurt.

  “It must have been a very big guy,” she said when she reached him, trying to keep her tone light.

  “Yes, it was.” Sawyer smiled at her. “If I admit that I’m not so fine, will you stop looking at me like I only have five minutes to live?”

  She let out a shaking laugh. “This … isn’t going to feel so great,” she said. “Not at first, anyway.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  Rather than try to brace him any further, she got through it as fast as she could. He hissed a few times, flinched once, but he bore the rubbing and bandaging with patient determination. When she finished and stepped back, she said, “I guess you can put your shirt on now. If you have to.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Because my shirt is a stinking wreck, or because you don’t want me to put it back on?”

  “Just get dressed,” she said, hiding a smirk.

  “Well, okay. If you really want me to spoil your view.”

  She turned away before he could see how right he was.

  By the time she tossed the wrappers in the trash, he was on his feet and standing by the door. The pang of disappointment and fear she’d known was coming ran deeper than she expected, and she hurried toward him. “Promise me something,” she said.

  A fleeting, pained expression crossed his face. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can. Whatever you’re doing, just … promise you’ll come back.”

  “You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me. I’m supposed to be a one-and-done kind of guy.” He took her hand. “Tell you what,” he said. “I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen.”

  “Good enough.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “But you’ll have to come to my house when it does happen,” she said. “The clinic is closed for the weekend, so you’re not allowed any more injuries until at least Monday.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. You want to give me a doctor’s note for that, so I can tell the bad guys they don’t have permission to hit me with fireballs?” He smirked, released her with reluctance, then reached back and opened the door. “Goodbye, Naomi.”

  “Only for a while,” she said.

  With another smile, he was gone.

  She heard an engine start outside. Rougher than the sedan, easier than the glass-pack, probably a motorcycle. She listened until it vanished somewhere in the distance, and then locked the door and headed for the back entrance.

  He would come back. He’d promised.

  CHAPTER 59

  The Badlands

  August 14, 8:23 p.m.

  Teague woke up alone in the middle of nowhere, with the day’s light rapidly dying above her. It was still the Badlands. She knew that much, at least. But nothing in any direction looked even vaguely familiar to her, and complete darkness was closing in fast.

  She also knew that the Darkspawn truly hated her. If they’d had a single shred of feeling left, they would have killed her outright, instead of leaving her out here to die.

  And they left her exactly the way she’d come to them. With nothing but the clothes on her back and the stupid medallion in her pocket.

  She’d decided to pick a direction and walk in a straight line until something happened. Anything at all. Making any decisions beyond that was impossible — her grief for Blake was compounded by the knowledge that Julian was about to kill Noah too, if he hadn’t already. She could have stopped it, would’ve done anything necessary.

  She could’ve stopped Blake’s death by never agreeing to this insanity in the first place. But then she’d never have discovered the Julian hiding beneath the one she knew. The darker Julian, consumed by his own power.

  Not that she could ever put that discovery to use. She was going to be consumed by the Badlands.

  When her straight line started to veer in a drunken diagonal, she slowed her pace and consciously corrected her course. For some reason she felt like straight was the way to go. Maybe her subconscious would lead her to a cliff she couldn’t see in the dark, and she’d already be falling by the time she realized she’d stepped off.

  But the last breath of twilight had already blown itself out, and she could still see. The damned shadows. Her useless, worthless magic. It killed the people she wanted to save, and spared the people she wanted to destroy.

  Her most concentrated blast, at point-blank range, and Julian wasn’t even scratched.

  She was veering again, this time in the other direction. She slowed, course-corrected — and heard something. Voices in the distance.

  Light on the horizon far ahead. Incredibly faint, bobbing slightly, like someone walking with a flashlight.

  It was the Darkspawn coming to finish her off. Or maybe it wasn’t. There could be other groups out here, hiding and changing. Or BiCo patrols, though she couldn’t imagine any of them ranging this far out. Then again, she could be within a mile or two of civilization without knowing it. Or in a different desert altogether.

  At any rate, she was going to find out who that was. Her newly aborted decision-making capacity wouldn’t plan any further ahead than that, but at least she’d made a decision.

  She gained ground quickly, and the light swelled to meet her. It was a flashlight, held by one of two BiCo officers in desert camo who seemed to be walking a perimeter.

  This time she couldn’t blame her loss of control on Julian.

  Absolute fury drove her toward them. She was already calling on her magic by the time one of them looked up, responding to the sound of her footsteps, already sending a blast that gathered the night shadows into itself and expanded.

  When the flashlight swung in her direction, it illuminated the patrols’ abrupt and bloody deaths in the form of shadow blades wider than her arm.

  She reached them as the second one finished dropping dead, snatched the flashlight from a blood-streaked hand and switched it off. If there were more pat
rols out here, she’d take them out too. She would kill her way through an ocean of officers and go down swinging, destroying what belonged to Julian until her last breath.

  There was more light in the direction she’d been heading, fainter and steady. Not a flashlight, then. She sprinted toward it over ground that sloped steadily up, believing it had to be city glow. This might even be the rally point, the ridge they’d stopped at halfway to Casper on the way to attack the clinic raid.

  If she could see the city from here, she’d head straight for Bishop. For Julian. To kill him with her bare hands, if it came to that.

  But when she reached the top of the ridge, she stopped short, and a lump formed in her throat.

  This wasn’t a city. It was a building. One massive, sprawling building at the bottom of a deep bowl valley, built partially into the rock. A U-shaped single story section attached at both ends to a much larger section the size of an airplane hangar.

  A BiCo facility. In the middle of the Badlands.

  The place was fenced in, swarming with patrols. She noticed another constructed area to the left of the main building, two neat rows of rectangles, and realized they were barracks. The patrols guarding this place actually lived out here — all the better to keep whatever this was an absolute secret.

  Then she noticed something familiar and very out of place parked crookedly at the middle of the long end of the U-shape, in front of the facility’s main door. A gleaming silver sandrail with jacked back wheels and metallic red hubcaps. She’d ridden in that ridiculously flashy vehicle herself, many times. On watch rounds with Julian outside Bishop’s walls.

  And in the faraway pool of light at the entrance, a crooked dark smear along the stones, vanishing beneath the door. As if someone had been dragged inside bleeding.

  Julian had brought Noah here. And he might already be dead.

  No. She refused to believe that. Noah was still alive, and she could save him. Somehow. Her completely dulled, automatic instincts had led her to this place. Maybe with a conscious effort, she could find the camp. Get reinforcements and come back.