Alaskan Fury (63 page)

In the cafeteria down the hall
and around the corner, Thunderbird was roaring, “That was a
touchdown
. 
Cheer
you miserable mortals. 
Cheer
!”  Followed by the nervous, tepid shouts
of a dozen people.

“Let’s try this one,” ‘Aqrab
said, glancing at the closest of the three doors.  It was made of a heavy metal
material, and there was a glowing group of numbers and letters on the wall
beside it.  He shifted to the half-realm and stuck his head through the door. 
He frowned at what looked like a storeroom on the other side, filled with what
looked like guns, helmets, body-armor, swords, goblets…  “Storage,” ‘Aqrab
said, yanking his head back and returning to the First Realm.  He repeated the
process with the next door.  Several desks with computers.  He pulled back,
frowning.  “Not there, either.”

“It’s the one around the corner,”
a familiar female voice said behind him, “and you won’t be getting it open with
anything short of a nuclear bomb unless you have the keycode.  It’s made to
withstand a Third Lander’s attack.”  At the same time, ‘Aqrab started getting
that odd tugging sensation, the feel of a hundred strings sliding across his
skin, seeking purchase.  Frowning, ‘Aqrab turned.

The Inquisitor was standing in a
side-hallway, slumped over the shoulder of a slender, naked man with
silvery-blond hair that cascaded halfway to his navel.  He was watching the two
of them with nervous blue eyes that seemed to have the depth of the ocean behind
them, and looked…twitchy.  Like he would bolt if someone sneezed.

For her part, the Inquisitor
looked even more like a corpse now than she had the first time he’d met her.  Instead
of just having that dark-eyed, hollowed-out skull-look from before, now she was
utterly pale and sweating, and it was obvious she was having trouble standing
from the way she clung to her companion.  “Tell me you didn’t kill all the technicians,”
she said, giving them an irritated look, like they were children muddying up
the affairs of adults.

The dragon stiffened and stepped
between them, glaring at the newcomers.  “Who the fuck are you?”

Ignoring the beast, the
Inquisitor said to ‘Aqrab, “There is a young technician that can get you in,
djinni.  He’s going to have a broken nose.  Is the Fury here?”

“She’s creating a distraction,”
the dragon said, sniffing the air between them, frowning at the woman.  “You
smell like a fucking Inquisitor.”

“She is an Inquisitor,” ‘Aqrab
said.

“
Former
Inquisitor,” the
woman interrupted.  “I…disagreed…with a few of the Order’s policies.”  Back
down the hall, Thunderbird shrieked, “No, go
left
, go
left
!” and
she waited for him to stop yelling before she said, “You realize that everybody
we free today is going to die.”

She said ‘we,’
‘Aqrab
thought, stunned.  He cocked his head at her, the odd tickling sensation, the
tugging
reminding him of some distant memory of another time and place…

“How do you figure?” the dragon
demanded.

“They’ve been drained. 
Blood-magics.  They’re weak.  A lot won’t even be able to walk.  Even with the
four of us, there’s no way we can get them all to safety in time.”

The dragon sniffed the air
between them again, frowning at the naked, platinum-haired blond.  “Who’s the
dumbass who forgot to visit his dresser this morning?”  He cocked his head
warily and moved toward the young man, looking like he wanted a better look. 
“Wait a minute.  He smells like—”

Even as the silver-haired man cringed
like a scared rabbit, the Inquisitor straightened and stepped between them,
scowling at Savaxian with none of the weakness she had shown only a moment
before.  “He is none of your business, dragon.  Back off.  Now.”  The tugging
sensation suddenly felt like a thousand bits of string sinking into ‘Aqrab’s
soul, and the weave of the world began to yank around him, reforming…

“Oh shit,” ‘Aqrab said, realizing
where he had felt that tug before.

But the dragon had pushed silver
scales from his skin and was sneering.  “Are you telling me what to
do
,
mortal?”

“Leave her alone, dragon,” ‘Aqrab
managed, his heart suddenly pounding.

Savaxian scoffed and stepped
toward the woman—and slipped on the snow-wetted linoleum, face-over-heels, and
landed on his back, staring at the ceiling of the hallway.

The woman turned suddenly pale
and backed away, swallowing hard as she stared at the dragon on the ground. 

Already, the dragon was getting
back to his feet, a low growl rising in his chest.  ‘Aqrab stepped forward, grabbed
Savaxian by the shoulder, and bodily tugged him around to face him.  “I need to
talk to you. 
Now
.”  Before the dragon could object, ‘Aqrab hauled him
down the hall and around the corner.

“A…Fate.”  Savaxian peeked around
the corner at the two standing in the hallway, then hurriedly pulled his head
back around to face the djinni.  “The skeletal one?  You’re sure?”

“Positive,” the djinni said. 
“And she’s starting to unravel.  Hence your somersault a minute ago.  She
didn’t want you to touch her friend.”

Savaxian chewed on his lip and
peered around the corner again.  The woman had collapsed against the wall and
her companion was kneeling beside her, holding her shoulder.  “She doesn’t
look
like a Fate.  She looks half dead.”  But the energy was there.  He could feel
it like a deep welling within, a dangerous mixture of power and potential that
smelled oddly of ashes…and excitement.

“We should ask her to leave,” the
djinni said, sweat rising on his brow.

Savaxian tugged his head back
from around the corner.  “
That’s
a Fate.  You’re sure.”  He was already
beginning to feel a little bit of a thrill, the love of a good gamble.  He
could think of a dozen different ways to expand his hoard with the proper
suggestive hint…

“I know what you’re thinking,”
the djinni said.  “It is
not
worth it, dragon.  One missed thought and
you’re dead.  Hell, she almost killed you just now.  She’s going to screw
everything up.  I’m going to go ask her to leave.”

Savaxian caught the djinni by a
big shoulder, frowning up at him.  “She caught me off guard, okay?  I’m a
dragon.  She can’t tug my strings if I don’t let her.  Besides,” he reasoned,
“The Fates don’t randomly show up, do they?  If she’s here, it’s for a reason,
right?”

The djinni gave him a flat look. 
“The reason is not to expand your hoard.”

Savaxian narrowed his eyes.  “My
collection
has nothing to do with this.  All I’m saying is that maybe this is what she’s
supposed to do, you understand?”  The seeping of power around the corner
was…intoxicating.  He’d never
felt
anything like that before, and the
sheer pull made him want to go bathe in it.  Like a sunbath, but better.  A
magic-bath
. 
Already, his own stores were replenishing, siphoning off a tiny bit of the
massive quantities of energy the woman was radiating, refilling his power-well,
rejuvenating his body and mind.

The djinni stared at him for a
long moment, then shook his head and muttered, “Like a goddamn moth to the
flame.”  He jabbed a big finger into Savaxian’s chest.  “You are
not
going to try to take that one home with you.  Got it?”

“Oh sure,” Savaxian said
distractedly.  The magic was seeping into his chest and torso, making him feel
warm and fuzzy.

The djinni grabbed him by the
shoulders and swiveled him around.  Dragging his face up to meet his, he snapped,
“
Got
it?”

“Yeah, whatever!”  Savaxian waved
him off.  “Maybe she can Fate her way into the basement.” 
And into my cave.
 
To have that kind of power at his disposal was…alluring.

The moment he thought about his
cave, however, Savaxian experienced a wave of nausea and had to bite down a
sudden urge to vomit all over the djinni’s massive black chest.  Fucking
Thunderbird.  He should’ve wished him featherless and stupid.  Well, at least
featherless, he thought, as the rain god started screaming, “Did you see
that?!  That was a
foul!
  A
foul
!” down the hall.  He was pretty
sure he already had the stupid part covered.

“I don’t think she’s got any
control,” the djinni said.  “It feels too random.”  He was again giving the
hallway a nervous look.  “Goddess, but I don’t want to be in the same room with
that thing.”

Ignoring him, Savaxian ducked
back around the corner to get a better look using his second sight. 
Immediately, the whole world became a glowing, throbbing mass of multicolored
strings, tendrils, lines, and pulses of energy.  Sure enough, the Fate looked
like a massive tangle of wadded-up string, every strand a very neutral silver,
nearly gray.  But the
power
…  He had started walking towards it before
the djinni grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back.

“Listen, you flaccid camel
penis,” the djinni snapped.  “Any dragon with any sense would be running scared
for the woods right now, not staring at a
Fate
like it’s a pretty new
toy.  You’re
young
, aren’t you?”

Savaxian shook the djinni off of
him, glaring.  “I’m
not
young.”  Four hundred years old was
not
young.  Just because his uncle could count hundreds of thousands of years on
each finger didn’t mean that he wasn’t just a freakishly long-lived outlier,
completely
beyond the normal range of dragon lifetimes.  Well, mostly.  Just because they
could
live that long didn’t mean that they
did
.  And, hell, four hundred
and thirty-seven years was
ancient
to a mortal, so he wasn’t young. 
That was ridiculous.

The djinni gave him a long, hard
look, then said, “Fine, but you take it away from me and my magus, understand?”

Savaxian considered how he was
going to go about the capture.  The poor thing looked so bad-off that he got
the uncomfortable feeling that hitting it over the head would kill it.  He
could try putting it to
sleep
, but if it had any abilities as a magus at
all
, it would be able to sense that coming a mile away…

Then, once he had it, an even
more important question was what to do with it.  He couldn’t take it back to
his cave unless the djinni gave him another wish, which seemed unlikely because
the infernal asswipe was being selfish and petty.  Sure,
Thunderbird
got
a cure, but not him?  That was low.

Then a new thought occurred to
him.  If a Fate didn’t
want
him to have claustrophobia, would he
randomly find a cure?  He began to plot out ways to gain its pity.

The djinni gave him another long
look, then shook his head again with a disgusted sound.  “You aren’t long for
this world.”  He turned and, giving the skeletal woman on the floor a nervous
look, skirted past the hallway and down to the last unchecked door, vanishing
to the half-realm.

“Dragon.”

The strained word made Savaxian
flinch and turn.  The Fate was seated on the ground, staring at the ground
between her legs.  Savaxian felt the strings tug at him again and decided it
felt rather like a massage.  A
magical
massage.  Clearing his throat, he
strode up to her and peered down, resisting the urge to kick the naked fool out
of the way so he could better see.

“There’s a room nearby,” the woman
said.  “Down that hall, six doors down, last one on the end of the hall.  It’s
Zenaida’s room.  She’s a Second Inquisitor, so she was given a survival package
from Rome.  In it, there’s going to be a small bottle of unicorn blood.  It’s
in an opaque plastic vial, sealed in a metal lockbox.”

The unclad imbecile squatting
beside the Fate flinched, his tiny brain obviously stunned by the idea of dragons
and unicorns.

“The room,” the woman went on,
“is going to be heavily warded, but if anyone can get in, it would be a
dragon.”

“All right,” Savaxian said,
crossing his arms as he sensed an advantage.  “What will you pay me to get it
for you, Fate?  Since you obviously can’t get there by yourself.  Shall we
say…a contract of service?”

The woman lifted her head to
shoot him an irritated glance.  “It’s not for
me
.  It’s for those we’re
about to
save
.” 

Savaxian winced.  “Oh.”  He
glanced at the hall where the djinni had disappeared.  In his heat-sight, he
could dimly see the Fourth Lander’s big shape moving under the floor. 
Under
the floor?
  “Well,” he said, switching his vision back to the
color-spectrum, “looks like the djinni made it to the basement.”

The woman on the linoleum shook
her head.  “
Freeing
them isn’t going to do you any good unless we have a
way to
heal
them after we pull them off the rack.  Otherwise, you’re
just inviting a slaughter.”  The tugging pull on the fabric of the world was
almost dizzying in its intensity, and Savaxian relaxed into the feel of the
magic strings, twining around him, caressing, kneading.  He felt his eyes
easing shut in bliss, reveling in the energy radiating from the thing.

Yes, he
had
to get this
back to his cave.

“You’re not paying attention.” 

Savaxian jerked.  “Huh?  What?”

The Fate was scowling at him. 
“The
blood
,” she growled, pointing with a skeletal finger, “is in the
room
. 
Go get it, if you want to succeed.  Try not to
die
on the way there.”

Grunting, Savaxian glanced at the
hallway she had shown him, then back at the Fate.  He wondered if the skinny
little simpleton beside her would try to make off with his reward for this
day’s adventure, if he left her too long alone.  He did
not
like the way
the effeminate prick was crouched beside her, concern written into his
baby-blue eyes. 

Even as he watched, the unassuming
pervert placed a slender hand upon her brow and caressed it delicately, then
murmured something about ‘needing rest.’

Yes, the wardrobe-challenged
femboy would have to go.  Savaxian wondered how he could separate the two. 
Maybe he could drop the man down a glacial crevasse by ‘accident’ as he flew
them to his cave.  Yes, he thought could put up with the priss’s feminine
asscheeks on his neck for a couple hours if it meant he had her cooperation. 
Then Savaxian could be the shoulder to cry upon, the understanding listener as
she mourned the loss of her mate.

Now to figure out how to get her
to agree to
go
to his cave.

“Are you going to get the blood,”
the Fate demanded, “or are you just going to stare at me?”

Savaxian hadn’t been staring at
her
,
but at the intricately-knotted cords of energy
surrounding
her, as
beautiful as Celtic knot-work, but he wasn’t about to argue the point.  “I
wasn’t staring at you.”

The Fate narrowed its eyes at
him.  “I swear to God, if you hurt him, I will hunt you down and
end
you, dragon.  From the
grave
if I have to.”

Savaxian flinched, unnerved that
his plan had been so visible.  “Uh, yes, well…”  He laughed nervously.  “I’m
going to go find that blood.  You two plan to be here awhile?”

She gave him a long, dangerous
stare.  “If he disappears, I will know where to look.”

Hmm.  It seemed as if the femboy
would be harder to ditch than he’d thought.  Maybe if the djinni would give him
another wish…

“
Go!
” the Fate shouted. 
“We don’t have
time
for you to plan how to kill me.  You want me dead,
we’ll talk about it after we rescue those people.  Just
go
.”

Kill
her?  Savaxian
blinked at the Fate in bafflement, having been lulled into a near-slumber by
the feel of magic.  He glanced at the skinny twit crouched beside her, who was looking
up at him with nervous blue eyes.  Wait…  Did she think he wanted the
femboy
? 
Why on Earth would she think he wanted the
femboy
?

Then he saw the look the Fate was
giving him, felt the twitch of strings dancing at the edge of his
consciousness, felt the fabric of the universe start to warp, and decided to go
down the aforementioned hall before an unseasonal blast of wind slammed the
hallway door open and shoved him toward his destination.

The femboy.  Why did she think he
wanted the
femboy
?

Savaxian found the door she’d
described and reached out for the knob.

“Are you stupid?!” the woman
shouted at him down the hall.  “Check it for spells!”

Savaxian rolled his eyes.  With
all but the dragons exterminated, whoever this Zenaida was, despite whatever smoke
and mirrors she used to dazzle the small minds of the mortals, he sincerely
doubted he was dealing with a
true
magus, because aside from the
dragons, the true magi were dead.  Besides.  Dragons were like the Djinn of the
First Realm.  They were its
rulers
.  They did not succumb to the magic
of fumbling Inquisitor idiots.

Still, Savaxian sighed and used
his magic-sight to examine the lock.  Better to humor the creature if he
planned to take it home with him.  Less struggle that way.  Immediately, he
froze, fingers poised over the metal latch.  There were the black cords of
death-magic woven into the lock itself, emanating through the latch, black and
pulsing.  Strong enough to kill a dragon.  The seiðr of a grandmaster.

“Oh,” he said to the door.  Very
carefully, he pulled his hand back from the knob.  Was this the
Fury’s
room?  Was the Fury working with the Inquisition?  In its own
halls
? 
How was that possible?  Did the Inquisition not
notice
they were dealing
with an immortal?  Or had it noticed something else…like how pretty a Fury’s
wings were?