Matt growled, “You know nothing about my family or the sacrifices they’ve made for the people they steward!”
“At least you have a family!” Karen shot back. She started to say more but her words turned into spluttering as a thin line of water hit her squarely in the face. “What was that?!”
Roberta was standing by the sink, a plastic sprayer in one hand. “I’ve heard about enough of that. You’ll act like civilized human beings if you’re going to talk in my kitchen.”
Matthew snickered, “Maybe you can talk some… hey!” His words cut off as Roberta turned the sprayer on him, delivering a quick watery burst.
“Shush,” she reprimanded him. “You aren’t helping.” Roberta directed her next words at Karen, “Dear, you aren’t being honest here. I know you’re scared, but you’re letting your fear get the best of you. You’re lashing out at the person trying to help you.”
Karen held her breath for a moment, eyeing the sprayer still in her aunt’s hand. Finally, she let it out. “There may be a grain of truth there,” she admitted with resignation. Then she noticed that Matthew’s face was still dry. “You didn’t even get wet!”
He sneered at her. “If you had practiced your shielding the way I keep telling you, then maybe you…” He stopped as Roberta took the half full coffee cup from in front of him.
Roberta’s saccharine sweet smile was followed by soft words, “Matthew, if you’d like to have any more coffee then I suggest you play nicely.”
He lowered his eyes and put his hands in his lap, making a show of contrition. “I defer to your wisdom, Lady. If I have done aught to offend, I would beg for your forgiveness.”
Karen’s aunt pressed her lips into a firm line as she considered his mock sincerity. “Hmmm…” She held firmly onto the mug of coffee, though.
Matthew rose and then went down on one knee before her. “Please, dearest, sweet Roberta, if you could find it in your heart to forgive me, to let the coffee gods smile once more upon me, I would be eternally in your debt.”
Roberta placed the coffee back on the table in front of his chair. “I could get used to that,” she said with a wink.
They all took their places at the table, and after a long pause Karen spoke, “I’m sorry for what I said about your family. That was uncalled for.”
Matt nodded in acceptance, but said nothing.
Karen waited, but in the end she gave up and prodded him, “This is the part where you apologize too.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“How about for suggesting I be your concubine, or a brood-mare?!”
“You said those things,” he countered, pausing to hold up one hand as Roberta went to get the sprayer again. “Let me finish. I didn’t use either of those words, but if offering to keep you safe was offensive, I apologize.”
Karen glanced at her aunt, who merely shrugged and put the sprayer down. “He has a point,” said Roberta, taking her seat once more.
Karen narrowed her eyes but didn’t argue the point further. Instead she asked, “So, supposing I let you take me to your world, what then? Your family welcomes a strange woman into their home?”
“Actually, I was thinking of taking you to the capital first, to put off questions from my mother until…”
Roberta broke in, “Not to throw oil on the fire, but it sounds as though you are trying to avoid embarrassment.”
“That’s not it at all,” argued Matt. “I’m worried my mother will try to stop me from returning. The capital is removed from my home by some distance, and though they can send messages within a few hours, I’ll be able to see her safely settled before Mom can try to nail my feet to the floor.
Karen opened her mouth, but Matthew wasn’t done. “Let me finish,” he said. “You wouldn’t be staying there in secret. Queen Ariadne is my cousin. You would be an honored guest.”
“So, you want to drop me off in a strange world and then come gallivanting back here to do—what exactly? We haven’t found anything at all regarding your father here. What if something happened to you? It’s bad enough I would be surrounded by strangers, but you might get killed. You might never come back!”
“I’d make certain Ariadne knew your situation. She would see to your well-being—forever, if need be…”
Karen’s face was starting to turn purple again, an interesting product of her angry flushing and her blue skin. “I’m not talking about my damned safety. It’s you I’m worried about! Can’t you get that through your thick skull?”
“Karen…,” he began, looking exasperated.
“Nope.”
“Just listen to…”
She turned her head away. “Nope.”
“If you’d…”
“Nope. Not gonna happen,” she told him. Rising from her seat, she walked around the table to him. She saw a faint flash as his personal shield was lightly reinforced. “Take that stupid shield down, I’m not going to hit you.”
Matthew gave her a dubious look but then lowered it.
Leaning over, she kissed him on the lips, hard. “Get this through your head, stupid. I’ll go, but if you want to come back, I’m coming with you. Got it?”
“But…”
She kissed him again. “Got it?”
He tried to reply again, and she repeated her treatment.
Finally, Roberta intervened. “Ahem”
Karen saw her look and went back to her seat, somewhat embarrassed.
“I know things are a little different these days, but I was raised in a less ‘expressive’ manner, so I’d appreciate a little more tact in my presence,” said her aunt.
There are an exceptional number of those metal people in the area, Desacus’s mental voice said to Matthew. They seem to be dressed like the other civilians I’ve seen, but they are definitely acting oddly.
Matthew stood up. “Desacus thinks there may be trouble. There’s a lot of extra people in the area.” Extending his senses, he explored the area around the house. With Desacus across the street and the time they had been there, it was definitely easier, probably due to an increase in the ambient aythar in the region, but his range was still limited. There was no one present in Roberta’s yard, but there were at least eight or nine walking the streets of the neighborhood.
Karen headed for the bedroom. “I’ll get your things.”
“Let’s not overreact,” suggested Roberta. “There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
But Matthew had pinpointed the location of several more strangers. Those on the other streets bordering their block had stopped, and there were at least four stationed at each corner. The group out front had stopped as well, and two began walking across the yard to approach the front door. He relayed his findings to Desacus, who because of his separate location probably couldn’t sense the ones on the side of the block farthest from him.
There are more than that, responded the dragon. I’m sensing a larger group in the distance on this side, beyond your range.
Then there are probably more in the other directions as well, posited Matthew. They’re closing a noose around us.
Should I reveal myself? asked the dragon.
No, stay where you are. When we leave the house, we’ll head in your direction. Hopefully they don’t know you’re there. If so, it will help surprise them when we take flight. Matthew wished he had his armor on, but he had grown relaxed over the past week and a half. I should have expected something like this, he thought bitterly.
A knock at the door brought him back to the present.
“I’ll answer it,” said Roberta. “You go with Karen. Maybe I can stall them while you get out.”
He doubted it would make much difference. The house was surrounded, but perhaps it would give him time to put his armor on. Matt nodded and headed for the bedroom. Karen met him coming the other way. She was holding her backpack. “I shoved everything in there,” she told him.
Annie was barking in the living room as Roberta opened the front door. “Yes?
Can I help you?”
Matthew hurried down the hall to glance out the window that faced the front yard, and then everything happened at once.
The glass in front of him exploded inward and something hard slammed into his personal shield. The world vanished in a storm of light and sound.
They’re running toward the house from every direction, came Desacus’s mental shout in his mind, but Matthew was still reeling from the assault on his eyes and ears.
As he recovered his senses, he realized he was blind, and the only sound he could hear was a strange ringing. His magesight showed him Karen standing close by, her hands rubbing frantically at her eyes. In the front room he saw Annie leaping up to grab one of the figures that had thrust itself in past Roberta. He also noted that all of the windows had broken, not just the one in front of him, and there were metal cylinders on the floors of each room, spewing some sort of gas. His nose and throat began to burn, and he coughed as he inhaled.
They used something like my father’s ‘flashbang’ spell to blind us, he realized, and followed up with some sort of noxious gas. He altered his shield to filter out the gas, and a second later he placed a similar shield around Karen. She had erected her own shield, sloppy as it was, but he knew she was unlikely to know how to protect herself from the gas.
Despite the ringing in his ears, he heard a staccato-like sound coming from outside, and it was matched by something in the living room that was close enough for him to feel the vibrations in his chest. The figure Annie had attacked flung her across the room like a ragdoll, and its companion was holding a long metal weapon, something he now recognized as a rifle.
Roberta’s body was shuddering and jerking as projectiles too fast to follow ripped through her, while Annie struggled to crawl back across the room toward her owner. Matthew felt more projectiles hitting his shield as small holes appeared in the walls all around them.
They’re firing on the house, said Desacus, and I think it’s on fire. There’s smoke coming out of it from every window.
He was still in shock from seeing Roberta’s death, but somehow he managed to reply, I noticed.
What do I do? asked the dragon.
Matthew had no idea, and now he could see that Karen was screaming. Neither his eyes nor ears worked, but his magesight showed her standing still, her body tense and her mouth open. It tore at his heart, and he was almost grateful he couldn’t hear the sound that must be coming from the depths of her soul. She had seen her aunt die. He began drawing on Desacus, using the dragon’s power to strengthen his shield and Karen’s.
Stay put, he ordered Desacus. He started to approach Karen, so he could merge their shields and try to make their way out, but at that point, she vanished.
In the same instant, he felt her reappear in the living room, standing over her murdered aunt. Unfortunately, she had left his shield behind, though she still had her own with her. She’ll be slaughtered, he worried, and without thinking, he turned his own power on the interior wall that separated him from the living room, blasting it apart so he could get to her more quickly.
Karen was still screaming, and something emerged from her hands to slam into first one and then the other of the two metal androids that had entered the house. Whatever struck them was very hot, though it flowed like liquid as it ran down their torsos. Their bodies sagged and crumpled to the ground, smoking as they melted into twisted lumps on the floor.
She began coughing then and swayed on her feet, as though she might pass out, but Matthew reached her before she lost her footing. Wrapping his own shield around her, he caught her and kept her upright. He could tell by the flickering of her aura that she had probably overexerted herself.
Flames were running up the walls, and more vibrations matched what his magesight showed him, as the upper floors of the house began to come apart. More explosions, he thought.
It’s definitely on fire now, though I doubt they’ll leave it standing long enough to burn down, observed Desacus. I really suggest leaving the house soon.
Adrenaline and anger had built a slow fire in Matthew’s own heart, and now that the shock of everything that had happened finally began to wear off, he felt his resolve solidify. Though still deaf and blind, he didn’t need eyes to see, and the aythar he was still drawing from the dragon filled him with a heady rush of power; his anger welcomed it.
“Don’t be stupid,” his father had told him over and over again. “When you’re in the thick of it, sometimes your power will make you feel invincible; sometimes your anger will make you want to hurt your foes, regardless of the cost. Be smarter than me, son. Stupid never dies, but that doesn’t mean it won’t kill you.” For the first time, he truly understood what his dad had been trying to communicate—not just the words, but the feeling that lay behind them.
He sent his thoughts to Desacus, I’m coming out. Wait fifteen seconds or so, then come out of hiding and come straight for me. We’ll shift out of here as soon as we’re together.
Channeling his power, he reinforced the shield around himself and Karen, shaping it into an angular pyramid that surrounded them with sides that sloped gradually to a point above their heads to better redirect the enemy’s attacks. Then he created a mist, drawing the moisture from the earth and air around the house. It rose like a vengeful ghost, cloaking the entire block in a dense cloud impenetrable to normal vision.
“Borok ingak!” he incanted, blowing a large portion of the front wall of the house outward. Lifting Karen into his arms, he carried her out into the dense fog.
In spite of the fog, the enemy immediately began focusing their fire on them. He had learned enough of Karen’s world to guess they had methods for sighting through the fog, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Impacts glanced off his shield, coming from every direction in an unrelenting stream of metal too fast for even his magesight to really register.
If he had been alone, things might have gotten desperate quickly, but with Desacus to draw on, he only felt a growing contempt for the men trying to kill them. Let them see what it feels like! he thought as his rage grew.
Efficiency was no longer necessary—power was not an issue, and he could find the men hidden in his fog just as easily as they could see him. Balancing Karen across his arms, he clenched and unclenched his fists as he sent his power forth, uttering a cruel string of words; “Ingak mai lathos, borok mai nemlen!” Force in my hands, break my foes!
The first soldier felt himself gripped by an invisible force as Matthew’s aythar fist clenched around him. The pressure was unrelenting and irresistible, and almost immediately the soldier’s metallic frame crumpled. Seconds after that, the reinforced titanium casing that protected his central processor collapsed, and he was dead.
A roar and more automatic gunfire announced Desacus’s emergence from his illusory hiding place. Matthew’s senses showed him the dragon approaching, but he paid little heed; his attention was focused entirely on his deadly work. Shifting targets rapidly, he crushed one after another of the cybernetic units firing on them. Two, three, four, he lost count as he destroyed the enemy and gradually the weapons fire began to slacken.
At some point Karen recovered and worked her way free to stand beside him, silently watching his work with her arcane senses. If she felt any sympathy for the men he killed, it did not show on her face. Her expression could only be described as cold satisfaction, tempered by regret that she lacked the strength to assist.
There’s something coming in from the air, warned Desacus.
“I’m not done yet,” said Matthew coldly, crushing another soldier as he spoke. At least thirty—men? machines? he wasn’t sure what to call them—were dead now. Another four remained, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until each of them had also learned his fatal lesson.
Those four turned and began to run, but he caught them and dragged them back into the fog.
“They’ve got air support,” said Karen, her voice devoid of feeling. “They’ve probably called in an airstrike—t
hat’s why they want to run.”
We should go, Desacus told them.
But there were still two left, Matthew ignored him.
The military aircraft screamed by in the sky above, but Desacus felt the weapons they had deployed heading toward them. Opening his wings, he leapt skyward to intercept them. He roared, gaining altitude with mighty strokes, and then surged forward, sending plumes of fire ahead, hoping to destroy whatever weapon the enemy had fired.
Two missiles struck him dead on, and the explosion that erupted shook the ground and broke Matthew’s shield. Searing pain, like a knife thrust through his skull, made him scream and then oblivion claimed the young wizard’s awareness as he crumpled to the ground.
Karen tried to catch him, but only managed to break his fall. Blind and still nearly senseless, she felt the dragon’s death, and it broke her free from the vision of her aunt’s brutal murder. Her shock and the desire for vengeance began to fade, replaced by sadness and desperation.
Desacus was dead. Aunt Roberta was dead, and soon enough, she and the young man she wanted to protect would be dead as well. The shield was gone and her own power was nowhere near to being able to replace it, even if she had had the skill.
Sinking to her knees beside him, she murmured, “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.” She wanted to cry, but her eyes were dry, though whether it was because of injury or sheer numbness she couldn’t tell.
Lifting Matthew’s head up, she cradled it against her stomach. “This is my fault.” She wanted to be elsewhere. Anywhere. Squeezing her arms around his head, she felt her wish fill her being, until it was the only thing that mattered—to be somewhere else.
And then they were.
Chapter 22
Karen’s vision was starting to return, though she still had a large purple spot hovering near the center of everything she saw. She could hear as well, though everything was slightly muted; it left her with the impression of having her head wrapped in cotton batting.
She was sitting as before, and Matthew lay before her, a trickle of blood running from his nose. There were no obvious injuries she could see, and a quick once over with her magesight confirmed that he was whole and intact. She felt a certain relief to feel his heart beating steadily in his chest.