Dragons shadow, p.10
Dragon's Shadow, page 10
His voice cracks on the last word.
I don't answer. What would I say? Welcome to the club?
My right arm pulses again. Cold. Numb.
"My Sight. My voice. Everything."
He opens his eyes. Fixes them on his hands resting on his thighs.
"I've never..."
He stops. Searches for the words. Gives up.
I know the rest. I've never been helpless.
My thumb twitches. I watch it fold. Relax. Start again.
"It comes back."
Trent turns his head toward me. Like his neck weighs too much.
"How do you know?"
I lift my right arm. The fingers still tremble. But they move.
"Because I'm still here."
He stares at my hand. The spasms. The thumb that pulses.
"Excalibur..."
"Was dead for thirty seconds."
The words come out flat. Cold.
Thirty seconds of eternity.
Trent looks at the sword leaning against the bar. The dull blade. No light. No warmth.
"Will it come back?"
I follow his gaze. The familiar guard. The cold metal.
Will it come back?
"I don't know."
That'll have to be enough.
I grab the gel pack from the freezer. It burns my fingers. Too cold. Perfect.
I cross the bar. My boots click on the floor. Trent doesn't move.
I slam the pack against his cheekbone.
The gel cracks. A sharp sound. He winces. His teeth clench. But he says nothing.
"You're an idiot."
My voice comes out flat. Cold as the gel melting against his bruised skin.
He opens one eye. The silver-gray is dull. Extinguished.
"Received."
The word comes out in a breath. Hoarse. Broken.
I remove the pack. The skin underneath is red. Swollen. The mark of a fist. Or a wall. Hard to say.
I reposition the gel. Lower. On his jaw.
He flinches. Closes his eyes.
"You were supposed to stay at the Cauldron."
"Yeah."
No sarcasm. No nervous laugh. Just acceptance.
That bothers me more than the insubordination.
I press the gel against his throat. Where the bruised marks run down to his collarbone. He inhales. Short. Choppy.
"Breathe."
"I'm trying."
My hand trembles. Barely. I grip the pack. The gel cracks again.
You could have died.
You should have died.
I remove the pack. Set it on the bar. The plastic sticks to the counter.
Trent keeps his eyes closed. His hands rest on his thighs. Still. No compulsive cleaning of his blades. No nervous gestures.
He's drained.
"They switched you off."
Not a question. A statement.
He opens his eyes. Stares at me.
"Completely."
The word falls between us. Heavy. Definitive.
I take a clean towel from the counter. Wrap it around the gel pack. Hold it out to him.
"Keep that on your throat."
He takes the towel. His fingers move slowly. Like they weigh too much.
He presses the gel against his skin. Winces. Holds the position.
I step back. Cross my arms.
The Dimming.
That makes two.
Trent keeps the towel against his throat. Stares at the wall behind me.
"You were right."
His voice breaks on the last word.
I don't answer.
Yeah. I was right.
And it doesn't change anything.
He doesn't look down.
Something shifts in his gaze. Not arrogance. Not sarcasm.
He slides his hand into his inside pocket. The movement is slow. Calculated.
A metal rectangle cracks onto the counter. Dirty. Smeared with urban grime. The edges are scuffed. The center weakly reflects the blue-white neon.
I stare at the object.
A hard drive.
Trent doesn't remove his hand. His fingers rest on the metal. Still.
"I'm an idiot with a goddamn hard drive."
His voice comes out hoarse. Tired. But definitive.
No nervous laugh. No cutting remark.
Just that.
I look at the drive. The fingerprints on the metal. The grime worked into the grooves.
"Where'd you get it."
Trent removes his hand. The drive stays on the counter. Alone.
"Off one of the Grays."
He says it like he's talking about the weather.
My gaze goes back to him. To his gray face. His dull silver-gray eyes.
"When."
"When they were dragging me."
He touches his throat. Where the gel is still melting against his bruised skin.
"Before they switched me off completely."
My hand reaches for Excalibur. My fingers find the cold guard. Dead.
I grip. The metal doesn't respond.
"You took a hard drive off a technological corpse while it was strangling you."
Trent nods.
"Yeah."
I stare at the drive. The dirty metal. The fingerprints.
He kept his head.
While his magic was dying.
While they were choking him.
He stole a goddamn trophy.
"You're an idiot."
Trent doesn't answer.
I release Excalibur. Pick up the drive. The metal is cold. Heavy. Real.
No magic. No warmth. Just filthy technology ripped from the enemy.
I turn it over in my palm. Look for marks. Logos. Nothing.
Just anonymous metal.
"Ivy's going to want to see this."
Trent opens one eye. Looks at me.
"Yeah."
I set the drive on the counter. Next to the melting gel pack.
The kitchen door slams against the wall. Gen crosses the bar in three strides. Her portable interface hangs from her shoulder. She drops it on the counter. The metal hits the wood with a dull thud.
Her fingers move. Fast. Precise. She plugs the dirty drive into the hub. The screen lights up.
Glacial blue.
I lean in.
Gen types on the interface. Lines of code scroll past. Too fast to read. She stops. Stares at the screen.
Her eyes go wide.
"What the hell."
Her voice comes out too high. Too fast.
Gen never swears.
I move around the bar. Position myself behind her. Look at the screen over her shoulder.
Schematics. Lines. Points pulsing red on a map.
Montreal.
Gen zooms in. Her fingers tremble on the interface.
"These are structural plans."
She points to a file. Opens it.
A grid appears. Complex. Overlaid on the downtown map.
"And an energy cartography."
I stare at the grid. The crossing lines. The nodes glowing in pale blue.
The ley lines.
The red points align perfectly with the nodes.
The murders.
"They're mapping the network."
Gen nods.
"They know where to hit."
The air leaves my lungs. I look at the red points. Count. Eight. Ten. Twelve.
We found three.
"How many are there."
Gen scrolls through the map. The red points multiply. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty.
"Too many."
I stare at the screen. The glowing nodes. The red points covering them.
They're draining the city.
One battery at a time.
Gen goes back to the initial schematic. Zooms in again. To the center of the grid. Where all the lines converge.
A building appears. High resolution. Recent satellite image.
A glass tower. Slender. No visible signage.
The Quartier International.
Gen clicks on the attached file. A logo appears. Clean. Clinical. Stripped of all creativity.
Black letters on white background.
AEGIS SOLUTIONS.
I stare at the logo. The letters. The aggressive white.
Not a cabal.
Not a demon.
A goddamn corporation.
Gen types on the interface. Opens a second file. Data scrolls. Addresses. GPS coordinates. Extraction protocols.
"They documented everything."
Her voice comes out flat. Disbelieving.
I read the scrolling lines. The codes. The coordinates. The extraction times.
Berri-UQAM. 03:47.
Place-des-Arts. 01:22.
Peel. 04:13.
Every murder. Every battery. Every drained node.
All of it there.
"They're treating this like a logistics operation."
Gen looks up at me. Her pupils are slightly luminescent.
She's seeing something.
Something I can't see yet.
"Arthea."
Her voice comes out too soft. Too calm.
That means it's serious.
"What."
She points at the screen. The logo. The black letters.
"Aegis Solutions is publicly traded."
Publicly traded.
I step back. Cross my arms.
"You're telling me we're fighting a cybersecurity company."
Gen nods.
"With shareholders. Quarterly reports. Offices in the Quartier International."
I stare at the logo. The letters. The white.
No runes.
No ancient symbols.
Just corporate design.
My hand finds Excalibur's guard. Cold. Dead.
I grip. The metal doesn't respond.
"They have an address."
Gen types on the interface. Zooms in on the glass tower.
"1250 René-Lévesque West."
The address appears under the building. Clean. Precise.
They're not even hiding.
I look at the tower. The transparent facade. The thirty-seven floors rising toward the sky.
They're watching us from above.
From the start.
Trent moves behind me. The gel cracks against his throat.
"A glass tower."
His voice comes out hoarse. Tired.
I don't turn around. Keep my eyes on the screen.
"Yeah."
"With biometric scanners that detect magical variance."
I turn my head. Look at him.
He stares at the screen. His silver-gray eyes are still dull. But something moves behind them.
"How do you know that."
He touches his throat. Where the gel is still melting.
"Because the Grays who switched me off smelled like tempered glass and industrial ozone."
He lowers his hand. Stares at the logo.
"Not magic. Technology."
Gen goes back to the main file. Opens a folder marked "Infrastructure."
Plans appear. Floors. Basements. Ventilation systems.
"They built a cold iron Faraday cage."
Her voice comes out clinical. Analytical.
"Magic can't cross the threshold."
I stare at the plans. The reinforced walls. The layers of glass wired to circuits.
A null zone.
A dead zone.
I release Excalibur. Cross my arms.
"We can't go in there."
Gen doesn't answer.
Trent doesn't either.
I look at the glass tower on the screen. The thirty-seven floors. The transparent facade.
They can see us.
And we can't touch them.
The silence doesn't last.
Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. Deliberate.
I know that rhythm.
Lance comes into the bar. His boots click on the floor. He stops three meters from us. Looks at the screen. The glass tower. The black and white logo.
Then Trent. The gel melting against his throat. The bruised marks running down to his collarbone.
His eyes come back to me.
I cross my arms.
He says nothing. Not right away.
Gen closes the interface. The snap of the case resonates in the silence.
Lance sets his hands on the counter. Next to the dirty hard drive. His fingers rest a few centimeters from the metal ripped from the enemy.
"He was right to go."
His voice comes out without raising. But the weight is there.
Morale.
I stare at his hands on the bar. The old scars. The fingers that don't tremble.
"Repeat that."
The word comes out flat. Cold.
Lance doesn't move. Keeps his eyes on me.
"We'd have missed this if you'd confined everyone blindly."
Blindly.
Something freezes in my chest. I look at Trent. The melting gel. The bruised marks. The gray of his skin.
He almost died.
He should have died.
I come back to Lance. To his eyes that don't give ground.
"He got switched off."
My voice comes out too dry. Too hard.
Lance nods.
"And he brought back the enemy's address."
He touches the hard drive. A light gesture. Precise.
"What would you have done without this."
What.
My hand finds Excalibur's guard. Cold. Dead.
I grip. The metal still doesn't respond.
I release the sword. Cross my arms.
"I'd have found something else."
Lance doesn't answer. But something shifts in his gaze.
Not pity.
Doubt.
Trent removes the towel from his throat. The gel drops onto the counter. The plastic sticks to the metal.
He looks at Lance. Then at me.
"She got me out."
His voice comes out hoarse. Tired.
Lance nods.
"Yeah."
He doesn't look at me. Keeps his eyes on Trent.
"Because she always does."
The word falls between us.
Always.
I look at Lance. His hands on the counter. His fingers a few centimeters from the hard drive.
He's defending the mutineer.
In front of me.
In front of everyone.
My chest tightens.
The Wall. Top floor.
He doesn't see Ivy's ash. He doesn't see the dying sword.
He sees the pragmatism. The efficiency. The result.
The hard drive on the counter.
The proof that Trent was right to disobey.
I step back. One step. My back finds the edge of the counter behind me.
Lance looks up. Fixes on me.
"Art."
His voice comes out softer. Almost tender.
I don't want that.
I don't want anything from him right now.
I look away. Fix on the blue-white neon above the bar.
Cold. No golden warmth.
"We have an address."
My voice comes out flat. Clinical.
Run from this.
Run from all of it.
Lance doesn't move.
"Yeah."
I look at Gen. She stares at the closed interface. Her fingers rest on the case. Still.
She says nothing. She doesn't look at me.
Silence.
I look at Trent. The gel melting against his throat. The bruised marks running down to his collarbone.
He doesn't look at me either.
Nobody says anything.
This is no longer a team.
It's a shareholder majority that just overridden the CEO's vote.
The Wall. Top floor.
My gaze goes back to Lance.
He doesn't move. Keeps his hands on the counter. His fingers a few centimeters from the hard drive.
He's defending the mutineer.
In front of me.
In front of everyone.
I swallow it without blinking.
No declaration. No shout. No plea.
I lean in. Rip the gel pack from Trent's face. The plastic cracks against the counter. Cold water splashes the metal.
No gentleness. No motherly gesture.
Just the sharp movement of someone taking control back.
Trent startles. Opens his eyes. The silver-gray is still dull.
I straighten. Cross my arms.
"Fine."
My voice comes out flat. Cold. The authority of a dead woman who refuses to lie down.
"That's a target."
I fix on the logo on the closed screen. The black letters. The aggressive white.
AEGIS SOLUTIONS.
"But the Shadow Market proved one thing to me."
I lift my right arm. The fingers still tremble.
The Dimming.
"Their weapons are black holes."
I lower my arm. Fix on Trent. Then Gen. Then Lance.
"The entire Aegis building? It's a null zone."
The words come out hard. Clinical.
"No spell will make it past their doors without dying. Magic won't function inside."
The silence falls between us.
Ivy moves. Barely. Her fingers slide over the closed interface. A nervous gesture. Automatic.
She looks up. Fixes on me.
Something shifts in her gaze. Not panic. Not terror.
Logic.
Pure. Cold. Mechanical.
"Then we don't use it."
Her voice comes out fragile. But clear. Precise.
"If they react to magic..."
She opens the interface. Zooms in on the glass tower. The thirty-seven floors. The transparent facade.
"We don't use any magic to get in."
She looks up at me.
"We burglarize the place."
The word falls between us.
Burglarize.
Not "assault." Not "raid." Not "battle."
Burglary.
I stare at Ivy. Her sharp hazel eyes. Her gaze already evaluating approach angles.
Corporate jargon bleeding into the supernatural.
And it works.
Lance moves behind me. His boots click on the floor. He moves around the bar. Positions himself next to Gen.
"A heist."
His voice comes out deep. Measured.
Not a question. A confirmation.
Ivy nods.
"Exactly."
She types on the interface. Opens the structural plans. The floors. The basements.
"They built an anti-magic fortress."
Her fingers move. Fast. Precise.
"But a fortress is still a fortress. It has weaknesses."
She zooms in on the ground floor. The entrances. The exits. The ventilation systems.
"Security protocols. Rotation schedules. Access points."
