Year 25 A.B. (After the Black)
She dreamed of silk sheets and soft pillows, golden sunlight and ochre clouds. She dreamed of a warm woman in her bed, and birdsong outside the window. She dreamed of sandstone pillars and the smells of cinnamon and hyacinth.
But when Danica Black woke, she found none of those things. She was still in the dirty sheets in a hotel in Blacksand, where she star ed through gritty yellow air filled with blood flies and dust. Everything was moist and damp and tasted like the inside of an engine.
Danica stared up from a bed in a small concrete room. Gashes and graffiti littered the walls. Greasy drops of water seeped out of cracks in the faded stone and pooled on a floor covered in rags and discarded clothing. Danica’s gear was on a small table near the door, all except for her guns and knives, which were secure in their harnesses on the metal headboard of the bed, just beneath the small window.
Mystic chants and the groan of industrial machines sounded outside. The smell of fish and fuel and roasting meat wafted through the windows.
Danica groaned. Four black guavas was at least three too many, but once she and Kane got going it was sometimes difficult for them to stop. Pain flared behind her eyes, so deep it was like someone had driven needles there. Her back and neck were sore and stiff. S he rose and stretched, and h er muscles popped and realigned.
Her spirit hovered over her like a burning sheet. She felt his angst at having been cooped up with her for so long. They’d been in Blacksand for roughly three weeks, and they rarely got out in the open. She called him down and let him swim through her fingers like warm oil. He phased through her body like a wave of heat and evaporated the alcohol from her system. She held him in check — if he did his work too quickly she’d end up vomiting all over the place, and one of the fringe benefits of being a mage was that she could drink as much as she wanted without having to go through all of th at.
Danica pulled on her tank-top and loose black pants and fastened on her combat boots. While there was little need to wander around their temporary hideout in full body armor, she’d have been remiss if she didn’t keep a firearm and a bla de handy. F or all intents and purposes they were in hostile territory.
Blacksand was a criminal port-city located near the southern edge of the continent, several hundred miles outside of Southern Claw territory. While the criminal controlled town wasn’ t considered an enemy of the Southern Claw, the general state of lawlessness and prolific illegal activ ity kept everyone on their toes, especially since some one had been a sking questions about the team — and specifically about Danica — for the past several days.
Someone hunted them, and they had no one to fall back on for assistance except for each other and their “ host ”, a local crime lord named Klos Vago. And Vago’s help came at a price.
The team had rented the entire top floor of an extremely run-down hotel called The Fire Goddess, located near the center of the city. The walls were grooved metal stained with rust and soot, and the entire structure appeared to ha ve been built from the rem ai ns of a crashed airship. F lickering beams of grungy light cut through circular fans in the ceiling. Danica heard the groan of aircraft and dirigibles and the roaring engines of gas-powered sea vessels as they pull ed into port. A glaze of sweat covered everyone and everything in Blacksand, and pollut ion hung as thick as oil in the stifling heat.
Danica pulle d open the door to her quarters and stepped into the hall.
“Morning,” Ronan said quietly. The swordsman was lean and tall, dressed all in black, with metal-studded boots and fingerless gloves. One hand gripped a throwing dagger, while the other held an MP5 A5. His short and spiky hair was dark and looked like it had never been properly groomed. H is once-good looks had been permanent ly marred when he’d leapt into a blade storm to pull Cross to safety. Most of Ronan’s cuts had largely healed, but he still wore several messy bandages, and most of the time he wore a black shemagh to conceal his face.
“Morning,” Danica said.
“I’m kidding. It’s noon.”
“Whatever.”
One of the other doors in the hall opened. Maur wande red out; he fidget ed with something in his small hands. The diminutive and pale-faced Gol wore red fatigues. He’d left his cloak in his room, and his bald grey pate was basked with sweat.
“Maur says it’ s far too hot in this building,” he said. None of them knew why he always referred to himself in the third person, but he’d been do ing it for as long as any of them had ever known him. It had made the team’s first interview with the pilot-mechanic somewhat confusing, and during most of the conversation Kane had been convinced Maur was talking about someone else.
“It’s like that everywhere in Blacksand,” Ronan said snidely.
“Then Maur thinks we should leave.”
“We’re working on it,” Danica said.
Unfortunately, they were in something of a bind. They had to try and purchase passage to get back home, but that wasn’t going to be easy with no money and with someone actively hunting them. The identity of their stalkers had yet to be revealed, but from what they’d learned whoever it was had sold iers stationed outside the city, as well as plenty of money and influence. According to Vago, every cutthroat bounty hunter in Blacksand had their eyes out for them.
And there are a lot of bounty hunters in Blacksand, Danica thought. Like… half the population. I wish we hadn’t blown the rest of our cash paying two week’s rent on this dump. Of course, they’d had little choice after a near-fatal run-in with a squad of Vuul headhunters. That fight was what had first tipped them off to the fact that someone in Blacksand was actively hunting them down. They weren’t able to afford passage away from the city, but they ’d had enough money to go into hiding, at least for a short time. And now we’re trapped.
Danica nodded towards the door behind Ronan.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Same as ever,” Ronan said quietly.
“Morning!” Kane said as h e came out of his room. He wore no shirt, and his pants were partially undone. His long blonde hair fell just past his shoulders. Dozens of tattoos and scars covered his chiseled chest and washboard stomach.
If I was straight, I would probably jump you, Danica thought with a quiet laugh.
“ Not morning. Lunch time,” Ronan said.
Kane threw up his hands in mock despair.
“Get dressed,” Danica told him. “We have to meet with Vago.”
“What does Ugly the Hutt want?” Kane yawned. He pulled on a dirty grey shirt as he walked across the hall. “Is he finally going to help us?”
“That’s what he said when I spoke to him,” Danica said, and she didn’t bother hiding the skepticism in her voice. Vago had dangled them around like worms on a hook for over a week. They’d already performed a handful of odd jobs for him, but t hey needed him to agree to terms of how much service they’d provide in exchange for passage north, and they needed him to do it before their mysterious pursuers caught up with them. “ Maybe he can also tell us who’s looking for me.”
“Us,” Ronan said. “You mean ‘us’.”
Black hesitated. “Yeah,” she said. “Us.” She looked at the door. “I’m going to go say hello.”
The door opened to a stark concrete room. They’d chosen it because the small window was reinforced with an iron grille and it faced south, so very little sunlight came into the room… although none of them was sure why that mattered. Direct sunlight was unlikely to stir the occupant of the chamber. The bed was neat, nearly made, even though a man lay on top of it.
Eric Cross was twenty years older than when he’d left the team behind to go and find out what had happen ed to him after he’d fallen in to a vat of necrotic fluid in the Bonespire near Thornn. He’d never come back. They’d pursued him halfway across the continent before they’d caught up with him. Even after they’d found him, his nightmare had been far from over.
H is once boyish face was lined with age and fatigue. E ven after they’d changed him out of his soiled clothing and trimmed up his dark and scraggly beard he was still just a haggard reflection of who and what he’d once been. He was tall and thin, and skin once pale had gone darker, almost leathery.
Danica quietly stepped up next to his bed. He hadn’t woken since they’d rescued him. They’d lost two of their team getting him back, and they had very few answers as to what had happened, or why he was still asleep. They didn’t know how to help him.
But if we can ever actually get you back to Thornn, maybe we can find out, Danica thought. God damn this place.
She ran a finger along Cross’ weather-beaten cheek. He looked so strange with a beard. She hated seeing him like that, so helpless. So alone.
When I first met you, I thought I was going to have to kill you, she thought. Now I owe you everything.
“Come back, Eric,” she said softly. She knew he couldn’t hear her.
After a time she left him there, and she closed the door behind her.
Gouts of steam erupted into the air. Human traffic packed lanes filled with caged animals, livestock, tables of linens and knives, fruit stands, watch vendors, fortune-tellers and soothsayers. People were dressed in a motley assortment of loose clothing, tunics or capes, sandaled feet or combat boots, exotic and colorful cloaks that looked like peacock’s feathers or somber grey and green work fatigues. Small dirigibles loaded with goods soared overhead. Rickety wagons barreled down the street. Mutated horses and homunculi servants brayed and keened in the background. The team passed through drifts of tobacco and alcohol, fruit vapors and burning meat. Danica smelled linseed oil and beeswax, smelted copper and roasted corn.
Her spirit kept to the background and quietly skirted the periph ery of her thoughts while they passed through the bustling city-state. Kane and Ronan kept their eyes alert. They were all exhausted and on edge, but everyone was ready. They were in dangerous territory, and she knew she could count on them.
Blacksand was a port-city. It was a crossroads — a means to getting elsewhere. Travelers of all sorts stalked the corridors of Blacksand looking for buyers or wares: Rakzeri merchants, Vuul pirates, nomads from the distant islands of Nezek’duul with their filed teeth and frost-white eyes. Waters lapped against dark pylons in a bay filled with iron and steel ships weigh t ed down with weapons and slaves. The s andy streets were awash with liquor and blood.
Danica, Kane and Ronan moved through the streets with determination. They’d left Maur back at the hotel with Cross and a lot of guns. The one thing they hadn’t left there was Cross’ s wea pon, the mysterious fused blade Soulrazor / Avenger, a rcane swords forged from opposing energies. They knew little about the blade save for the fact that the separate pieces had been forged from the power of two opposing deity-like forces, and that it had somehow allowed Cross to survive long after he should have been dead. Danica carried the hybrid blade concealed beneath her armor coat.
They came to an open market, a junk station filled with piles of refu se: old engines, batteries, scrap metal, hoses and tubing, mounds of ball bearings and rubber tires. All of those goods had been pushed into monstrous mounds next to wide wooden tables, where scruffy and grease-stained men with goggles and workman’s aprons h aggled with mechanics and metal- yard workers. Some of the negotiations were closer to screaming matches.
A small building made of stone and steel stood at the far end of the junkyard. T he door opened as Danica and the others approached.
Her spirit boiled against her skin. She sensed presences above, fast-moving figures with razored jaws and iron-capped wings. Shadows came into view.
“Incoming!” Kane yelled.
A trio of grey-skinned gargoyles unfurled their wings over the scrap yard. S teel harpoons and straps of dark armor reflected the dull light of the orange sun.
Kane fired at them with an M14A, and Ronan dodged to the edge of a pile of debris and shot up at them with his MP5. The g argoyles were startlingly quick, and somehow dodged the barrage of bullets with ease. The roar of gunfire was deafening. Shell casings clattered in the dirt.
Danica smelled hex fumes in the air. Whispers came at her with the force of an iron wind.
The gargoyles weren’t alone.
She narrowly avoided a blazing missile of shrapnel. Metal wreckage exploded in hex flames behind her, and heat washed over her body.
Danica’s spirit moved around her wrists and fused into a shield of force. A second missile exploded against the barrier. B i ts of smoking steel rained to the ground.
A mercenary warlock unfolded out of the shadows. His spirit camouflaged him, made him fade in and out of sight. He seemed two-dimensional, a paper enemy. His eyes glowed like burning cinders.
Kane brought one of the gargoyles down with a stream of gunfire. Another darted forward and clawed at Ronan. It flew back and came in again, a nd the swordsman deflected its attacks with his katana.
The merchants and shoppers in the scrap-yard had fled. Panicked n oise echoed everywhere.
The warlock turned and vanished again.
Damn it!
Danica’s spirit coiled around her like a hungry serpent. His touch chilled her skin. She shuffled her feet in the dirt, and moved careful so as to avoid tripping on any debris. The yard felt wide open, and she realized how exposed she was. Her back tensed with anticipation of an attack.
She heard the stone breath of the gargoyle moments too late. The warlock had masked the creature’s presence. It suddenly loomed over her with outstretched claws and massive teeth.
The moment Danica turned around the mage shifted into focus just off her right flank. Light caught on his dark cloak, and she saw a bandolier filled with explosives and knives. His spirit coiled into a n ice stake that he held like a spear.
Danica ignored the gargoyle and launched her spirit at the warlock. Red energies exploded in a shower of razor sparks. The warlock’s cloak caught on fire, and the spirit missile he’d prepared to cast at Danica detonated in his own hands. His body exploded in a blaze of ice, flame and blood.
A sharp crack sounded, and t he gargoyle fell to the ground at Danica’s feet. She looked up and saw a handful of armed soldiers who ’ d emerged from the small building.
Jade, a young and attractive woman with vaguely Asian features and incredibly long and silken dark hair, stood at the head of the party. She wore a simple blue-black cloak and riding pants, a loose white shirt and a number of rings. Her eyes sparkled with magic, and Danica immediately took note of the witch’s spirit, a hostile male force that circled her like a caged tiger. Black’s spirit bristled, and though the two tensed and tested one another, Danica held hers back and used him to make sure there weren’t any more threats approaching.
The on ly other newcomer that Danica recognize d, Sol, stood with his gun still smok ing from whe n he’d shot the gargoyle. He was a mountain of a man, a half-Doj with dark skin and dark eyes, short cropped black hair and muscles like iron. He wore a tight armor vest and flak pants, and even though he smile d wide his eyes burned with malice.
Sol and Jade were enforcers for Klos Vago, a member of the large cartel of slave traders and smugglers known as T he Shard.
“Mr. Vago sends his regards,” Jade said politely.
“Who the hell were these guys?” Kane asked angrily as he gestured at the corpses. Gargoyle blood covered his chest.
“Bounty hunters would be my guess,” Ronan said. He wiped his katana off on the one of the bodies.
“Again?” Kane said.
“Yes,” Jade answered. “Again.”
“Which means we need to get out of Blacksand,” Danica said. “I trust that’s why Vago want s to meet with us?”
“ A ctually, he sent us to give you the details of the last job he’d like you to do before he helps you get home,” Jade explained. “L isten… we should really get indoors…”
“What do we have to do?” Kane interrupted.
Jade hesitated, and looked at Sol. He shrugged.
The city around them had more or less returned to normal. Minimal damage had been dealt to the scrap yard, and automaton slaves moved forward in a rush of whirs and buzz to scrape up the debris. The sky drowned in thick red clouds, and Danica smelled sea salt on the wind. People outside the scrap yard went about their business — if the battle had bothered them, they didn’t show it.
“You two,” Jade said to Kane and Ronan, “will fetch your friend Maur and come with me and Sol. We’re going to investigate some trouble near the arcane barriers north of the city.”
“What are we looking for?” Ronan asked quietly.
“Vampires,” Sol said with a smile. “Ebon Cities forward patrols. We don’t want them around, and they can’t seem to take the hint. You help us out with our problem, and the boss says he’ll help you out with yours.”
“Wait a second…” Black said. “Where am I going to be during all this?”
“Mr. Vago fears it would be too great a risk to send you out with your teammates,” Jade explained. “ Especially since the soldiers of Black Scar are here in the city looking for you.”
Damn it.
“Black Scar…” Kane said. “Dani…”
“Wouldn’t it make sense to send her away from the city if she’s the one they’re looking for?” Ronan asked.
“Mr. Vago doesn’t think so. We’re certain they’re watching anyone who leaves the city, and they’re…”
“ Probably t racking my arcane signature,” Black said bitterly. She looked at Kane and Ronan. “ And if they’re doing that, there’s a good chance they’re also giving my signature out to the mercenaries they’ve hired, which explains why both these guys and those Vuul were able to find us once I got out in the open.” You shouldn’t be surprised. You knew your past would catch up with you sooner or later. “ Shit.”
Jade hesitated.
“He has ways of masking you from their presence,” she said. “But you’ll have to remain close to him.”
This keeps getting better and better, Black thought. Surprisingly, though, she thought Jade sounded truly encouraging, maybe even sympathetic. I’ll keep that in mind.
“This is a crap idea, Dani,” Kane said.
“Don’t be scared, Blondie,” Sol said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Beefsteak,” he said.
Ronan looked at Danica.
“It’s your call.”
Danica looked at her friends, and then at Jade. This was worse than she ’d thought.
Why are you looking for me now? she wondered. Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone, Rake?
She tapped her foot. They had to get home. For all they knew, Cross’ s life depended on it.
“Give us an hour,” she said. “We’ll meet you back here?”
“Of course,” Jade nodded.
“Dani…” Kane said as they left, but she put a reassuring hand on his arm.
“ We don’t have much of a choice, Mike. You guys go, help them out. I’ll make sure Cross is secure and try to keep us both out of sight.”
They moved a short distance away from Vago’s men before she stopped and looked at them both.
“We need to play this bastard’s game, at least for now,” she said. “You guys take Maur and go with them, do the job, and I’ll try to keep any more of my old friends from finding me. Right now it’s just important that we get home.”