Dragon City

Rosalia had changed her clothes before leaving the temporary headquarters in the winter palace. Now she wore a dark one-piece outfit that hugged her curvaceous body, her long shapely legs covered by pant legs that tucked into supple leather boots that reached halfway up her calves. Rosalia had tied her hair back in a simple ponytail, which she tucked beneath the black hood of her top to prevent it from flying in her face.

Domi didn’t trust Rosalia. There was something about the mercenary woman and her superior attitude that rubbed Domi the wrong way. Compounding that distrust was the memory that on their first meeting Rosalia had been part of a two-person team that had knocked Domi unconscious from behind. Domi had never forgiven the woman for that, even if Rosalia herself had not struck the actual blow.

“He’s called Grant,” the albino girl said irritably, her red devil’s eyes boring into Rosalia’s.

“Like Seth,” Rosalia said obtusely before turning back to her whining hound to calm it. Despite her brusqueness, it was evident that the mysterious Rosalia was well educated. Her well of knowledge seemed bottomless, yet she frequently saw no reason to explain her comments to those she considered beneath her. Domi very definitely fell into that category.

Grant ignored the two antagonistic females, relaxing his eyes as he meditated on the nonspace created between his touching fingers. It had been fifteen hours since the incident with Edwards, and he had hoped that he might remain while the operation was performed on the man’s brain so that he could witness with the rest of them just what it was that was growing there. However, with the satellite feeds back online, something urgent had come up. Via its network of contacts, Cerberus had amassed several reports of people going missing out near the banks of the river known as the Euphrates. Not just one or two people, but dozens, perhaps more than one hundred. Lakesh had replayed Grant the surveillance footage taken from Iraq, close to the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The overhead footage showed a city structure expanding on the banks of the Euphrates. The settlement that had not been there six months before. Constructed of an off-white stone of unknown origin, the ville was expanding at a rapid rate. That wasn’t unusual in this age of displaced persons and in itself it shouldn’t be cause for alarm. What was alarming was the shape of the burgeoning ville—it quite clearly took the form of a winged creature, drawn across the fertile soil of the riverbank.

“A dragon,” Grant had said as he had stared at the incredible surveillance photos.

“Or perhaps a dragon ship,” Lakesh had said, emphasizing the word ship. His implication was clear. The Cerberus team had become aware of the Annunaki starship Tiamat as it lurked high above the atmosphere, and Grant had been a part of the team on board when the ship had begun its self-destruct sequence, watched from space as its exploding form had filled the heavens with light. To have another of the starships appear like this—on Earth—was without doubt a cause for concern.

Well prepared for the briefing, Lakesh had called up backdated surveillance footage showing the expansion of the settlement from apparent nothingness just six months ago. While it appeared to be a city, there was no mistaking the implication of that swooping, winged shape. Several miles across, it crouched by the banks, head pointing off toward the north while the right-hand flank abutted the river itself, a curving tail winding downward in a southerly direction. The mighty wings were stretched wide in imitation of a crescent, the creature’s right wing crossing the width of the river in a curving bridge. It was unclear from the photographs, but it appeared that buildings were constructed on the wing-bridge as elsewhere, adhering to the dragonlike shape of the vast settlement.

“We need to look into this,” Grant had agreed. “If only we had the Mantas, then me and Kane could…” He stopped, the words turning to ashes on his tongue. He had partnered with Kane for so long that to take on a mission like this without him, even a simple recce, seemed anathema to the way things worked.

“We’re just amassing reports from the local area,” Donald Bry had explained from his position at another computer terminal in the makeshift ops center. “It seems it’s something of a no-fly zone,” he explained. “Reports are hazy but there’s suggestions that some low-flying aircraft have failed to return from the area in the last few weeks.”

“Sounds serious.” Grant nodded. “What about the interphaser—could we access a gateway in there?”

The options that Grant was suggesting covered many of the established forms of long-distance transportation that the Cerberus rebels had come to rely upon. The Mantas were transatmospheric aircraft that were stored at the hangar of the old Cerberus redoubt in Montana. The interphaser, the teleportational device that opened a quantum window through space, relied on established destination markers called parallax points. Unless there was one of these in place, the jump to a specific location could not be completed.

Lakesh had pointed to the surveillance photo on screen, indicating the area where the right shoulder blade of the creature would be. “There’s a parallax point here,” he confirmed, “but I admit a grave reluctance in using it. This specific area was the exact location of the ancient city of Nippur, where Enlil was said to have made his home. It seems too much of a coincidence for this new settlement to have appeared by chance, especially taking the dragon form of the Annunaki mother, Tiamat, as it has. While the interphaser could send you there instantaneously, I’m inclined to think you’d be walking straight into the belly of the beast.”

“Almost literally,” Grant muttered as he eyed the dragon form.

“And if there is any Annunaki connection at all,” Lakesh continued, “the very first thing they would have established is a security detail or automated expulsion system for the parallax point itself. Which is to say, it could well be like walking into a blender. Not clever.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Grant accepted. “So what do we do?”

“We have established some local connections in the area,” Lakesh explained. “We’ll open a gateway into an old military base in Syria, and you’ll take a ride from there.”

“What kind of ride?” Grant had asked warily.

“Helicopter,” Lakesh had explained. “A retrofitted cargo chopper.”

Retrofitted was right. Whatever its original configuration, the craft had been gutted and refitted so drastically over the years that it looked like a flying junkyard. Grant looked around him now, saw the rusting patches that lined the wall behind Rosalia and the two guards, the sloppily painted plastic-and-ceramic bowl that formed the uneven ceiling. From the outside, the whole airframe was a patchwork of pieces, different-colored plates worked one over another to complete its shell. It had no doubt been found in some military redoubt somewhere, tucked out of sight for a century or more before finally being called into action, pieced together as best the local mechanics could based on the design. That the vehicle flew—and flew well—seemed nothing shy of a miracle to Grant, but he had traveled in worse.

Dressed in dark, supple armor, two Tigers of Heaven had agreed to accompany the three Cerberus warriors on this reconnaissance mission to find out what the deserted dragon city was all about. Their names were Kishiro and Kudo and they displayed that studied calmness that all of Shizuka’s warriors seemed to have. Grant admired them for it.

With Cerberus in disarray, field missions like this were proving problematic to staff. Kane and Edwards were out of commission, Brigid was lost and almost two-thirds of the personnel were still in hiding, spread out across North America. If they were going to use subs like this, Grant would rather they include his lover Shizuka, whose ability with a samurai sword was nothing short of artistic. But the world was different now; there were dangers on all sides. This growing cult of Ullikummis seemed to be expanding at a colossal rate, and even threatened the shores of New Edo, the territory Shizuka governed.

Thus, Grant found himself leading an untested pairing of teammates into the unknown. He had come to trust, even respect, Rosalia after their most recent escapade, and he knew he could rely upon both Domi and any member of the Tigers of Heaven. Still, racing across the skies in a rattletrap cargo chopper accompanied by four teammates he only half knew, Grant felt a sense of unease. Reluctantly he turned his attention back to the triangular window created by his touching fingers, willing his worries to slip away. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t change it now.

* * *

“WE ARE ALMOST NEAR,” a voice called over the fuzzy speaker system from the cockpit. It was the pilot, a local man called Mahood, whose English was heavily accented with the emphasis on the wrong syllables, making it hard at times to decipher.

Grant nodded, inhaling deeply and projecting a sense of calm. “How long?” he asked, his finger depressing the radio comm button set in the wall.

Mahood muttered something in the local dialect, then repeated it in English for his passengers. “Two minutes is maximum.”

“Great,” Grant said, wondering if the sarcasm in his tone was lost on the foreigner. He hoped it was; the man was risking his own neck for the Cerberus team, skirting the edges of the dubious no-fly zone.

Swiveling on the bench, Grant turned to look out the window nearest him. It was a horizontal slit of perhaps three inches in height, and Grant had to peer closely to get a decent view of the outside. The others crowded over to their own windows, all except for Rosalia, who stayed with her dog, hushing the animal as it whined in time with the straining engines.

“There it is,” Grant muttered, pushing his face closer to the window without thinking about it.

Down below, off to the port side of the renovated helicopter, the dragon seemed to crouch at the banks of the wide strip of river. Wisps of cloud cut the view for a moment, a V-shaped flock of squawking geese swooping by, and then the dragon reappeared, ill lit in the dwindling light of dusk. It was hard to assess the size of it from so far away, but Grant had seen the aerial photographs from the satellite and he already had a rough idea. That idea hadn’t prepared him for looking at the structure itself, however.

It was not a dragon, even though its shape suggested one. Close up, it was not even a single structure. Rather, a series of buildings were poised along the banks of the Euphrates, with no apparent uniformity to their designs. Here a minaret poked upward to the clouds; there a low, flat rooftop reflected the dwindling rays of the setting sun as it painted the surrounds in orange and vermilion. Yet despite the differences, each building contributed to the whole, each formed a part of the dragon’s body, head and wings. As the satellite image had suggested, one of those wings—the rightmost—sloped out across the river itself, the juddering struts of low buildings ridging across its surface. And everything, everything was creamy white.

“It’s incredible,” Domi whispered, her voice hushed with awe.

“More than that,” Grant said, “it’s like nothing on Earth.”

“Then where did it come from?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Grant assured her. “Which means we have to get lower.”

With that, the ex-Magistrate flicked the radio transmission button again to speak with the pilot. “Bring us down, Mahood,” he instructed. “Let’s see if we can find us a landing area.”

With a word of acknowledgment from the cockpit, the sturdy chopper banked left, its body rolling closer toward the dragon-shaped settlement. There was something else about it, Grant realized as they got closer. Despite all those buildings, he could see no people out in the streets, no one wandering amid the lifeless structures.

“My cousin Hassood will meet us by the left wing.” Mahood’s voice came over the radio speaker again. “There’s a flat space out there just beyond city limits where we can land. There’ll be a bit of a walk, I’m afraid.”

“Fine by me,” Grant began, but before the last word had left his lips, a bright burst of dazzling scarlet light flashed outside like lightning and the Blackbird shook as though it had struck something. “What th—?”

A moment later the chopper shuddered violently, and Grant, Domi and the others found themselves tossed across the metal decking. They were under attack.

* * *

GRABBING AT WHATEVER PASSED for handholds in the chopper’s interior, Grant hurried forward as the craft continued to shake. Behind him, Rosalia’s dog was barking fearfully.

“What the hell’s going on?” Grant asked as he saw the startled pilot, Mahood, struggling with the controls.

Grant was surprised to see that the piloting system was not the advanced, sleek dash he’d expected. Rather, old-fashioned dials and plates had been wired together and a bucket seat was positioned in front of two stick-style yokes, something like an ancient whirlybird.

Mahood, an olive-skinned Iranian with glistening sweat in the pebbledash stubble atop his head, looked at Grant with wide eyes, shouting something in his own tongue.

“Again,” Grant instructed. “In English.”

“A light ray,” Mahood translated as he fought with the yoke. “Laser. Laser beam.”

Even as he said it, Grant saw another blast zap past the cockpit windows, bloodred and ascending in a thick vertical line that was at least a dozen feet across.

“Shit,” Grant growled. One hit from that thing and they’d lose a wing…or worse. “Can you get us down?” Grant asked urgently, placing a hand on the back of Mahood’s seat to keep himself steady as they rolled and yawed.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Mahood spit as he struggled with the controls, banking the chopper so that Grant had to hang on to stop his head from slamming against the ceiling. Through the cockpit window, Grant could see the narrow crescent of the moon, a thin sliver of white hanging in the darkening blue sky.

Grant was an accomplished pilot himself and he stared at the bucket seat that Mahood sat in, his ample backside resting atop a fluffy pink cushion at odds with the worn brown leather of the ancient seat belt. “Want me to take over?” Grant asked.

Mahood pulled up on the stick as another thick blast of laser light cut through the air ahead of them, its edges crackling like lightning. “We need to land right now,” he explained in his fractured English. “I got her but I don’t think we’re—”

Another blast lit the cockpit, and something on the far right of the dash suddenly burst into flames. Mahood stretched out his sandaled foot and kicked at the flames, stamping them until they went out.

“Must land here, Mr. Grant,” he explained. “But quickly.”

“Yeah,” Grant agreed, “I can see that.”

Mahood banked in on a tight vector as Grant hurried back to the cargo hold, where his four allies were anxiously waiting. Swiftly he explained the situation to them as the ancient chopper rocked in the air, illuminated by another of the all-powerful crimson beams of laser light.

“Be ready, people,” Grant said. “We might have to ditch.”

Rosalia looked up from where she was steadying her dog. “What is that light show, anyway?”

“Looks like a pulse laser,” Grant explained. “Single shot but deadly as hell. I don’t think it’s tracking us. Looks more like it’s automated to react to anything in the sky. But it’s a wide enough beam to cut us if we get unlucky.”

“Local defence, huh?” Rosalia hissed. “Painful.”

Touchdown was as rough as it was unexpected. Grant opened the cargo door and urged his companions out.

“Been a pleasure, man,” Grant said over the radio communicator as he stepped up to the open door. “Clear skies.”

He jumped out into the courtyard where Mahood had landed and sprinted for the cover of the nearby buildings.

As Grant reached the edge of the courtyard the laser blasted again, rushing up into the sky in a column of bloodred lightning. From high above there was an explosion as something went up in flames—the chopper, Grant realized.

He peered up, his eyes aching as they struggled to look into the red beam of the laser. And then it switched off, as suddenly as it had fired, and the sky seemed to be plunged into darkness, the single slit eye of the moon a blurred white streak on his retina.

Grant saw that the chopper had been cut in two by the laser light, an expanding ball of flame bursting from its side as the pieces began to drop. He knew that Mahood was doomed, and threw himself into the mouth of an alley to seek shelter from the flaming wreckage falling from the sky.

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