As Ryan moved silently down the corridor, he shifted his perception to see into the astral. He caught the near transparent ripple that was Lethe, but there was no sign of any hostile spirits. "Where are they?" he asked.
"I banished them to their home planes," Lethe said. "They will be happier there anyway."
Jane's voice sounded in Ryan's ear. "What's the scan?" she asked.
"Lethe was able to banish the spirits," he subvocalized. "But their absence will alert their masters."
The group increased its pace, moving quickly and quietly along the corridor. Though not as quietly as Ryan would have liked. He realized that these runners were good, but they did not follow the Silent Way as he did. The mage, McFaren, was marginally adept at stealth, and Grind was more of a combat expert than a thief. Without the invisibility spell, those two would be dead by now. And Ryan wasn't about to let that happen. He needed the mage to get through the ward around the Dragon Heart.
"The door on the left-stairs," Axler said. "We go up one floor. Standard formation."
Standard formation was Ryan at point, then Axler, followed closely by McFaren, with Grind bringing up the rear. Ryan opened the door to the stairs, surprised that it was unlocked, allowing unrestricted entry to the staircase. He noticed, however, that the door would be locked the other way. Anyone in the staircase would need a passcard and a keycode to get out. Ryan pulled some tape from his webbing and placed a strip of it over the latch. Old trick, but it was simple and worked well.
A quick glance showed him that no one was on the stairs.
"Clear," he said, then edged his way in. He noticed security cameras and drone tracks. Stairwells were closed spaces and corps loved to put killer drones there. Hope that invisibility holds up.
Ryan didn't need it himself. He had his own version, magic that helped him blend into dark places, helped camouflage him with his surroundings. Ryan gripped his silenced Walther PB-120 and climbed slowly and steadily up the stairs until he came to a door marked "2nd Floor: Thau-maturgical Research."
He looked at the lock as the others edged up behind him. He knew their astral images would show like beacons in the dark stairwell, and he hoped no other spirits would come wandering through. He pulled the ID stick that he'd removed from the body of the dog shaman and slotted it into the maglock reader.
The maglock acknowledged the card, then said, "Please enter passcode" in a man's generic voice. Ryan took the small remote receiver from Axler, and slotted its datacord into the reader's jack. "Unit attached," Ryan subvocalized. "Jane?"
But before Jane answered, Ryan heard the maglock click open. "Pull the stick out, Ryan," Jane said. "The code is R4N54CK."
"Got it."
They passed through the door and into the dark hall beyond. Ryan followed Lethe now, the spirit glowing a little brighter, though Ryan didn't know why. Maybe Lethe was doing it on purpose to make himself easier to see. Or perhaps the spirit was reacting to the proximity of the Dragon Heart. Ryan led the others down the hall, their footsteps a delicate whisper as they moved as quietly as possible.
Lethe stopped just shy of an intersection with another hall, coming from the left. "It's down this corridor," Lethe said. "But there are guards."
Ryan signalled the others to stop and maintain silence, then pulled out his small mirror and used it to glance around the corner. Two elves stood in front of a set of double doors. They wore body armor covered by black and crimson uniforms. Ryan subvocalized to Axler. "Two guards," he said,
"alert and armed with SMGs and Supersquirts. There are also cameras and locked double doors."
"Prepare for alarms from here on out," she said.
"Yes, but let's try to take them out quietly."
"Agreed," Axler said. "Everyone ready? On three, two, one… Go!"
Ryan and Axler stepped around the corner, Axler unloading with her Cascade. The DMSO-laced chemical sprayed over the two elves before they could react. Ryan delayed his strike until he saw their reaction. One crumbled immediately. The other reached for his gun, his reactions obviously chipped.
Ryan focused his magic to knock the man's hand away, and unleashed his distance strike. The elf's hand jerked back, hitting the door behind him. Then the chemical took effect and he fell, slumping on top of his companion.
Time clicked into slow motion as Ryan ran for the double doors, moving at his fastest speed. The doors were made of plate steel and would be difficult to blast through. Better to get inside before any alarms sounded. He slotted the dog shaman's ID stick into the lock and punched in the code, hoping she had access.
Sure enough, the maglock solenoid clicked back the bolt and opened the doors. Must be my lucky day, he thought. And he found memories of Nadja coming back. And he recalled what Dunkelzahn had said about them being connected somehow. Can't think about that, he told himself. Not now. Not until this is all over.
Then they passed through, closing the doors behind them. Axler and Grind dragged the bodies of the guards inside. Now it was only a matter of minutes, at most, before the alarms went off and they were confronted with a huge number of those guards.
The corridor beyond the double doors was about twenty meters long, with two doors, presumably leading to the laboratories, on either side. The doors were metal with narrow windows of clear plexan. At the end, the hall widened into a small lounge area with vending machines and chairs. Huge windows looked down on the river.
Lethe led Ryan to the last door on the left. Once more, the dog shaman's card and code unlocked it, and Ryan was
about to step through when McFaren put out his hand. "Wait," he said. "There's a ward on this whole room, and it's not like anything I've ever seen. It's loaded with spells, and all of them anchored. It looks like if anything triggered it, the ward would go off like a fragging mana bomb. And the damn thing would probably kill or wound any living thing that got too close to it. Very tricky."
It sounded tricky to Ryan. Not to mention dangerous. "Can you break it?" he asked.
McFaren turned to examine the ward. Ryan watched in the astral as the mage's aura detached from his physical body to circle around the glassy blue shine of the ward. After almost a minute, McFaren's astral form rejoined his meat body and he looked at Ryan in the physical world, shaking his head slowly back and forth. "This is very advanced magic," he said. "I might be able to punch a hole in the ward, but it'll probably explode and kill us all."
"Jane, any ideas?"
Jane's voice was curt, "What about Lethe?" Ryan looked at the spirit. "Can you get us inside?" "I think so," Lethe said. "But I can't be sure the ward won't explode."
"What if you help McFaren?" "It's worth a try."
"Let's do it," McFaren said. "We don't have much time."
McFaren sat down with his back against the wall, then his body went lax as his astral form rose from it. Ryan watched as McFaren and Lethe constructed magic designed to weaken the reflective blue. He saw wisps of energy obscure the ward's shine, then bend the surface until slowly but surely the ward warped around the entrance to the lab.
This was pretty elaborate magical protection, he knew. The Dragon Heart must be extremely valuable to warrant it.
Two long minutes ticked away as they waited for Lethe and McFaren to finish. Finally, Jane's voice came over the radio in Ryan's ear. "Silent alarms are sounding," she said. "How close are you?"
"How much longer?" Ryan asked McFaren.
"We're almost done," McFaren said. "I can't believe it, but
we're almost through. Think of it as defusing a bomb. Can't rush it or… Kaboom!" "Did you get that, Jane?"
"Yes," she said. "And you've got three minutes to abort. Repeat, three minutes to abort." "Copy that. Three minutes."
Twenty seconds later, they were through. McFaren's meat body was still slumped on the floor, with Grind standing over him. Ryan passed through the door and into the room beyond. It was a large space with tables and benches adorned with carvings of arcane symbols. Tiny sculptures and feathers and bones lay strewn on every surface. Books and tomes, both ancient and new, jammed floor-to-ceiling shelves on all four walls.
A slow blinking red light showed that the internal security camera was on and watching. But Ryan didn't have time for stealth or to mask his heat signature. He scanned the room. "Where is it?" he said. "Where the frag is it?"
It was Lethe who answered. "I can sense it, but it isn't out in the open. It's inside a small chamber under one of the benches."
"Small chamber? You mean a safe?"
"What is a safe?"
"A small chamber with thick metal walls, and-"
"Yes, that is it."
"Fragging great," Ryan said.
"This is a good thing?"
"No, I'm being sarcastic. You know what sarcasm is?" "No."
"Never mind. I'll explain it later. If we make it out of here alive."
Ryan found the safe set into the far wall. It wasn't large, but it did have a complicated electronic lock. He hoped Jane could open it. Axler handed him the remote box again.
"Jane?" Ryan said. "You ready?"
"Jack me in," she said.
He snugged the datacord into the lock and waited.
"We've got company!" came Grind's voice from his position outside the room, where he was watching over McFaren's body. "Wait a minute. They're gone."
"What?"
"A whole drekload of fire elementals. They manifested and were about to fry me. Then they just disappeared."
"Thank Lethe," Ryan said. "He must've done it."
"I'm in," Jane said. "Open the door."
Ryan pulled down on the steel handle and found that the door opened easily. He looked inside and saw the Dragon Heart sitting on a bottom shelf surrounded by small items of talismana-bits of jewelry, gemstones, and small carvings. The item was larger than he'd expected, three or four times the size of a human heart and made of a dull gold metal that he recognized immediately. Orichalcum, a magical blend of all true elements. The heart shone like a small sun of white gold in the astral, and the experience of it moved Ryan deeply. It reached into his spirit and triggered something.
/ must have it, he thought. It's mine. I know that now. Dunkelzahn meant for me to have it all along.
Ryan knew on some level that the safe was warded, but he couldn't stop his hand. He couldn't wait, but reached out to seize the Dragon Heart.
"No, Ryan-" Axler's cry was too late.
As Ryan's hand penetrated the plane of the circle inscribed by the talismana, he broke the ward. Fire raced up his arm like napalm as his fingers closed around the Dragon Heart. The flames spread up his arm and over his body, engulfing him in a white-hot fire that seared into his flesh.
Pain shot through Ryan as the flesh of his arm was flayed to the bone by the fire. His whole body crackled on the verge of explosion, his flesh on the brink of detonation, of being blown apart into tiny chunks of bone, blood, and sinew, each bit consumed by the magical fire.
This is it, he thought. This is the end.
Abruptly, Axler crashed into him, sending his body sprawling away from the safe and out onto the floor. For an absurd moment he stared at his blackened and withered arm, smelled the overpowering aroma of burned flesh, and he saw that the bones of his hand still clutched the Dragon Heart.
I've got it!
Ryan tried to channel away the pain, but it was too great. The damage too extensive.
A surge of power passed through him just then. Adrenaline? Magic? The pain gave way to the euphoria of the
transcendence that he felt. Like he was dying. His spirit was rising from his body. He was growing wings. He was changing. The Dragon Heart.
The power came simultaneously from within him and from the Heart; it healed him completely. His pain was gone. His fatigue was washed away, and his injury-his burns- regenerated in a flood of magic.
Ryan leaped to his feet and crossed the short distance to Axler. "Let's go," he said.
"Wha… What just happened?" she asked. "I thought you were dead."
Ryan shrugged. "The Dragon Heart," he said as if that was the best explanation he could come up with.
"Are you two done jacking around?" Grind called from the hall. "I told you we've got company."
"We're coming," Axler said. Then gave Ryan a questioning look.
Ryan felt a rush of energy from the Heart, and he reluctantly stashed it in the nylon web bag on his belt. Then he was behind Axler, who seemed to be moving slower now. There was a loud crash as they came into the hall.
The metal doors bowed out for a second before rattling back into place. "Jane scrambled the codes, locked them out," said Grind. "But it won't hold for long."
"Jane," Ryan subvocalized. "We've got the Dragon Heart. Let's get out of here."
"Copy," came Jane's synthesized voice. "Stand by for escape plan."
Another explosion rocked the building, and as Ryan spun toward the end of the hall, the big metal doors twisted off their hinges with an ear-splitting shriek. A roiling cloud of flame and smoke billowed through the mangled doors and into the hall.
"Jane," Axler said, "you got a scan of the opposition?"
"Not complete. Best guess is a cadre of Mystic Crusaders."
Grind picked up McFaren's limp meat body and rushed into the lounge area, followed closely by Ryan and Axler. Had to get out of any line of fire.
"A cadre?"
"Twenty. Well-armed. Well-trained."
As if on cue, five warriors in military-grade armor stepped through the smoke. They wore helmets with integrated gas masks and power-assisted strength. The first three carried shoulder-mounted gyros with attached miniguns floating in their hands like alien wasp stingers. The miniguns whirred and fired. A screaming hail of bullets ripped up the hallway, shredding the sheet rock, chewing up the floor, blowing fist-sized holes in the lounge windows.
"We're in serious drek, Jane!" Axler screamed. "Get us the frag out of here now!"