Jak Koke: Stranger souls

She felt his thoughts touch her as he stepped into the crowd and faced Damien Knight. / must take my leave of you, Nadjaruska. The dragon's thoughts passed over her like a static charge, and she understood them, not as words, but as an extension of her conscious mind. She did not draw herself up and enter the trace-like state that allowed her to translate, but she had been with Dunkelzahn for many, many years; her mind and his had become connected.

Dunkelzahn spoke, his voice smooth and young, "I extend

my thanks and gratitude to you, Damien. You are to be commended for such an exquisite celebration."

Knight extended his hand. "You're leaving so early?"

Dunkelzahn shook Knight's hand, "I'm afraid something urgent has come up, and I must return to Prince Edward Island at once."

"Goodbye then," Knight said. "Congratulations once again."

Dunkelzahn nodded, then took a brief moment to take his leave of the others. The secret servicemen cleared a path through the crowd in front of him as he made for the double doors.

Nadja followed on his heels, out of the noisy ballroom, down the escalators and into the lobby of the hotel. Beyond the crowd of trideo cameras and reporters, a limousine awaited on the curb, but Dunkelzahn stopped just outside the door.

He turned then and touched her on the shoulders. When he looked into her eyes, she saw sadness in the depths of his ancient ones. His thoughts entered her mind. / have received distressing news, NadjaruskcL News that I must act upon before our enemies destroy us. I will send for you in a few days.

Nadja simply nodded.

Until then, you will be my voice, Nadjaruska. Goodbye.

Dunkelzahn gave a photogenic smile to the crowd, then slid into the open door of the waiting limo. A secret serviceman closed it behind him, and the procession got underway. Two motorcycles in front, followed by a security limo, followed by Dunkelzahn's limo. More police and secret service came behind.

Nadja stood stunned, the humid Washington air closing down on her. What was so urgent? Even though Dunkelzahn was given to sudden, unannounced departures, Nadja had grown accustomed to participating in his decisions, especially in the recent months as she had managed his presidential campaign.

Carla Brooks stepped up beside Nadja as the trid cameras swiveled to follow Dunkelzahn's limousine. The security chief was taller than Nadja by a good ten centimeters, and significantly stronger despite her willowy stature. Brooks

looked slightly uncomfortable in the midnight blue dress she wore, her muscular arms and legs seeming to strain against the confining fabric. Brooks was enhanced with the latest cyber and bioware, and she was quite striking; snow-white hair, deep brown skin, blue eyes. Almost the antithesis of Nadja's porcelain skin and black hair.

Nadja saw that Brooks moved her mouth slightly, though no sound came out; she was subvocalizing instructions to her security teams through her internal headware. Nadja also noticed the micro-thin fiberoptic wire that connected Brooks' datajack to a tactical computer hidden inside her dress. Mimetic tape made the wiring nearly impossible to see, but Nadja was trained for such observations. She always had to look perfect for the cameras. Perfect meant no augmentation, no blemishes. No cyber. Dunkelzahn himself had been adamant about that, and since he was paying the bills, she obliged.

Brooks leaned close to Nadja. "That call," she said, her voice pitched low, barely audible. "It was Quicksilver." She looked at Nadja questioningly.

Nadja shrugged. She didn't know anything about Ryan's current mission. He never told her and she'd learned not to ask. She did miss him, though. More than she cared to admit. A sudden surge of loneliness passed over her. Their last parting had not been on the best of terms.

She sighed, deciding to put it out of her mind and get on with the business of extracting herself elegantly from the party so that she could get a little sleep before beginning the White House conversion. Dunkelzahn actually planned to do much of his work there, and he wouldn't want to stay in human form unless it was absolutely crucial.

"Only Dark Tooth knows what Quicksilver was doing," Brooks said, her gaze tracking Dunkelzahn's procession as it crossed Virginia Avenue. "I was just hoping-"

An explosion ripped the night in front of them. Dunkelzahn's limo vaporizing in an instantaneous fiery blast. A spiked sphere of plasma and searing orange heat, flashing for a second.

Then the fire was gone and only its effects remained.

What the frag?

In the moments before the blast wave hit her, Nadja saw the security limo in front of Dunkelzahn's car lift into the air and fly forward, riding an invisible swell of heat and shrapnel. The maple trees along the median were bowed from the blast, branches and limbs stripped off, leaves turning instantly to charcoal though no fire touched them. They atomized in the burning wind.

Nadja felt a single beat of her own heart, and she knew she was going to die. The explosion was too close, the bomb too powerful. No time to move. No place to go if she could move.

Time slowed in those final instants. She saw Dunkelzahn in dragon form, his body a ghostly white behind the flash spot on her retina. He was a see-through specter, without substance. The detailed scalloped ridge of each scale glimmered with white fire, but there was no solidity to him. Nothing left, only the outline, writhing in desperate agony as his ancient flesh disintegrated.

The white glow dimmed as Dunkelzahn bellowed in pain, a thunderclap of telepathic agony exploding in her head before the physical sound of his scream reached her. A blood-red shimmer tinged his vaporized flesh in the final moment.

Then he was gone and the blast wave hit her, a wall of heat and sound, lifting her off her feet and hurling her backward through the hotel's genuine glass facade. The windows crashed into shards around her, cutting her in a thousand places as she landed inside on the plush carpeting. Still alive. Still in one piece.

How?

Brooks jumped to her feet next to Nadja, brushing glass from her body while she subvocalized commands to her security forces. She bent down over Nadja, indicating for her not to move. Brooks scanned Nadja for injuries, and when she had determined that there were no broken bones, she helped Nadja to her feet.

What happened to Dunkelzahn?

Nadja tried to see through the crowd and shattered front doors to get a glimpse of the aftermath, but her line of sight was blocked by an ork security guard who came rushing up

to her. He was tall and bulky with cyber and augmented muscles, a first-aid bag in his hands.

"Jeremy," Brooks told the ork, "get Ms. Daviar cleaned up and out of here fast. She's got some cuts, but nothing serious."

"What about you?" Nadja asked.

"I'm fine," Brooks said. "I don't know how or why, but I have sustained no serious injuries." Brooks narrowed her blue eyes on Daviar. "That explosion should've killed us," she said. "Should've taken the whole front of the hotel with it."

"Why didn't it?"

"Not sure yet. I'd suspect a magic shield, but it'd have to be more powerful than anything I've ever seen. And some of our security say they saw the blast reverse itself. Like there was some sort of implosion."

"What about Dunkelzahn?"

Brooks shook her head. "That's what I'm going to find out." With that she turned and picked her way through the crowd, joining a team of her security people.

"Ms. Daviar?" It was the ork, Jeremy.

"Yes?"

"I'd like to bandage this cut on your shoulder," he said. "Then I think we should get you away from here. There's a car waiting."

"Sure."

Four other guards joined Jeremy, and they all escorted Nadja through the shattered remains of the front doors. Jeremy held her arm as she stumbled onto the glass-littered walkway and stared at the destruction. Evidence of the explosion radiated from the center of the avenue-a massive crater in the road, at least five meters in diameter and three deep. The trees around the crater's perimeter were uprooted and bent over, all leaves stripped off, the grass around their burned trunks turned black from the heat. Taxis and limos lay strewn like flipped turtles, and the nearest hotel windows were shattered, blown in.