Jak Koke - Stranger souls

"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!"

In her chamber of the San Marcos teocalli, Lucero stared at her naked body reflected in the full-length mirror. She used to be beautiful, before the scarring. Before her addiction to the blood, her slavery to the dark stain on her soul.

Her head was bald, dark brown skin shaved smooth. The shape of her skull was delicate and pretty, like an egg. Her face was unmarred as well. Large eyes the color of worn leather, faded from time but resilient and strong. Her narrow nose was delicate and her mouth full.

Below the neck, however, her brown skin was a tapestry of scars. Deep-etched runes, like embossed tattoos bled of their ink. They covered her arms and shoulders, her breasts and stomach, back and buttocks, thighs and legs. Such mutilation was a hideous and unnatural thing.

For the briefest of moments, she could see the woman she had been before Oscuro had found new uses for her. She could see the bright, intelligent eyes, the smooth, young skin stretched tight across her stomach. Unblemished and supple. She could feel what it had been like to sense the delicate touch of a man or a woman. To be desired.

The moment passed-a cloud across the sun.

A temple servant poked her head through the doorway. "Senior Oscuro is ready for you," she said.

Lucero turned. She would go to Oscuro, the dark man with the black soul, so dark that his aura was a confusion of blank patches. She would go to him and let him tempt her with the blood, and she would do this for one reason alone. She wanted to return to the place of light and beautiful song. He would send her there again, and perhaps she would get to stay this time.

She knew deep down that Oscuro wanted to destroy that place, or change it so fundamentally that its beauty was ruined, but she could not stop that. She could only obey and hope that the goddess of the song would prevail, that the music would wash away the taint of Lucero's blood.

She followed the servants into the sanctuary as before, and as before, Senor Oscuro waited at the altar for her to arrive. She said a silent prayer to Quetzalc6atl as she passed his sculpture, asking to be free of her addiction. To be beautiful again before she died. For she knew that she would be vulnerable to the blood that Oscuro would use. She would shudder with want for its taste, and without help, she would succumb.

Oscuro escorted her up onto the altar, and bade her lie down. Lucero heard the chant of the Gestalt then, and remembered that the blood mages were conducting a ritual at the apex of the temple. They were assembled to add to her power. After having been part of them for so long, it felt strange to have the group so close now, and yet not be able to join them.