Dragonseed (38 page)

Shay brushed back the hair that was falling down into her eyes. He said, “The fact that you have thoughts like this is all the proof I need of your wisdom.”

“Thank you,” she said. She leaned forward. He closed his eyes and met her in a kiss. It was much more pleasant than their aerial lip smash.

She pulled back and gave him a wicked smile. Shay smiled back. “Would you like to take a break?”

She put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “First work, then fun. Keep digging.”

THREE HOURS LATER
and six feet down, Shay’s hands were blistered, his back was on fire, and sweat rained from his body with every thrust of the shovel. He’d removed his shirt and peeled his long-johns down, bunching them up at his belt. The deeper he dug, the harder the earth was packed. The hole was also becoming hotter.

Lizard had long since tuckered out. The little dragon lay next to the hole, his chin draped over the edge, looking down. Lizard was roughly at eye level whenever Shay tried to straighten up.

“I promise I’ll make you feel better once this is done,” said Jandra, who was sitting at the edge of the pit, her legs dangling. “Vendevorex had me study anatomy. I know what muscles to rub.”

“If you’re trying to motivate me, I appreciate it,” he said. He stopped to wipe the sweat from his eyes. “But, honestly, I think I’m done for the day. I’m a scribe, not a ditch digger. If you need someone to sit at a desk and write for eight hours straight, I’m your man.”

“You’re my man anyway,” said Jandra. “I like watching you dig. Your muscles are really bulging.”

She handed him the canteen. He tilted it up and let it pour into his mouth and down his chest in a bracing gush. He glanced at his shoulders and biceps. They did look particularly chiseled after his efforts.

“Ten more minutes,” she said, staring at him hungrily.

He swallowed another gulp of cool water. “For you, my love, I’ll make it eleven.”

He plunged his shovel toward the black earth, driving it with all his strength. The shovel blade barely scratched the soil. It felt like he’d hit bedrock.

“Ow,” he said, pulling his hand away from the shovel. The abrupt halt had pushed a splinter into his palm.

He looked up, hoping for a sympathetic word from Jandra. Instead, her eyes were focused on the spot where he was standing.

“Out of the pit,” she said, tossing off her coat.

“Do you think…?”

“I think there’s not enough room for both of us in there,” she said, holding out her hand. “Climb out.”

She practically yanked him out of the hole. Before he could brush the dirt off himself, she’d grabbed Lizard’s trowel and leapt into the pit. She knelt on the black dirt, her fingers tracing the outline of something he couldn’t see.

“The sword,” she said. “I can feel the heat.”

 Dirt flew up over her back as she hacked at the ground with the trowel. “Vendevorex and I wore our genies as helmets, but Jazz kept hers beneath her skin. It served as her heart. Bitterwood left Gabriel’s flaming sword piercing her heart but it never melted, even when the rest of her body crumbled to ash. We buried her heart with the sword still in it.”

Suddenly, orange light began to dance around the walls of the pit. Jandra stood up, holding a sword over her head. Faint flames flickered along the length of the weapon. Jammed against the hilt, pierced by the blade, was a lump of silver metal the size and shape of a human heart.

It was still beating.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

GET READY FOR MAGIC

SHAY SWALLOWED HARD.
He was ten feet away from Jandra but could feel the heat of the sword warming his face. The air smelled like a hot stove. Lizard, who normally clung to Jandra like a burr, scurried behind Shay and cowered between his legs.

“I’m not certain this was a good idea,” he said. “I didn’t expect the genie to look so… alive.”

“It’s not alive,” said Jandra, her eyes focused on the reflection of her face in the silver heart. “It’s only a tool. It’s no more alive than a hammer.”

“I’ve never seen a hammer pulse like that,” said Shay. “I’ve stood by you Jandra. I believe in you and I’ve trusted your judgment this far. Now, I’m hoping you’ll trust me. I think we should re-bury the heart and consider this further.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” she said. “After all we’ve been through to get our hands on this? You want to put it back in the ground?”

“I think—”

“When Bitterwood and I escaped from the Free City, he told me his hate was the hammer he used to knock down the walls of this world. That’s all Bitterwood knows how to do—tear things down. I promised myself I would never walk that path. I don’t want my life to be remembered for the things I’ve ruined. I want to be known as a maker, a builder, a healer. I need the power of this genie if I’m ever going to be the person I want to be.”

“Jandra, you’re already that person,” said Shay. “You’re a good woman. You’re going to change the world with your kindness and wisdom. Put the heart back in the ground. There are other wonders we can take from this place. The wings, for instance. Tools that are a little less frightening.”

“I’m not afraid of the genie,” said Jandra.

“Aren’t you afraid of the goddess?”

Jandra shook her head. “There’re no such things as ghosts, Shay. Without a brain and a body, a person is gone forever. Jasmine Robertson is dead. You’re covered in the ashes that were once her bones. She’s not coming back.”

“You still have her memories,” said Shay.

“Those are, for better or worse, in
my
head,” said Jandra. “It’s my brain that will control the genie. Wearing this will help me make my own memories stronger, not weaker. I’m going to fix everything, Shay.”

Jandra placed her hand upon the heart. Shay winced; given the unbearable heat of the sword, he expected a sizzling noise, followed by smoke. Her fingers skimmed along the surface. The metal pulsed more rapidly.

“It senses I’m here,” said Jandra. “It’s responding to my thoughts. I was right. It unlocked upon her death. And and it’s hurting. It’s wounded. It can’t heal itself while the sword is inside it.”

“You’re speaking like it’s a living thing,” said Shay.

“Sorry,” said Jandra. “It’s not really alive, but it’s easy to slip into biological terminology. The nanocomputers woven into the heart are programmed to regenerate if damaged. Right now, they can’t overcome the constant destructive effects of the sword.”

She grasped the hilt. “There’s no trace of her inside the heart,” she said.

“How can you know?”

“I know,” she said.

She pulled the flaming sword free and dropped it on the ground. The heart pumped in her palm, the jagged puncture wound pouring out a stream of black ooze.

“Get ready for magic,” said Jandra. She furrowed her brow and the heart began to melt in her hand. The silver slid across her fingers and down her arms. It flowed like paint under her sleeves, disappearing under her clothes. A few seconds later, it appeared at the base of her neck and flowed upward, covering her throat, creeping across her chin, tinting her lips with a sheen of silver. She closed her eyes as the metal flowed across her cheeks and nose and climbed over her brow. Within seconds, every patch of visible skin was enveloped by the liquid metal. Shay held his breath as Jandra stood silently, her eyes closed, a look of intense concentration on her silvery face.

When she opened her eyes, they were no longer hazel, but were, instead, an intense jade green.

Lizard dug his claws deep into Shay’s calves. “Good boss?” he whispered.

“Jandra?” Shay stepped closer, to make certain his eyes weren’t playing tricks. “Are you okay?”

Jandra grinned. She stepped toward Shay and draped her arm across his shoulder. She pulled his face to hers and pressed their lips together. Her lips were cool, much smoother than flesh, yet still soft. Her tongue slipped between his teeth. It, too, was cold and slick coated with silver.

Jandra made a purring noise as she ran her hands along his naked back. She grabbed his butt in a fashion he found unnerving, despite their previous intimacies. He stood still as a statue, not even breathing, as she groped him.

Her tongue stopped moving in his mouth. She pulled her head back, studying his face. She grinned again. She snickered and stepped away, giggling harder.

“What’s funny?” Shay asked.

Jandra laughed wildly, clutching her belly as silver tears ran down her cheeks. Her laughing turned harsh, almost braying. Lizard’s claws sank deeper into Shay’s legs.

“Is it something I did?” Shay asked.

“She slept with you?” Jandra said, between gasps for air.

Shay scowled.

Jandra straightened up. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and then motioned with her hands along her body. “I mean, look at me! I’m hot! Why am I wasting time with some skinny, freckle-faced slave boy? Any man in the kingdom would kill to touch me. Half the women too, probably.”

Shay frowned.

“Nothing personal. I kissed you because, hey, you were convenient, and it was a nice way to celebrate the moment. Alas, I’ve outgrown you. I’m going to be more upscale in my partners from now on.”

“Jandra?” Shay whispered.

The woman shook her head. “Guess again.”

JASMINE ROBERTSON, GODDESS,
hacker, geek, had always lived on the razor edge of risk. She’d topped the FBI’s most wanted list when she was nineteen and had taken a paid tour of the White House to celebrate. She’d worked as an intern for Senator Coe the summer her Earth Liberation Army set off the bomb that toppled the Washington Monument. When she’d finally had to get out of town due to the tightening net, every member of the Senate woke up to a zero balance in their bank accounts and she’d been, on paper at least, the eighth richest woman in the world. Not that she ever cared about money. Money was only useful if you were the type of loser who actually bothered to pay for stuff.

Yet, despite her rebellious, devil-may-care nature, Jazz had always possessed one cautious, even conservative, trait: she never failed to back up her data.

Jazz stretched her new back. If felt as if Jandra had been sleeping on rocks, which was probably the case. Jandra's body was also scuffed and scraped and bruised in a variety of places, including some difficult to reach spots that hinted of interesting stories. She felt curiously… bubbly. Hormonal, even.

“Yowza!” she said. “I’m seventeen again!”

Across the pit, the lanky red-headed guy gawked at her. There was something trembling under the dirty long-johns that hung around his waist like a backwards apron. Either there was a frightened dragon hiding between his legs, or he was really unhappy to see her.

“Hmmm,” she said, searching Jandra’s memories. “You’re Shay? Runaway slave. Would-be librarian. How pathetically noble.”

“What have you done with Jandra?” Shay asked.

“I’ve evicted her,” said Jazz. “My genie did a running back up of my memories while I was alive. I’ve overlaid these onto Jandra’s synapses, onto the sections of her brain I altered on the moon to make her more receptive. The preprogrammed urge to rescue my genie in the event of my body’s demise must have worked. I’ve prepped a few hundred girls over the centuries, but this is the first time I’ve ever actually lost a fight.”

Shay knelt and reached for a long leather pouch beside his backpack. He drew out a weapon, taking an oddly long time to free it. It was obvious the kid hadn’t watched many westerns. Jazz looked down the barrel of the flintlock as he stood, a bit perturbed that it existed. She’d worked diligently to keep the world gun-free.

“Get out of Jandra’s body,” said Shay, in a low, hissing voice as he clicked off the safety. “Get out or I’ll blow you to hell.”

Jazz shook her head. “Kid, you really need to work on your threats. I’ve just spent a month buried underground as a bodiless intelligence with a flaming sword burning big holes in my personality. What was left of my senses was all digital, meaning I felt the full chemical subtleties of being buried in soil composed of my own cremated remains. Hell would be a vacation after that. Besides, we both know you aren’t going to shoot your girlfriend in the face.”

“You aren’t her,” said Shay. The muscles in his face twitched, but his hands remained steady on the flintlock.

“Jandra isn’t dead, only dormant. I might give her back eventually. To be honest, she feels a little short. I’m sure I have enough DNA in my hairbrush to grow a new me. So put the gun … gun… guh… uh…”

Jazz’s neck twisted. Her tongue cramped, bunching into a hard knot near the back of her throat. Her left hand jerked forward spastically, fingers wide, as if grasping for a rope just out of reach. Her jaw began to move of its own accord as she exhaled,
“Kiilll meee…”

Tears trickled onto Shay’s cheeks as he closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

Jazz was knocked from her feet by the force of the lead balls smacking into her. They tore at the cotton blouse Jandra wore, but failed to penetrate the silver shell of nanites that coated her skin. She hit the ground hard. The impact silenced the spirit that had temporarily grabbed control of some of her muscles.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered as she sat up.  Her ribs felt like they’d been hit with a hammer. “This is why I hate guns.”

She rose on shaky legs. Her toes didn’t feel right. Was something wrong? This was Jazz’s first experience with putting her mind into a new body. The Atlanteans did it all the time. No doubt there was going to be a learning curve.

Shay was busy reloading. While she was confident the gun couldn’t do any real damage, she wasn’t in the mood to get knocked on her ass again.

“I honestly hadn’t intended to kill you until now,” said Jazz.

Shay walked backward as she approached, still reloading the gun. He was attempting to pull the ramrod free as Jazz lunged forward and grabbed the gun barrel. It was still hot from the previous firing, but nothing like flaming angel sword hot. Almost pleasant, in fact. She ripped the shotgun from his hands, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to her face, and whispered, “It was sweet of you to reload. Now, it’s my turn to see if bullets bounce off
yoooooOOO!
” She cried out as something sank its beak deep into her inner thigh. She staggered backward, dragging a heavy weight on her left leg. She looked down and found a twenty pound earth-dragon with its mouth clamped firmly onto her leg just beneath her crotch. The little beast hadn’t pierced the nanite shell, but it had pinched several inches of skin, muscle, and nerves between its powerful beak.