Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) (26 page)

Tolemek backed several steps down the corridor, made sure nobody was creeping up behind him, and yanked off his vest and shirt. He rushed to tie the shirt around his nose and mouth. The material would not do much to filter out the airborne gas particles, but it was better than nothing. The smart thing to do would be to run away and hide again—there were at least six men in that laboratory, maybe more, given that the tables, equipment, and crates inside made it hard to count. But he couldn’t back down, not when he was this close to reaching Tylie.

Nobody had run out after him yet, so he took the moment to wipe tears from his eyes and to reload the pistols before advancing again. The yellow smoke tainted the air inside the enclosed laboratory. Tolemek was surprised the men hadn’t kicked the canister back through the door again, but he glimpsed motion in the distance and understood why they might have been distracted. Even through the smoke, he could see the dragon moving. It had risen to its feet, only part of the massive body visible—the laboratory ceiling was much lower than that of the big open chamber beyond it.

The creature’s thick silver tail slammed into the glass wall, and Tolemek jumped back. He did not know if it was trying to attack the people in the laboratory, or if it was simply agitated. Intruders, it had called out, as if the Cofah were permitted here, but Tolemek and the others were not.

Even with his shirt over his nose and mouth, he took a huge breath before advancing to the laboratory. He crouched low, where the smoke hung thickest in the air, and tried to open the door. They had locked it. He pulled out some of the caustic paste he had used to break himself and Cas out of the Cofah prison the night they had first met. He dabbed a line of it across the lower half of the door, even as the smoke attacked his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks and into the shirt, which did little to protect his nostrils from the searing gas. Tendrils escaped down his throat, too, irritating it so that he struggled mightily not to cough. He wanted nothing more than to flee from the smoke’s influence, but he made himself wait for his goo, as Cas called it, to burn through the glass.

Fortunately, the door wasn’t as thick as the wall, and after a moment, he was able to remove the lower panel.

“Got it,” someone inside said at the same time as a
ker-thunk
sounded in the ceiling. A vent fan turning on.

Tolemek set aside the panel, hoping the door still appeared closed to those farther back in the lab. Once the smoke cleared, the evidence would be obvious, but he ought to have a few seconds.

He crawled inside and headed for a solid stone wall on one side of the laboratory. He wanted his back to it, but he also wanted to check two curtained doorways he had spotted before the smoke had filled the room. Smoke that was now being sucked upward to a vent in the ceiling. If he wanted to eliminate some of his enemies, he had better do it soon. These people weren’t going to let him walk out of here with Tylie.

“He’s in here,” someone barked.

“Don’t—” The second voice broke off in a chain of coughs.

Tolemek spotted the figure hunching over, shot, then quickly moved to the side, anticipating return fire. He wasn’t disappointed. Two soldiers shot at him, or at where he had been, the bullets ricocheting off the wall. He could barely see the men, so they had to be having trouble seeing him too. The one he had shot fell to the stone floor. More people coughed in the corner, and Tolemek fired in that direction, using the noise to guide his aim. His own throat and nostrils itched, with mucous streaming from his nose. He would not be able to hold back his own coughs much longer. He fired again, afraid his luck wouldn’t hold out, and that they would locate him and shoot him. All he struck was one of the chemistry worktables. Glass shattered, and some green liquid dripped out onto the floor.

Another thump sounded, the tail striking the wall again.

“What is the dragon doing?” someone demanded, the man’s voice sounding hollow, like he might be wearing a mask to protect against the smoke.

“It’s acting crazy. Get the girl to talk to it.”

Tolemek had reached the first curtained doorway, and he thought about ducking into it, but he had to make these people leave—or take care of them in another way. Their mention of Tylie only convinced him further that she was nearby, that he couldn’t leave.

“Forget the dragon. Get that damned pirate.”

They knew who he was? Or was he simply being lumped in with the pirates that had attacked out front? Maybe they didn’t know about the Iskandian group yet.

Tolemek leaned out from behind a cabinet and shot toward the corner the men were crouching in. They had found cover, as well, and his bullets did nothing but hit the worktables and other furnishings. One glanced off a centrifuge, and a nearby rack full of crimson vials rattled. Someone fired back, and he skittered farther along the wall. His elbow bumped a cabinet, and bottles rattled and clanked inside. He wiped at his eyes and looked at the contents. Numerous chemicals and powders. He spotted a bottle of hydrochloric acid and tugged it out. He found a pouch of potassium nitrate on the bottom shelf. If they had tried to drive him to distraction with tear gas, it was only fair that he throw some compound at them. But he needed a burner. And some copper.

He fired twice more to keep them pinned down as he moved along the wall, searching for what he needed. Of course, they fired back, trying to keep
him
pinned down, as well. This was one of those moments when it would have been nice to have allies. Too bad he hadn’t waited for them to come along.

Whispers came from the other corner. They had to be plotting something.

As Tolemek spotted a burner, another thump came from the wall, this one the loudest of all. Glass shattered and broke, with shards flying inward. Tolemek ducked, but several sharp pieces struck his hands and bare chest.

Fools! Is no one seeking the vermin that have invaded this place? Free me from this cage, and I will find them. My fate may be inevitable, but I will not die like this, intruders. Do you hear me?
The powerful voice resonated in Tolemek’s mind, causing an instant headache. Someone groaned on the other side of the room. Because he had been hit by glass? Or because the dragon’s voice affected him even more strongly?

All Tolemek knew was that the men were distracted. He flicked on the burner and found the copper he had been hunting for. He grabbed a jar and searched for a mask, so he would not end up killing
himself
with his concoction. If that other guard—or maybe he was a scientist—had one, there had to be more.

Tolemek?
came a soft call in his mind, sweet and gentle after the dragon’s roar.

Tylie! Where are you?
He kept working as he responded to her, pulling a mask with a filter off a rack, then returning to the burner. The urge to simply leave this mess and run back through one of the two curtained doorways tickled his mind.

Not there.
Tylie almost sounded amused.
Down here
.

An image entered his mind, one of the very laboratory he crouched in. But he was looking down at it from above. He couldn’t see himself—or the men. It was as if this was some picture that had been drawn earlier. Then it moved, the view shifting, almost making him dizzy as he struggled to focus on it and on what he was mixing on the burner. It took him to the far corner, where those men were waiting, and he spotted a large grate in the floor, such as might be used for draining water into a sewer. Except it was bigger than that.

Not much bigger
, Tylie thought dryly.

You’re down there?
Fresh anger surged through Tolemek’s limbs.

Yes.

Right now?

Yes. I can hear you all shooting at each other. And something stinks.

Most of the gas had been cleared by the fan, but the air was far from fresh. Tolemek looked down at his new project, with dread filling him.
Are you right under that grate, or can you move to the side? So something wouldn’t drip on you?
Drip, hell, his concoction would eat right through that metal…

I’m to the side. In a little room, with some mummified corpses.

Are you joking?
Tolemek thought of the sarcophagi he had passed on the upper level.

No, they thought the crazy girl would enjoy the company of the dead. Soldiers are strange, Tolemek.
This last, she added sternly, a clear dig at his former occupation. She sounded incredibly sane at the moment, more so than she had when they had communicated twenty minutes earlier. What had changed?

He’s awake
, Tylie thought simply, as if that explained everything.

All right, I’m getting you out of there. Stay back,
far
back, from the grate. Do you understand?

Yes.

A pistol fired, the bullet clanging off the wall two feet above Tolemek’s head. He flinched, almost knocking over his fresh brew. He had donned the mask, but it wouldn’t protect him from acid burning through his skin.

“…the pirate still over there?” someone whispered.

“The curtains moved. I think he might have gone down the storage hall.”

Yeah, keep thinking that. Tolemek found the sturdiest gloves he could, then grabbed the jar he had heated, its contents steaming and sloshing inside. He slid a lid atop it, carried it around a tall bookshelf, then risked standing to his full height. He threw the jar, hoping most of it would spatter on the men instead of flying free before it reached them.

In return, someone fired again. Tolemek dropped to his belly on the floor and crawled back to his corner.

A scream of pain came from the other side of the room. The nitric acid had spattered at least one of them. A second cry of pain joined the first, and he allowed himself a feeling of grim satisfaction. Whatever sympathy he might have had for soldiers stationed out in this backwater, he had none of it for anyone keeping Tylie in a hole in the ground. A hole adorned with sarcophagi. Bastards.

Furniture scraped and fell over. Something clattered to the ground—someone’s pistol? The cries of pain continued. “Get it off,” a man bellowed.

Others shoved through the lab, knocking over equipment and cabinets. One charged out the door. From his position, Tolemek could have shot the man in the back, but he decided the soldier had enough trouble. He wasn’t the only one. The others sprinted after him, crying for water and ice.

Though Tolemek also wanted to sprint, he forced himself to take it slow, keeping his pistol up and staying behind cover as he approached the corner with the grate. The dragon was still moving on the other side of the shattered glass—the wall continued to stand, but cracks streaked in every direction, and shards littered the floor. As he kept an eye on the giant creature, Tolemek stepped lightly to keep from crunching them under his feet. He couldn’t yet be certain all of the guards had fled the lab. At least the dragon had stopped hammering at the wall. Only his head and neck were moving now. It was hard to tell from down here, but he seemed to be lifting it to peer into the holes in the wall up there, perhaps into the very passage Tolemek had been in earlier. Did that mean the dragon could thrust its head through that barrier? Or had he turned it off somehow? Tolemek had assumed he was a prisoner, but if the dragon could access the control panel, what kept him here?

The thousands of pounds of rock that the humans built over his head while he slept,
Tylie thought.

Can’t he break through it?

He is very weak. This is the first time I’ve seen him stand since they brought me here.

The corner of the grate came into view. As did holes in the metal and stone where the acid had eaten through it. Tolemek was glad he had kept his gloves. At the moment, they were stuffed in his belt, but he would put them back on before—

A man in a helmet leaped around a cabinet, a pistol in his hand. Tolemek ducked at the same instant as it went off. It was so close that it ripped off some of his hair, but it didn’t strike him, and he lunged, barreling into the man. In the fall, he lost his pistol, but he was too busy punching his foe in the gut to care. The grate lay under the man, the grate they had thrust Tylie through and then locked for the gods knew how many weeks. He pounded his rage into his opponent, slamming the man’s head against the iron bars. A hand groped for his face, but he squinted his eyes shut and kept hammering his enemy into the floor. Finally, the man stopped moving.

Tolemek rolled him off the grate, found his pistol, and kicked the extra one across the room. It disappeared under a cabinet. As Tolemek shifted to look for the grate opening, he spotted a dark chunk of hair on the floor. He blinked, realizing exactly how close he had come to being shot in the head.

I never cared for that hairstyle, anyway.

Funny, Tylie. Want to explain to me why you’re so… cogent when the dragon is awake?

By cogent, you mean not crazy?

Uhm.
Tolemek didn’t know what to say—or think. Never before had Tylie seemed to think there was anything strange about her speech or mannerisms, not since she had first started acting strangely. In a moment, he would crush her with a hug, but he had to get through the lock on the grate first. The shank had been corroded by acid spattering on it. Tolemek doubted the iron would have dissolved all the way through, but he grabbed it and pulled, nonetheless, hoping it might snap. It didn’t.

“Give me a moment,” he said and reached for his corrosive goo again. It could burn through metal far more efficiently than simpler acids. While he tugged it out and brushed some on the lock, he kept his pistol close, guessing the soldiers would return, likely with reinforcements.

As for Phelistoth, it’s hard to explain,
Tylie thought.
I’m not sure I understand it completely. He’s been awake so little, and we’ve had so few actual conversations. But we’re connected.