The Iron Codex by David Mack

Author:David Mack
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781466890855
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Self-exile was proving more palatable than Dragan had expected. He had thought he would miss daily interactions, the distractions of a social life, but the more time he spent away from society, away from so-called civilization, the more he came to appreciate solitude. Isolated as he was, he finally had time to read, think, and just exist without the imposition of others’ needs upon his time and consciousness. Casting himself out of the modern world had proved a blessing.

The day’s work on the bunker was completed, and outside his quarters the compound was quiet. Inside his sanctum, he sat in a careworn vintage armchair and propped up his feet on a mismatched but still welcome ottoman. Outside his window a tempest howled, but the fire crackling in his hearth filled his residence with pleasant fragrances of woodsmoke and promised him comfort through the night.

He savored a mouthful of lush red wine from the Languedoc and considered embarking on a new reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost to quiet his mind before retiring for the evening.

Then the voice inside his head came alive.

As it spoke to him, the flames inside the fireplace danced in wild sympathy.

«Our lab in Los Alamos is breached,» it declared. «Our asset is exposed.»

At once all thoughts of respite fled from Dragan’s mind. Who did this?

«A British spy. The one who watches over the American mage.»

The ones who escaped, Dragan realized. He sprang from his chair and put on his suit coat. Someone is helping them. Someone who knows our methods.

«Indubitably. All that we have worked for is at risk.»

Dragan moved quickly, abandoning his wine and invoking the clarity-enhancing talents of PELIZAR to clear his head in preparation for imminent magickal labors. He left his sitting room, and in the foyer he lifted his phone’s receiver from its cradle. He tapped the cradle’s bars repeatedly until he heard the operator’s voice.

“Switchboard,” a man said.

“This is Dragan. Wake my tanists and tell them to come at once.”

“Understood.”

Outside, the storm’s ferocity worsened. Dragan was thankful that he didn’t need to brave the weather to reach his conjuring room in the bunker. Instead he walked to the back of his residence, opened a door, and descended a flight of concrete stairs to the basement, which was connected to the warren of underground tunnels that linked all of the structures in the compound.

He arrived outside his conjuring room only moments ahead of his senior tanist, the ever-reliable Juliana Hess. The blond woman’s features, severe under the best of circumstances, appeared downright intimidating as she approached in response to an emergency summons. In front of Dragan she snapped to attention. “Orders, sir?”

“Prepare the room,” Dragan said. “Our man in Los Alamos has been compromised.”

Hess nodded. “Yes, Master.” After a brief moment of consideration, she asked, “Shall I prepare the room for an extraction? Or a neutralization?”

“The latter,” Dragan said. “If our enemies have found Wolfgang … none of them can be allowed to see another dawn.”

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