Passions of the Ghost (17 page)

Amy changed her mind about running after her brother, and dived into his arms. He held on to her, enclosing her, protecting her.

“Rey,” she said, and her voice was oddly calm, as if she’d gone beyond fear. “I’m s-so frightened. I’ve never been so frightened.”

“Stay by me,” he murmured the familiar words into her hair, kissing her, soothing her with his hands and lips and voice. “We must stay together, damsel. If we do that, we cannot be harmed.”

He didn’t really believe it, but if his being invincible helped Amy, then he would finally learn to tell lies.

She recovered herself, taking a deep breath, then another. “We have to find Jez,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Reynald realized that the ground had stopped shaking and straightened up. The dust made them cough, and the foul smell was even stronger. The dragon had been feeding down here for centuries. He wondered what it had been feeding on, and decided he did not particularly want to know.

“Rey,” Amy said dully. “Look.”

He did look. Ahead of them, at the far end of the tunnel, the ball of light no longer glowed, but the bright beam that belonged to Jez was lying abandoned upon the ground.

There was no sign of Amy’s brother.

“Where is he? Where’s Jez?” Amy knew
she was asking the same question again and again. She couldn’t help asking it. Ever since Jez had run off, and they’d found his flashlight, they’d been searching for him. “Surely, if he was knocked out or…or hurt, he would’ve been near his flashlight? Even if he could walk, he wouldn’t get far in the dark. Would he?”

“I do not know, Amy.”

“He only came down here because of me. He wanted to protect me. And now he’s gone.”

The tears ran down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them. She put her head in her hands and sank onto the floor. The whole weekend had been imbued with a sense of unreality, as if at any moment she might wake up at home in bed and discover it had been a dream. Except that now it had turned into a nightmare.

Rey crouched beside her, stroking her face, and murmuring that they would find him, he promised, that everything would be all right. She wished she could believe him, but she knew he was saying that to comfort her. How could she have been so deliriously happy only a short time ago, and now be plummeted into the depths of despair?

“I hate this tunnel,” Amy said, her voice vibrating with emotion. “It’s worse than anything I’ve ever known. Worse than running away from a father who beats you. Worse than losing the brother who kept me safe when no one else would. Worse than knowing
you’re
going away and I’ll n-never see you again. W-worse than anything.”

“My dearest heart,” he whispered, gathering her into his arms. He was holding her so tight she could hardly breathe, but she liked it. She wanted to become a part of him, she thought, as she cuddled up against him. She wanted to be with him always. “I will never let anything hurt you again,” he went on. “I will be your lord and your love, and wherever I go, you will be in my mind and my heart.”

It was nonsense, of course. In a minute, an hour, a day, they might be parted and never see each other again. But she was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and she let his words form a soothing shield between her and reality.

They stayed like that for a moment or two.

“Amy?” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “Are you all right now?”

And she knew it was time to pull herself together again. There were dragons to slay.

“I’m all right,” she replied, and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. I don’t usually freak out like that.”

“You have a right to ‘freak out’ from all that has happened to you. I think you are the most courageous woman I have ever known.”

“Rey,” she whispered, “you always know what to say. If I didn’t already love you, I’d love you for that.”

His lips brushed hers, then moved in gentle exploration. She rested her hand on his cheek, drawing him nearer. His mouth was hot, and she tried not to moan as his tongue brushed hers.

She didn’t take any notice of the first tremors, but she felt the next ones. The floor began to move, and they huddled together until it stopped.

“I thought for a moment we were responsible for that,” she said, when all was still again.

“Moving the earth?” He chuckled. “’Tis possible.”

“Do you really think it’s the same dragon, Rey? Don’t dragons have little dragons? Maybe this is a whole new generation.”

“No, it is the same dragon. I know that voice.”

Nervously, she found herself going off on another tangent. “I always thought I’d like a big family. Lots of children and dogs and cats, and whatever else came along. I imagined myself on a farm, with space all around me, lots of open ground and trees and meadows and…well, as different from Parkhill as it could be. Now look at me! I’m living in a tiny flat in inner London, with the underground beneath me, planes overhead, and lorries rumbling by outside. And not even a cat or a potted plant to my name.”

“I, too, would like children,” he said quietly. “In my position, I have much to give to them—wealth, power, privilege. They would need to work for it, fight for it, but the rewards would be worth the reaping.”

“I think you’d make a good father. Of course, you’d have to learn to laugh more often and to kiss them good night.”

“I can laugh and kiss, damsel,” he said, “if you can give me the children.”

Her heart ached too much for her to answer him. Because she’d never be able to have children with Rey. There was no future for them.

“Look, you’re better off without me anyway,” she spoke at last, trying to sound matter-of-fact when she wanted to cry again. “You’ve seen how untidy I am. I’d drive you mad. And how could I run a castle of this size when I can’t even run my flat? I lose things all the time, you know. My keys, my cell phone, my purse. How would it be if I lost the keys to the storeroom? Everyone would starve to death over the winter. And I’m always forgetting to pay the bills. We’d be out of candles in no time.”

He laughed, and if it wasn’t quite as hearty as she would have liked, it was a good effort. “No more, Amy, you have convinced me,” he said. He held out his hand to her and helped her to her feet.

Neither of them said much as they continued on their search. The flashlight grew dimmer and dimmer, and eventually died altogether, but Rey would not turn back. Amy found the darkness almost a tangible entity, and as she put one foot in front of the other, she never knew what was before her.

And yet Rey remained confident that they would find and defeat the dragon. She couldn’t help but admire him for it.

Jez was never far from her mind. She kept hoping that they’d turn a corner and there he’d be, but they didn’t find him. How could he have vanished like that? As far as she could tell there were dozens of other tunnels running off the main tunnel along this stretch. If he hadn’t gone another way, then maybe he’d caught up with the monk and lantern?

Amy hoped not.

The tremors came and went, but each time they were worse, and the sequences were closer together. Amy lost count of the number of times they were forced to stop and cling together, while she expected the roof to collapse on top of them. And then that terrible roaring would sound out, as if the earth itself was in agony.

The dragon.

Until now she’d half thought of it as something like an illustration in a children’s storybook; a quaint, colorful creature with cute little wings and a kindly heart, who just wanted to be left in peace and didn’t really mean any harm.

The thing that roared in the darkness was neither quaint nor kindly. Rey was right. It was a simple question of their lives or the dragon’s.

“What is your plan, Rey?”

“I want to get close enough to use my crossbow and wound the dragon while it is still restricted by the tunnels. Then I can go in with my sword. In such cramped quarters I do not have many choices, but perhaps that will work in our favor.”

“Is it possible? To get close enough without…?”

“It is the best I can do,” he said gently.

Amy lost track of time. They could have been down here for hours or days. And then, gradually, as they shuffled forward, her eyes began to detect a change in the light. She realized that it wasn’t totally dark after all and that there was a faint glow coming from somewhere.

They began to move more quickly, and soon the tunnel had widened out, the ceiling so high she couldn’t see it. This was more like a natural cavern than a man-made tunnel. The only problem was that the rotten smell was stronger, so bad that she pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth and tried not to breathe too deeply.

Rey had taken the lead, despite there being room for them to walk abreast, and his hand was clenched about his crossbow. Amy didn’t argue with him. She trusted him to know what he was doing, and it made sense for the man with the weapon to go first.

And then she felt it. Movement in front of them. A shuffling, swishing noise, as though something very large was forcing a passage through the earth.

Reynald stopped. “We are close,” he whispered. “I can hear her voice.”

Amy couldn’t hear anything, but she believed him. “What does she say?”

“She welcomes me to my death.”

“Nice,” she murmured.

Reynald loaded a bolt into his crossbow. “Amy, you must stay behind me,” he said, “and if I tell you to run, then you will.”

It was an order; Amy didn’t fool herself into thinking it was anything else. “What if I don’t want to run away and leave you to face that thing alone?”

“I cannot do what I must if I am worrying for you. I have to know you will obey me.”

“What happened to ‘stay by me’?” she said sulkily, sounding close to tears. She didn’t want to leave him; she loved him.

“You are my brave lady,” he went on. “A lady must help her lord to do his duty. I cannot do it without your help, Amy. I fear if I were to see you hurt, I would abandon everything to carry you to safety.”

He meant it. Her heart ached for him and her, and the words he had spoken and which she’d never forget.

“I’ll do as you say,” she promised.

He kissed her, his mouth hard and passionate, then he turned away and began to walk forward again, but very slowly and cautiously. After taking a moment to catch her breath, Amy followed.

The smell was much, much worse, and she added a fold of her jacket to the scarf. She couldn’t remember anything in the storybooks about dragons smelling this bad.

The roar came again, so close now that the sound swallowed them up. Luckily, the covering over her mouth muffled her scream. The ground began to quake.

Reynald stumbled and fell to one knee, holding the crossbow up and ready to fire the bolt.

And that was when Amy looked beyond him, into the tunnel, and saw it.

An enormous dark shape, it filled the tunnel entirely with its bulk. She could see that it was moving, and as it moved the earth groaned. It turned its head, and she saw the shine of its eyes. Black eyes. Full of hatred.

Bitch,
it hissed, the voice invading her head.
I will show him what it is to lose the one you love. Let him suffer as I have!

Amy was still recovering from her shock when she saw that the dragon had taken an almighty breath, opening its mouth like a furnace. It was going to fry them both to a crisp.

Reynald knew it, too. He was up and running, taking her with him, before she could even begin to shout a warning. They fled for their lives, back the way they’d come. Behind them there was a brilliant burst of red light, and the smell of burning, then Reynald swung her around with him, and she struck the tunnel wall. Dazed, the next thing she knew, he had flattened himself over her, and she couldn’t breathe.

The flames rushed past them like an intercity express.

Amy heard it happen, although her eyes were closed, and she couldn’t have seen anything anyway, because her face was pressed tightly to Rey’s chest. Her head was spinning, and she thought for a moment she was dead, because how could anyone possibly survive a dragon’s fiery breath? And then, when she realized she wasn’t, she thought Rey must be dead, because he had shielded her with his body.

“Rey?” she croaked. “Rey!”

He wasn’t dead either. Just before he finally stepped away, she felt the strong beat of his heart against her cheek.

Amy peeled herself off the wall and staggered a few steps. She realized then how they’d survived. There was an outcropping of rock, just wide enough to protect them from the hot blast. Even so, when she touched Rey’s back, his tunic felt singed.

“Where is it?” she asked, strangely calm for someone who had nearly been sautéed.

“Stay here.”

He looked at her as he said it, to make certain she knew this was not a suggestion but an order to be obeyed, then he walked to where the dragon had been. Amy stayed, waiting, and trying not to shake.

She couldn’t help but think that, if Jez had come across the dragon, then he must be dead. Maybe that was why they hadn’t found him. There was nothing left to find.

She felt numb at the thought.

“Amy?”

She hadn’t heard Reynald return, and she jumped as he touched her arm.

“There is a tunnel ahead of us that crosses the one we are now in. The dragon was passing through that other tunnel when she saw us.”

“Did you fire your crossbow before…?”

“No. I didn’t have a chance. I dropped it, and I fear it is ash.”

“Then what are we going to do, Rey? You can’t fight that thing with a sword!”

“I must. Once she gets out…”

“So we keep following?”

“I want you to stay here.”

“No,” she begged, “not yet. Please, let me stay with you a while longer. I promise I won’t get in the way, and I’ll obey your orders. I want to be with you as long as I can.”

He hesitated, and Amy knew she was taking unfair advantage of his feelings for her. But she couldn’t leave him yet, when every second together was precious.

She heard him sigh and knew she’d won. “Very well. Just a little longer.”

The tunnel that crossed theirs was even wider and taller, or maybe the passage of the dragon had done that. The rock sides seemed smooth, shiny, and warm to the touch. Amy grimaced.

“There is light up ahead.” Rey’s voice brought her back to herself.

She blinked, stiffening, thinking he meant the lantern they had seen before. But then she realized that this was a different kind of light.

“It’s daylight!”

The tunnel had an entrance to the outside world, and they’d almost reached it.

“The dragon will escape,” Rey groaned.

He began to run. Amy, taken by surprise, was slow to follow. Despite her fitness, her legs were burning with fatigue, and she wondered how it was Rey could keep going.

The daylight was getting brighter, and now, against it, she could see the dark silhouette of the dragon. A huge, lizardlike creature, with wings folded onto its back, four muscular legs with claws that scraped the rock with each step, and a long, trailing tail. It was moving swiftly now, half-slithering, half-crawling in a desperate effort to get to the tunnel entrance.

“Stop!” Rey shouted. “Fight me, damn you!”

But the dragon didn’t stop, and again Amy heard the voice inside her head.