Tears of a Dragon (6 page)
Professor Hamilton turned off the radio. “Very interesting.”
“Does that mean we’re illegal?” Barlow asked. “I mean, we’re on public roads, correct?”
“Technically, I suppose we are driving illegally, but I doubt that a police officer would fine us for violating an order that was implemented less than a minute ago.”
Woodrow, sitting in the front passenger’s seat, pointed ahead. “By Jove! Is that a hitchhiker? In this weather?”
Barlow leaned forward again. “It’s a young woman! Not much older than a teenager, I would guess.”
Professor Hamilton passed the hitchhiker and pulled the car to the side of the road. He opened the window and leaned out into the driving rain. The girl kept her head down as she approached, her pace slowing. “Excuse me!” he yelled. “Would you like a ride?”
The girl lifted her head, then jogged up to the car, but she stayed a few steps away from the window. Her voice sounded weak and faraway in the downpour. “A ride?” She peered into the back window at the four men, wrapped her arms around herself, and shivered. “I . . . I don’t think so.”
Barlow opened his window, and the girl stepped farther away. He pushed his head through the opening and looked back. “I assure you,” he said, water already dripping from his mustache, “on my honor as Sir Barlow, Lord of Hickling Manor, no harm will befall you.”
The girl laughed. “I’ve heard pretty speeches like that before, Sir Whatever. Lord or no lord, I’m not getting in a car with a bunch of strange men.”
The professor opened his door and stepped out into the swirling sheets of rain. The girl stepped back again. “Please don’t run,” he said, holding up his hand. “I’ll stand right here.” The rain quickly matted down his wild hair and streamed down his face as he studied the girl. Dressed only in blue jeans and a thin, wet tank top, she had to be cold in this cruel late-autumn storm. “You look very familiar to me,” he went on. “Miss Foley?”
The girl rubbed her bare arms, hesitating for a moment. “The professor guy?”
“Yes!” he said, “please come in out of the rain. We were just on our way to meet Walter.”
Shelly jumped into the car, slid to the middle of the front bench, and clenched her fists. “I couldn’t believe that Christopher creep! He just dropped me off in the middle of nowhere!”
The professor sat beside her and mopped back his wet hair. “I called your father, and he said he never hired a limousine service.”
Shelly rubbed the goose bumps on her upper arms. “I figured that out a little too late. Apparently he was working for someone named Morgan, and I said, ‘Either take me home to my father, or you’ll wish you had.’ So he said something about me giving my permission to host someone, and I said, ‘No way!’ even though I didn’t understand a word of it. Then, he got real mad and just dropped me off.” She scooted closer to Professor Hamilton, pulling her wet, stringy hair away from Woodrow. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you wet.”
“Quite all right, Miss.” Woodrow pulled his sweatshirt over his head and draped it over Shelly’s shoulders. “I am Sir Woodrow, at your service.”
The professor rolled his window back up and shifted the car into gear. “And we have Sirs Barlow, Fiske, and Standish in the backseat. Has Walter told you about our knights?”
“Yeah. I remember Barlow’s name now.” She deepened her voice. “Death to all who dare enter heaven naked.” She winked at the burly knight. “Right, Sir Barlow?”
Barlow’s face turned pink. “Yes, yes. I did say that. I was hoping to frighten one of the traitors.”
The professor eased the car back onto the highway and accelerated slowly. “If you know that much, then I assume you heard about the dragons and what happened in England.”
“You bet! And Billy’s fire breathing and Bonnie’s wings. After Bonnie got plastered all over the news, Walter decided to tell me everything.”
The professor slowed the car at the bottom of a hill, easing the wheels into a stream that crossed the highway. “You mentioned the word ‘host.’ Did the driver say something about a hostiam?”
“Yeah!” Shelly raised a finger. “That was the word!”
“And since you didn’t give your permission,” the professor continued, “Morgan couldn’t use you.”
Shelly wrapped the arms of the sweatshirt around her. “Sounds like you were listening in. How’d you know all that?”
With the water rushing as high as the tops of the tires, the professor gunned the engine and plowed through the stream. “It’s part of the England story. I suppose it was too esoteric for Walter to tell you about it.”
“I guess so.” She patted a cell phone on her belt. “Anyway, I couldn’t get a signal out here in the boonies to call Dad, so I started hoofing it. I figured I’d find a place to call from eventually.”
“We must be out of range now.” The professor checked his own phone. No signal. “Well, I think it’s providential that we found you, but with the rivers rising it may take another measure of supernatural help to get us where we’re going, especially since we don’t know our destination. Finding the airstrip may be easy enough, but we cannot stay there, nor can we safely return to our old campsite.”
Shelly kept her gaze down as she drummed her fingers on the knees of her soaked jeans. “Oh, I think we’ll get all the help we need.”
“You do?” The professor turned the defroster up a notch. “I take it, then, that you are a believer?”
“Well . . .” Her eyes stayed low for a moment before finally looking up at him, her eyelashes batting. “I do believe in supernatural intervention.”
“Good. William’s mother and her passengers are flying through this storm, so they’ll need all the help from above they can get.”
Shelly patted the professor’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll get it.”
Chapter 4
Merlin II’s propeller droned a lullaby in Bonnie’s ears, a peaceful, soothing hum that seemed to weigh down her eyelids. Although she wanted to obey the hypnotizing buzz and drift off to sleep, the plane kept bucking in the storm-swept air, jolting her body. During the hour since takeoff from Baltimore, the passengers had remained fairly quiet. From time to time, Marilyn announced an update from her pilot’s seat—altitude, weather conditions, and best of all, estimated minutes to arrival at the mountain airstrip in West Virginia. Ashley, seated in the copilot’s chair, also interrupted the silence, asking frequent questions about the instrument panel and talking to Larry, her supercomputer, through her tooth transmitter.
Giving up on the idea of curling up into a little ball and snoozing in the back of the plane, Bonnie busied herself with a new variation of Cat’s Cradle with her cousin, Shiloh. A few more minutes of forcing herself to stay awake wouldn’t matter too much. She planned to take a long nap at their wilderness camp. With the constant rain beating down, it would be cold and wet, but at least the solid ground wouldn’t shake her out of a snooze.
She pushed her fingers into the string pattern, a patchwork of triangles stretching from one of Shiloh’s hands to the other. “Like this?” Bonnie asked, twisting in her aisle seat to get more comfortable.
Shiloh, seated next to the window, kept the string taut. As she answered, her gentle British accent sounded like a melody. “You got it. Now push up and spread your hands apart.” A gust buffeted the plane, making Shiloh’s hands bounce.
Bonnie took the string “cradle” into her hands but kept her eyes on Shiloh, her virtual twin. Although she was actually a fifty-five-year-old woman, she looked and acted like a teenager, as if her imprisonment in the circles of seven had frozen her in time. But her youthful manner wasn’t really a surprise. She had wandered for forty years in a deserted town, seeing only silent ghosts wandering from place to place, ignoring her as she begged them to play games of marbles or hide and seek to pass the time. Since she had no one to interact with, she couldn’t really grow up. It was a miracle she hadn’t gone stark raving mad!
Sitting near Shiloh, Bonnie felt at peace. Most people grabbed an armrest or laughed nervously when an airplane gave a sudden jolt, but Shiloh never flinched. She seemed immune to fear and doubt, perhaps because she had witnessed God’s protective hand through a generation of torture. Refusing Morgan’s luxurious banquet, she settled for a plant that grew miraculously, exactly when she needed it, in the spilled water of a pitcher pump. The bud at the top of the stalk held a sweet-tasting white bulb that turned horribly bitter in her stomach, but a daily ration of it kept her alive for decades.
Behind Shiloh, Sir Newman cleared his throat and extended his hands. “Miss Silver, I think I have divined how this game works. May I try the next step?”
Sir Edmund set a copy of
The Art of War
on his lap and nudged Sir Newman in the ribs. “Another intellectual pursuit, my friend?”
Bonnie smiled and let Newman work his fingers into the string. Ever since they had escaped from the candlestone, the knights had been learning about their new world, voraciously reading every book from
Sense and Sensibility
to
Superman
and enthusiastically engaging in every new activity from hot-air balloons to hopscotch. Fifteen centuries inside the crystalline prison had stirred up an insatiable appetite for knowledge.
Marilyn’s voice sounded from the cockpit. “Now take us down a hundred feet.”
Bonnie swung her head around. As rain pelted the windshield, Billy’s mom pointed at a gauge on the panel. Ashley nodded, her headset and extended microphone bouncing up and down as she pushed the control yoke. “Is that smooth enough?”
Marilyn, a matching headset pressing down her shoulder-length brown hair, hovered her hands over her own control yoke, allowing it to shift along with Ashley’s maneuver. “Perfect. I should’ve known you’d learn fast. You could probably fly this bird already.” She pressed a button on a colorful screen in the middle of the dashboard. “The only thing I haven’t taught you is how to use the GPS, but you can see the airstrip on the map. It won’t be long now.”
Karen’s red head bobbed up from behind the pilot’s seat, her face tinted green. “Thank God!” She sat back and tightened her seatbelt. “Let’s get this bucking bronco on the ground before I run out of barf bags.”
Sir Patrick unbuckled his seatbelt and grasped Karen’s seat. He ripped open a small foil pouch, took out a pill, and reached it forward. “Better take another one,” he said softly.
As Karen took the pill with a swig of water, Patrick glanced at Shiloh and Bonnie. He smiled, the crow’s-feet around his eyes more pronounced than Bonnie remembered. When they met in England, he seemed heartier, livelier.
Patrick locked his gaze on Shiloh, his eyes adoring. After losing his daughter for forty years, it seemed that he wanted to drink in every second of her presence. He patted Karen on the shoulder and leaned back in his seat.
Marilyn gave one of the gauges a light tap on its glass surface. “Now take a peek at the altimeter every few seconds while we’re descending and I’ll show you—”
A flash of light zoomed past the right side of the plane, too fast to tell what it was. The plane suddenly rocked to the left, tipping its wing nearly straight up. Marilyn snatched her yoke and corrected, throwing
Merlin II
to the right, then back to the left again before stabilizing.
Marilyn barked into her microphone. “Security breach? What are you talking about?”
Ashley pressed her hands over the headset earpieces. “Restricted airspace? How could we be in restricted airspace?”
Bonnie leaned forward. It was torture not knowing what the two pilots were hearing.
Marilyn gripped the control yoke with both hands and shouted, “This is Cesna N885PE calling Elkins/Randolph County air control. We are not in restricted airspace. We’re over the West Virginia mountains, for crying out loud! Call off the escort jet!”
Marilyn banked the plane hard to the left. Bonnie felt her body press against the seat as if she had gained fifty pounds.
Marilyn’s face twisted with anger. “We will not proceed to Elkins airport or any other airport!”
Ashley kept her hands over her ears, her eyes growing wider.
Marilyn’s eyebrows shot upward. “Shoot us down! Are you nuts? We’re not commercial or military, and there are children on board!”
Marilyn nodded several times, then sighed. “Two miles south of Elkins, runway thirty-two, fourteen. Roger. I copy.” She threw off her headset. “This can’t be for real! Someone’s after Bonnie. I’m sure of it.”
Ashley spun around. “Karen! Fire up the handheld and send Larry our coordinates! Maybe he can figure out a way to confuse the jets.”
Karen, holding her fingers over her puckered lips, rummaged through a duffle bag behind the pilot’s seat. She gasped. “Busting . . . into radar systems . . . might take a while.” She withdrew Ashley’s palmtop computer from the bag. The plane suddenly dropped a dozen feet before catching itself. Karen clutched her stomach and tossed the computer forward. “You talk to him. I think I’m going to hurl.”
Ashley snagged the computer out of the air and yelled into it. “Larry! You got our location and those airstrip coordinates I told you about?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have any way of finding jets in the area and calling them off?”
“Give me two seconds.”
Bonnie slipped her hand into Shiloh’s and clutched it tightly as the plane continued to dance in the wind.
“I hacked into a network of local radar sites, but I can’t send commands.”
“How many jets are we dealing with?”
“Exactly zero.”
“Zero? What are you talking about?”
“Zero as in zilch, nil, nada, the absence of any quantity. Simply put, there are no jets.”
Sir Patrick squeezed into the cockpit and reached for Marilyn’s headset. “May I?”
She nodded. “Go for it.”
Patrick pushed the set over his head and barked into the microphone. “Listen, you demonic scoundrel! It doesn’t take a dragon to figure out who you are. We’re not the gullible fools you’re accustomed to dealing with, so just get lost. We’re not landing.”
A voice answered, reverberating through the cabin, penetrating it from the outside. “Perhaps a more direct form of persuasion will convince you otherwise.”
The flash of light zoomed by again. Shiloh pressed her nose against the glass. “I saw it! It had white armor and huge, powerful wings, like a warrior angel!”
Patrick slipped the headset off, his gaze upward as though he were trying to see through the ceiling. Newman wadded the string in his hands and peered out the window, his eyes searching all around. “One of those demon creatures, I’ll wager. One of the Watchers.”
More flashes of light zipped past the front of the plane. Ashley followed them with her finger. “I see two! No, three! They’re zooming all around!”
A loud, metallic thump sounded.
Merlin II
rocked to the side again. Karen, her face now white, grabbed her seatbelt and cried out, “I saw one bump the plane! They’re trying to make us crash!”
Bonnie closed her eyes, praying with all her might. They needed help, and fast! Another bump snapped her eyes open again. A face appeared at her window, its eyes seemingly on fire, staring at her. It seemed to snarl, showing a set of upper fangs, then, with slow, deliberate strokes, it licked its lips with a long, black tongue.
Bonnie jerked her head away, a wave of nausea erupting in her stomach. Sir Patrick leaped up and pushed his way in front of Bonnie and Shiloh. He pulled both girls close to his chest, his arms over their heads. “Whatever you do, don’t look them in the eye. It will flame their passions.”
“Look!” Marilyn shouted. “A dragon! Bonnie, is that your mother?”
Bonnie turned toward the window. The evil face had disappeared. She leaned under Patrick’s arms and peeked through the rain-streaked glass, catching sight of the awesome creature, its leathery wings beating against the storm. “I see the dragon, but it’s not Hartanna. I don’t know who she is.” The dragon spewed a stream of bright orange flame.
Sir Edmund unbuckled his belt and lumbered to the front of the plane, leaning into the cockpit and balancing his body against the rough ride. He squeezed between Marilyn and Ashley and gazed out the windshield. “I see her. It’s Thigocia! I would recognize her anywhere! She’s a war dragon, the second best I’ve ever seen. As a teenager, I rode her in the Weary Hill Assault, back when dragons and humans were still allies. Newman rode in the battle as well.”
“So did the dragons always carry riders into battle?” Bonnie asked.
“Usually, yes. Dragons are fiercely independent, so they are not adept at organizing their attacks or defenses.” Another jolt shook the plane, and Edmund braced himself against the co-pilot’s seat. “When trained knights ride them, shouting maneuvers in their ears and whistling to each other, they all work together in magnificent array.” He pointed out the side window. “Look. There are at least three other dragons out there, and the Watchers are grouping at a lower elevation to the right. The dragons need to make a thirty-degree bank and engage head-on, or the Watchers will be able to attack with their darkness spells.”
Ashley grimaced. “Darkness spells?”
“It’s a legend Thigocia told me about, but there’s no time to explain. She needs my help, so I must get her attention.” Edmund waved his hand in front of the windshield. “If she doesn’t know I’m coming, she won’t be ready to catch me.”
Bonnie peeled off her backpack straps. “I’ll carry you to her!”
The plane suddenly dipped. Edmund grabbed the copilot’s chair again and spread his feet to balance. “Young Miss, it’s too dangerous. I dare not ask you!”
Patrick backed into the aisle, and Shiloh pulled the pack away from Bonnie’s collapsed wings. Bonnie unfurled them as far as she could in the cramped quarters. “You didn’t ask me.” She pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt down to her wrists and firmed her chin. “I’ve carried you before. I can do it again.”
Edmund’s lips thinned out over his angular face. “Very well, maiden. I should have learned by now that you are brave beyond words.” He pointed a finger at her. “But you must promise to steer clear of the battle once you have released me. You have no weapons.”
Bonnie gave a quick nod. “I promise. I’ll land right away.”
“I’ll move closer to the dragons,” Marilyn said as she pulled the throttle back and banked to the right. “Bonnie, how will you find the airstrip once you’re on the ground? You can’t wander in the wilderness by yourself.”
Ashley tucked her miniature computer in the waistband of Bonnie’s jeans. “Larry can track the magnetic reckoning chip in this unit. He won’t let her get lost.” She flipped a switch on top. “Just talk right into it. Larry will be listening.”
Marilyn kept her hand on the throttle. “Ashley, strap back in. As soon as they’re out, I’m going to get us down as fast as possible. With the cargo door open, it’ll be a lot rougher.”
“A lot rougher?” Karen moaned, closing her eyes. “Tell me when it’s over!”
Edmund clapped his hand on Newman’s shoulder. “Will you join me?”
Newman unbuckled his belt. “Just say the word!”
“One minute after you see me straddle Thigocia, you must jump. I’ll make sure one of the dragons is ready to catch you. We will use the Weary Hill strategy in battle.”
Newman’s eyes brightened, his wispy mustache twitching above a big, toothy grin. “Brilliant!”
Bonnie scooted over to the cargo hatch on the left side of the rear of the plane, folding in her wings and keeping her head low. The hatch was divided into two sections. The upper half had hinges at the top so that it would swing up and out, while the lower half had hinges on the right designed to make it swing toward the front of the plane. She found the upper lever, and Edmund helped her push the door open.
Wind and rain poured through, beating their faces with violent, wet slaps. The buzz of the propeller drilled into her ears. The plane rode up and down on the wind like a buoy on the high seas.