The Dragon Guard (8 page)

“When it suits her. In the meantime, you're exhausted. The Council asks about you, and your absences. If not Freyah, then go to Khalil. Or Isabella. For advice, support, whatever you can get from them!”

“Allies I know very little about.” Eleanora moved her hand from his arm long enough to tuck a curling strand of hair away from her face and behind her ear. “I know Khalil cares very intensely about the children, but Isabella's main concern seems to be the money she's put away over the years, money I think there is no doubt her abilities helped her earn. They have agendas, Gavan, which you and I don't understand yet. Until I know their motivations, I don't want to trust my life to them.”

“Your health and Jennifer's are at stake. If it meant going to Brennard himself, I think I would.”

“Bite your tongue!” Eleanora slapped the back of his wrist lightly. “Neither of us would, and we both know it.”

“Not at any cost?” Gavan considered, then nodded in agreement. “But I won't see you suffer, Eleanora.”

“The attacks are less frequent now. Either I am coping better or whatever it is loses strength.”

He put his hand over hers, and squeezed gently. He had seen her under attack, and known how much it hurt, how hard it hit, seen her reel and gasp for breath and her skin go ashen, as if she fought for her very soul. As, from what she told him, she did. An evil fought to tear her apart from the inside out, and because of it, she refused to leave Jennifer in her dilemma. He agreed. How could you leave a fifteen-year-old to deal with something like that? Yet, despite their vows, they weren't winning, and Jennifer and Eleanora were slowly, painfully, slipping into shadow.

Jason had to find a sanctuary for all of them before it was too late, untrained though he was, alone in his talent though he was. Jason remained Gavan's main hope. “What do you think your father would have said?”

“Gregory,” Eleanora answered firmly, “would say, ‘stop scaring my daughter with worry about tomorrow, handle today, and, by the saints, it's about time you declared your love for her!' ”

He laughed in spite of himself. He brushed his lips against Eleanora's temple. “There will be an answer,” he promised. “And soon.” He had no idea how, or when, but having made his promise to her, he'd find a way to keep it.

Both fell into quiet then, and looked out over the lake, where a calm night and good weather allowed a few more hours of serenity.

 

Henry did not sleep well, despite his talk with Bailey. He stared at the second-story window on the far side of his bedroom. Curtains painted with a scene of the elvish kingdom of Rivendell from
Lord of the Rings
covered the window, giving him a view of another land, far away, framed slightly by the bookends on his high bureau, copies of the tall statues on the river. But his thoughts were not in another world, they were mired in great muddy clumps of this one, and he wasn't happy.

He punched his pillow up, then threw his head back into it, and clenched his teeth. He listened. Far off, muffled, he could hear the beagle down the street barking at something, probably an opossum cautiously crossing the backyard fence. He could hear his toddler sister making restless noises in her sleep. All normal late night sounds. What Henry feared to hear were sounds he shouldn't, that no one else seemed to hear, but that he did. And the thing that frightened him most was that he could not tell if it came from within or without. Was he being haunted or was he going crazy? As Rich and Stef would tease him, what kind of freak had he turned into? Yet, after seeing Stef turn from a burly teen into a chubby bear cub, could Henry not expect that his Talents might transform him? Their Magick seemed to affect them all in ways they were still learning about.

Henry turned over with a sigh, burying his cheek into his pillow which had now gone lumpy. He punched it again, and squinched his eyes shut tightly. In a moment, his breathing had deepened and he lay at the very edge of sleep and dreams, and his body began to relax gratefully.

Then . . .

The whisper went through him like an icicle. He sat bolt upright in bed. His breath knotted in his chest and he put his hands to his neck as if he could claw it free, pulling at his pajama T-shirt. A gasp or two and he breathed again, eyes blinking through the bedroom darkness at nothing. He grabbed for his spectacles and pulled them on. Still nothing. Then who or what was playing Gollum in his mind? Henry grabbed his blankets, pulling them close as if they were some kind of armor. He stared about his room.

He felt as if every muscle he had was being pulled out of his body, turned to mush. A great weakness swept over him and he fell back limply onto his bed. His eyelids drooped shut, too weary to remain open. What was happening to him? He felt as if he were nothing more than a limp noodle, boneless, heatless. He had but a heartbeat or two to think, then slipped into exhausted sleep. So deep was his sleep he did not hear the whisper come again.
Sssleeep, precioussssss.
Then a hard, dry laugh.

S
TEF groaned as he sat down on the locker room bench and looked about at the battered steel doors, towels thrown everywhere, his sneakers in his hand. “Mom said if I went up another size in shoes, I'd have to go barefoot.” He looked at his scruffy athletic shoes in dismay.

Rich sat down opposite him, his red hair sticking out in every direction. He tried unsuccessfully to comb it down with his fingers, even as he looked at his friend's stockinged feet. “You're already a size twelve. How much bigger can you get?”

“Well, that's the point, isn't it?” Stef let out a disgusted grunt. “We don't know!”

“But you're worried about it before it happens.” Stefan tugged on his shoes gingerly, as if fearful they'd rip apart in his great hands. “You don't know my mom, Rich. It's like I'm this big burden to them. All she and my dad talk about is when I can finish high school and get a football scholarship and go off to college and they're on their own. Like they can't wait or something.”

Rich sighed. He couldn't dispute that. He did know Stef's mom and dad, and that was exactly their attitude. As much as his mom fussed over him and his health, the Olsons grumbled over Stefan and the dent the raising of him put into their lives. Personally, he thought that both families deciding to have only one child had been a pretty darn good decision. The Olsons would have loathed more, and his mom would have had a nervous breakdown if she'd had other unhealthy Hawkinses to worry about.

He stared at Stef's shoes. “They'll hold. The only thing wrong with them is their stench. They reek, Stef. Doncha use that foot powder I bought you?”

“Sure I do. It's the bear. He likes to sleep on ‘em sometimes. And he's ripe, you know that. That's the way bears are.”

Rich half-smiled at the big square face of his longtime pal. He could see the bear in him, even without knowing that was Stef's shapeshifted other form. Stef was big, burly, strong, and grumbly, with a sweet tooth. He often did not know his own strength, and he had to really focus on something to pursue it, but he'd been working on containing his ability to change unexpectedly.

Rich stood up and began gathering towels, part of his job as trainer to the boys' track team, before basketball shooting them into the canvas bins at the far end of the locker room. Most of the towels made it. The rest were close enough to count, he decided. Stef stood up with a grunt, and put his hands to his right knee. Immediately Rich was there, kneeling, his own hands going to the joint.

“Still swollen? Sore?”

“Nah. Just kinda tight.”

“Ah.” Rich nodded, his spiky red hair bobbing. “Okay. Just make sure to stretch it before you do anything, even walk, but don't stretch too much. Just kinda loosen it up, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

“Good, ‘cause this is Monday and we've got a track meeting Thursday.”

Stef stared at him. “I know what day it is,” he said flatly.

Rich flushed. “Well, I know you do. I was thinking, you know, four days to heal up some more.”

“Sure you were.” Stef's hand shot out and cuffed his shoulder. “I remember things.”

Rich hoped Stef did. He'd spent almost the entire weekend as a bear, and Rich was exhausted trying to dodge parents and other hazards associated with keeping a half-grown bear under wraps. It was a good thing they'd been allowed to go camping by themselves at nearby Featherly Park. Stef's parents had been more than glad to let him go for the weekend, and Rich's mom had been talked into the tonic qualities of an early spring sleepover. “Yeah, well, next time remember bears can't climb eucalyptus trees, okay? Bark is really slippery and just kinda slides off the tree trunks!” He poked Stef in his meaty ribs. “Let's get out of here. I've got homework and you've got laundry and homework.”

Stef grunted again, and ambled with him to the locker room door, pawing at his backpack and pulling out a brightly foil-wrapped protein bar that was nothing less than humongous. “Snack,” he mumbled, with his mouth half full. “Jus' a little one.”

Rich could not help but grin as Stef wadded up the wrapper and stuffed it back into his backpack. He knew that protein bar brand—made of soy and low carb, low sugar. He'd be willing to bet it was his own mom who'd given it to Stef. Health food nut all the way. Whatever worked to keep both Stef and the bear cub inside him happy. Keeping Stef happy meant keeping curiosity at bay, and of all the Magickers, Rich thought the two of them had the most to hide. Stef's family would probably throw him out if he was ever revealed and his mom . . . well, he just wasn't sure what might happen. He closed the school gym doors behind him, as Stef lumbered away, still happily munching.

 

On Tuesday, Jason dropped off his finally completed packet. He almost asked for a receipt from the guidance counselor's secretary, just so he could take it home and give it to Joanna, and his stepmother could see he'd finally taken care of business. It wasn't necessary, he knew, but the desire to do it seemed to keep him hanging around the office. The secretary took the big manila envelope from him and then looked up curiously as he just stood by her desk.

“Is there something else, Jason?”

“No, I guess not.” He hesitated another moment. “When do we hear?”

“Unless you're taking summer courses, you won't hear until early August. That's when our computer sets all the schedules up, to be sent out. Not our computer here, but the district one, and the high school's department.”

“What if I change my mind?”

“The first week after schedules are sent, you go into the high school office and petition to add or drop classes. And you'll be having orientation that week too.” Cheerfully, she shuffled his envelope into a rather large stack already on her desk. “It's a big step, high school.”

“Anyone ever make . . . you know . . . a really big mistake?”

“What do you mean?” She looked at him curiously from behind her glasses, the crow's-feet at the corners of her dark brown eyes deepening.

“Well. You know.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Becoming someone they really didn't want to be.”

She smiled. “You have years, Jason, before you're locked in. And anyway, in this country, you're never really locked in unless you want to be.” She checked her watch, and without her saying another word, he knew he'd been dismissed. She was busy.

“Thanks,” he said, and moved away, through the guidance part of the school office, where the walls were covered with posters of happy, well-adjusted schoolchildren. Not a one of them, he noticed, wore a crystal focus upon them. Not a one of them was worried about dodging a ninja-clad Jonnard or finding an abducted Magicker, and how that might fit neatly into their future.

 

On Wednesday, Ting sat down to do her homework, with the background noise of her mother making phone calls and arrangements to move back to San Francisco. She tried not to hear the soft, but decisive words that were shaping her future even as they were spoken. She sat at the dining table, her notebooks and books spread out in front of her, rather than in the solitude of her bedroom at her computer desk. The dining room table had more space, and there was something about the deeply polished cherrywood that made her feel good. She'd grown up with this table waxed to a high gleam, and she wondered if it was moving to San Francisco with her, or if her father would stay behind again with the young ones. No one had said much to her about the arrangements.

Not that she would really mind. She loved her grandmother dearly, and the house with the dragon upon the roof, and the city of San Francisco which was altogether different from any place she'd ever been. It was only that she hated changing schools again, and missing Bailey, and it seemed that the Magickers had more adventures when she was away—and without her.
That
she minded. Bailey seemed to be caught up in the thick of things and she was always hearing about it later. Although, Ting reflected, being attacked by wolfjackals and finding a dead body (poor old Fizziwig) were not exactly the kind of things she wanted to be doing. There were times, though, when she knew she could help, and learn, and she wanted to be close to do it!

Ting closed her hand about her crystal charm on her bracelet. The wire cage holding the crystal was flexible, almost springlike, and could be stretched out to let the crystal slip through, freeing it. It was her own design, the bracelet and cage, fashioned like a long, sinuous Chinese dragon holding a lantern. Chinese dragons were old, wise, and not at all prone to eating young maidens. She had been able to make the bracelet and cage quickly once she'd managed to visualize its design in her mind, and she liked the way it turned out. Even through its clever cage, the crystal warmed to her almost touch, and a feeling of well-being flooded her. With it came the tiniest caress of her grandmother's thoughts.