The Dragon Heir (4 page)

“Well, if he comes in,
could you tell him to call me?”

She tried his cell phone, but
it went to voice mail. She left a message.

Where else could he be? Could
he have forgotten?

In desperation, she walked all
the way to Perry Park, though it was little used in the wintertime. Seph was
nowhere to be seen, but she came upon the warriors Jack Swift and Ellen
Stephenson, drilling their ghost army in a secluded clearing in the woods.

She found them by following
the sounds of combat. Jack had put up one of those wizard enclosures to keep
nosy people away, in the unlikely event that nosy people were out walking in
the woods in mid-December. But Madison was an elicitor. Magic and its illusions
didn't work on her. She just sponged it up, then it dribbled back out, totally
out of her control.

There in the meadow was Jack
Swift, his long gold-red hair tied back with a leather strip, leading two dozen
warriors across the snowy field in a howling charge. To be met by Ellen
Stephenson and her two dozen, a bristling wall of swords and shields.

There was no sign of Seph.

It was a motley collection of
soldiers, with armor and weaponry drawn from two centuries of warfare. Their
weapons glittered in the frail winter sun, their breath was pluming into the
cold air. The warriors collided with a bone-shattering thud into a melee of
arms and legs and deadly weapons. Blood splattered across the snow, and vintage
curses and challenges in a half-dozen languages rang through the trees as
individual warriors tried to free themselves from the press of bodies so they
could use their swords.

Jack extricated himself,
clearing a great space around him with his sword, Shadowslayer. The blade
flickered like a flame in the gloom under the trees. Ellen spun in under his
reach, her sword somehow finding an opening in his defenses. The flat of her
blade slammed into his ribs, raising a spray of snow.

“A hit!” she crowed.
“A palpable hit. Do you yield?”

“Barely palpable,” Jack growled, driving her back
furiously. Sparks flew as their blades collided and their heated bodies steamed
in the frigid air. Their boots churned the meadow into a thick pudding of mud
and ice.

Madison was fascinated in
spite of herself. Tall, muscular Jack was a pleasure to watch any time. He and
Ellen were longtime dancing partners whose bodies moved to a savage melody no
one else heard.

It was like a lifesize video
game, a gut-wrenching bout between the living and the dead. They might be
injured— even mortally during these
skirmishes—but everyone rose whole at the end of the day, if not without aches
and pains.

Finally, Jack pivoted and
struck Ellen's sword a massive, two-handed blow, sending it flying out of her
hands. Jack came on, grinning, sword extended, backing Ellen into a tree.
“So, Warrior, do you yiel…hey!” he yelped as Ellen let fly
with her sling, and a fist-size rock struck him on the shoulder.

Ellen hated to lose.

Jack finally noticed Madison, lurking
in the fringes of the trees. “Madison! Where'd you come from?”
Side-stepping a tall warrior in buckskins who lunged at him with a hatchet, he
raised his hand. “Hold!” he shouted.

The fighting dwindled into
late hits and skirmishes, then subsided.

The spell was broken. Madison
jammed her hat down over her ears. “Don't let me interrupt.”

Jack and Ellen looked at one
another, as if each hoped the other would speak. Madison didn't approve of any
of the frenetic preparations going on in Trinity, and they knew it. The gifted
were a club from which Madison was excluded.

Jack cleared his throat.
“We're, you know, drilling. In case the other Wizard Houses try to break
into the sanctuary.”

Madison hunched her shoulders
like she could disappear into her coat. “They're not coming here.
They wouldn't.”

“They're fighting other
places,” Ellen pointed out. “Kidnapping sorcerers to help in the war.
Stockpiling weapons.”

True. But. Madison jerked her
head at the motley army. “If the Roses do come—which they won't—what are you going to do? Do you
really think you'll be able to hold them off with this sorry lot?”
As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Her mother, Carlene, always said
Madison's manners were two steps behind her wicked tongue.

Like Carlene was an example
for anyone.

“Well,” Jack said.
He and Ellen exchanged glances again. “We have to try.”

“Maybe you should buy
some assault rifles, then,” Madison suggested sarcastically. “And
rocket-propelled grenades.”

“Assault rifles don't work
against wizards, unless you take them by surprise,” Ellen said. She'd been
raised by wizards, outside of the usual teen social circles, so sarcasm often
went right by her. “Their shields can totally turn non-magical attacks.
But a warrior can take a wizard in a magical battle on a level playing
field.”

“Well, I think it's a
waste of…” Sensing a presence, she swung around. The buckskin-clad warrior
was right behind her, rudely eavesdropping on the conversation.
“Did you want something?”

He swept off his hat and
managed a creditable little bow. “My name's Jeremiah Brooks, ma'am,”
he said. “I don't believe we've been introduced.”

Madison squinted up at him. He
was very tall and smelled of sweat, leather, and gunpowder.

“I'm Maddie Moss.”

“Pleased to make your
acquaintance, ma'am. If I may say so, you just might be the prettiest girl in
town.” Jeremiah Brooks smiled, a long, slow, droop-lidded smile.

“Jeremiah lived near here
in the 1780s,” Jack explained. “He was kidnapped by the Roses and
died at Raven's Ghyll in 1792.”

“Is that so, Mr.
Brooks?” Madison asked, for lack of anything else to say. Of course it was
so. Mr. Jeremiah Brooks was a ghost. She was being hit on by somebody who'd
been dead for more than 200 years. These sorts of things were a dime a dozen in
Trinity, Ohio.

Brooks dismissed his death
with a wave of his hand. “Miz Moss, if you'd care to go dancing with me
tonight, you'll see there's some life left in me yet.”

“I don't date dead
people,” Madison said, glaring at the ghost warrior. “That's where I
draw the line.” These ghosts were just a little too substantial as far as
she was concerned. They ate, drank, fought… and danced, apparently. Except for
their odd mode of dress and the weapons they carried, you couldn't tell them from
live people.

Jack grinned. “Better
watch yourself, Brooks. Maddie's going out with my cousin. The most powerful
wizard I know.”

Brooks paled under his stubble
of beard. “I'm sorry, ma'am. No offense meant. You didn't seem like the
kind to … I had no way of knowing that…”

“We're not going
out.” Madison scowled at Jack, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows at
Ellen.

Madison tried again. “I
mean, we're just…friends. Good friends. To be honest, I've barely seen him
lately.” You're running on
at the mouth. Stop it.

Brooks lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, watch yourself, Miz Moss. I don't know that you can be friends with
a wizard. They've been known to take advantage of young ladies. If you take my
meaning.”

Madison gave him a look, then
turned to Jack and Ellen. “Anyway. We were supposed to meet an hour
ago. You haven't seen him, have you?”

Jack shook his head. “I
don't see him anymore, either. He and Nick are totally caught up with
maintaining the boundary.”

While the warriors played
their war games, the wizards of Trinity had established an invisible barrier to
suppress attack magic within the sanctuary. The maintenance of it seemed to
demand a huge amount of energy. And time.

“I still don't get why we
need a special boundary now, when we never did before,” Madison said.

“Well, the ban on attack
magic is written into the Covenant, but I guess now nobody knows whether it's
in force or not,” Jack said, “or when D'Orsay might consecrate his
new Covenant. Things are kind of up in the air.”

Madison stamped her feet,
finding that her fancy boots were not much protection against the cold.
“Well, I was supposed to help him with an art project, but he didn't
show.”

Jack and Ellen shifted their
feet in the beaten-down snow, obviously eager to get back to their scrimmage.
“If we see Seph, we'll tell him you're looking for him,” Ellen
offered.

Madison jammed her hands in
her pockets, trying to warm them. “It's getting late anyway. I need to get
to work. See you.”

The clatter of fighting
resumed before she made it out of the clearing.

Now she had only an hour
before her shift started. She'd try Seph's Aunt Becka's, then move on to the
waterfront. If he wasn't at either of those places, she'd have to go on to
work.

Nothing could have happened to
him. He'd just gotten hung up. Like usual. He had to be safe within the
sanctuary. There was a boundary up, after all. No attack magic.

All the while knowing that,
within the sanctuary at least, the biggest threat to Seph McCauley was Madison
Moss and the magic that leaked from her fingers.

A memory surfaced, the battle
at the inn at Second Sister, a scene painted in lurid orange hues. Gregory
Leicester smiled, extending his wizard hands, launching flaming death at Seph.
Maddie had stepped between them, catching the full force of the attack. She'd
reeled in the magic while the wizard struggled on the end of her line like a
bluegill at Jackson Lake. Leicester had fallen, along with all of his captive
wizards.

She'd been left contaminated.
The bitter taste of hex magic lingered on the back of her tongue and seeped out
through her pores, a virulent and deadly poison made just for Seph.

After their return from Second
Sister, he'd complained of headaches, stomach pains, fatigue. He broke out in
welts and rashes, and grew thin and pale and hollow-eyed, as if he had some
wasting disease.

At first Madison thought it
was the aftermath of the ordeal on the island. She assumed time would heal him,
but he only got worse. His hands shook and his changeable eyes went cloudy and
dull and twice he fainted at school.

Seph's parents took him to
England for Christmas and he seemed to improve, but took ill again when he came
back to Trinity. His mother, Linda, fussed over him and called in the healer
Mercedes Foster, who prescribed fresh air and sunshine and good food and
potions and amulets that did no good. When Mercedes finally put him to bed,
Madison spent long hours sitting with him, reading to him, holding his hand.
She guessed she wasn't much of a nurse, because he only seemed to grow weaker.

Then Madison went home for a
week during fall break. When she came back, Seph was out of bed and feeling
better. He looked like a different person, more like his old self.

But not for long. And that was
when she knew.

Sometimes she wondered if she
was possessed. She could feel something evil inside her react to Seph's
presence, like a serpent uncoiling. Her touch was toxic. No one else seemed to
make the connection, least of all Seph. And if they found out…

So she began avoiding him,
avoiding his touch especially, making excuses. And dying inside every time.

Madison turned onto Jefferson
Street, negotiating the icy bricks. Jefferson was lined with tall oaks and
gracious “painted ladies.” That's what they called these Victorian
houses iced with turrets, spindles, and wraparound porches. Jack shared an
elegant green-shingled Queen Anne with his mother.

Jack's mother, Becka, and
Seph's mother, Linda, were sisters in a family full of secrets. Linda was an
enchanter, a master of charisma—seduction,
some said. Becka was Anaweir—she wasn't magical, and she knew nothing about the
magic going on all around her.

Madison paused at the foot of
the driveway. Seph's car was parked next to the side entrance.

She knocked on the screen
door. No answer. Pounded on the inside door. Nothing. She tried the knob, and
it was unlocked.

“Anybody home?” she
called, pushing the door open and poking her head into the foyer.

He was in there somewhere. She
could feel his presence in the acceleration of her heartbeat, a faint vibration
in her bones.

Witch boy.

She crossed the foyer and
passed down the hallway to the family room at the rear. And froze in the
doorway.

Seph lay sprawled on the rug
in front of the hearth. His face beneath the dark curls was pale and chiseled
as porcelain, save the dark smudges under his eyes. He was frowning, lips
parted, as if he'd succumbed between two words. For a terrible moment, she
thought he was dead, until she saw the faint rise and fall of his chest.

“Good day, Maddie.”
The wizard Nick Snowbeard half-rose from his chair in the hearth corner and
draped a quilt over Seph, then settled back into his seat by the fire. “It
is a pleasure to see you, as always.”

She   dropped  to  her  knees 
next  to  Seph, her  heart clamoring in her chest, worrying she was somehow
responsible. “What happened? Is he … ?”

The old caretaker tilted his
head, looking surprised. “Why, ray dear, he's sleeping, of course, though
he isn't particularly happy about it.”

Madison looked at Seph, as if
he might have a comment, then back at Snowbeard. Worry turned to irritation.
“He's taking a nap? We were supposed to meet two hours ago.”

“The boy is exhausted.
He's overextended himself, maintaining the boundary twenty-four hours a
day.” The old wizard pressed his fingers between his briared eyebrows, as
if he had a headache. Old Bear, the gifted called him, or sometimes, the Silver
Bear. He did resemble a slightly rumpled bear rousted from his den in
midwinter.

“It was a breakdown in
communications,” Snowbeard went on. “Too much to do, and too few
people to do it. Hastings is away, and I was … unexpectedly delayed. I had no
idea he'd been on his own so long, and it's not in his nature to ask for help.
But now I've relieved him, and I put him to sleep, over his protest.”