The Dragon in the Volcano (17 page)

Emmy nodded.

Jesse heard a wailing sound and realized it was his own voice. How was Daisy going to play sports? How was Daisy going to swim? How was Daisy going to get dressed in the morning? This was one magical adventure that had taken a truly sorry turn.

He felt someone tugging at the sleeve of his raincoat and turned to find Spark, Flicker, Fiero, and their four fire fairy friends standing in a timid half circle.

Jesse finally got a grip. “What happened to the witch?” he asked, looking around.

“We drove the fiery-haired one up into the courtyard and passed her along to Opal and Galena. It’s their turn to have a little fun with the fearsome old hag,” Fiero said.

Jesse saw that the fire fairies were holding
gems in their arms. “What’s all this?” he asked.

“You said you needed jadeite,” Flicker said timidly.

“We got a whole bunch for you,” said Fiero.

“Aw, thanks, you guys,” said Daisy softly.

“We found it outside, scattered down the side of the grotto,” Spark said. “So we didn’t have to go very far at all to find quite a bit of it.”

“It must have spilled out of the crashed train,” Jesse said.

“Our brave Daisy’s doing,” said Emmy proudly.

The fire fairies crowded around and gently packed the jadeite onto Daisy’s inert arm. Daisy lay back and closed her eyes, the color beginning to return to her face. “I still don’t have any feeling in it,” she said. “But I do feel better.”

“We never should have left her alone,” Jesse said to Emmy.

“Are you kidding?” Daisy said. She sat up in Emmy’s arms and brushed the hair from her eyes with her good arm. “I did a great job. I unhitched the team of fire salamanders that were pulling a whole trainload of gemstones up the side of the grotto. I shoved the cars and they went smashing and crashing down into the grotto. You should have seen Sadra! She was hopping mad. And I did it all by myself, single-handed.” Daisy’s face froze on the
phrase “single-handed.” Then she lay back down in Emmy’s arms with a grim and unsettled look. “You should have seen me,” she added with quiet dignity.

“There, there, my sweet Daisy Flower,” said Emmy soothingly. “Courage needs no witnesses.”

Jesse ventured a smile. “Way to go, Daze. You saved the realms.”

“Daisy is so brave she deserves the Purple Star,” Emmy said.

It was the Purple
Heart
and the
Silver
Star, but Jesse didn’t have the stomach to quibble with Emmy just then.

“I wish I could say that the battle is over and done with,” Emmy said sadly, “but there is still the Slayer to contend with.”

“You guys stay here and guard Daisy,” Jesse said to the fire fairies. “Emmy and I will go and hunt down St. George.”

“Forget it!” Daisy said, rearing up and hopping down from Emmy’s lap. “I don’t need any guarding, and I’m not missing out on the hunt. You can count me in.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jesse asked.

Daisy set her chin. “I’ll be fine!” she said.

As their party emerged from the basement into the courtyard, they saw that the two sides were exchanging fire volleys there. Daisy counted heads.
Two of the four rumblers were missing in action.

Daisy turned to Fiero, who hovered protectively to her left. “Malachite’s down two. What happened to them?” she asked.

Fiero pointed to some heaps of sodden ashes over by one wall. “They have merged with the Eternal Flame,” she said.

“Unfortunately, the third heap is our own dear Mica,” Flicker added sadly.

Citrine lay behind a pile of boulders in a corner of the courtyard. He was badly wounded and squeezing out tears to treat the burns. Zircon, exchanging pale rounds of flame with Malachite, looked done in. The good news was that Galena and Opal had pinned Sadra to the wall and weren’t letting her go anywhere.

Emmy came up behind Zircon and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll take over. You rest,” she told him.

Zircon, nodding, staggered off to join Citrine. Jesse said to the fire fairies, “Go over there and protect those two while they catch their breath.”

“Good idea,” said Daisy.

The fire fairies, except for Fiero, who stayed with Daisy, swarmed over to hover around the two wounded and spent dragons. Meanwhile, Malachite looked as strong and ornery as ever. Daisy
was afraid for Emmy, up against a fighting machine like this.

Malachite opened her mouth and flamed Emmy. Emmy held up her arm and the flames bounced off her. Daisy looked at Jesse, her eyes wide. Jesse whistled in amazement. The last time Emmy had been flamed, it had scorched her scales and driven her from the Fire Ball. Had she somehow developed a resistance to flame just as she had found a way to repel water? What a dragon!

“I’ll tell you what, Malachite,” Emmy said fearlessly. “I won’t fly and you won’t flame. That way, we’re even.”

“Agreed,” said Malachite.

“Choose your weapon,” Emmy said.

Malachite conjured up a club. It was a nasty-looking, knobby, petrified-wood thing, the kind of club that Daisy imagined cavemen fought with.

“All right,” said Emmy. “If that’s the way you want to play it.” And so saying, Emmy produced her own caveman club.

The two dragons circled each other. Malachite swung her club at Emmy’s legs. Emmy jumped in the air and the club whistled beneath her. Emmy swung her club and the blow glanced off Malachite’s arm. Malachite worked her shoulder in the joint, then switched her club to her other arm and
brought it crashing down toward Emmy’s head. But Emmy ducked to the side and the club clipped her shoulder instead. Emmy swung her club at Malachite’s head, but Malachite blocked it. The clubs cracked together, and then Emmy and her foe were going at it, club to club—
crack! crack! crack!
—until Emmy broke the rhythm by coming at Malachite hard from the other direction and knocking the club from her grip. The club went flying across the courtyard and bounced off a wall.

“Trounce her while she’s unarmed!” Zircon shouted.

“Now’s your chance!” hollered Citrine.

But Emmy, fair-minded as ever, lowered her club and gave Malachite a chance to rearm herself. As she went to fetch her club, Malachite had a crafty look in her eyes and Daisy wanted to cry out a warning, but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth.

On the way back to Emmy, Malachite stumbled. Emmy reached out to steady her, and Malachite jammed the end of her club into the side of Emmy’s head. Emmy staggered backward and fell down hard on her tail, the club rolling out of her grasp.

Malachite loomed over Emmy, a wide smile spread across her face. She lifted her club over her
head. Daisy gasped and grabbed for Jesse’s arm, but Jesse wasn’t there. She looked around frantically. Fiero flicked Daisy on the shoulder and pointed.

Jesse was leaning over the rampart directly above Malachite. In his hands was a wobbly black balloon filled with water. Malachite was just bringing the club over her shoulder to clobber Emmy when Jesse released the water balloon. The balloon landed on the point of Malachite’s centermost horn and burst. Water exploded all over the dragon, dissolving her as instantly as sugar in a pot of boiling water. Daisy heard Jesse’s loud whoop of triumph and then his footsteps, coming rapidly down the stairs. He dashed into the courtyard just as Emmy was climbing shakily to her feet.

“Good shot, Jesse Tiger!” Emmy said.

“Ah! Emerald! Rallying just in time for your rather overdue slaying!”

Jesse’s glance flew up to the rampart. There was St. George. His hood was down and his golden hair gleamed against the dark sky.

“He’s unarmed,” Daisy said in a wondering voice.

“He only
looks
that way,” Emmy said. “I’ll believe that when wild boars fly.”

“Pigs,” Jesse whispered as Emmy flew up and alighted on the wall of the rampart directly across
from St. George. “Why don’t you come over here and fight me, Georgy Porgy?”

“I’d much rather stay here, Emmy-wemmy,” said George mockingly, “and blast you to the Eternal Flame.” He waved toward the turret.

Jesse heard something heavy grinding across the stones. A moment later, a cannon rolled into view, pushed by an invisible force.

“How do you like my new toy?” said St. George, beaming with evil glee.

“Cannons aren’t toys,” Emmy said, frowning.

“Oh, but this is a very special toy,” he went on, resting the barrel in an indentation in the crenellated wall. “This, my poor, naïve, thoroughly
inadequate
draconian foe, is what is called a
water
cannon.”

A cry of distress rose up from the dragons in the courtyard. The fire fairies keened.

“Haven’t you heard?” Emmy called across the space between them. “Water can’t hurt me.”

“Ah! But it can hurt all those snivelers down below!” he said, gesturing to the courtyard, where Zircon and Citrine, Opal and Galena, Jesse and Daisy, the last two rumblers, and all the fire fairies looked fearfully on. “It can hurt all your loved ones. It can hurt your Keepers most especially and quite terminally, I am pleased to say.”

“No, it can’t. Can’t you see, you arrogant fool?” Emmy said in proud defiance. “Those black coats they are wearing are waterproof. Your cannon can’t hurt them.”

St. George cracked a crooked smile. “Ah, but it can, you see. The water will be propelled from this cannon with such force that it will blast the rain gear from their bodies, soak them to the skin, and then melt them to mush.”

Emmy was silent. Jesse thought that he saw her confidence flag for the first time.

Suddenly, they heard a loud pounding sound. Someone was crossing the drawbridge!

The next moment, Jasper came barreling into the courtyard. He looked around and called out, “Emmy! Where are you?”

“I’m up here, Jasper!” Emmy cried out eagerly.

Jasper turned and looked up. “There you are!” he said. “I thought I’d never see you again. The Beacons declared me innocent and freed me from the hole. I followed your trail.”

“I’m very happy to see you, Jasper, my dear mote,” Emmy said cautiously, “but I’m afraid it’s not safe for you here.”

Jasper turned and looked up at the other rampart. “You must be St. George!” he said.

“Yes,” St. George drawled, “the agent himself.”

“The agent?” Jasper asked.

“Why, the agent of your destruction!”
St. George cried out, firing the water cannon. The water roared from the barrel and hit Jasper dead on. All that remained of the dragon when the cannon stopped firing was a pile of bronze-colored goo.

“No!”
Emmy let out an agonized scream.
“Not Jasper!”

Jasper had merged with the Great Flame.

St. George patted the cannon’s barrel. “Let me see,” he said, pretending to study the crowd down below, gloved finger to his lips. “Who shall I melt next? One of the Keepers, I think, but which one, is the question. The boy, I think. Let the girl suffer as a
one-armed wonder for a while longer before I finish her off. Yes, the boy …”

St. George swung the cannon around and brought it to bear on Jesse. Jesse swallowed hard.

“No!”
Emmy howled again.
“Not my Keepers! Never!”

Emmy flung back her head and opened her mouth. A howling wind blew forth from it. It blew everyone else clean off their feet and pushed them against the far wall of the courtyard. Jesse managed to cling to a post with one hand and to Daisy’s hand with the other. Daisy hung on to Jesse, her body flying parallel to the ground, like a black flag rippling in a high wind.

“Are you okay?” he called out to her over the roaring wind.

“I’ll be fine!” she shouted back.

Jesse looked up and saw George gripping the barrel of the cannon while the wind from Emmy’s mouth tore the purple coat right off his back.

“Look, Daze!” he shouted to her.

The purple coat blew away, leaving the long black coat, the one made from Balthazaar’s skin. But even that magical dragon-skin garment failed to withstand the power of Emmy’s blast. The coat blew off into the grotto, leaving St. George in a pair of long black underwear. Finally, Emmy closed
her mouth and cut short the windy onslaught.

Just as Daisy’s feet touched the ground again, Emmy took another deep breath and opened her mouth anew. This time, fire blasted out, a bright orange with tongues of red and yellow and even purple and green.

It was a glorious fire, a scathing fire. It licked across the space of the courtyard and knocked St. George right off the rampart.

“Our winged dragon can
flame
, Jess!” Daisy said, flapping her good hand with joy.

Meanwhile, Emmy had turned her attention to the last two rumblers.

“We’ll be your boons now!” the two of them said, ducking their heads behind their paws. “We promise.”

Emmy nodded, satisfied. Then she looked at Sadra, cowering against the wall behind the two she-dragons.

“But this one here can make no such promise. Stand aside, boons!” Emmy shouted.

Opal and Galena fell back. Sadra, her tattered purple coat flapping about her ankles, made a run for it across the courtyard toward the exit.