The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (40 page)

cushion her fall or maybe even drag her down faster. Seconds from the ground they broke apart, and though Lucy had no idea what had passed between them, both dragons miraculously pulled out of the spin. One banked east, the other west, before both turned in to face the darklings again.

At the same time Lucy glanced to herleft and saw the fretful unicorn bleatingout a warning. It was gone like a glint ofsunlight, but the object of its caution wasnot. Lucy looked up and saw one of thedarklings flying towards her. When it wasless than fifty yards away, its nauseating ‘o’-shaped mouth somehow defied thelaws of physics and widened to the size ofher head. The needle teeth retracted into

their sockets, ready to spring out and pierce her from every angle. Meanwhile, in her hand, the narwhal tusk was buzzing as if it was eager to get into the fray. But Lucy was taking no chances. She shook it three times as David had said and, with

one  massive  burst  of  concentration,

pictured the house at Wayward Crescent.

The fabric of the universe ripped andshe was gone. She felt the sickening tug ofinterspace travel and opened her eyes,confident of seeing her bedroom again.

To her horror, she was still at Scuffenbury. All that  had changed was herperspective on it. Somehow, she hadjumped across the valley and landed, notin Scrubbley, but on the turmoil that usedto be Glissington Tor. High above her,darklings and dragons fought. To her rightlay the rubble of the Grey Dragonguesthouse.

“No,” she protested and shook the tuskagain.

This time, there was no sense of travel,but something did free itself from herhand.

“Groyne?” said Lucy, opening her eyes. A Pennykettle dragon was hovering in front of her.

It turned and blew a confident smoke

ring.

Not Groyne.

Gwillan.

An unwelcome return

I love you.

The words pricked at Zanna’s heart. There was no passion in the way he’d saidit. No lasting promise in his dark blueeyes. What he’d left her with werememories of that day in the Arctic.

I love you.

Like a soldier, going to war.

She sat in the kitchen making origamiroses from a white paper tissue. In thefront room, the news reports kept oncoming. Verifiable footage of ‘Steiner’dragons was now being beamed across

every  continent,  backed  by  endless eyewitness accounts of dragons emerging from ‘spiritual’ sites all over the Earth.

Colonisation. A true ‘New Age’. Arevolution in consciousness. Was this it?

Was this what her life had amounted to?

To see the world reinvented from a lonelykitchen and humankind divided into

wonder or madness? What did all this

mean for
 
her
, when everything she cared for was under threat and might, at any moment, be taken away?

On that thought, Alexa walked into the kitchen and spontaneously gave her mother a hug.

“Talk to me,” Zanna said. “Tell me what you are.”

“I’m your little angel,” Alexa said.

Zanna bent forward and quietly cried.

“I want to go into the garden,” said the girl.

Zanna folded her tissue away. “No. Stay inside today.”

“But there’s a squirrel. I want to talk toit.”

“Squirrel?” said her mother. She

couldn’t see one – but she didn’t look

hard.

“It came yesterday,” Alexa said. “It’s very clever.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Zanna, standing up. “But you’re not to go into the garden, is that clear?”

Alexa sighed and plonked her whitehorse on the table. Zanna glanced at it anddid a double take. A horn had emerged onthe sculpture’s forehead. She pointed to it. “Did
 
you
 
do this?”

“It just came,” said the girl. “Please

can I go out and see the squirrel? It does

tricks, Mummy.”

Zanna shook her head. How could a

horn just happen like that? “No…run upstairs and talk to Gwillan.”

“ I
 
can’t
.” This time, the little girl stamped her foot.

Zanna stared down at her. Bad temper in Alexa was extremely uncommon. “Why not?”

“He’s gone away, with Daddy.”

“Don’t be silly, Alexa. Gwillan’s in

the Den.”

“No, he
 
isn’t
,” she insisted, letting her black curls sweep across her back.

“Zanna!” Arthur’s voice called down

from the bedroom. Strident. Urgent.

Needy.

Alexa said, “Can I go and play with Bonnington, then?”

“What? Oh… yes, if you want to,” Zanna said. She got up and strode into thehall, stopping just once to look back intothe   kitchen.   Alexa   was   juggling Bonnington’s favourite toy: a plastic ballhe liked to poot around the floor.

“Mummy?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got to do something for me.”

“I’m in a hurry, darling. What is it?”

“My horsey wants to sit with Gawain and Guinevere.”

The unicorn. Zanna came back and

picked it up. “Tell me again how this

happened, this horn?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Alexa.

No
, thought Zanna.
 
It never does
 
. “Begood,” she said and hurried upstairs.

Alexa smiled and gave a little girlwave. Then she dropped the ball into Bonnington’s bed and quietly opened thekitchen door.

At the top of the stairs Zanna shouted to Arthur, “I’m on my way! Need to checksomething first!” She burst into the Denand went straight to the bench. No Gwillan. No guard. Groyne fast asleep. Ahint of panic rippled through her chest. Her hand shot straight to her phone.

The line to David was dead. But bythen he and Grockle were in the air above

Wiltshire, fighting under the name of theiri:lluminus,   G’lant.   There   was   no

connection to Lucy’s number either by the time Zanna had swept into the bedroom. “Take my phone,” she said to Arthur, thrusting it at him. “If Lucy answers, give it me back.”

Alexa, for reasons known only toherself, had put Liz’s dragons on thedressing table, spookily facing the mirror. Zanna put the unicorn down between themand sank onto the bed. Liz was drenched

in sweat and had thrown aside the duvet, spilling most of Gretel’s potions to the floor in the process. She had undone the last two buttons of her pyjamas so that her hands could be in contact with her bare

womb. From her shaking mouth was

coming one word, ‘No’.

“Nothing,” said Arthur, offering the

phone back.

“Keep trying,” Zanna said, damping Liz’s forehead. “Gwillan’s gone. He’s tricked us. I think he’s stolen Groyne’s powers, maybe some of the others.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“To Scuffenbury – I don’t know!” Her temples reddened under pressure from her fingers. “We’ve got to warn them. If the dark fire—”

Arthur held up the phone. “No network.

Dead.”

Zanna groaned and hammered her thigh

in frustration.

“You must go,” he said. “Use your

power, like before.”

“I can’t. I can’t leave Liz.”

Arthur leaned over and gripped her

arm. “If you don’t warn David, it may not

be just Liz who’s in trouble.”

“But I
 
can’t
 
leave her.”

“You can,” he said. “At the reading of Henry Bacon’s will, his sister gave you a card.”

Agatha. Of course. Zanna foraged inher pocket. She pulled out the card and ranher thumb across it. Agatha’s picture cameup right away. “Got it, but I don’t knowhow to use it.”

“The image may be all that’s required,”

said Arthur.

And it was. The door bell rang.

Zanna pounded downstairs, alreadypushing back her sleeve to expose themark of Oomara on her arm. She yankedthe door open.

“You called?”

On the step was the figure of Agatha

Bacon.

Zanna threw her arms around her. “Oh,you don’t know how pleased I am to seeyou!”

Agatha pushed her gently back. “Inviteme in, girl. The magicks can’t workwithout your wish.”

“I wish,” said Zanna.

A smile of satisfaction spread across Agatha Bacon’s face. She stepped overthe threshold into the hall. The two sibylsexchanged places.

“Can’t explain now,” Zanna continued. “In a kind of rush. Liz needs your help. She’s in the bedroom. Arthur’s with her.”

She fed her fingers into the scars.

Agatha  nodded.   “Where   is   yourdaughter?”

“I’m not sure. Playing with the cat, Ithink.”

“Then waste no more time here. Be

gone, girl, be gone.” The old woman waved goodbye and the door closed quickly in Zanna’s face.

For a moment, Agatha stared at her surroundings. Then, with a smile, she raised her chin and set off briskly towards the kitchen. She stood by the window, looking out.

“How delightful,” she said to herself. The cat and the girl were both distracted by the squirrel she’d magicked. The only opposition would be the blind fool upstairs.

She locked the kitchen door and took

her time going up, wondering briefly why the idiot dragons were all  engaged in domestic cleaning duties. At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped to break apart a missed cobweb, putting its tiny creator out of its misery by scooping it onto her snaking tongue.

As she entered the bedroom and looked

down at Elizabeth, she saw no reason to maintain her disguise. It had been a simple matter to intercept messages to Agatha Bacon and appear in another sibyl’s image, but now she yearned for her ‘natural’ look. Arthur Merriman was

aware of the deception anyway, tipped off by a cry from her old familiar, Gretel.

“You,” he said, fumbling for any kind

of weapon. He tried for the bedside lamp but in his panic only knocked it onto the floor. One click from the sibyl’s fingers threw him backwards into his chair.

“Sit there, don’t move, and I will let you comfort her when I’m done.”

“What do you want?” raged Arthur, gripping the chair until his knuckles drained of colour.

From a pouch at her waist, Gwilannadrew out her most treasured possession,the isoscele of the dragon, Gawain. “Whatdo I want?” she sneered, testing its point,noting its sharpness, revelling in itsancient power. She looked down at Liz’ssoft pink stomach. “What I always want, Arthur. I’m here to deliver your child… ”

On heroism and death

“DA-VIDDDD!”

Lucy’s call thinned out across thevalley, far too weak to attract hisattention. In the sky he was twisting,shadowing Gawaine, while the darklingscontinued to strafe the queen. Meanwhile, Gwillan, having flown from Lucy’s hand,was hovering a short distance away. Themovements of his head suggested he wasfollowing the fight with keen interest, as ifhe was assessing the strength of both sidesbefore committing himself to the skirmish.

Lucy plunged a hand into her pocket. Her phone was there – but the signalwasn’t. She threw it down in dismay. Herother pocket was suddenly a bundle of

movement as Gwendolen fought to release its popper and get a look at what was going on.

Gwendolen!

Lucy hoicked her out. “I need you to bebrave,” she whispered to the dragon,anxious that Gwillan should not hear.

Gwendolen’s   gaze   swept   warilyupwards. A roaring burst of flame suckedthe cold out of the air.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Lucy went on,

“but I need to tell David that Gwillan’s

here.”

Gwendolen’s eye ridges came together.

“Please,”   said   Lucy,   her   voicecracking.

There was a squeal in the distance. Gawaine again. Hurt.

Gwendolen turned a circle or two (herfavourite activity when she was thinking). She came back with a long, slightlygabbled    hurr.
 
David   is   fighting. Distracting him might be fatal. Theremight be a better way to warn him
 
.

“What? Tell me.”

Gwendolen fluttered down to the

phone. She hurred at length again.
 
The Pennykettle dragons could communicate over distance through a listener
, she said.

“Yes, yes,” said Lucy, urging her to hurry.

Gwendolen pointed at the discarded phone.
 
If she used it to boost her auma,
 
she said,
 
she could bypass the listener and send a message directly to…

“… Gadzooks,” gasped Lucy, cottoning