She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Heaviness weighed down her heart. The room seemed darker, colder. Even the air seemed thicker, and she noticed the odor of unwashed clothes for the first time.
Shaking her head, she cast away the annoying feelings and leaned closer to Enoch’s Ghost. Inside, red mist swirled, veiling anything that might lie deeper. She whispered, “Enoch? Are you there?”
The cloud suddenly twisted, as if blown by her breath. She drew so close, her lips nearly touched the glass. “Enoch? Can you hear me?”
This time, the mist coiled into a tight, spinning cylinder, clearing the inside, and as even that disappeared, the face of an elderly man began to materialize, taking up half of the crystal.
Angel gasped. “Enoch?”
The old man smiled. “Is this Angel of the Village of Peace?”
Her throat tightening, she could barely squeak out, “Yes. It is Angel.”
His brow furrowed, and his smile diminished, yet his voice remained gentle. “Why are you in Abraham’s hut? Is he nearby?”
“No, good prophet. That is why I am here. He is on a journey home from the Valley of Shadows, but he has no dragon to ride. I want to search for him, but I need guidance.”
He nodded. “Your motivation is noble, yet I wonder at the wisdom of entering his home uninvited.”
She cleared her throat, strengthening her voice. “Father Abraham has given us no law about his home. The requirement of an invitation is merely custom. Are not customs to be swept aside in a dire situation?”
“Not necessarily.” His image magnified, drawing his eyes closer to the surface. Like a pair of knives, they seemed to pierce her own eyes and cut into her soul. As he shrank again to his original size, his lips stayed flat. “It is a dire situation, but that is not the only reason you have come.”
Angel clenched her hands together and twisted her fingers. “You are wise, good prophet. Must I tell you all my reasons?”
Lowering his gaze, Enoch shook his head. “Search the kingdom of Flint, especially along the river’s path. Abraham’s danger is great, as is the danger to all his company.”
She bowed her head, almost touching the table. “Thank you, dear prophet! Thank you!”
As she turned, Enoch called out, “Angel!”
She spun back. “Yes?”
His lips parted, but, after a moment of silence, they closed.
Angel set her hand on the side of the glass. “Whatever you have to say, good prophet, I am ready to hear.”
“Are you, really?” With a heavy sigh, he added, “What you must do, do quickly.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Because of the danger?”
His face faded away along with his voice. “Because of the cost.”
Enoch’s Ghost darkened. Even its red glow faded away. Only a street lantern spilling light through the partially open door gave the room any illumination. Taking careful steps, she found her way back outside and closed the door.
Again assuming the prayer posture, she hurried past the village’s central circle, but, seeing no one around, she lowered her hands and ran. When she neared the end of the street, someone cried out. “Angel!”
She halted and spun toward the voice. “Emerald? Why are you still awake?”
Emerald emerged from the shadows, her eyes bleary. “I have been waiting for you. Did you speak to Cliffside?”
Angel peered into the dragon launching field. Albatross was still waiting. “I told him that you did not wish to be betrothed to him, but I fear that I did little to discourage his affections.”
Emerald’s brow lifted. “Was he hurt?”
“If you care so much for his feelings, why do you turn him away?”
Emerald’s companion floated near her eyes. Blue light flashed as it rocked back and forth in the air.
Angel grinned. “Your companion is laughing, isn’t she?”
Nodding, Emerald gently poked her companion with her finger. “I am getting a friendly, ‘I told you so.’”
“Yes, they are quite good at that. When mine wants to—”
“Where is your companion?” Emerald searched both sides of Angel’s head. “In your hair?”
Angel gulped. She touched her pocket but didn’t look down. “I … uh … I have to hurry. Enoch himself told me to act quickly.”
She leaped into a run, not daring to look back as she dashed into the launching field. When Albatross saw her, he whistled and lowered his head to the ground.
“I know. I know.” Angel clambered up his neck and plopped down in her seat. “I’m late, but I had to talk to some people.”
As he stretched out his wings, Albatross whistled again.
“To my village.” Angel buckled her belt. “Don’t worry about a rough ride. Just get me there as fast as you can.”
As they ascended, the bitter wind flapped her clothes. She shivered but didn’t bother to ask Albatross for heat. The flight would be short enough to keep from freezing. Still, it wouldn’t be short enough to keep from considering the hundreds of thoughts that pushed into her brain. If her companion were still talking, she knew what it would say. Remember the prophecy? “Beware the dragon from below who sings a siren song and calls an Eve from Eden’s twin to twist the right to wrong.”
She blinked away welling tears. Could her Dragon be the dragon from below? That seemed impossible. He was good and kind, a perfect Adam and the best father in all of Second Eden. He …
A cold lump swelled in her throat as the words rolled through her mind. Second Eden … Eden’s twin. A dragon from below.
She shook her head hard. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Father Abraham had taught her so many times to hold fast to what she knew, to cast aside dark doubts that contradicted what she had learned in the light. Dragon couldn’t possibly be evil. A hundred years of watching his gallantry had proven that over and over. No one could possibly have an evil heart and hide it for so long, especially from his Eve.
Letting a smile break through, she took in a deep breath from the cold, biting air. Settling the truth in her mind felt good. She would never doubt her Adam again.
Chapter 8
A Hole into Hades
Billy looked over at his father in the pilot’s seat. Although the revelation that Palin was his grandfather had sent shivers up and down his spine, his father hardly reacted at all. He just looked straight ahead, nodding slightly without a word.
The propeller’s buzz droned on, the only sound in the cabin. Outside, the tops of clouds whipped by, misty protrusions from the thick bank below. A few clipped the wings and gave them a bump. Nothing serious. Just enough to remind them that their final descent could be a little rough.
Billy looked back at the passengers. Had they heard about Palin? Although Sir Patrick and Shiloh continued their naps, Sir Barlow fixed his gaze on him. With crimson cheeks and bulging eyes, he seemed ready to blurt out a typical Barlowism, but he, too, stayed silent.
Closing Professor Hamilton’s journal with a slap, Billy jerked up the headset and slid it back over his ears. “Do we have any death march music?”
“Death march?” His father dipped his eyebrows. “Just because Palin’s your grandfather?”
“Well, yeah.” Billy glared through the window. How could he explain what he felt? When he first learned he had dragon blood, it took him a long time to figure out it wasn’t so bad, that the dragons were the good guys and the slayers were the bad guys. Now, not long after losing his dragon essence, he discovers that he has slayer blood, and there was probably no way to get rid of that.
“I know how you feel,” his father said. Now staring straight at him, he showed Billy his hand. “What do you see?”
Billy scanned the back of his hand from the tips of his fingers to his wrist, but noticed nothing unusual, just skin covered with reddish brown hair. Yet, a line of lighter skin wrapped one finger near the lowest knuckle, a sign that something had once shielded it from the sun.
“I’m w
earing your ring.” Billy touched the pearly white gem mounted in a gold band on his own finger. Since his hands had always been narrower than his father’s, the ring slid up and down easily. “Is that it?”
“My father never gave me a rubellite, so I had to find one for myself.” Pulling his hand back, he looked forward again and pushed the yoke slightly. The airplane dipped into a gentle descent and broke into the blanket of clouds. A wall of white vapor slammed into the windshield, blinding them, and the plane began to shake. “Do you remember who my father was?” he asked, raising his voice slightly to compete with the vibrating airplane.
Billy nodded. He spoke the name Goliath in his mind, but decided to stay quiet for a while. With his father now busy flying only by the instruments, it was better to just sit and think. Although he wasn’t sure what Goliath looked like, an image appeared in his mind, the sketch Palin had used to help him learn to draw a dragon. He knew, of course, that Goliath was the first rebel dragon, the one who started the war between their race and humans and whetted the slayers’ appetite for killing. Because of Goliath, King Arthur listened to shrill cries of fear and allowed the slayers to hunt down and slaughter the supposed evil dragons, but they wouldn’t stop there. And that’s why Merlin had to step in and transform eleven faithful dragons into humans, thus beginning the race of anthrozils.
As thoughts of so many deaths coming at the hands of Devin and Palin flowed through his mind—Bonnie’s father, Ashley’s parents, and Professor Hamilton—Billy gripped the journal on his lap. His fingers tightened around the edge as a new image formed in his mind, the lifeless gray face of his beloved teacher. He lay unconscious after being thrown off Devin, who, while in dragon form, had tried to murder everyone in his path. The professor, riding on the dragon’s back, had pulled the slayer away, a heroic act that eventually cost him his life.
“I see that you understand my point,” his father said.
Billy turned toward him. They had broken through the clouds and were now flying over a landscape of high mountains and plunging valleys. With smooth sailing ahead and a quieter cabin, they could speak without interruption. “If you mean Goliath’s rebellion caused a whole lot of trouble, then, yeah, I understand.”
“Not exactly.” Shaking his head slowly, he pushed Merlin into a steeper descent. “I have lived for centuries with the knowledge that my own father was a murderer, a lying rebel who caused horrendous pain and suffering for untold thousands. If not for him, there would have been no war, no Devin or Palin and their bloodlust, and dragons might still be living freely, even today, in peaceful harmony with mankind. My father was the demonic dragon who ruined everything, and that thought tortured me for centuries.”
“But you’re nothing like him. You’re …” Billy let his voice fade. He wasn’t sure how to put it into words.
“That’s exactly my point. The sins of a father are the father’s alone. What the sons do is their own choice. It took me a long time to learn this, but now I understand that I didn’t inherit guilt from my father, only the mess he left behind.”
Billy settled back in his seat. His father was right. If he could live with being the son of the dragon who caused all this grief, surely it wasn’t so bad being the grandson of a slayer.
“Ahem.”
Billy turned. With his brow arched high, Sir Barlow seemed anxious to speak. “Yes, Sir Barlow?”
“May I interject something into your conversation?”
“Absolutely.” And Billy meant it. What man living today could possibly know more about both Goliath and Palin than the captain of King Arthur’s guard?
Sir Barlow leaned in between the two seats and set a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Your father is correct. Goliath was the cruelest beast I have ever encountered, but I will avoid dwelling on that; my battle with him is little more than a high-flying tale. Yet Palin was quite different. He was the most dedicated squire you can imagine. His lust for killing dragons was troubling, to be sure, but he was zealous for what he believed to be right. He was a gentleman with ladies and children and a superior swordsman. His dedication to Sir Devin, though misguided, exemplified loyalty more perfectly than any storybook legend. May I suggest that your grief should be limited to the loss of his soul, that you should not allow the punishment he is likely suffering now to punish you as well? Let his life be a lesson, not a cruel whip for your own back.”
As the knight’s thick fingers slid away, Billy grabbed his wrist. “That was beautiful, Sir Barlow. Thank you.”
Barlow’s eyes gleamed. “Well, I had a fair amount of time to put the words together. I hope they helped.”
“Everyone buckle up,” Billy’s father said as he surveyed the ground. “Apparently, the GPS coordinates weren’t as precise as I had hoped, but we should be close. Look for a mountain with a grassy dome and a big hole at the top.”
“A big hole?” Billy asked.
“Walter told me the story over the phone. After the giants climbed up out of Hades, the ground collapsed and made a deep crater all the way down to something called the mobility room. But I didn’t understand it all. Walter gave me the details so fast I couldn’t keep up.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. Talking on the phone with him is an adventure in itself.” As the plane skimmed over the mountaintops, Billy searched each one. Trees covered most of the lower hills, and jutting rocks topped several of the taller mountains. So far, only one grass dome, but it had a two-story brick house and no crater.
A female voice piped up. “Could that be it?”
Billy lurched around in his seat. Shiloh and Sir Patrick were both looking out the window. “I didn’t know you were awake,” Billy said.
Still clutching her father’s hand, she smiled. “Ever since that first big bump.” She pressed her finger on the window. “See that mountain just past the one with the rock formation that looks sort of like a face? I think it has a grass top.”
Billy swung back around and looked out his own window. “Yeah. I got it marked. And that dot in the middle could be a hole.”
His father turned the yoke. “We’re on our way.”
After a few minutes, they arrived at the mountaintop and circled a couple of hundred feet over its cap of brown grass. A deep pit scarred the middle, taking up over half of the dome.
Billy whistled. “That crater’s going to make it tough to land, Dad. Not much room for an airstrip.”
“Remember when I landed on our street back in Castlewood? I had to dodge power lines, trash cans, and two dogs. I can handle this.” He pushed the plane into a steep dive. “Hang on.”
Billy clutched his armrest. His heart thumped. This risky landing would be another shot of adrenaline, a great rush, but exhausting all the same.
Like a stone flying toward their faces, the ground hurtled in their direction. Billy instinctively reached for his own yoke, but drew back. He had landed Merlin several times before, but not like this. Dad was in control.
The plane suddenly jerked upward. Billy’s back pressed against his seat. The landing gear bounced heavily, and their momentum pushed them forward, but with the plane’s body angling up, they couldn’t see the pit. His heart pounded faster. Sweat dampened his shirt. They had to be getting close. There just wasn’t that much room.
Finally, they slowed and turned sharply. As Billy’s window shifted to face the chasm, he looked straight down into its depths. They had missed a plunge by mere inches.
Grinning, he unbuckled his belt and tossed it to the side. “What were you so worried about, Dad? That was a piece of cake!”
“Me? Worried?” He shot a grin back at Billy. “Just keeping you on your toes.”
After they stopped, Billy hustled back, pushed down the rear passenger door on the plane’s right side, and extended the airstair. A bitter wind swept in, biting through his clothes. “Everyone bundle up!” He grabbed a pair of gloves from the nearest seat along with his sweatshirt, slid them on, then hustled down the stairs.
Breathing white p
uffs into the crisp air, he surveyed the land. With a huge hole in the center of the snow-speckled brown grass, the domed top looked more like a volcano cone than a typical peak in the Montana highlands. The scarred meadow stretched out a few hundred feet in diameter, bordered by trees all around, some evergreen and some void of leaves.
He leaned back against the fuselage, waiting while everyone else put on their cold-weather gear. A few birds flitted about, and the tops of trees swayed, but no other movement caught his eye.
Sir Patrick stepped off the plane next, followed by Shiloh, both wearing coats. “A rather desolate place, isn’t it?” Patrick asked.
Billy nodded. “Do you see Gabriel or Sapphira anywhere?”
“They should be quite easy to identify. A boy with wings and a girl with white hair are not exactly commonplace.”
“Especially wandering around out in the middle of nowhere.” Billy pushed his hands into his sweatshirt pouch and shivered. Even his gloves weren’t enough to ward off the frosty air. Walter had warned him about the mountains of Montana, but he had said they were as cold as Morgan’s heart. Now he would have to tell Walter that Morgan’s heart would put earmuffs on if she came out in this weather. He grinned as he imagined Walter’s response. That’s very heartwarming, Billy, very heartwarming.
Her hands deep in her pockets, Shiloh marched toward the pit. “I wonder if there’s a way to get down there?”
“It seemed empty when I looked into it,” Billy said, “but I guess it won’t hurt to get a closer look.”
Sir Barlow lumbered down the stairs, rocking the airplane before landing with a thump on the ground. He fastened his jacket, a downy-lined leather one with a coat of arms embroidered on the front. “It is as cold as …” He touched a finger to his chin. “Let’s see, what is an appropriate idiom?”
“Cold as Morgan’s heart?” Billy asked.
“I was thinking ‘as cold as a lonely night,’ but, yes, your idiom works quite well.”
“Speaking of Morgan …” Billy turned back to the plane. His father had just stepped out and was coming down the stairs. “Dad. Any cell service here? We’d better call Mom and ask her about Palin.”