He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and looked at the display. “No. Nothing.”
Sir Patrick withdrew his phone. “Use mine. It’s charged now, and I have international service via satellite.”
As Billy punched in the phone number, he watched Shiloh peeking over the edge of the hole. The phone trilled in his ear twice before his mother picked up.
“Hello?”
“Mom, it’s me. Listen. We made it to Montana, and we’re waiting for Sapphira and Gabriel to show up, but on the way I was reading some stuff in Prof’s journals, and it made Dad and me think.”
“Thinking is good.” A hint of laughter flavored her voice.
He grinned at his father. “Yeah. We’re men of action, but we got kind of bored and decided to think for a while. Anyway, when was the last time you heard from your father?”
“My father? Why do you bring him up?”
“Please just hang with me for a minute, and I’ll explain.”
After a few seconds of silence, she spoke with a hesitant tone. “Well, he visited us back when you were little, but I never heard from him after that, at least, not directly. We did get word that he had died.”
“Was there a will? Did he leave you anything? Is there a last known address?”
“Slow down, Billy. One question at a time.”
“Okay.” Keeping his eyes on Shiloh as she walked around the hole’s perimeter, he tried to formulate a good question. “If someone contacted you about his death, then there must be a way to trace him. Do you have any letters from him?”
“Billy, my father left my mother when I was little. I barely knew him at all. He never called, never wrote, didn’t leave a forwarding address, and I threw away the telegram that announced his death.”
“So one day he just showed up at our house out of the blue?”
“Exactly. Your father wasn’t home, but I let him in anyway. I didn’t think he meant us any harm, and I didn’t want to try to kick him out, at least not by myself.”
“Was he mean? Aggressive?”
“Not really aggressive, just kind of strange, sort of a wide-eyed fanaticism about him. He kept talking about dragons, cracking jokes about them that weren’t funny at all, and asking me if I had seen any lately. He even pulled out a drawing of one.”
“A drawing?” He raised his eyebrows at his father. “Sort of an example? To help you know what he was looking for?”
“I suppose, but you saw it and asked him to show you how to draw one. So while the two of you were in the kitchen, I called Walter’s dad. A few minutes later, when I saw Carl walking up, I sent you to your room, and Carl showed my father to the door.”
Billy stared into space, murmuring. “Palin was checking us out. He and Devin were already suspicious of Dad.”
“Palin? Devin?” Her voice grew so loud, Billy pulled the earpiece back. “What are you talking about?”
Sir Patrick reached out his hand. “May I?”
“Mom, I’ll let Sir Patrick explain.” Billy gave him the phone and strolled toward Shiloh. As he walked, he listened to Patrick’s voice fade behind him.
“Marilyn, it is essential that you tell me all you remember about your father’s situation in England. My people can research …”
When he arrived at the pit, Shiloh was leaning over the edge, too far in Billy’s estimation. The urge to take her hand was almost overwhelming, but he held back. She was experienced enough to know what she was doing.
Her coat, flat against her back as she bent forward, seemed so strange. After getting accustomed to seeing Bonnie with wings, either outstretched or hidden in a backpack, this mirror image of her with a different profile was hard to get used to.
The last time he had seen Bonnie, she had asked him if he wanted to know the color of the rubellite in her ring. Red would have signaled that she still had her wings, while white would have proven that she had given them up. He had decided that it didn’t matter, and he never had a chance to find out.
Now, several days after she and her mother left to “get to know each other again,” he wanted the answer. With all that was going on, they might need a girl with dragon wings, so maybe keeping them would have been the right choice. Still, with all the media hounds searching for her, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to get rid of them. Ever since she left, she hadn’t answered her phone or returned any messages. Obviously, she had intentionally dropped off the face of the Earth.
“What’s so interesting down there?” he asked.
Shiloh straightened, her hand stroking her chin as she walked around the perimeter. “Let me show you.”
As Billy followed, Shiloh pointed at the grass. “There are quite a few human prints here and there, but wait until you see this.” She halted and stepped inside an impression in the dried mud, a print twice the size of a normal foot. “They start at the very edge and lead to the forest, but I can’t see any way for someone to get into or out of the hole.”
Billy peered into the pit. “Tough to scale sheer walls.”
“A dragon probably has prints this big, but these are human.”
He reached for her hand. “C’mon. Let’s report to the others.”
When they arrived back at the plane, his father broke off a conversation with Sir Patrick and turned toward him. “Find anything?”
Billy set his hands two feet apart. “Only footprints this big.”
“The Nephilim,” Sir Patrick said. “Ashley mentioned them.”
Shiloh hugged herself and shivered. “If what she said is true, knowing they might be around somewhere gives me the creeps.”
“Billy,” Jared said, “Patrick made a call to England. One of his knights will investigate your grandfather and report to your mother. Larry will help by searching electronic databases and analyzing a recording that one of Ashley’s computers picked up when Palin was in her underground laboratory. Maybe Larry can match the voiceprint with something online to help us track down Palin’s former home. Then maybe clues we find there will lead us to the identity and whereabouts of this new slayer.”
“If he is new.” Billy couldn’t resist flashing a grin. “After all the years you had to run from him, now we have the technology to turn the tables.”
“That’s true. And now it seems clear that he had tracked me to West Virginia much earlier than I had thought.”
“Yeah. I wonder why they gave up until recently.” Billy had his suspicions, but he didn’t want to voice them. Not yet. Maybe they looked elsewhere because he hadn’t acquired any dragon traits when Palin visited. Not only that, Dad was gone, so Palin couldn’t make a positive ID. He probably had seen Dad back when he and Devin fought in the throne room centuries ago, and since Mom knew better than to have photos of Dad sitting around the house, Palin had to go away without proof. Still, Devin did come back later, so his clues must have kept leading to Castlewood, West Virginia, and the Bannister name.
Sir Barlow stepped ahead of Billy and pointed at the tree line. “I see movement in the bushes near that stand of oaks.”
“I see it, too.” Billy ran that way, keeping his eye on the spot. A boy emerged from behind the trees, followed by a girl.
As the breeze whipped the girl’s white hair, she smiled and ran to meet him. “Billy!”
When they met, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. “I’m so glad to see you again!”
Billy touched her lightly on the back. This girl was much more affectionate than he had expected. “Again?” he asked.
She pulled away, her cheeks turning red. “Oh! That’s right. You couldn’t see me before.”
As the boy approached, a pair of wings spread out behind him. “She means inside the Great Key,” he said, extending his hand. “She and I were there and set up the covenant veil for the dragons.”
Billy shook the boy’s hand. “Billy Bannister.”
“Gabriel. My last name changed so many times, I’m not sure which one to say. But I watched you as
an invisible energy field for long enough, I feel like I know you.”
“An energy field?” Eyeing Gabriel’s wings, Billy let out a whistle. “I think I need to get up to speed on a lot of stuff.”
Sapphira took Billy’s hand, smiling up at him as if she were his little sister. He squinted at a red spot on her forehead. Was it blood?
“There won’t be much time for getting up to speed,” she said. “We have to open a portal to the Bridgelands. According to Yereq, we’re supposed to transport all the former dragons up there.”
“Yereq?” Billy asked.
“Yes, he’s—”
“Well, what do we have here?” Sir Patrick called as he approached. “A boy with wings and a girl with white hair?”
Gabriel ran to meet him. “Patrick!” While the two hugged, Billy’s father and Sir Barlow joined the group.
“Ah, yes!” Barlow said. “Reunions are always such a pleasant sight.”
Sapphira stepped around Billy and looked at the airplane. “Where’s Bonnie? Didn’t she come with you?”
He stuffed his gloved hands back into his sweatshirt pouch. “She and her mom went into hiding. We got a note about a slayer chasing them, so we might not be able to get in touch with them for months.”
“Oh.” Sapphira’s brow creased. “That’s terrible!”
Gabriel nodded toward the woods. “Well, we can’t replace Bonnie, but we do have a giant-size surprise for you.” He set a hand on Barlow’s sword hilt. “But don’t be too surprised when you see him. He’s a friend.”
Sapphira grinned and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Come on out!”
A man, nearly as tall as one of the smaller oaks, walked out from behind the tree line.
Sir Barlow gasped. “By all that is holy!”
“This is Yereq,” Sapphira said. “He’s going with us to the Bridgelands, the same place Walter and Ashley and her mother and sister went.”
Gabriel reached as high as he could and patted Yereq on his shoulder. “Yep. The bad guys have giants, so the good guys need one, too.”
“If such a man can handle a blade,” Barlow said, “then he will be a great asset indeed!”
Yereq drew a long sword from the scabbard on his back and held it out in front of him. “During frightful days of darkness, I have been practicing on demons who are both fast and clever. I’m looking forward to using it in the light.”
Billy surveyed all the travelers—himself, his dad, two knights, two girls, a boy with wings, and a giant. “So how do you propose to get all of us to this Bridgelands place?”
“With our solar-powered portal maker,” Gabriel said, nodding at Sapphira. “She just whips up a firestorm and off we go.”
Sapphira smiled demurely. “I’ve never transported this many people. I might have to take two or three at a time.”
“That’s a lot of back and forth,” Gabriel said. “Are you sure you have enough firepower?”
“I won’t know until I try.” She raised a finger and spun it in the air. A tiny flame encircled the tip, like an adhesive bandage made out of fire. “I feel pretty strong.”
“I have an idea,” Patrick said, signaling for everyone to gather around. When they had made a tight huddle, he spoke in a solemn tone. “My idea is a very dangerous one. If it works, we will have a great advantage in the other realm. If it doesn’t work, then we will be, as the idiom says … toast.”
Chapter 9
Ground Zero
Ashley’s voice pierced the darkness, stretching out in a lamenting call. “Abigail!”
Still plunging, Thigocia bent her neck, bringing her head toward her two passengers. Her scarlet eyebeams looked like high-powered lasers as they swept the black void. “She is not in sight,” she yelled. “But I see the ground. Hang on.”
Walter stretched his arms around Ashley and grasped the spine in front of her. Her fingers overlapped his. With his chest against her back, he could feel her muscles grow tense as Thigocia thrust out her injured wings.
Suddenly, her scales pushed into his backside. Like a ten-ton weight, momentum slammed down their bodies. Walter locked his elbows, trying not to crush Ashley, but the weight pressed so hard, his chin dug into her back. She screamed. Thigocia roared. With a slow twist of his neck, Walter turned his head until his cheek lay against Ashley’s sweatshirt. Seconds later, her scream died away, and the pressure eased.
Walter pulled his body back and helped Ashley straighten. As the rushing air calmed, her heavy breaths eased into a long sigh. “I think my heart is in my throat,” she said.
“I think I spit mine out.”
As Thigocia circled in a wobbly horizontal flight, her body lurching up and down in time with her faltering wings, her eyebeams scanned the land below.
Walter spotted a few dim lights behind a stand of trees. Could it be a campground? Or maybe a small neighborhood? Would there be enough light to help them search for Abigail?
A large yellow moon hovered in the sky near the horizon, but it looked different, bigger somehow, and its face didn’t match the familiar pattern of seas and craters.
He patted the scales next to his leg. “Do you see her body anywhere?”
The eyebeams jerked up and landed on Walter’s chest. Thigocia spoke, her voice low and laboring. “Not yet. … I will try to land … where Abigail must have fallen. I am … too injured to continue an aerial search. ”
Walter grimaced. Thigocia seemed angry about the “body” question. But there was no way Abigail could have survived that plunge. If she still had her dragon form, the fall wouldn’t have been a problem, but they were going a couple of hundred miles an hour.
Landing on the run, Thigocia beat her floundering wings against the ground until she came to a full stop.
Walter sat up straight and looked around. When they descended below the surrounding treetops and land contours, the moon slid out of sight, darkening the region. The field of grass Thigocia had used as a landing strip was just a vague mass of gray. About a stone’s throw from where she stood, the ground changed to a darker hue and seemed to be cut into rows.
“Looks like a garden,” Ashley said.
“Maybe.” Walter leaped off, bending his knees to absorb the impact, but they buckled. He rolled on the ground but sprang right back up.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He lifted each foot in turn. “But my legs feel like wet noodles. Better go down the scaly staircase.”
As Thigocia lowered her head, her eyebeams kept moving across the landscape. “It is a garden,” she said, “but I have never seen plants like these.”
Walter pushed his legs forward until he reached the edge of the furrowed ground. Stretching out over many acres, several plants lined the tops of the tilled ridges. He knelt and examined the closest one, a calf-high stalk with two large leaves pressed against each other, leaving an air pocket in between.
“What is it?” Ashley knelt beside him. Her trembling voice gave away her fear. “See anything?”
“It’s just some kind of cabbage.” He touched something white and rigid near the garden’s edge. “A bone?”
“Looks like it.” She pointed farther out into the garden. “More bones.”
Walter followed her gesture. Beyond the closest plants, in a circular section where nothing grew, the dirt had been disturbed, as if someone had recently buried something. Could Abigail’s body be over there? He jumped up and threaded between two rows, dodging the plants, until he reached the circle. He dropped to his knees again and felt the mixture of soil and small bones.
After a few seconds, Ashley caught up and leaned over his shoulder, touching his back. “It looks like something wallowed here.”
“The dirt’s loose and warm, too warm for how cold it is here.”
She waved her hand over the disturbed area. “It’s a circle, maybe eight feet across. That’s kind of big for a wallowing animal, except maybe a dragon.”
Walter looked up at her. “Are you thinking A
bigail landed here?”
“Where else?” She set her hands on her hips and turned in a slow circle. “But she couldn’t have just gotten up and walked away.”
Walter imagined Abigail crashing to the ground and her bones flying all over the garden. He cringed at the thought. It was just too morbid. It didn’t make sense, anyway. These bones had been scoured clean.
“Look at this.” He pointed at the center of the circular area. “There’s another plant, a little one. If she had landed here, she would have crushed it.”
Ashley walked to the plant and knelt next to it, careful not to step on the bones. She touched the top where the leaves met. “I guess you’re right. This plant is pretty much exactly in the middle.”
Thigocia called from the edge of the garden. “What have you found?”
Walter scooped up a handful of soil and jogged back to where the dragon sat. Holding his palm open, he lifted the soil close to her snout. “Smell anything familiar?”
As she took in a long sniff, her beams flashed red. “Roxil?”
A man’s voice broke through the darkness. “Who goes there?”
“Uh-oh.” Walter brushed his hand against his jeans. “I think the farmer’s coming. I hope he’s not afraid of dragons.”
A lantern bobbed toward them. As it drew closer, the shape of a man, tall and wide, appeared in its glow. “No dragons are allowed here,” he said, waving his hand back and forth. “The landing zone is on the other side of the village.” He jumped over Thigocia’s tail and looked at the garden. “Are my babies safe?”
“We didn’t land on the plants,” Walter said, “if that’s what you mean.”
“Good.” The farmer wiped his sleeve across his brow. With the lantern close to his face, his thin beard and mustache became clear. “Now please take this dragon to the other side of the village.”
Walter pointed toward the lights in the midst of the trees. “Is that the village?”
“It is.” The farmer looked that way. “My name is Cliffside. I will alert whomever you have come to visit. The emergency must be great for you to arrive at this hour.”