Walter sidled up close. “Let’s do it.”
Craning his neck, Billy listened for the fountains. Although the wind whistled past his ears, a sudden rush burst through. Water raged somewhere in the distance.
Billy threw off his cloak and charged ahead, Excalibur leading the way. With Walter in the darkness behind him, he concentrated on the path, resisting the urge to summon a brighter light. The closer they could get without alerting the Vacants, the better.
As he rounded the final switchback, a shout reached his ears, then another. Excalibur’s glow covered the mountaintop, revealing several scurrying shadows on its flat surface. Two shadows charged down the path, both with blades reflecting the glow, but before they could reach Billy, a blast of fire ripped across the sky and doused the pair with flames, fanned by beating wings that rushed by in the darkness above.
Billy and Walter hopped over the writhing, burning bodies and ran on. Another stream of orange splashed onto the very top of the mountain, energizing the Vacants’ campfire. With flames now illuminating the scene, Billy made a quick count. About five of the goons remained. Not a problem.
All five charged, swords bared and spears raised. Billy waded into them, slashing with all his might, shooting fire from his mouth, and blocking their blows with his shield. After dismembering one and setting another ablaze, he burst through to the other side and swung around. Walter battled two Vacants, swiveling back and forth to meet their swords with his, while a third approached from his rear.
As Billy set his feet to attack again, dizziness flooded his mind. Nausea boiled in his stomach. Was a candlestone around? No matter. He had to fight.
“Walter! Behind you!” Walter spun, but too late. The Vacant stabbed him in the side with a spear. As Walter slumped to his knees, Billy charged, again slashing with Excalibur, but this time only smoke spewed from his mouth.
After crashing into one of the Vacants and knocking him down the slope, Billy lopped the head off the one who stabbed Walter and kicked its body off the side of the mountain. In the distance, a shadow fled away, probably an escaping Vacant.
His shoulders now sagging, Billy faced the final opponent, a tall brute of a man. With a spear uplifted and ready to throw, the Vacant held something in his other hand, something that emitted a dim beam of light.
Billy gulped. His arms wilted, unable to lift his sword and shield. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even run. His legs refused to budge.
Just as the Vacant slung his spear, a voice bellowed from above.
“Son! Drop to your belly!”
Billy threw himself to the ground. The spear swished over his head. A thud sounded, then a ripping noise. Soon, only the rush of water and the whistling wind reached his ears. With strength returning to his muscles, he pushed up to his hands and knees and turned toward Walter. “You all right, buddy?”
Now on his stomach, Walter clawed the path, groaning. “Nope. Guess again.”
“I’m coming.” As Billy crawled toward him, a sudden wind beat his hair into a frenzy. A dragon landed on the volcano’s flat top, its wings outstretched.
“Son!” Clefspeare called. “Are you wounded?”
“I’m okay, but Walter’s pretty bad.”
Clefspeare raised his head and trumpeted. When his call died away, he shuffled his body toward Billy. “I signaled Hartanna. She carried the candlestone bearer to his doom, but she is now weak. I will take Walter to our healers, and she will carry you back to the village as soon as she is able.”
“I’ll check out the hole,” Billy said. “That’s what we came for.”
“It is dark. Be careful. We will return with Acacia in the daylight.” With a beat of his wings, Clefspeare rose into the air, passed over Billy, and picked up Walter in his claws. Rising and falling in the whipping wind, the great dragon disappeared in the darkness.
Billy climbed to his feet and, clutching Excalibur, staggered toward the portal hole on the mountain’s flat top. He summoned the brightest glow the sword would give and passed the light across the volcano’s throat. A pile of boulders plugged the hole. The Vacants must have torn down the remnants of the wall that once arched over this circular floor and rolled them in.
He leaned against the pile. There was way too much debris to dig through by himself, and Acacia would be needed to open the portal. No use wearing himself out before she arrived.
As he searched the dark skies, a sliver of Pegasus appeared from behind its eclipsing shadow. Light seeped out and spread across the starry canopy, turning it purple and magenta. The rush of water eased, a sure sign that the eclipse had reached its waning minutes.
He looked at the river’s source. Fountains still pushed water well above the surface, breaking off chunks of ice as the flow surged past the edges of a glacier. With light continuing to clarify every detail, he walked to one of the dead Vacants and used the flat of his blade to turn the creature’s head face up. Although his facial features somewhat resembled that of humans—two eyes, one nose, one mouth—their sizes and positions differed. The mouth sat lower, near the chin, much smaller than normal, more like a guppy’s mouth. Its eyes, still open, were also lower, one on each side of a central nose, if you could call it a nose. It looked more like a doorknob with breathing holes. And the eyeballs? As big as ping pong balls yet as dark as coal, they reflected the moon, seemingly without a defined iris or pupil.
As the glow from Pegasus continued to brighten, he moved the sword to the Vacant’s arm, the site of his fatal wound. Covered with a metal-reinforced sleeve, an elbow-length stub oozed dark blood. Was the blood black, or just dark red?
Billy looked away. Just two years ago this sight would have made him gag, but now it brought a sense of heaviness—so much fighting, so much bloodshed, so much evil in every realm. And now he was a warrior, called to battle on every front. Sure, he had become strong, and he had courage. And, yes, he could handle a sword with the best of them. But what good was all of that when his primary reason for wielding his sword was far away in another world? Would he ever see Bonnie again?
As he walked back to the volcano’s throat, he looked again at the massive moon, as bright as two Earth moons now that its time of darkness had slipped away. This place was so different—shadow people, Vacants, odd swamp folks, and a peaceful group of humans training for battle while a protective wall of fire slowly ebbed.
Yes, it was different … and dangerous, even to the point of death, especially now for Walter. Would he even survive his wound?
Billy picked up one of the stones plugging the hole and heaved it down the slope. At least he could move some of this stuff out of the way while he waited. It would take his mind off Bonnie and Walter.
After a minute or so of hauling rocks, he sat down on one of the larger ones. He was wrong. Images of his friends stayed locked in his mind. He looked up at the sky. Hartanna couldn’t show up soon enough.
After stopping at their hovel to put on their backpacks, Bonnie and Shiloh ran side by side through the main corridor, Bonnie carrying a flickering lantern. Because of the delay, they had to hurry to catch up with the others.
Bonnie stopped at the mouth of the escape tunnel to her right, a narrower passage that ascended at a sharp angle. “Lights out?”
“Probably a good idea,” Shiloh said. “Sapphira can always relight it with her patented, ‘Ignite.’”
Lifting the glass, Bonnie blew out the flame. Now in darkness, she whispered, “A little slower now.”
The two scurried up the incline, feeling the walls on each side as they climbed. Soon, shouts and a clamor of metal on rocks echoed through the passage.
“The girl’s on fire! What is she, a demon?”
Craning her neck to listen, Bonnie slowed her pace further. That was a male voice, strained and unfamiliar.
“Sapphira!” someone else called. “Get back! He’s got a gun!”
Bonnie grabbed Shiloh’s arm. “That was Gabriel!”
As they dashed ahead, a bright glow
came into view and guided their way. When they neared the source, they crept close to the wall, staying in the shadows. Sapphira stood at the center of the tunnel, completely ablaze in white flames that spread from one wall to the other. Behind her, Gabriel shielded the former dragons with his wings.
Three men stood on Sapphira’s far side, one with a rifle poised at his shoulder. A pile of rubble blocked the way beyond them, dust swirling from an apparent collapse. The rushing air proved that a vent somewhere still allowed passage to the outside.
“Vlad,” the tallest man shouted. “Shoot her! Just shoot her!”
“I can’t!” Vlad’s rifle trembled. “She’s just a girl, Nolan! I can’t shoot a girl.”
Her white hair streaming in the flames, Sapphira formed a fireball in her hands. “Do you want to see me throw like a girl?”
A short, bearded man climbed up the pile of rubble. “She’s a demon, I tell you. I’m outta here.” He disappeared through a hole in the rocks.
Sapphira threw the ball against the pile. White-hot flames splashed all around. “That was a warning,” she said as she fashioned a new ball. “The next one will roast your flesh.”
Nolan snatched the rifle. “If you won’t do it, I will!”
Gabriel burst through the wall of flames and leaped for the gunman. The moment he reached for the barrel, the rifle went off with a loud pop.
Sapphira’s body snapped back and dropped to the ground. Her flames dwindled as the gunshot’s echo reverberated in the tunnel.
“Sapphira!” Bonnie scrambled toward her.
Nolan kicked Gabriel in the groin, then smacked the side of his head with the barrel, sending him crashing against the wall. Gabriel slumped and slid to the floor, out cold, or worse.
Now with only lantern flames lighting the tunnel, Nolan turned the rifle toward Bonnie, Shiloh, and the others as they huddled around Sapphira. “Vlad, find the one they call Bonnie and get her out of here.”
Bonnie angled her face toward the shadows. She had to protect her secret and get to Second Eden. If she couldn’t hide or escape from these intruders, all would be lost.
“I’m Bonnie,” Rebekah said, rising to her full height. “Take me, and leave the others alone.”
Nolan jerked a photo from his shirt pocket. Holding it close to his eyes, he glanced between it and Rebekah. “Liar!” He handed the photo to Vlad. “Use this to find her. I’ll cover you.”
Bonnie kept her head low, listening to Sapphira’s rapid breaths. Blood spilled from a shoulder wound, and her eyelids fluttered. “I’m okay,” Sapphira whispered. “Let him get close, and I’ll—”
“I’m Bonnie.” Shiloh stood and stepped into the lanterns’ glow, faking an American accent. “Now put down that gun, and I’ll go without a fight.”
Vlad set the photo close to Shiloh’s face. “She’s the one, all right.”
“Get her in the chopper and tie her up,” Nolan said, waving the rifle toward the exit hole.
Vlad pulled a dagger from his belt and pressed the tip against Shiloh’s chin. “Get moving.”
As Shiloh climbed the rubble, Nolan lowered the barrel. “Now that we have what we came for, the rest of you stay here for ten minutes. Then you’re free to go.”
After looking back at Gabriel, Shiloh disappeared through the hole, followed seconds later by Vlad.
“Where are you taking her?” Rebekah demanded.
Nolan smirked. “To someone who pays very well, but I’m sure he would be rather angry with me if I revealed his identity or his whereabouts.” He backed toward the rubble, a hint of unsteadiness in his step. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Sapphira reached for Bonnie’s hand. “Help me up,” she whispered. “I hear pain in his voice. It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?” Still angling her face away from the gunman, Bonnie locked wrists with Sapphira and hoisted her to her feet. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll see.” Sapphira faced Nolan as he climbed the pile, the rifle still pointed her way. “Feeling bad, Nolan?” she asked.
He paused at the edge of the hole and squinted at her. His head lolled like that of a drunken man. “I … I feel fine.”
Sapphira reached to her shoulder, smeared blood onto her palm, and showed it to Nolan. “He who spills the blood of an Oracle of Fire will surely die.”
Heaving shallow, choking breaths, Nolan clutched his shirt as he gasped his words. “You are a demon … or some … some kind of witch.”
Sapphira’s hand ignited from the heel to the tips of her fingers. The blood sizzled and burned away. “Tell us where your partner is taking Bonnie.”
With sweat streaming down his three-day beard, Nolan gagged, barely able to speak. “Will you … let me … live?”
“Tell us!” Sapphira shouted. “You are in God’s hands now.”
Nolan stared at his hands with wide eyes. The fingers touching his rifle smoldered, as if on fire. Then, sparks erupted from the tips, like holiday sparklers—white and orange. He threw down the gun and shook his hand, but the flames ate away his fingers, faster and faster.
The fingers on his other hand ignited, then his feet and lower legs. He collapsed, rolled down the pile of rubble, and writhed on the ground, every extremity ablaze, including his scalp. His arms now just flailing nubs, he screamed. “Curse you! Curse you all, dragons and demons alike!”
Bonnie turned her head. It was awful, just too awful. Flickers of light from his engulfed body painted the wall, and his fading screams and the odor of burning flesh assaulted her senses. Soon, all was quiet.
Turning back, Bonnie looked for him but found only a heap of bones, charred and smoldering.
Rebekah picked up the rifle and pointed it at the escape hole. “I’ll need three to come with me. The rest of you stay here to help our wounded. Alithia, check on Gabriel.”
One of the former dragons, a short, stocky lady, ran to Gabriel’s side and pressed her fingers against his throat. “He’s alive.”
After Rebekah climbed through the hole, Dallas and two others followed. Then, when all three had disappeared, Rebekah poked her head back through. “Hide the bones. I’ll send someone back with a report as soon as I can.”
Bonnie stooped beside Gabriel and touched his caretaker’s arm. “Does he need a doctor?”
“I am a doctor … Kaylee Saunders, M.D.” She pulled Gabriel’s eyelids up and peered in. “He’s unconscious. Let’s get some water.”
Rotating her wounded shoulder, Sapphira looked at Bonnie. “Can you lead them to the spring?”
“Of course.” Bonnie peeked at Sapphira’s back but saw no blood, no obvious exit wound. “And you’ll need to soak, too. Maybe Dr. Saunders can get that bullet out.”
“I’d like to wait for word on Shiloh,” Sapphira said, “and the Foleys and Yereq.”
Bonnie picked up a lantern and held it close to Sapphira’s shoulder. Blood dampened a splotch the size of two hands. “No way. We have to clean that wound and stop the bleeding. Besides, those guys might come back for their partner.”
“So we have to make sure they can’t.” Wincing, Sapphira glared at the hole in the rubble. “I’m still well enough to stop them.”
Dr. Saunders looked up at one of the other former dragons. “Dorian, hide the bones and stand guard. If someone comes through besides one of our own, come and warn us.”
“How will I find you?” Dorian asked. “I know not the path to the spring.”
Bonnie pointed into the darkness. “Go to the end of this tunnel. Turn left, then right again when you hear the sound of water.”
“Very well.” Dorian bowed her head. “If they pursue me, I will lead them away from your refuge and then return and warn you.”
While the other former dragons carried Gabriel, Sapphira and Bonnie led the way, Sapphira with a weak ball of fire in her hand and Bonnie with a lantern in hers. Whenever they jostled him, Gabriel mumbled a few indecipherable words.
Bonnie kept a close eye on
Sapphira. At times, her gait wobbled as she negotiated the descent, but she always managed to straighten again. With her white eyebrows bent low and her red lips pursed, she seemed to be battling intense pain. That bullet had likely damaged more tissue than she had let on.
When they reached the passage to the spring, the sound of falling water and a rush of wet air filled the tunnel. After traversing a short path, they entered an enormous chamber. Their lights flashed into the upper reaches, revealing a cathedral-like ceiling.
Steamy springs cascaded from three holes near the top of a flowstone wall, dropping down a stair-step array of flat rocks before joining into one stream. At each level, water collected in pools behind and around the rocks, some neck-deep and some barely deep enough to scoop up a handful. Overhead, stalactites dripped cool limestone water, making the chamber feel like a storm had just passed as the sodden branches of imaginary trees trickled their excess on passersby.
Bonnie set her lantern by one of the deeper pools, her favorite place to sit and soak. The rocks within the stream formed a bench, perfect for relaxing. When she sat in this pool, the surface reached up to her neck, and a waterfall poured a hot shower just beyond her feet, sending a warm current her way.
The former dragons laid Gabriel gently on the stone floor. Tamara sat next to him and propped his head on her thigh. “His breathing is good,” she said. “He’s still mumbling, but his eyes are closed.”
“Then Sapphira is our priority.” Dr. Saunders eyed her shoulder. “If I cut the bullet out, am I subject to the Oracle’s curse? You will certainly bleed more.”
“No worries,” Sapphira said. “Paili once removed a splinter from my foot. I bled, but she was fine. Apparently, if the blood-letting is for healing rather than for harm, you’re safe.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Dr. Saunders reached for Sapphira’s shirt. “Let’s get this off and have a look.”
Sapphira glanced at Gabriel. “Okay, but—”
The doctor followed her line of sight. “Don’t worry. He’s unconscious. I think he’ll see only stars for quite a while.”