Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

Rebecca broke free of his grip and ran to Joan’s side. She smiled ever so slightly as she joined the circle.

“No!” Jackson screamed. “You can’t have her! You won’t get me!”

“Carl Jackson!” Rebecca called. “If you ever loved me, take my hand!”

Jackson shook his head, then looked to his wife as if he only now saw her. “You’re still—I thought—” He walked to her, his steps labored as if he was still fighting the wind.

“Where?” he asked, as if suddenly woken from a deep sleep. “What happened to—”

The last vestiges of the wind were gone. They were back in the clearing in the woods.

“Interesting,” a deep voice remarked. Mills had no idea where it came from.

Someone screamed. Maybe it was Constance Smith.

The forest was gone again. Everything was dark and cold. And the others’ hands were gone.

Mills was alone.

K
nife or no knife, Todd’s hands were sweating.

He remembered this feeling. He used to get this way before he got into fights in junior high. He was the new kid then. His parents had moved into town right at the beginning of seventh grade. He was the outsider at school, and he had to get in. He was short, too, when he was thirteen. But he was fast.

Most of the time, he won.

All that stuff he couldn’t let out at his father came right out when he was fighting in the playground. He wasn’t much on technique. He just started swinging until the other kid was on the ground. One or two of the other kids called him nuts. That helped him, too.

Most of the time, he won.

That is, until he met Bruce the Mouse. Bruce was huge, especially by seventh-grade standards. The Mouse nickname was somebody’s idea of a joke, a joke that stuck.

It had started with a pushing match in gym class, in one of those games of dodgeball they used to have on rainy days. Todd had tripped over the Mouse’s big feet. A few words had been exchanged, and a few more words after that. Todd called the big kid a stupid ox.

Mouse had replied, “Get out of my face, you little faggot.” Fighting words. The gym teacher, Mr. Pinelli, broke it up for a minute. But only for a minute. Nobody called Todd a little faggot and got away with it.

And then Mouse laughed at him. That was it. Todd could take anything but somebody laughing at him. A meeting was arranged in the locker room: the far side of the baseball diamond, out of sight of the school building, ten minutes after the end of classes.

The Mouse was waiting for him, and a couple of the Mouse’s friends, two guys named George and Tony.

Todd thought he’d better get this over with fast. He closed in on the other guy as soon as he got there.

Hitting the Mouse was like banging your fists into a brick wall. The larger kid didn’t even seem to move. Bruce the Mouse swatted him casually. Todd found himself on the ground.

Todd got back up. He wasn’t moving fast enough, wasn’t hitting hard enough. He kept punching, punching, punching. Bruce the Mouse took a half-step backward. A left hand swung in on Todd from nowhere.

Todd was down again. The ground seemed a lot closer this time than it had before.

He wanted to groan when he pushed himself up this time, but he kept silent. Better not to let them know what he was feeling, or if he felt anything at all. Mouse wasn’t laughing anymore. But his friends were.

The Mouse’s fist knocked squarely into Todd’s jaw. Hey, Todd wasn’t even ready yet. His legs twisted under him as he went down this time. He saw tiny points of light when he opened his eyes.

Somehow he was back on his feet. His pants were torn, his nose was bleeding, and he swayed when he stood. He made a noise every time he swung his fist. He couldn’t help it from coming out anymore. He’d land one good punch on this guy yet.

“Hey!” the Mouse yelled, opening his fists to flat palms. “You win, okay?”

The Mouse laughed then, and Todd found himself laughing with him. God, but he hurt! He didn’t have an ounce of strength left in him.

That was the start of his gang. George and Tony and Bruce the Mouse. They all hung out together and shared Todd’s brains. He was the idea man, they were the muscle. Not that anyone would ever think of getting in their way once they were upper grads in high school. They didn’t just win most of the time.

They won all the time.

Todd had grown after that, close to six feet by his senior year. Todd’s gym teacher had suggested he try out for the football team. But Todd had better things to do.

He learned how to use the system. Todd the winner. High school was no different from any other place. Todd the boss. If you knew how to play it, you could have your very own kingdom. Todd, the guy who could figure out any angle, anywhere. He learned how to use his mouth rather than his hands. A simple threat was enough to get just what he wanted. He had it worked so he would never have to fight again. Or so he thought. But now he—or he and the Newton Volunteers—had to rescue Mary Lou.

He looked up at the trees that seemed to close over him. There were new rules here, complete with talking ravens and wolves, and magicians who only told you half the truth—if there was any truth at all.

Todd wished he had George and Tony and Bruce the Mouse with him now. He’d gotten too used to depending on others to slide through his difficulties.

But he didn’t have anybody else anymore. He had to be ready for his own fights. He wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Your Mary Lou would be this way,” said Wilbert as he pointed at a spot in the woods where there didn’t seem to be a path.

“The wolves have gone this way, too,” Stanley added. “See their tracks down there?”

Todd looked down at the place Stanley pointed to in the dirt. The smudge there could have been a pawprint, if it wasn’t a footprint or a mark made by a branch.

“What tracks?” Bobby asked over Todd’s shoulder. Todd was glad he wasn’t the only one having trouble here.

“You’ll figure that out sooner or later,” Stanley replied. “That is, if you manage to live long enough. Hey?”

“Stanley’s such a cheerful sort,” Maggie said with a snort. “But he’s right. Most of the Volunteers died before they could learn a thing.”

“Nunn killed them,” Thomas announced abruptly. “Or they died trying to escape. Nunn was responsible, one way or t’other.”

The others increased their pace without a word. So they weren’t simply helping Todd and Bobby out of the goodness of their hearts. They had a score to settle with this wizard.

“Douglas Nutman,” Maggie said, talking more to herself than anyone around her. “Lieutenant Nutman. He was our commanding officer. Nunn tortured him to death.”

“In front of the rest of us, hey?” Stanley added. He spat. “Wizard wanted us to know how serious he was.”

“Now we have to show him how serious we can be our own selves,” Thomas summed it up for them all.

“Truth be known,” Wilbert said easily, “we’ve avoided him till now.

Didn’t think we stood a chance against him.”

“Dragon eyes and all, y’know.” Stanley grunted as if he still didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo. “But things have changed.”

“They have?” Bobby asked.

“Yep,” the bearded man replied. He scratched at his neck for a moment before he continued. “We got a chance of winning this time around.” Wilbert offered Bobby and Todd his biggest smile. “After all, you’re here.”

This was the second time Todd had heard this sort of thing. He was already getting tired of it. It sounded like he and the other neighbors from Chestnut Circle were expected to save everybody. Why should he be responsible for a bunch of losers and freaks in someplace nobody had ever heard of?

He’d already managed to leave his father behind. If only he could figure out some way to get rid of the rest of these guys— And do what? Todd reminded himself that meeting these guys was probably what was keeping him alive. And how could he possibly hope to rescue Mary Lou?

The Volunteers were moving more quickly now, gliding through the dense growth as if it were a city sidewalk. Only Todd and Bobby made noise as they crunched through leaves and stumbled over branches that the others missed without effort.

Somehow Thomas managed to find a path where Todd could have sworn a second before that none existed. And Thomas did it all without slowing down.

Perhaps there had been a road here before the trees and vines had taken over. Todd thought about how all the neighborhood houses had just been plunked down in the middle of this forest, and, how, within hours, they were half covered with those dark vines that draped from the trees. By now, the houses were probably completely lost beneath the undergrowth. Maybe other houses and bits of streets were lost here, too. This island might not just be full of people from other places, but little parts of all the places as well.

They broke into another clearing. Birds sang back and forth in the late afternoon sun.

“Even if we can’t stand up to Nunn and his tricks,” Wilbert began, as if the sunshine was a signal to restart the conversation, “one of you newcomers can.”

“Wilbert is right,” Thomas said. “‘Twould seem you are your own best defense. One of you, at least, controls a great deal of power. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Simple as that.”

“In other words,” Maggie explained gently, “you can be our shield.

Nunn doesn’t dare kill you.”

Todd thought of the silent lightning storm but didn’t say anything aloud.

“I know how difficult it can be, being someplace so far away from home.”

Todd looked up, surprised that Maggie was still talking to him.

“It’s happened to me a couple of times, you know,” she continued. “I came from quite a good home, in Boston. A complete public schooling.” She brushed at her pant leg. “You wouldn’t think that, to see me now. My life changed twice. First when I left home—” She hesitated before adding, “And then this—”

She paused and smiled self-consciously, as if she realized she was talking more to herself than to Todd.

“We’re glad to see somebody from the States, after all this time,” Maggie resumed in a brighter voice. “We’ve been here for months.”

“At least,” Wilbert snorted.

“It’s hard to keep track of the time,” Maggie admitted.

“Weather never changes, hey?” Stanley grunted. “No seasons at all.”

“It was as cold as hell when we left New Jersey,” Wilbert added.

“Well,” Maggie said, “it
was
almost Christmas.”

Todd told the Volunteers it was August in the neighborhood. “Eight, maybe nine months?” Stanley said. A moment later, he grunted again. “I suppose it could have been that long.”

“Sometimes seems like it’s been years,” Wilbert agreed. “You know, there were more than twenty of us when we started.”

“Twenty- one,” Maggie added. “We told you what Nunn did with most of us.”

“Six, maybe seven months?” Maggie said softly, almost to herself. “It still doesn’t seem so long ago.”

“It was December 19,” Wilbert offered. “Middle of the afternoon.”

“Isn’t that Pearl Harbor Day?” Bobby asked.

Todd glanced at the other boy; he could never remember that sort of thing. Like his father said, he was a lousy student.

“Pearl Harbor?” Wilbert asked with a frown. “Who’s she?” Todd glanced even more sharply at the bearded Volunteer. That had to be another one of his wisecracks.

“Hold it!” Thomas called, one hand upraised.

The line stopped so abruptly that Todd almost plowed into Bobby. In the distance, he heard a high, bloodcurdling wailing. It lasted for about a minute, then faded away.

“Sounds like the Anno,” Wilbert said after another minute had passed.

Stanley sniffed at the air. “I’d say we’re getting close to the wolves.

Human smell here, too.”

“Mary Lou?” Bobby asked.

“Too soon to tell,” Thomas replied. “If it is, we’d better get to her soon.”

They were going after Mary Lou. The handle of Todd’s knife was damp. His palms were sweating all over again.

“Keep your knife ready,” Thomas addressed him directly. “We’ll tell you when we need it.”

Now they were ordering Todd around. Well, they could, he guessed, until they found a way to rescue Mary Lou. But these Volunteers were going to do some things for him, sooner or later. No matter how strange this place was, he’d figure his way around here. He’d been on top before, he’d be on top again. Todd the boss, the guy who could figure out any angle, anywhere.

After all, he usually won.

He dropped his knife hand to his side so nobody else could see the way his hand was shaking.

S
he didn’t know when she had felt so sick.

The People—or the Anno, as the red-furred creatures had called them—were chittering happily around the cooking pots. A number of them waved to Mary Lou. Some of them held hanks of raw meat in their hands.

“We have vanquished the enemy, behind your example.” The prince smiled at the calm and good cheer. “Now it’s time to eat.”

Mary Lou couldn’t. The things that had attacked them had been fierce, their weapons had been terrible, but they had talked! Even with their fine red fur, they had been almost human.

Mary Lou made no move to join the others around their cooking pots. At the moment, she didn’t want to go anywhere.

“Mary Lou!” the People called, even more wildly than before. “Merrilu! Merrilu!”

“You should eat something,” the prince said softly.

“I suppose—” Mary Lou said hesitantly. “It’s only polite.” She sounded like her mother.

“Politeness has nothing to do with it,” the prince replied. “It’s part of the initiation.”

“Initiation?” She turned to look at him. The prince seemed fainter than before, more transparent. She could see the outlines of the leaves behind him through the folds of his cloak, as if he was slowly fading away. Maybe, Mary Lou thought, it was a trick of the late afternoon light slanting through the trees. After all, the prince was never solid at the best of times.

He still had the most reassuring of smiles. She wished she could really tell the color of his eyes.

“You fought by their side,” he explained. “To the People, that makes you one of them. A few formalities, and you are a part of the tribe.”