Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) (50 page)

Garo shrugged. “Who knew the dragon would treat Mary Lou as property?” Who had known anything about the dragon? he now realized. Certainly not Garo the ghost-wizard. Then why had he felt it so important to lead the others here?

The other two cringed as another roar shattered the world around them. Obar looked like he wanted to run.

Mrs. Smith shook her head. “We’re not going anywhere.”

She waved for the others to look behind them. Somehow they had reached a wall, a wall that seemed to go up forever.

Garo suddenly felt cold, as if this wall had sucked all the warmth from this place. “I think this is from the dragon,” he said softly.

“Perhaps it is simply one of the dragon’s claws,” Obar agreed.

“We only see bits of the dragon,” Garo explained, surprised at how much he knew. “It is not truly ready to come back to the world. But we have disturbed it.” He sighed and smiled. “Someone will have to pay.”

“Pay?” Mrs. Smith repeated. “So that’s what the dragon wants? A sacrifice?”

It was so obvious. Garo abruptly stopped smiling.

“No,” he replied, “the dragon wants a particular sacrifice.”

He closed his eyes and thought of Mary Lou and her smile. They all had their purpose under the dragon. His purpose was about to be fulfilled.

“I’m the one who should do this thing.” He spoke slowly, but his voice gained power with every word. “I led us here. And I led Mary Lou to this place as well. All in an attempt to regain my physical body. The dragon should take me.”

Mrs. Smith wasn’t so certain. “Are you sure this is what the dragon wants?”

Garo tried to smile again. It almost worked. “With the dragon, who knows? But I am the only one who cannot hide. The dragon has already half claimed me. I am the only one who can’t escape into the physical world.”

With that, the roar came again, so loud that Mrs. Smith fell to her knees. Even Garo covered his ears, but the roar seemed just as loud, as if the sound started inside his head instead of without.

“No matter where I go,” Garo said softly, “the dragon will find me.” He wondered if, with that roar, the dragon had agreed to his offer.

“Maybe,” he added quickly, “if it takes me, it will spare Mary Lou. I’ve spent too long as a wizard. Let me do something honest for a change.”

“Very well,” Obar said for both of them. “Constance, it’s time to leave this place.” He grabbed the old woman’s hand before she could object. There was a flash of green, and they were gone, jumping to another reality.

Garo was alone with the dragon.

The dragon had already half claimed him. Maybe, by letting the dragon take all of him, he could be human again. This was Garo’s destination. And Mary Lou had shown him the way.

It was time he came full circle.

He hoped Mary Lou would smile for him again.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs. He felt as if he did not breathe air, but fire. The dragon roared again.

Garo opened his mouth to shout. What came out was half a cry of joy, and half a scream.

J
ason felt his arm the moment Nick drew his sword. The scratch was still there from the day before, when the sword lashed out because it wanted blood.

Now Nick had drawn the blade again. And the sword would have to taste blood before it would return to its scabbard.

Nick looked down at the sword in his hand, as if just now realizing what he had done, almost as if the sword had drawn itself. He looked at Todd. Todd tried to smile, but Todd knew about the sword, too.

The Oomgosh pushed himself to his feet with a groan. “Nick and Todd. Do not—”

Raven crowed from above. “Forget your battle! We have visitors!” Jason turned around to see Nunn, standing at the clearing’s edge. But next to Nunn was something that looked even worse, something that stood like a man but was taller than a man, and whose body was covered by hair and teeth and claws. “Lordy!” Stanley called. “What is that?”

Nunn smiled at that. “You’ve met him before.” He waved his hand grandly at his grotesque companion. “Say hello to the King of the Wolves. I’ve just helped him to be more regal.”

“Not for long,” Thomas said as he shot an arrow into the King’s chest.

The giant wolf-man looked down at the shaft sticking from its chest. It gave a short, barking laugh as it pulled the arrow free.

“You may kill all four of those with bows,” Nunn remarked to the King, “and that odd fellow who looks half like a tree. The others belong to me.”

The King of the Wolves smiled, revealing teeth as long as Jason’s hand. He took his first step toward the Volunteers.

Nunn looked to the others. “If you don’t want to be killed by the King, you’ll have to come with me. We will meet the dragon together. If you are left behind, you belong to the wolf.”

“Meeaat!” the King agreed.

“We’re not going anyplace!” Nick shouted, running toward the King with his still-drawn sword. The great wolf reached out ready to take Nick’s head off with its claws.

“Nick!” Jason shouted. He found he was running, too. “You don’t have a chance. Get away from there!”

A great, hairy foot stepped in front of Jason. “Tenderrr meeat!” the wolf announced.

“Not Jason!” the Oomgosh shouted. In three great strides, the tree man was before the wolf.

“Noo matterrr whoo I killl firrst,” the King announced. He leapt forward onto the Oomgosh, all biting teeth and gouging claws.

The tree man wrapped his one good arm around the great wolf and squeezed. The wolf had opened a great wound in the Oomgosh’s side. Its jaw snapped onto the tree man’s neck.

But the Oomgosh would not let go of his hold. The wolf began to squirm and then to whimper. The tree man’s grip grew tighter, and the great wolf wailed in pain. The Oomgosh groaned as his muscles grew tighter still.

There was a sharp crack. The wolf hung limp in the tree man’s arms, its spine broken in two.

The Oomgosh let his opponent fall. “Is it dead?” Jason asked.

The tree man managed a smile. “I’ll tell you that story, someday, the story of how the Oomgosh found death.” The great green man grimaced. “When I’m better—”

The Oomgosh fell down.

“Nunn!” Obar’s voice cut through the silence. He and Mrs. Smith had returned.

And Nunn was gone.

But none of that mattered to Jason anymore.

T
he world shook. A great wind blew from high above, a hot wind that brought with it the smell of fire. The wind roared, causing the people to fall to hands and knees. Even Raven took shelter behind one of the great trees, huddling there as the wind broke huge branches from the trees above, tossing them away like twigs.

Jason remembered this. It was a sign from the dragon. A much larger sign than the one before.

Jason was the first to see her as she drifted down to earth. Flames surrounded her, but none of them seemed to touch her.

“Mary Lou!” her mother called.

“Not now, Mother,” Jason’s sister replied firmly. “I have something to say. Something I have been sent to say.”

She took a deep breath as her feet touched the ground, and the flames vanished.

“The dragon is near,” Mary Lou said. She tried to take a step forward and almost stumbled. Jason was back on his feet. He rushed forward to help his sister. She waved him away.

“Unless it finds what it wants,” she said slowly and deliberately, as if repeating someone else’s words, “it will destroy us all;”

“Anger!” Todd said as he stood himself. “It has something to do with anger.”

Mary Lou nodded. “The dragon is angry. It was so close. It doesn’t want to have to destroy everything—so soon.” She frowned as if the words had deserted her. “If it can find—the one—the missing—it needs to take someone—”

“Nick!” Mrs. Blake called.

Jason turned around. Nick Blake was gone.

“Someone else.” Mary Lou managed to smile. “The missing piece.” Her eyes closed as she fell limp—into Jason’s arms.

T
his had to be a dream.

When Nick opened his eyes, he knew he was home. Back on Chestnut Circle. In his living room, or almost his living room. Some of the furniture had been moved around, and there was a brand-new chair in the corner. But most of it was just the same.

A man walked out of the kitchen. A man Nick knew.

“Dad?” Nick called. He looked older, as if he’d lost a bit more hair, filled out a bit more around the waist.

His father looked up and dropped the plate he was carrying. “Nick!” his father said. “God, I thought you were dead!”

His father rushed forward, ignoring the food he had spilled on the floor.

“Nick!” he said again as he grabbed his son’s arm. “When everybody disappeared, the whole goddamned street—”

Nick could feel the pressure of his father’s fingers. It certainly felt real.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Nick replied. “We were all—taken away—” If that had been real, Nick thought.

He looked in his right hand. He still held the sword. The hilt felt warm in his palm, as if it was impatient for blood.

“Nick, you’re sure about this?” There was the tone in his father’s voice criticizing his son’s flights of fancy. “Where did everyone go?”

There was a deep rumble outside the house. “What the hell was that?” his father asked.

Nick pulled the sword away from his father. He knew that sort of noise. He had not gone home, after all. Instead, home, and his father, had come to him.

Nick looked out the window. The neighborhood wasn’t there. Instead, he saw a great, dark globe before him; a globe so large it took him a moment to realize that it was an eye.

A dragon’s eye.

To be continued in:

DRAGON WAKING

Book 2 of The Dragon Circle Trilogy