Backyard Dragons (13 page)

Unwilling to make the effort to generate a towel, she wiped her face on her shirt and figured she’d change when she got home. She might burn these clothes. Though they had no blood or other sign of the horrific events she’d gone through while wearing them, she’d always remember. Maybe she deserved a reminder.

She scooped up Enion and touched the wall. Several seconds of deep breaths later, she stepped through and out of the couch in the living room. The sight of home should have made her feel better. It only reminded her that Rondy wouldn’t go home tonight.

“Thank goodness. At least
someone’s
here.” Marie sounded exhausted.

Claire turned around and found Missy, Lisa, and Marie sitting around the kitchen table, dinner underway. “Where’s Justin?”

Lisa waved at Claire with her fork. Missy picked up her star wand.

“If you don’t know, I haven’t the faintest idea.” Marie tapped Claire’s usual seat at the table.

“Play Princess Knight!”

“Not now, Missy. Claire just got home. Are you hungry?”

Claire’s stomach growled. “Yeah. Actually, I’m starving. So is Enion.”

Marie stood and fetched a plate, then rummaged through the fridge. Claire saw the girls had cut-up hot dogs, raisins, cubes of cheese, and tortilla chips. The food didn’t appeal to her much, but she supposed Marie hadn’t wanted to make a whole meal for no one. She seemed tired. Her new job must have taken a lot out of her.

As Claire opened her mouth to offer to make her own dinner, the front door creaked and everyone turned to watch. Drew shambled inside, sunburned, and collapsed into Justin’s chair. He leaned so far onto the table his forehead touched it. Claire went to the door, expecting to see Justin pulling his boots off, but the mud room was empty.

“Where’s Justin?”

Drew giggled. Claire had never heard him giggle before. The sound had a mad edge.

Claire flicked her gaze to Marie, who met it. They both shrugged. “Drew? Are you okay?” Claire set a hand on his back, keeping her touch gentle in case he exploded.

“Everything is right as rain.” He raised his head and grinned like a lunatic. “I met my grandfather.”

“Oh. So. That’s cool.” Claire leaned against the table where she blocked the girls’ view of him. With everything else on her plate right now, she didn’t want to shoulder the burden of him cracking up, but she still needed to shield Missy and Lisa.

Drew stared at her, eyes wide and glassy. “He’s dead.”

Claire had to force herself to stay put and not inch away. She also couldn’t tell if he meant they’d visited his grave or discovered his ghost. Either seemed strange for Justin to have taken Drew to, especially without Claire.

Marie dropped the plate she’d prepared for Claire. They used plastic, so nothing broke, but food flew everywhere. “Where’s Justin?”

“He went back there. To do the Knight thing.”

“Wait,” Claire said. “He dropped you off and didn’t come in for dinner?” Caius thought her unworthy and now, so did Justin. He should have at least checked to see if she was here. Doing the Knight thing was her job too. If he never showed her how, she’d never be able to do it properly.

“Yep. Said he didn’t have time. Mr. Important Knight has to save the world.”

“That man,” Marie huffed as she wiped food off the floor. “I love him, but his head can get—” She sighed. “Claire, I suggest you make an attempt to find him before he does something stupid.”

“Too late,” Claire and Drew said in unison.

“Yes, yes. Something
else
stupid. Eat first, then go find him.”

Claire took Drew’s hand and squeezed it. She realized too late he had a sunburn and let go immediately, but he didn’t react. “You’re coming with me, because you know where he went. Right?”

“Yeah.” He grinned again. “That’s a good idea.”

Chapter 19

Justin

“Why am I here?” Tariel groused. “You could easily have gone through the Palace to get back here. I could be in my stable, eating and resting.”

Justin waited for Tariel to stop in Anne’s yard again, wondering how many times he’d go back and forth between here and home today. “In case I need to go someplace else.”

“It’s cold.”

“Everyone keeps whining at me. You’re cold, Missy wants to play her game, Marie is stressed, Claire wants to do more, Drew wants to go home.” He hopped off the horse’s back when she stopped, continuing to grouse in his head about everyone demanding so much from him lately. His legs still hurt too, though not as much as before.

Tariel tossed her head and snorted at him.

Justin knocked on Anne’s door.

“Back again already, hm?” Anne asked, her hands on her hips and shoulders set with irritation.

“I need to do something in your woods for a bit.” Justin forced himself to smile. He wanted something from Anne. She would turn him down if he sniped at her. “Do you have a blanket Tariel can use for a little while? She’s not used to standing around in the cold.”

Anne softened and pushed the screen door open for him. “Oh. Yes, I’m sure I can find something. Come in.”

He followed her into the house, his work boots clunking on her clean hardwood floors. Crystals and geodes in every color hung from every hook, light, corner, and picture frame, and perched on every table, shelf, and ledge. Crocheted doilies covered couches and chairs. The last time he visited, around Easter, he thought he remembered her fancy rock collection being much smaller.

“Stay here.” Anne bustled up the hall to the back bedroom and disappeared inside it.

While waiting, Justin picked up a blue-tinted chunk of translucent rock as big as his fist. Nothing seemed unusual about it except its size. Lots of people thought these things channeled vibrations or auras, or whatever word they used. He wondered if the real word they searched for was “magic.” Setting it down again, he scanned the arrangements and noticed they’d been clustered in rainbows.

He looked up when she returned down the hall. “Did you go on a trip and pick these crystals up someplace?”

Anne handed him a folded blanket with a guarded smile. “A few weeks ago, I had this marvelous opportunity dumped in my lap. Went to the beach with a friend. Found so many just lying around. Quite a surprise. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

“Really? Just lying around? Some of these are pretty big. I thought the big ones were usually worth a lot of money.”

She shrugged and straightened the blue rock he’d touched. “Some people don’t know the value of what they have.”

Justin frowned. Nothing here suggested she’d had a friendly visitor recently. He decided to ask anyway, on the off chance he caught her out in a lie. “Are you seeing someone?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.”

“Oh. Are you bringing him tomorrow?”

“No. He’s…” She crossed her arms and looked away. “Not able to go.”

“Does he—”

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” Anne shoved him at the door. “Saving the world? Taking care of my sister? Something like that? I’ll bring some food out for Tariel in a minute.”

Not sure if the mystery of her boyfriend bothered him more than the fact of her having one, Justin let himself be herded out. “Thanks. She’ll appreciate that. I’d like to meet this guy soon.”

“Sure.” Anne slammed the door in his face.

Years ago, Marie had acted like that toward her father while Justin hid in the closet. The guy could be in Anne’s bathroom, terrified of meeting the weirdo brother-in-law. Justin tossed the blanket over Tariel’s back and scanned the area for parked cars.

“There you go. No more whining.”

Tariel blew a raspberry at him. “What are you looking for?”

He saw several cars nearby that could belong to a visitor trying to keep his presence a secret. The idea of having interrupted a liaison between Anne and her new beach boyfriend made Justin smirk. “I’m not sure. Pay attention while I’m with Kurt. Anne might have a guest. If he leaves, or if anyone comes by, I want to know about it.”

“Sure. I’ll find a spot where I can see in the windows.”

Justin nodded and left her there, trotting into the woods. At the sycamore, he crossed over into Kurt’s demesne, still stuck in sunset.

“Back again already? What’s the matter, boy? Forget how to tie your own shoelaces?”

“Funny,” Justin said. “Drew and I were attacked by shadow creatures on the way home. It was weird, and I’ve never encountered anything like that outside of a corrupted Phasm’s demesne. Something’s going on, and I don’t know what. It can’t be a coincidence that happened after I released the binding on the dragons. I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction to handle it.”

“Sounds like a witch is stirring the pot around here.” Kurt stroked his chin and paced up the beach.

Justin walked alongside him. “There’s a witch living practically on top of the crossover point for your demesne, but I don’t think it’s her. What else have you got?”

“You always were impatient, boy. It’s not as if I have a pipeline to everything going on in the city. I haven’t been here long yet.”

“Sorry. Just hoping for a little more to roll with. I can watch her house and the dragons, but I need to do crazy things like sleep and eat.”

Kurt stroked his chin. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” He set a hand on Justin’s shoulder and squeezed it. “You look tired, boy. Why don’t you take a seat? Breathe for a few minutes. I remember you mentioned your apprentice right before I died, didn’t you? She’s a handful, you said. Tell me about her.” With a wave of his hand, a beach chair swirled out of the sand.

Justin thought about how he ought to get home to Marie, eat something, and get Tariel out of the cold. Then he mulled over what would happen as soon as he got home. Marie would sigh and be disappointed with him for breaking his promises. Claire would pester him with questions. The girls would be loud and demanding. Drew would shove his calculus and other advanced classes in Justin’s face like he’d done yesterday.

He dropped into the chair with a heavy sigh. “She’s so needy. All the time, she’s asking me questions like I should know everything. How does this work, why do we do that, what’s this for, blah blah blah. Incessant. She has a good right hook, so there’s that, but her sprite can’t even take her places. We have to pay for a bus pass.”

“Oh? What’s her sprite?”

“A dragon. But not a real dragon. He’s tiny. This big. She couldn’t ride that if her life depended on it. Even if she could, people would notice, and she’d get too much attention. We can’t do our job with people watching us all the time, especially not now. She’d wind up in prison, then she’d escape and be on the run all the time. We can’t work like that. Or worse, they’d take away her locket because it’s prison and they take away everything.”

“What now? What about her locket?”

Something in Kurt’s tone bothered Justin, but he ignored it as a manifestation of his own exhaustion. “It’s a long story. The short version is her father was a Knight, and he crafted it somehow to keep her alive after a ne-phasm drained away most of her life force. I’m not clear on the details. All I know is it’s what makes her a Knight, and if she takes it off, she dies.”

“Huh.” Kurt paced behind Justin. “She could be the witch.”

“Claire? No. The Heart of the Palace granted her a weapon. She’s a Knight. And she was as surprised by the dragons as I was. Besides, I’ve seen her aura. That locket is powerful, but it can’t create a binding like the one I broke over the dragons. Wrong feel.”

“Interesting.” Kurt continued pacing.

Justin leaned back and dozed, thinking about Claire and Enion. Though he didn’t envy her the downsides of her sprite, the fact she could take him to the Heart for her challenges seemed downright unfair. Like cheating.

After a while, Kurt cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what to do about that, but I have an idea for you to prepare for the moment you do figure out the witch problem. I imagine it’ll involve a fight. They tend to throw magic around quite a bit, if memory serves. Your armor and sword’ll certainly help a lot, but you could grab some insurance.”

Justin snapped awake. All his concerns about Claire evaporated. With his legs still aching, he had a keen interest in extra power to face this witch. Those shadow snakes had almost killed him and Tariel both. They needed all the help they could get. “Will I need to take notes?”

“Ha! No. Back in the day, I watched over some places with reservoirs of power that could be harnessed at need. Nothing fancy. You’ll have to kick over a few rocks, that’s all. No big deal for you.”

“Sure. How many are we talking about?”

“Oh, let’s see. Four? No, five. Three gravestones and the Skidmore Fountain, plus a stone in Goose Hollow. If you can grab a map of that neighborhood from 1920, I can help you find it. With the graves, you just need to knock the headstone over and cut into the ground under it. The fountain you’ll probably want to do in the dead of night, because people won’t stand by and let you stab it.”

“There won’t be backlash like Tariel and I got when we cut the bindings on the dragons, will there?”

“I don’t think so. Should just be kind of a wind, I think. Mind, I never used them, so I can’t be sure. Might be a whole lot more spectacular. Don’t think it should hurt you, though.” Kurt listed off names, death years, and locations.

Justin paid careful attention, repeating them to himself several times so he didn’t wind up knocking over the wrong graves. He’d been to all three cemeteries; none of his visits had been pleasant. One name seemed familiar, though he couldn’t place it.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about these before?”

“Well, you know. Time. I guess I always figured I had more. And at the end, I kind of had other things on my mind. That apprentice of yours? Don’t wait to tell her things.”

Justin nodded. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Good man.” Kurt clapped him on the arm. “I’ll see what else I can come up with for you.”

Chapter 20

Claire

Claire and Drew walked to the nearest bus stop. Cold drizzle made the trip miserable, but at least Claire had a bright pink fleece sweater to hide the dagger now. She kicked gravel along the side of the road and couldn’t decide how to bring up anything about Rondy, Drew’s grandfather, or Justin.