Dragons vs. Drones (6 page)

“Because of Dad,” Dree replied, which was partly true.

“Now, you can't tell anyone—”

“Dree!” her mother called from the kitchen. “Get up for work.”

Dree sighed, staring up at the ceiling.

“What's wrong?” Abi asked.

“You'll see.”

It wasn't pretty. Dree's mother was furious, storming around the living room and probably waking up every single person on the docks. The few paintings they had on the walls— relics of a time when the family lived in a beautiful house in the city, her parents the descendants of two prominent families—rattled and shook, threatening to fall. Dree's father watched in silence from his ratty old armchair, the fabric stained and worn. His brow was furrowed, but he showed no other expression. He just studied the proceedings carefully.

“How do you ‘just' get fired?” her mom asked again, her voice getting louder. “You must have done something.”

Dree couldn't tell her mom the real reason. Her father was the only one who knew about the fire, and he had forbidden her a long time ago from telling anyone, even her mother. He said she wouldn't understand, that she would be afraid. Dree wouldn't blame her.

“I don't know,” Dree murmured, sitting at the kitchen table, which was perched in the center of the house. “He just said I was fired. He said he didn't like my attitude.”

“There's a surprise,” her mother snarled.

Katrine Reiter was a beautiful woman who had been worn down by a hard life. Her blond hair, frizzy and unkempt, was graying, while her once delicate features were now marred by dark circles under her eyes and wrinkles that sprouted from her lips like cracks in the cobblestone. She worked at a mill on the outskirts of the city, lugging steel and firing coal and a bunch of other things the daughter of a wealthy merchant should never have had to do. Dree and her mother weren't close. Dree suspected that her mother had never quite forgiven her—no matter how she might have tried—for the loss of Gavri.

Katrine didn't know what had happened, but she had seen Dree screaming that fateful day. She had heard her for years after in the middle of the night, tossing and mumbling and crying out for her little brother. Apologizing. She must have known it was Dree's fault. The coldness that crept into her voice sometimes was proof enough.

The memory of Gavri crept up again. Dree shook it away.
Not now
.

“I'm sorry,” Dree whispered.

Her mother relented just a little at that and stopped pacing.

“Well, I suggest you go apologize to Wilhelm and see if he'll take you back.” She paused. “And if not, I'm sure there are other jobs out there. I have to go to work.” She spit the word
work
like an insult, and Dree wondered if that was directed at her father as well. He did shift slightly in his chair. “I hope to hear some good news when I get back.”

With that, Katrine stormed out of the house, slamming the door and leaving a miserable Dree sitting alone with her father and a very sympathetic-looking Abi. Marny and Otto were fighting in the bedroom.

“I better go,” Dree said, climbing to her feet.

“Wait,” her father said gently. “Come here.”

Dree walked over, staring at her father with a mixture of love and anger. She wasn't angry that he was injured, she was angry that he didn't seem to want to get better. That he just spent his days miserable in his armchair, watching the boats come into the docks. She was angry that he wasn't the man she remembered as a child. The strong man with deep blue eyes. The warrior. The dragon rider.

He had been among the greats, protecting the skies on the back of his dragon, Delpath. He came from a long line of dragon riders, ancient and respected, and he had carried on the name proudly. But when the purge of the dragons started, the riders were outlawed and Abelard was stripped of his property and wealth—called a traitor instead of a hero. She knew from Rochin's stories that he cared less about the money than losing his dearest friend, Delpath.

But even after the purge, he had remained strong. He had become a leader in Dracone, a voice of discontent and even revolution. Abelard had spoken out against the dragon hunters and the growing economic disparity. But when his back gave out while loading ships on the docks one day, so did his inner strength. Something within him broke that day, and he had never been the same since.

But Dree also loved her father desperately. He was the calm voice and the tender heart that tempered her mother. And so Dree let him take her hand, her eyes meeting his.

“You did something,” he said. It wasn't a question.

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Did he see it? Wilhelm?”

“No. Only Sasha, and he didn't see me do it. He just saw it flying.”

“Flying?” her father asked, looking confused.

Dree shrugged. “I kind of made a flying dragonfly out of steel. And then it landed on the Prime Minister's head.”

Her father laughed, a rare sound over the past few years. “I won't even ask. Was he angry?”

“Not really. Wilhelm was though. He loves the Prime Minister.”

“Everyone does.” Abelard pulled Dree close, lowering his voice to a whisper. “You have a gift, Dree. That fire is matched only by what's up here,” he said, tapping on her forehead. She couldn't help but smile. “You'll have a chance to use it, I'm sure. But for now, keep your head down. Get your job back.”

He squeezed her hand and leaned back, shrinking into the fabric again. Dree nodded, fighting unexpected tears that threatened to escape. Where did he go when his proud chin fell and his eyes drifted toward the window, fogging over like the lake in the morning?

“Thanks, Dad.”

She gave Abi a quick hug and headed out the door,
jamming her hands into her pockets. It wasn't fair. The girl who could create fire from her hands and make steel fly and challenge the red dragons had to go beg Master Wilhelm for forgiveness.

Keep your head down
, she thought bitterly.
I've been doing that my whole life.

She turned onto the main street, scowling. It didn't matter.

It was time to go find a job.

Chapter
8

M
arcus pedaled frantically down the street, barely able to open his eyes against the pounding rain. He didn't see any drones, but he had a feeling they weren't far away.

The sky was bursting with energy—clouds roiling and twisting and stretching across the sky like fingers while lightning split the darkness. The electrostatic readings from Bug, which was still up in the clouds, were beyond anything Marcus had seen in all his research. He risked another glimpse at his cell phone. This storm was different, stronger. It was just as he had guessed: The storms were a clock, and they were counting down to today. But why? What would he find in the heart of the storm? And would he even make it there alive?

Either way, Marcus was going to test his one and only theory. He had to try.

Turning onto a busy street, Marcus pedaled even harder, rain pouring down his face. He knew he looked like a drowned rat, and he could see cars driving by with people shaking their heads at anyone stupid enough to be outside in this weather. They didn't know the half of it. It was about to get stupider.

The lightning was flashing like a strobe light now, the deluge so thick that even the many disapproving faces were blurred. Marcus could barely see where he was going, but he was riding on pure instinct:
Get to the heart of the storm
. He had a feeling he would know what to do when he got there.

Scanning the sky for drones, Marcus thought back to the day his dad had left.

The memory was vague, maybe as much his imagination as anything else. The windowpanes were rattling, and Marcus remembered the branches of the oak behind their house scratching against the glass like fingers. He was in the living room, watching his favorite movie,
The Wizard of Oz.
Marcus had seen the movie dozens of times—he and his father had watched it for as long as Marcus could remember. George loved the movie, and he passed that love down to Marcus. He used to sit with Marcus on his lap, and at least once during the film, he would lean in and whisper, “Remember, if you can weather the storm, you'll find home on the other side
.
” Marcus never thought anything of it—he was more interested in the flying monkeys. It would be years before Marcus realized that maybe there was something more to his father's words. A clue.

That night, though, Marcus was watching the movie alone. Dorothy's house had just been swept up in the clouds, and she was staring out in disbelief as her former life floated by, followed soon after by the witch.

She was bringing the past with her, good and evil.

The doorbell rang, and Marcus almost jumped off the couch. He suddenly heard thumping footsteps from down the hall, and his dad appeared in the hallway, pulling on a Windbreaker and forcing a smile that even Marcus thought was weird. He pulled open the door, and Jack hurried inside, wiping his foggy glasses.

His father grabbed Jack's hand, shaking it a lot more tightly than usual.

“Thanks, Jack,” George said quietly. “I'll be back soon.”

Jack nodded. “I'll keep an eye on him; don't worry.”

Marcus started to get up, sensing that something was wrong, but his father walked over to him and laid a strong hand on his shoulder. He smiled again.

“I have to run to the office for a bit,” he said.

“Why?” Marcus asked. “It's nighttime.”

“There's a problem. I'll be back soon—don't worry.”

He paused for a moment and then gave Marcus a little shake, noticing his son's worried look as he stared at the raging storm outside their window.

“A little storm never stopped Dorothy, did it?”

Marcus smiled. “No.”

“And it won't stop us either. See you soon, son. Try not to fly to Oz tonight.”

And just like that, he was out the door, not looking back even once. The door was almost blown off its hinges when he opened it, and then Marcus watched as two red taillights faded into the night. The police found the car later on the outskirts of the city, abandoned. They never found any trace of George Brimley, though—no sign of struggle, no DNA outside the car. Nothing. It was like he had never even existed.

Marcus veered right and narrowly avoided a fire hydrant. He risked a wipe to his glasses, which were completely fogged over, and looked up to see that the dark cloud was almost over him. There was another brilliant flash of lightning.

And then he felt a familiar tingling down his spine.

Glancing back, Marcus saw something drop below the clouds. Red eyes.

At least five of the drones were overhead, tracking him across the city. Whatever Marcus was about to find, it was clear the drones were trying to stop him. Marcus wondered if he was actually in danger this time. A tingling heat raced through him, his stomach twisting like a pretzel.

He biked as hard as he could, sloshing around in his Adidas. He was soaked to the bone and freezing, but he didn't care. The massive black cloud was almost right over him.

The drones flew lower, like a flock of birds. They moved silently, eerily, staying in close formation. They were almost serene, but Marcus knew they were probably loaded with weaponry. At any moment, they could decide to blow him to pieces.

Cursing, he weaved out onto the road and back to the sidewalk again before wheeling down a side street, trying to
lose them. But it was useless. The drones were always above him, slowly descending like an arrow pointed at his back. He waited for the end. For the flash of light. Desperate, Marcus made one last dash for the center of the storm, thinking for just a moment how crazy it was that he was chasing a cloud.

Especially one that was shooting forks of lightning out toward the ground.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted as a drone slipped into his vision.

It was even larger than he thought, probably the size of a fighter jet. It was as black as night, and its crimson eye seemed almost
alive
, flicking over to him like it was studying his every move. That's when Marcus noticed the symbol.

It was painted onto the black hull, just slightly visible in the storm. One large rectangle and two smaller ones on either side. And above the smaller rectangles: eyes.

He had seen that symbol once before . . . sort of. When his father had first disappeared, Marcus snuck into his
study—a place that had always been strictly off-limits.

It was mostly empty, aside from a few scribbled notes and work files. But there, carved into the wooden desk, were three rectangles. The same ones Marcus was staring at now, but without the eyes watching overhead.

Was it a warning from his father? And what were those ominous eyes?

The drone flew closer again, now barely ten feet away. It was right beside Marcus, almost forcing him off the street. Marcus turned back to the road.

Why were the drones flying so low? Were they trying to take him alive? Or were they just trying to stop him from reaching the center of the storm?

Whatever their plan was, it wouldn't work. He lifted his head and found himself right beneath the darkest part of the sky, where the lightning was almost constant.

Suddenly, a drone wheeled in front of Marcus, blocking his path. He shouted and wrenched his handle to the right, teetering off balance and heading straight for a waiting tree. But he never made impact.

There was a blinding flash of electric blue, fizzling and crackling and strangely warm, and then Marcus had the distinct sensation of flying off his bike.

He caught a glimpse of white light and immediately realized what had happened.

He'd been struck by lightning.

He was dead.