In the Shadow of the Dragon King (3 page)

Phone, phone. Where did I leave my phone?

He scanned the room in which he’d grown up. The Tinkertoys, Nerf basketballs, and glow-in-the-dark stars of his youth had been replaced over the years with posters of F-22 Raptors, archery and track trophies, and an entertainment zone that would make the most serious gamer, music lover, and movie freak, drool with envy.

Where did I put it? Think!

He swept back the dark strands falling into his eyes. His memory jogged. He’d sent a midnight text. He leaped on the carved antique bed and uncovered his lifeline to the world buried in the folds of his burgundy comforter. He fell back and pushed the number one.

A sleepy voice answered after four rings. “Hel-lo?”

“Charlotte?”

“David? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Yeah, it’s seven thirty-three. I need you to come over. Something’s happened. I’ll open the door for you, but be quiet. Lily’s still asleep.”

“Wha—? No. Go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”

“No, Char!” David bolted upright. “Please, don’t hang up! It’s important. I swear it. Please.”

A long pause followed. “Oh, all right,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute, but this better be good.”

He ran his palm across his chest. “You have no idea. See you in a few. You remember the code to the gate, right?”

“Duuuh.” Her sigh swelled in his ear. “You owe me, David Heiland.”

“I kn—”

Click
.

David stuffed the phone into his pocket and stretched his Aviator Rolex over his wrist.

Outside, several crows squawked in agitation, the noise incessant and loud.

“What is their problem?”

He rolled off the bed and crossed the room, the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. Cold January air blasted over him as he flung open the double doors to the balcony. Perched above him on a thick snow-covered branch were no less than a dozen crows, their wings flared, their beady eyes focused on something behind the house. David craned his neck to see what had their feathers ruffled, but saw nothing more than bare tree limbs and a snow-dusted roof.

“Stupid birds. Get out of here.” He threw a couple of snowballs in their direction. The birds scattered, protesting as they flew beneath the canopy of naked oaks branching over the driveway. Beyond the iron gates, a row of five houses lined up along the east side of Chestnut Circle—minuscule sentries and rooks facing off against the encroaching Cherokee National Forest. Charlotte’s house was the third one in, and she was nowhere in sight.

Come on, Char.

David slipped downstairs, and unlocked the front doors, then returned to the bottom step of the staircase, and waited. Ten tortuous minutes passed before the door opened and Charlotte stepped inside. She removed her white, puffy coat and crocheted cap, spilling coffee-brown hair over her light blue sweater to her hips. David’s heart fluttered as she flicked him a smile.

“Hey, Firefox.” His heart leaped at the special nickname she’d given him in third grade.

No one else was allowed to use it. “What’s got your boxers in a bunch?”

Other than the smell of your hair and the way your smile turns me into jelly?

The stray thought stunned him into momentary silence. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Come on.”

Charlotte followed him up the staircase that curved to the second floor, her eyes fixed on the gigantic Christmas tree brushing the banister. “I thought you said you were going to get rid of this thing before school starts on Monday?”

“Yeah, I might have said that.”

“Need help?”

“Only if you have the hotline number to dial-a-servant.”

“I don’t believe you just said that.”

“Whatever.” At the top of the stairs, David glanced over his right shoulder at his godmother’s closed door. With a finger to his lips, they tiptoed across the landing to David’s room and closed the door.

“You know, sometimes you can be such a snob.” Charlotte tossed her coat and hat on the beanbag and sat on the edge of his bed.

David picked up Charlotte’s belongings and placed them on a chair. “Yeah, so you keep telling me. Can we focus here? I have a serious problem.”

“So said the frantic voice on the phone. What gives?”

David took a deep breath. There was no way to explain other than to show her. He pulled the sweatshirt over his head. “This,” he said, pointing to the new addition on his chest.

He stood half-naked in front of her. Had it been any other time, any other circumstance like in one of his dreams, he would have appreciated, even welcomed the holy-crap-oh-my-God, Cheshire cat grin
on her face. As it was, he wished she’d quit staring and say something, anything to make him feel less
exposed
.

She rose from the bed and chuckled. “Oh my gosh. I don’t believe it. You got a tat.” She traced the mark with her fingertips.

Her touch surged like warm currents through his body. David swallowed and pulled the sweatshirt back over his head in hopes she didn’t notice the goosebumps spreading across his flesh.

“What happened to being afraid of needles and catching the plague?” Charlotte asked.

“Still there,” David said.

She sat back down. “So why did you do it?”

“I didn’t.”

Charlotte smiled. “Your chest disagrees.”

David pulled the sweatshirt over his head. “I woke up like this.”

Charlotte laughed. “Right, and I suppose the tattoo fairies came in your room in the middle of the night and inked it there.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “Come on. Wipe away the scowl and tell me what happened. Did you do it on a dare?”

“No,” David said. “Didn’t you hear me? I. Didn’t. Do. This.”

“Oh, come on. It’s me, David. Tattoos don’t appear out of thin air.”

“This one did, and it’s not the only thing that showed up without explanation.” He pulled an open sketchpad from beneath a stack of books on his desk and handed it to her. “Check this out. I drew it yesterday.”

A black dragon with small horns and merciless cat-like eyes clung to a castle’s battlement. A boy bearing a striking resemblance to David was clutched in one talon. Crouched in the shadows were a man and a woman, terror etched on their faces.

Charlotte stammered. “David, this-this is amazing. Creepy, but amazing. The detail is incredible. Who are these two people?”

“My parents. Look.” David plucked two framed pictures from the nightstand. “You can see the resemblance.”

“Holy cow. This is whacked.” She glanced sideways at him, her eyebrows pinched. “When did you do this?”

“Yesterday, after Lily and I got back from visiting my parents’ graves.” David put the photographs back and sat beside her, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. “The bad thing is, I don’t even remember drawing it.”

“What?”

“All I remember is sitting down to draw and then signing my name to the bottom. Everything in between is a blank, like last night. I don’t remember leaving the house. I don’t know if I walked or drove or if I let someone in.” There was a strained silence. David took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m scared, Char. What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, rubbing his back, “but we’ll figure it out.”

David stared at the floor, his nerves stretched tight like a rubber band waiting to snap. Charlotte’s presence was the only thing keeping him from breaking. With her, he was complete, like he’d found a missing piece to a puzzle. If only he could tell her how he felt. If only—

Crack!

A branch splintered and crashed onto the balcony with a heavy thud. A diminutive but forceful, “Ouch!” followed.

Charlotte jumped. “Who said that?”

David stood, his gaze fixed on the balcony doors.
Your time is nigh. Be brave.
He shook the words from his head and took a deep breath.

“There’s someone out there,” Charlotte whispered. “I can see the shadow through the curtains.”

“I know.” David moved around the edge of the bed to the loveseat, opened a black case, and removed a longbow. He wrapped his fingers around the leather grip and pulled an arrow from the quiver.

“Really?” Charlotte quipped.

“Someone just dropped onto my balcony from a tree,” he said. “You think I’m going out there unarmed?”

“Don’t you have a bat?”

“I’m an archer, Charlotte, not a baseball player.”

“And whatever that is is not a paper target.”

David snorted. “Thanks for your overwhelming confidence in me.”

“Hey, I’m just saying, but please. Go on, Sir Robin Hood. Go for it. Do your thing. Lady Marian awaits your victory.”

David ignored the quip and crept forward. With a deep breath, he flung open the doors.

A patch of rust-brown corduroy sailed over the railing. Footsteps pounded the porch below.

“Whoa! Did you see that? He just jumped!” David ran back inside, scrambled over his bed and out his bedroom door.

“Who did?” Charlotte asked, following behind.

“I don’t know. Some short little dude.”

David barreled down the stairs and out the front door, Charlotte on his heels.

“There!” she said. “Darting between the trees!”

David took off down the long drive, the cold air stinging his cheeks and burning his throat. The stout figure, no more than three feet tall, ran faster, his shape blurring with the surroundings.

“He’s getting away,” Charlotte said a few feet behind David.

David willed his legs to go faster. Up ahead, the trespasser turned sideways and slipped through the narrow bars of the gate without slowing down.

“What the—” David skidded to a stop and typed in the security code on the control box. The motor engaged. The giant scrolling black rails churned open.

He blew into his freezing hands. “Come on, damn it. A sloth moves faster than this.”

Ten. Eleven. Twelve seconds passed before David slipped through the opening and onto the cul-de-sac. His breath hung in plumes above his head. Two houses down, old lady Fenton, a spidery old woman with crooked fingers and waist-length strands of silver hair as fine as mist, shuffled back to her house with a newspaper tucked under her arm. There was no sign of the mysterious stranger.

Charlotte jogged up behind him breathing hard. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.” David bent over, his hands on his knees. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast in my life. And how did he—I mean—did you see him pass through the rails? It’s like he morphed or something
.
”

“Impossible,” Charlotte said.

“What? Didn’t you see it?”

“Yes, but there has to be—”

A limb in the giant oak tree above them groaned. David turned his face skyward as the branch splintered.

“Get out of the way!” He shoved Charlotte into his neighbor’s yard, slipped on a patch of ice, and hit the sidewalk with a thud.

“Ouch!”

The wood missile plummeted toward the ground.

“David, look out!”

He rolled out of the way just as the limb hit the pavement.

David swallowed, hard. His heart beat like a jackhammer.

“Holy crap!” He stood and brushed the snow off his jeans.

Deep laughter boomed from his left. “Sidewalk slide out from beneath you there, son?”

Mr. Loudermilk from next door stood on the stoop of his house, his mouth twisted in a sadistic grin.

Very funny, you nutter
. David dusted himself off, frowning at the lanky old man’s brown plaid pants and purple striped shirt. His white hair was wilder than usual, standing on end like he’d rubbed his head with a hundred inflated latex balloons. His gaze fixed on David like a buzzard’s to fresh road kill. David’s insides gnarled. How the real-life Indiana Jones archeologist turned history teacher had turned into such a fruitcake he’d never know. It was if a switch turned off in his head toward the end of August and never turned back on.

Whatever. It didn’t matter, so long as Mr. Loudermilk stayed on his side of the hedges, everything would be right with the world.

David stood and pulled Charlotte up. “You okay? No bones broken?”

She glanced up at the tree, then back down to the remnant blocking the sidewalk. “I don’t know about you, but that was a little too close for me.”

“No kidding.”

Out of the corner of his eye, a red flash caught David’s attention. The small figure darted across the lawn and around the backside of his house. “Holy crap, he’s in my yard!”

David and Charlotte bolted over the limb and ran up the drive.

“Geez, how does he move so fast?” Charlotte said.

“I don’t know, but it’s getting away. Let’s go!”

They took off together, rounding the mansion. The mini Flash Gordon disappeared into the forest.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

David broke into a full run, his track training kicking in. He dashed past the greenhouse and the overseer’s cottage, leaping over fallen trees. Twigs and leaves crunched beneath his feet. Branches snapped. Birds took flight. Charlotte yelled for him to stop, but he kept running, the cold air burning his nose and throat.

To the north, he made out the Antylles River rushing toward Lake Sturtle. A flash of red zoomed off to his right. David turned, zigzagging past trees, leaping over boulders. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cold stinging his skin. He shed his coat, leaving it on the ground behind him. The trickle of a creek grew closer. He ran, faster, faster, until he reached the embankment of Wilder Creek. Out of breath, he pressed his palms to his knees and scanned the forest. On the opposite embankment stood a young doe, alert and unsure, her ears twitching. A rabbit darted off to his right. A squirrel scampered up a tree. Charlotte rushed up behind him and hunched over, out of breath and holding her side.

“Did—you—not—hear—me?” She staggered forward. “I—called to you—”

Behind David came a sound akin to hundreds of spiders crashing through the underbrush. David turned as a reddish-brown blur no more than three feet high barreled toward him at lightning speed.

“David! Move!”

Charlotte shoved David, knocking him several feet back. He tumbled to the ground with an oomph.

And then she was gone.

“Noooo!” Charlotte screamed in one long, sustained note as the creature carried her off. Her voice grew further away. “Daaa-viiid!”