Vampire Dragon (29 page)
“Another one!” a gunman said.
“Don’t shoot,” the other warned. “Shooting makes them
mad
.”
mad
.”
As the two backed away, Darkwyn gave them a fiery roar before he jumped out the gaping hole.
Gunshots followed, but he hit the ground leaping and reached the carousel without the ability to shout for Zachary and Bronte.
Zachary was gone.
Darkwyn roared, turned full circle, and saw fire shooting from the windows of Drak’s
.
The roof, itself, smoked. Had
he
set fire to the second floor while trying to frighten the gunmen?
.
The roof, itself, smoked. Had
he
set fire to the second floor while trying to frighten the gunmen?
But why the roof? There were two floors between Drak’s and the roof.
Scumduggers, the wounded cop was still inside—the place hadn’t been on fire when he left him—and he couldn’t be sure where Bronte, Zachary, or the animals were.
Darkwyn wanted to get everyone out. He had time; it was only a small blaze, well, two, but his heavy, lumbering dragon body would get in his way, not to mention breaking the building, though he could use a bit of dragon strength, now more than ever. Nevertheless, he ran as he transformed again. No matter how uncomfortable, he appreciated the ability, as he stumbled through the shift. His claws became hands. He tripped and went sprawling when his feet transformed beneath him.
He stood and did the safest maneuver in a transformation if you needed to keep moving: he tucked and rolled, and came up a man, naked again, but who cared? “Rain, damn it!” he shouted to the heavens. “Andra, send rain! Please!”
He got hail instead, as if that would stop him. Oh, but wet, mushy hail. Good.
He imagined Andra and Killian working against each other, circling, neither as strong as she’d like. Wet fire-snuffing slush was good enough for him. He’d take what he could get.
He raced up the stairs, and when he hit the second floor, fire licked at his man skin, and he roared more with an agony of soul than body. Where was his family? He jumped through a wall of flames, healing his burns even as he scanned empty rooms.
More flames, more pain, which motivated a dragon, made him madder and stronger—made him turn into a snarling beast, impossible to control.
FORTY-ONE
Staying sane over not finding Bronte and Zachary
caused the kind of suffering Darkwyn had no power to heal.
caused the kind of suffering Darkwyn had no power to heal.
While trying to keep his inner dragon from reappearing, he found the wounded policeman, coughing and bleeding, picked him up as if he weighed no more than a kitten, and carried him down and out to the curb.
“I wish you had a big S on your chest,” the cop said. “It would be easier to tell the guys at the precinct I was saved by
Super
Naked Guy.”
Super
Naked Guy.”
“Tell them you were saved by the Vampire Dragon.”
“That you? Okay. I’ll leave out the part about you being naked.”
“Appreciate it.” Darkwyn sat the cop on the curb, turned, and blessed be, Bronte shouted his name. Prickles of relief attacked his limbs as if he might pass out; he’d been that scared.
He turned to the sound, and a jumpsuit flew from the bushes. He slipped into it as Bronte came running, and a huge weight slipped from his shoulders. He grabbed her and kissed her, and kissed her again. “You’re safe,” he said. “Thank the Goddess. Isn’t that one of Zachary’s backpacks? Where is he?”
“I wish I knew.”
She grabbed his sleeve in a tight fist. “Darkwyn, find Zachary for me.”
“My next order of business. Ambulance is on the way.”
“Good,” she said. “You find Zachary and I’ll stay with our friend here until help comes.”
The cop nodded. “Thanks, both of you.”
Darkwyn glanced at the Phoenix roof where slush balls the size of his fist landed and smoked the place up. He squeezed Bronte’s hand on his sleeve, kissed her quick, and went back inside. Meanwhile, the room where the slush got in through the hole in the wall smoked.
If only the slush could reach the fire inside as well as the gaping hole on the back side.
Darkwyn pushed out the front window, eliminating a bit of wall with it, his dragon strength immense on the cusp of transformation. Now the room gaped open on both sides.
Slush reached the edge of the fire, melted and dribbled toward more flames. It would take a change in the wind’s direction to get the fire completely out. “Andra,” he shouted. “Help!”
Whoosh
, the wind changed, picked up strength, and blew the slush right in. Sizzle turned to smoke.
, the wind changed, picked up strength, and blew the slush right in. Sizzle turned to smoke.
Darkwyn saluted, and ran up the stairs.
Killian must be tired after his besting her earlier, then the trip home, with all that bad weather. Andra wouldn’t usually get this much help to him without Killian stopping her.
He found the family floor empty. Upper-floor apartments, also empty. Zachary was nowhere to be found. Darkwyn shivered at the implications, and let his roar shake the rafters, though he held his fire.
Yes, even as a man, he could use his fire to fight, to warm his family, but he could destroy with it, too. The evidence, a throat-burning reminder of his horrific blunder, a blunder that curled around him in the tendrils of smoke rising from the ashes.
More transformations would be called for. More nakedness, more clothes. He grabbed his things and tossed them off his balcony, cursing his own weakness.
Strengths could turn on you to become curses. Worse than the destruction of the Phoenix, was that the fire might have given Sanguedolce’s henchmen the opportunity to abduct Zachary.
“Zachary!” Darkwyn shouted, heart pumping, guilt eating at him, his hope as sturdy and dependable as the air in a balloon.
How could Zachary let himself be caught? Zachary knew things. As a child, he’d fearlessly searched for evidence. He would be an asset in any situation, especially to a man like Sanguedolce, who would want a brilliant enemy nearby, where he could keep an eye on him, boy or not.
Zachary knew that and he would use the knowledge.
That boy had better not have hitched a ride back to Canada.
Who was he kidding, trying to talk himself into believing Zachary was all right, albeit in the wrong company?
The boy had not been tied up and left in the burning building. Darkwyn made sure of that. Right now, he should think about getting Bronte to safety, but she wouldn’t go without Zachary.
He’d take another run through Fangs and make sure nobody had been bound and left behind after his earlier check, then he could concentrate on getting Bronte out of here.
The cop and his gun should be enough protection for Bronte, until the ambulance left when she would be alone out there.
“Zachary?” he called as he fast-forwarded through the flames that made their way inside the walls to the first floor. “Zachary?”
Near the spiderweb, he heard shouting. “I’m too young to die. Save me, and these rodents, too.”
“Puck!” Darkwyn found the hysterical bird caged in a diorama with Scorch and Lila.
Scorch licked his face, which meant Killian had outgrown her host. The evil sorceress would need her own form to exert full power as their struggle grew. Lila patted his face and stroked his cheek. Oddly, he appreciated the vote of confidence, real or accidental.
Cats in his arms, clothes singed, skin burning, with a parrot who wouldn’t get off his head, Darkwyn walked through Fangs and opened every casket, but no Zachary.
Damn, he wished he’d opened the caskets upstairs.
He took the critters out via the front door, and noted that firemen were taking charge. He sent the animals to Bronte, still waiting near the curb. “I need one more look upstairs for Zachary.”
She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Darkwyn, I’m scared. Scared they got him.”
“Either way, we’ll get him back.”
“Oh, good. I thought I’d have to talk you into taking me to Canada.”
“To Canada and the man who would kill you? I said
I’d
get Zachary back. We’ll address your role in the rescue, if you have a role, after I look upstairs. In case Sanguedolce’s men are still around, hide in the woods by the fairgrounds, and take the animals?”
I’d
get Zachary back. We’ll address your role in the rescue, if you have a role, after I look upstairs. In case Sanguedolce’s men are still around, hide in the woods by the fairgrounds, and take the animals?”
“Who’s an animal?” Puck snapped. “I’m a bird, a long-tailed parrot of the genus Ara, a Catalina macaw, and I’m bea-u-tee-ful.”
“Puck, in any other situation, you’d be entertaining as hell.”
“Ex-cuuse me.”
“The woods,” he said to Bronte, and she blew him a kiss and ran, the parrot flying beside telling dragon jokes.
On the way upstairs, his mind raced. That boy had a spare generation of wisdom on his side. He was too smart to get caught by the mob . . . unless he wanted to be.
FORTY-TWO
Darkwyn opened every casket in Drak’s, and destroyed
every sofa in his growing panic that the mobsters had stuffed Zachary beneath the seat of one.
every sofa in his growing panic that the mobsters had stuffed Zachary beneath the seat of one.
He evaded firemen giving the smoking carcass of the Phoenix a final hose down and slipped out the Fangs exit to the fairgrounds, from concession stand to amusement park ride, and on, until he ended up in the cemetery, an ironic place to seek respite.
Darkwyn turned toward a scrabble in the woods behind him, broken twigs, a clumsy step, unsure of what to expect, and his survival instincts kicked in. More than anything, he wanted Zachary and Bronte to step out of those trees, but he prepared himself to face the worst, his heart beating with both high-rising hope and deadly purpose.
A figure appeared, and his heart jumped with joy and disappointment that she was alone. “Bronte, thank God you’re safe.”
She walked straight into his arms.
One loved one safe, one to go.
Bronte’s chin came up as she pulled from the embrace. “We have a problem.”
“I know,” Darkwyn said. “Zachary is still missing.”
“Worse. I found a note pinned to his superhero backpack, here.”
Darkwyn stepped away from the possibilities. “What? A ransom note? A mob threat? Did those somebitches threaten Zachary’s life?”
“They’re son-of-a-bitches. Never learn vocab from a thug. It’s a note from Zachary. I recognize his handwriting.”
“Read it.”
“ ‘Bronte,’ it says. ‘No matter what, go to Montreal, and DO it. For Mom. You promised.’ He capitalized DO, and the stinker’s trying to guilt me into it, the same way I guilt him into cleaning his room.”
“
Do
what?”
Do
what?”
“Get the evidence out of hiding and hand it to the police up there.”
“How risky is that?”
“I know Castello Sanguedolce like the back of my hand, or the front of your—”
Darkwyn kissed her. “I’m afraid for you, not me, sasspot.”
“Face it: you can’t do it without me. Zachary signed ‘Zachary times two.’ He’s reminding me that he’s had two lives.” Her breath shuddered. “He’s ready to let go of this life, if he has to, but he wants Sanguedolce out of business.”
“Or,” Darkwyn said. “ ‘Zachary times two’ could mean that both young and old Zachary want you to do this. Our boy is smarter than the average genius, Bronte. He can take care of himself.”
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