Vampire Dragon (30 page)
“Sure he can. Until he can’t.”
“I don’t know,” Darkwyn said. “I’m still thinking he’s around here somewhere.”
“He is resourceful. If he’s here, and playing us like puppets, and if we go to Montreal, he’ll probably go to Vickie and Rory’s, or to Jaydun, or Bastian. Even Vivica when she gets home from the hospital would take him.”
Darkwyn lowered himself to sit on a cement burial vault and pulled her against him. “If the mob took Zachary, Montreal is the place for us to go.”
“Right, and I promised to do it for my sister, Brianna, Zachary’s mom, and for countless others. Don’t look at me like that. You’re not going without me. Besides, you couldn’t find Sanguedolce or Montreal, and you sure wouldn’t recognize Castello Sanguedolce, itself, because the mansion/castle, whatever, doesn’t look anything like a slaughterhouse.”
“Bronte,” Darkwyn said. “Going seems destined to me, but how does it feel to you?”
“I’d rest easier if we knew where Zachary was.”
“Which goes without saying, but while you were out here hiding, did you see anything, or anyone?”
“Oh good grief, yes. I almost forgot in my panic over the note. I think one of your brothers tried to help. A dragon leapt from Drak’s and took off over Cat Cove—I can’t believe I can say that so easily—then a claw of lightning grabbed the roof until it smoked. That happened right before you jumped from the second floor, also before you rescued the cop.”
“Calamity,” Puck said. “A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering.”
“Bronte, I think you saw Killian strike the building.”
“I saw a rather determined bolt of lightning strike, and not let go, until a fire started up there. Did you think you had?”
“Yep, I sure did,” Darkwyn said. “Puck’s quote holds true. I may not have started the fire alone, but I am partly to blame. I talked about my past, which turned the world’s attention, including the mob, to Drak’s. And now, Zachary is—hey, maybe Jaydun has Zachary. Bronte, do you still have your cell phone? Call him. Ask him if Zachary is with Vivica. Or if he knows where the boy is.”
Bronte called, asked the question, listened, and hung up.
“That was fast,” Darkwyn said.
“Your brother is all healed and at the hospital waiting for a minute alone with Vivica so he can heal her.”
“I didn’t know she needed healing, or I would have done it.”
“Broken ribs. She didn’t let on.”
Darkwyn growled low. “That’s why she had trouble sitting up. Damn. Any sign of Zachary?”
“Jaydun hasn’t seen him but he’ll join the search as soon as Vivica’s set. Bronte swiped at her eyes. “Zachary, damn it, where are you?”
FORTY-THREE
“Bronte,” Darkwyn said, “you and Zachary have a
soul connection. You’d know if the worst happened. You might be worried right now—all right, scared to death—but he’s okay. You know that, do you not?”
soul connection. You’d know if the worst happened. You might be worried right now—all right, scared to death—but he’s okay. You know that, do you not?”
“I suppose I’d know if something happened to him.”
“Good, so, Montreal? In case he’s there, and because you promised?”
“We don’t have passports.”
“Sweetie, no formalities, which I assume a passport is. You’re taking the Vampire Dragon express, but you have to ride up back this time; it’s hell on my balance flying with you in my arms, though I love looking at you.”
“I’ll ride you, dragon boy.”
“Don’t go getting saucy while I’m in the air. And you have to speak telepathically after this.”
“Will do. Darkwyn?”
He stopped in his tracks. “Yes?” He turned for a spontaneous embrace, both of them seeking comfort, holding tight for a long minute. He rested his head on hers, a comforting gesture. “We’ll find him.”
“Thank you for being here.”
He kissed her before he went into the woods to shift. Too soon, he returned as a dragon, determined to let hope sustain him. He lowered his wing for Bronte to climb on, Puck, too, it turned out, and roared his way up into the air headed toward Canada and the man who threatened Bronte’s and Zachary’s lives.
Bronte, I need directions.
Montreal, Canada, the Mount Royal section. Big mansions. Rich people. Fly over Cat Cove and hook a left. Stay north until I say west.
She repeated the directions in English for the bird’s sake. “That sound right, Puck?”
She repeated the directions in English for the bird’s sake. “That sound right, Puck?”
“Bien, oui, mon cherie.”
Darkwyn looked back. Puck the cock made Bronte laugh. Normalcy amid chaos, like the eye of the storm, deceptively calm, death and destruction pulsing just out of sight.
“
I’m glad we don’t need to worry about a passport
, Bronte said telepathically.
I’m glad we don’t need to worry about a passport
, Bronte said telepathically.
No, but keep an eye out for Killian.
Don’t think of her. It’s probably like calling her.
Wise woman.
I don’t feel the least bit wise. I misplaced my nephew, don’t forget. Darkwyn, suppose Zachary’s on his way to look for the evidence, himself?
He can’t be, unless he found a dragon of his own to ride.
Right, because he doesn’t have a passport, either.
“Passport.” He really did have to look up that word. But right now, he had to concentrate on not letting himself get blinded by the city lights. Flying by night could be a challenge when approaching a place like Montreal. They would be too visible, so Darkwyn found himself seeking cloud cover.
The mansions in the Mount Royal section, castles nearly, surrounded by well-groomed grounds in highbrow walking distance of Montreal proper, screamed money.
At the Sanguedolce mansion, where the roof would make for a perfect dragon landing, Darkwyn had to dodge a series of moving security cameras. He needed an eye-of-the-storm type moment, now, when all cameras pointed toward gates, walls, driveways, doors, anywhere but at the roof.
It happened, not magickally, but for a natural second. He moved toward the roof fast, landed, and crouched low so Bronte could slide off.
“Here,” she said, dropping Zachary’s backpack beside him. “I stuffed a couple pairs of jeans and shirts inside that I found below your balcony, but shape-shift twice without thinking, and you’re nothing but naked in Canada.”
He waved her away so he could turn back into a man without creeping her out.
She stood with her back to him near a small rooftop dwelling. His wife. He couldn’t quite believe that.
It took him only a few minutes to shift and dress. He felt almost normal in a shirt and jeans. If only he’d thought of tossing out a pair of shoes.
“Listen, Darkwyn, I’m suddenly sure that Zachary can’t be dead. I sense his living spirit with a whole heart, as surely as I sensed his worry that night you climbed my building, and you and I got to know each other, in the biblical sense. Zachary thought you were using me. He couldn’t accept that I was using you.”
“You were?”
“Best sex ever. I’m not stupid.”
“Fine time for you to tell me. Now I want to demonstrate, and I can’t.”
“You bet you can’t, not here. Think of something else.”
He looked around. Something else, something—“What is painted on the roof, there?”
“It’s a helipad. To land a helicopter? Flying machine,” she added when he didn’t seem to understand. “Big whirlybird. No wings, or sarcasm, like a certain dragon I know, just a motor and twirly blades?”
“If you say so.”
“What’s big and black and flies straight up?” Puck squawked. “A dragoncopter! What do you get when you tickle a dragon?”
“Eaten!” Darkwyn snapped. “The bird stays out here!”
“I agree.” Darkwyn followed his wife to the small rooftop dwelling, which opened to a stairway used presumably by the family to get to the copter thingy.
“You grew up
here
?” Darkwyn asked, pulling her up short at the top, before they took the stairs, and he kissed her because he needed to, really kissed her, and she returned his kiss with the same desperation, like it might be their last.
here
?” Darkwyn asked, pulling her up short at the top, before they took the stairs, and he kissed her because he needed to, really kissed her, and she returned his kiss with the same desperation, like it might be their last.
No
, he thought. That wasn’t a last kiss, it was a kiss to hold them until they found Zachary and could take him home. They couldn’t give up, especially not in spirit.
, he thought. That wasn’t a last kiss, it was a kiss to hold them until they found Zachary and could take him home. They couldn’t give up, especially not in spirit.
“Nice,” she said, when their lips parted.
“I want you to understand,” he said, “that my life is better, now, with you. I care a whole hell of a lot. You can put your trust in me, though you might not believe it, and Bronte?”
“What?”
“I’d give my life for you and Zachary.”
“I think I knew. It’s just so hard to believe that anyone would do that for us.”
“Believe it. Learn to trust.”
She looked over at the lawns sprawling for miles, the indoor pool beneath a glass dome, the outdoor pool, tennis courts, the greenhouses, and crossed her arms in front of her. “Trust comes hard. I know this looks like privilege, Darkwyn, but with a murderous stepfather and the RCMP breathing down our necks—with good reason—it was hell. You’ve heard of pop quizzes; we had pop searches, not that Sanguedolce didn’t leave the police some prime evidence now and again, to throw them off the trail.”
Darkwyn took her hand and squeezed. “Doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“Rival mobsters often tried to show the world they were better than Sanguedolce by trying to kill him, though they usually died themselves. This house has bulletproof windows, a tunnel that leads to a garden shed on the next property, and one to a municipal building in the city. Yeah, Sanguedolce has highly placed friends.
“This is where my sister died at Zachary’s birth while the body that previously housed his soul bled out on the floor beside her. That, Darkwyn, was life here at Castello Sanguedolce.”
FORTY-FOUR
Darkwyn started to shut the bird out of the stairwell.
“Fair warning,” Puck squawked. “ ‘Alone,’ means ‘In
bad
company.’ ”
bad
company.’ ”
“One of these days,” Darkwyn said, “I’m gonna get one bird with two stones.”
Bronte smiled. “That’s two birds with one stone.”
“Yikes!” Puck squawked. “I resent that.”
Darkwyn shut the bird out
. Annoying cock.
“Where to?”
. Annoying cock.
“Where to?”
“To the attic and back out again,” Bronte said. “Three minutes, if we’re really lucky.”
Inside, they heard a muted voice talking nonstop and identified the sound in a small but large-windowed room, facing the stairs, off a landing six steps down. A guardroom.
Inside, the guard, with his back to them, nodded off in front of a television, an empty gallon bottle of cheap whiskey beside him. “This, out of Salem, Massachusetts,” the newscaster on the TV screen said. “A follow-up to the viral newscast where journalist Roger Rudder claims to be interviewing a Vampire Dragon. There he is on your screen—the reporter, not the Vampire Dragon.
The Vampire Dragon is clearly in disguise, and we won’t insult your intelligence by showing the interview.”
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