Bad News

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  “Lucky us!” Charles looked Clay over with a smile.

  Ms. Mauvais next steered Clay to a table where an old man and woman were seated; that is, unlike the smooth-faced Ms. Mauvais or Charles, the wrinkles and spots on their faces showed them to be old—even older than the others, presumably. Two uniformed attendants sat across from them, cards spread out on the table between them. Judging from their unhappy expressions, the workers had been conscripted to play cards against their will.

  “And here we have Mr. and Mrs. Wandsworth,” said Ms. Mauvais. “They are renowned world travelers and, as you see, passionate bridge players.”

  Mrs. Wandsworth turned and regarded Clay over the thin gold rims of her bifocals. With her attention elsewhere, her husband frantically tried to show one of his cards to his bridge partner.

  “Please don’t do that, Reginald,” Mrs. Wandsworth said to her husband, without turning back around. “Cheating sets a poor example for the underclasses.”

  Grimacing, Mr. Wandsworth re-hid his card.

  Clay noticed that Mr. Wandsworth, too, was wearing white gloves, as was his wife. They were all members of the Midnight Sun.

  Clay’s leg started to jiggle nervously. There was no telling what these people were capable of. If he was going to succeed in rescuing Cass and Ariella, or just get out alive himself, he had to keep up his guard at all times.

  “Do you play bridge, young man?” asked Mrs. Wandsworth.

  “Um, sorry, not really,” said Clay.

  “All the better,” said Mrs. Wandsworth with a not-altogether-reassuring smile. “We’ll teach you.”

  “She means she’ll fleece you for all you’re worth.” Charles met Clay’s eyes and winked.

  Uncertain how to react, Clay looked away.

  “Charles, how dare you!” Nose in the air, Mrs. Wandsworth turned back to Clay. “Despite his deep distrust of the players, Charles has consented to join us for a game after dinner, but we need a fourth. I am counting on you.”

  Clay opened his mouth to protest, then decided to let himself be roped in. He would just have to find a way to get out of the bridge game later. His plan was to search for Cass after dinner if he hadn’t already found her.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  Ms. Mauvais coughed to get everyone’s attention. “S’il vous plaît, mes amis,” she said, clapping her glove-covered hands. “Now that we’re all acquainted, it’s time for the proverbial good news and bad news.”

  Clay tensed. Bad news? Had she discovered the spy in their midst?

  “As you know, we hope one day very soon to fly on the backs of dragons,” Ms. Mauvais continued. “Someday, we may even be able to outfit you in shining armor and let you duel with a dragon like St. George himself. No killing dragons, though—they’re far too expensive!”

  The Wandsworths laughed mirthlessly. Charles merely smiled. Clay had trouble simply breathing.

  “Alas, our dragons aren’t quite tame yet. And the largest ones are best seen from afar.”

  So that was the bad news. Clay swallowed, relieved that his identity had not been revealed, but worried about Ariella. What were they doing to try to tame the dragons? Nothing pleasant, he was sure.

  “The good news is that we can get up close and personal with the younger dragons, and of course with our brand-new hatchlings.” Ms. Mauvais looked inquiringly at her guests. “So why don’t we all freshen up and meet back here in twenty minutes? The first stop on our tour will be the nursery.”

  She glanced at the doorway, where a young girl had appeared with a large gray bird on her wrist. “Satya, there you are!”

  Hesitantly, Satya came over. She was about Clay’s age, with olive skin, freckles, and big hazel eyes; and she was wearing old jeans, a straw hat, and a long leather glove, the purpose of which was clearly to prevent the bird from digging its claws into her skin. Clay was happy to see that her other hand was bare; at least she was not a member of the Midnight Sun.

  “What did I tell you about keeping that bird outside?” said Ms. Mauvais sternly.

  Satya didn’t say anything.

  “Satya?”

  “You said that if I didn’t, you’d feed her to the dragons,” Satya replied, expressionless.

  Ms. Mauvais nodded curtly. “If you thought I wasn’t being serious, then you misjudged. One more time and I will prove it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, please, would you and your bird show our new guest to his quarters? He’s in the Beowulf Tent.”

  Satya led Clay outside, stroking her bird. “It’s okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he heard her say in a low tone.

  The bird squawked. Satya continued to whisper in her ear.

  Clay experienced a little spark of recognition; something about the way she spoke to her bird reminded him of the way he spoke to animals.

  They walked down a pathway bordered by a thicket of ferns and many brightly colored lilies. Insects buzzed around the flowers, but Satya’s bird seemed to take no notice of her surroundings; the bird’s piercing gaze was fixed firmly on Clay. Meanwhile, Satya herself didn’t so much as glance his way.

  Clay, struggling to keep up with her, tried to think of something to say. It might be useful to make a friend, he told himself.

  “What’s its name?” he asked, indicating the bird.

  “It’s a her. And her name’s Hero.”

  “Hi, Hero!”

  Clay looked the bird in the eye, trying to communicate that he was a nice guy. The bird blinked, nonplussed.

  “Ms. Mauvais wouldn’t really feed Hero to the dragons, would she?”

  “Oh, yes, she would, but I’m not going to let her,” said Satya fiercely. “I’ll kill her first.”

  “I guess you don’t like her very much, then?”

  She gave him a withering look.

  “Okay. Dumb question.”

  “They think they own us, but they don’t. Nobody owns my dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  “Vicente. The dragon wrangler?”

  Well, that figures, Clay thought.

  His face must have betrayed something, because she said, “What? You think your dad’s better ’cause he’s a billionaire?”

  “No!” Clay said, indignant. “I would never think that. I’m not really even—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Brett and Leira started shouting in his ear.

  “Stop! Don’t say it!”

  “She’s supposed to think you’re a spoiled brat, remember!”

  Satya raised her eyebrows. “Not really even what?”

  Clay shook his head in frustration. “Never mind.”

  They came upon a row of tents, each a different color and each with a different pennant on top, as if they had been erected for knights entering a tournament.

  Satya stopped in front of a bright red tent; its flag bore an illustration of a monstrous dragon and the name BEOWULF.*

  “Well, here you go.…”

  As Satya spoke, Hero lifted off from Satya’s arm. The bird landed on top of the flag, as if she were the owner of the tent.

  “So this is where I sleep…?” said Clay, trying to prolong the moment.

  Satya looked at him.

  “I know. Another dumb question.”

  She nodded, and a fleeting smile crossed her lips. “Got any more?”

  Yeah, do you happen to know where they’re keeping a woman named Cass prisoner?

  “Is Hero a hawk?”

  “Falcon.”

  “Cool. Fastest bird there is, right?” said Clay, hoping to impress the girl, if not the bird.

  “Right.”

  Clay thought he saw a flicker of interest in her face, but she turned away too quickly for him to be sure.

  Satya waved to the bird. “Come on down, Hero. We have stuff to do.”

  Hero squawked a warning at Clay, then flew back to Satya and resumed her perch on the girl’s wrist.

  “By the way, a word to th
e wise: You might get hot in that hat. I promise it’s not going to snow.”

  Smirking, Satya disappeared down the path.

  Annoyed, Clay watched her and Hero go. Brett and Leira were laughing in his ski hat.

  “Hey, look on the bright side,” Brett said. “At least your disguise is working.”

  “Thanks,” muttered Clay, shoving the tent’s flap open.

  Why did he care so much about Satya liking him? With any luck, he would be gone before morning.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DRAGONS

  Twenty minutes later, two Land Rovers were whisking the Keep’s guests away from the castle and onto a rough jungle road—well, a rough road cutting through what was planted to look like a jungle.

  Soon they had passed over a bridge, and Clay was staring wistfully out the jeep window at a thick canopy of bamboo that reminded him very much of Bamboo Bay on Price Island. Right above Bamboo Bay was the cave in which he had first discovered Ariella.…

  Clay shook his head, reminding himself to focus on the task at hand. Somewhere nearby Cass was imprisoned; his job was to find her. Hopefully, he would free her that evening, and then they would seek out Ariella and fly away.

  As the Land Rovers bumped along, he kept an eye out for possible holding-cell locations. Alas, they didn’t immediately pass any stone towers or cinder-block storage units, or even any padlocked shipping containers or boarded-up shacks. And he couldn’t imagine that Ms. Mauvais was keeping Cass outside in the jungle, tied up with vines.

  Eventually, however, they stopped in front of a long warehouse-like building. A big windowless structure, it looked very much like a place in which one might lock up an unruly prisoner.

  Stay alert, Clay told himself. If there was a chance to slip away from the others, he should take it. Easier said than done, of course. He looked at all the strangers around him and shivered despite the heat.

  As everyone climbed out of the Land Rovers, a glass door opened and a woman wearing glasses and a lab coat stepped out of the building. She held a clipboard, and her straight black hair was drawn back in a tight ponytail. White gloves covered her hands: Was she another Midnight Sun member, or were the gloves just part of her uniform?

  “Ah, there you are!” said Ms. Mauvais impatiently, as if she’d expected the woman to be outside, waiting at attention. “Everyone, this is Dr. Paru.”

  “Welcome,” said Dr. Paru crisply, ignoring Ms. Mauvais’s tone. “If everyone will please follow me…”

  Clay loitered outside as Charles and Mr. and Mrs. Wandsworth followed Dr. Paru into the building. When Ms. Mauvais stepped up, he held the door open for her, pretending he’d lagged behind out of politeness.

  “After you.”

  She nodded, as if this behavior were perfectly normal. But why shouldn’t she? How was she to know he’d never held a door open for anyone before in his life?*

  After the rest of the group had disappeared, Clay walked slowly down a long, fluorescent-lit hallway, passing several open doors. These all led into storage rooms of one type or another, and not, as far as Clay could see, to any secret dungeons. There was one closed door toward the end of the hallway; steel-plated and unmarked, it looked promising. He hesitated in front of it.

  Just as he was about to brave opening the door, Dr. Paru peeked her head around a corner. “I’m sorry, did we lose you?”

  Clay spun around. “Sorry! For some reason I thought you guys had gone through this door,” he said, his heart beating rapidly.

  “Nope,” Dr. Paru laughed. “That door leads to a waste-disposal unit. You should be very glad you didn’t go in.”

  Clay smiled weakly. So much for his first attempt at being a spy.

  At the end of the hallway, Dr. Paru ushered the group into a room that looked something like a high school science classroom. As her guests took seats, a video screen came to life behind her, showing a spinning globe and a time line.

  “As you know, the last dragons disappeared over four hundred years ago,” she said, slipping into a rehearsed speech. “In terms of our planet’s history, that is just a blip. And yet, strangely, dragons have left almost no trace in the geological record.”

  The image on the screen dissolved into a montage of scientists exploring mountains, deserts, caves, and even the ocean floor.

  “For years, our team combed the world, searching for a stray tooth or claw, a fossilized tail, some telltale markings on a cave wall, but no—nothing. We began to fear that we would never find even a little bit of dragon DNA, let alone enough to clone. Perhaps dragons had never existed after all, we thought.…”

  Seated in the back row, Clay wrinkled his face. Clone? Was that how the Midnight Sun had gotten their dragons? Had they cloned Ariella? It was an alarming thought.

  “Then came the incident on Price Island—”

  “About which the less said, the better,” interjected Ms. Mauvais coolly.

  Clay held his breath. He was sure that “the incident on Price Island” referred to the first time the Midnight Sun had captured Ariella. Hopefully, nobody was thinking about the dragon’s escape and the role that certain young campers had played.

  “At least we proved that dragons were real,” said Amber, reddening.

  “All you proved was that you don’t know how to keep a lizard in a cage,” said Ms. Mauvais. “And that’s the last time I trust you with any responsibility. Pray continue, Dr. Paru.”

  Clay exhaled. They were moving on. Perhaps he would now hear how they had recaptured Ariella.

  “After that we had an idea,” said Dr. Paru, as if there had been no interruption. “Instead of the natural world, maybe we should be searching the human world—somewhere protected against the whims of nature and yet out of reach of most people as well.”

  A picture of a familiar sword flashed on the screen.

  “It turned out that the thing we sought was right under our noses. DragonSlayer. In the incomparable collection of our own Mr. and Mrs. Wandsworth.” Dr. Paru nodded in their direction.

  Mrs. Wandsworth leaned over and whispered to Clay: “The sword is on loan only, of course. It is of inestimable value.”

  “We noticed a lot of rust and grime accumulated on the blade,” Dr. Paru continued. “No one had ever wiped it off. It was as if there was a taboo against cleaning it. Could that be because the rust was not rust at all? Well, I’m happy to say, this time we hit the jackpot: dragon blood, dried and preserved over the centuries.”

  Spinning strands of DNA filled the screen.

  “We were able to reconstruct three full DNA sequences immediately. It remained only to find a means of bringing the DNA to life.”

  She gestured to a basket of surgical slippers waiting by the doorway. “If you don’t mind putting slippers over your shoes…”

  Dr. Paru led the group through a pair of sealed glass doors. “You are now entering our main laboratory, where we experiment with the most minute building blocks of life.”

  She stopped in front of a mysterious refrigerator-sized machine with mechanical arms and blinking lights. Another white-coated scientist was manipulating something inside the machine through rubber-lined holes in its sides. A nearby video monitor revealed what he was working on: a giant football-shaped egg in a bright shade of teal.

  “Here the DNA is injected into an emu egg,” said Dr. Paru. “Early enough so that a dragon develops from the emu embryo.”

  As Dr. Paru continued to explain what they were seeing, Clay tried to make sense of what he had just heard. If the dragons at the Keep were bred from old DNA, then they were neither Ariella’s clones nor Ariella’s natural offspring; they were totally unrelated to Ariella. They might differ from Ariella in any number of ways.

  How well did Ariella get along with these other dragons? he wondered. How well would he get along with them? His mission was beginning to seem more and more complicated.

  Dr. Paru looked at Clay, frowning. “Did you say something?”
>
  Clay gulped. “I was just saying, ‘Wow, cool!’ That’s all.”

  She looked pleased. “Yes, it is pretty cool. It’s not every day you get to bring an extinct species back to life.”

  Phew, thought Clay. He’d have to hide his thoughts better.

  Next, she led them into an adjoining room, where Vicente and Satya were waiting for them. The air here was warmer, and the light dimmer.

  “And here are our newest additions,” said Dr. Paru.

  It took Clay’s eyes a moment to adjust. And then he stared, awestruck.

  On one side of the room sat four incubators lined with nests of hay. Inside each was a newborn dragon, no bigger than a Chihuahua. The dragons’ wings and tails looked sticky, as if they’d just hatched, and their shiny, scaly skins were a range of colors: two red-brown, one blue-black, and one a pale color that almost exactly matched the hay it was sitting on. They blinked and hissed and wriggled, not fully aware of what was going on but nonetheless annoyed by the interruption.

  As Clay watched, the pale dragon accidentally found its tail, then bit into it—only to shriek and turn bright red all over, just as Ariella had done when angry. Evidently, this dragon had a similar chameleon-like ability to change colors. Maybe Ariella had a relative here after all, Clay thought hopefully.

  “And here we have our two toddlers.…”

  On the other side of the room stood a half dozen cages that looked like they might have been built to contain lions and tigers for a traveling circus. Only two of these cages were occupied, each by a young dragon about twice the size of the newborns. From the looks of the cages, though, the scientists expected them to grow. And fast.

  To Clay’s surprise, these two larger dragons had cords tied to their arms, and on their heads they wore leather caps that covered their eyes but not their snouts.

  “Are those falcon hoods?” inquired Charles. “And jesses, I believe the cords are called?”

  Dr. Paru looked at Vicente, who nodded. “Yep. We’re training these guys early. Made the mistake of starting too late with the older ones…” he said.