Jake gathered several of the Dragons nearest him and spoke to them in low tones. They spread out through the park, and in only moments, motors fired up and down the road. Headlights sliced the park, and the crossing beams of those brilliant lights, Salvatore, Jake, and Donovan lifted Snake on what had once been his flag, and carried the Dragon president's body from the park.
Amethyst had managed to revive the girl, and helped her along in their wake. They passed through the parked bikes and crossed the street, disappearing into a darkened alley. Santini Park stood dark and silent. Only Snake and Jake's bikes remained, tilted on their kickstands and watching, like silent sentinels. More sirens rose, but the park was bare. The moon shone bright and clear.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Before they'd gone more than a block, Martinez stepped out of the shadows and fell in beside the make-shift stretcher. He reached out a hand, as if to touch Snake, or to check for life, and then pulled the hand back.
"It's over," Donovan said.
The old man turned, met Donovan's gaze, and then shook his head. He turned, spotted Salvatore, and went to the boy's side. Donovan saw him lean in close and whisper something, but he got no response. Martinez laid his hand on the young artist's shoulder and shook him gently, but again there was no reaction.
Salvatore's hair stuck out at crazed angles from his pale face. He still gripped the makeshift club that had once been a flagpole. Martinez tried to pry it gently from his hand as they walked, but Salvatore wasn't letting go, and again, the old man let it slide.
"We have to move fast," Jake said. "Those sirens are getting closer, and we have a ways to go. If they catch us before we get to the clubhouse, this is going to be hard to explain."
"They will not see us," Martinez said.
"I wish I shared your confidence," Jake said.
"I have taken care of it. They will not see us."
Jake stared at Martinez for a moment, and then nodded. He turned back and led the others through the darkened streets.
Donovan turned and glanced at where Amethyst supported the girl on her arm. He wanted to go to her, to talk to her and offer his help, but that would have to wait, at least until they got back to the clubhouse. He glanced up at the moon far above. He thought he saw a shadow pass before his eyes, far above, and his heart chilled. He flashed on Martinez shaking his head. If it wasn't over…
They turned the last corner and saw the lights of the clubhouse ahead. The bikes that had lined the park now covered the street, and the clubhouse yard. The fire in the back yard had been built up again, and light streamed from every window of the building. They hurried their steps. When they got within a couple of blocks, a contingent of quiet, silent Dragons took the makeshift stretcher from their hands gently and moved on ahead. Jake joined them, softly giving directions that Donovan noted were followed without question.
Relieved of his burden, Donovan hurried to Amethyst's side.
"How is she?" he asked.
"She'll live," Amethyst said. "Salvatore gave her a good shot to the head, and she's confused. She hasn't been in control of her body for hours. Also, one thing we failed to consider when we brought her along with us… she's one of the Escorpiones ' women. The more her memory comes back to her, the more she's scared out of her mind. I've told her we'll watch out for her, but I think we need to get her away from here.
"Give me a few minutes," Donovan said, "And we'll go. We can drop her at the hospital and tell them where to find her people. I need to see what Martinez is up to."
"What do you mean?" Amethyst asked.
Just then, the shadow crossed the moon again. This time it seemed a bit lower, and a bit darker. They both glanced up. There was nothing in sight, but something hung in the air, something dark and angry. Something powerful and hungry.
"I think," Donovan said, "you have your answer."
He spun, and ran for the entrance to the clubhouse. He slipped in past the groups of Dragons, their heads hung and their voices low. They'd won a battle that night, but they'd lost their President, and they'd lost brothers, and for most of them, there were more questions than answers. They didn't prevent Donovan from passing, but he caught more than a few confused glances.
There were candles on every horizontal surface. Donovan wound his way into the crowd and searched until he spotted the gray of Martinez's hair in the kitchen. He pushed through and found Salvatore seated at the table, staring at his hands. Martinez stood over him. The old man had a far-away expression. He seemed on the verge of saying something, and at the same time uncertain what it should be.
"Martinez," Donovan said, grabbing the old man's arm. "What have you done? They aren't gone. The dragons."
"They are not here either, my friend. They are… between."
Donovan started to ask what that meant, and then he caught sight of Salvatore. The boy sat at the table, but there was little indication of whether or not he was aware of his surroundings. He seemed lost in some other place. Tears had streaked his cheeks and his eyes had dark bags beneath them, as though he'd been drained of energy…or hope.
"The painting," Donovan said softly.
"Yes," Martinez said. "It was the painting. It opened a portal — connected worlds. Now that painting is gone, but the portal…it never closed."
"No," Donovan said. "I understood that. The paint — the Rojo Fuego — is there more?"
Martinez blinked.
"Yes, a little. I don't know how much. There are other colors, as well. They aren't as powerful…"
"We need the red," Donovan said.
He dropped to one knee before Salvatore.
"Sal, can you hear me?" he asked.
The boy glanced up slowly. His eyes were glazed, but he nodded. He was aware.
"You have to paint," Donovan said. "You have to close the portal. The only one who can do it is you — you see the dragons. They are in your heart — your soul. You are the one who brought Snake and his dragon together. Now Snake is gone…you have to take his dragon home."
A light flickered in Salvatore's eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"I don't know if I can do it," he said. His voice nearly broke. "Senor Snake…I did not know him for long, but…he was like a father…or a brother. He gave me strength, purpose. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I mattered. Now…"
"Now more than ever," Donovan said, "you matter. It's in your hands. Your gift — your talent — you can make it right. You can't bring him back, but… you can make certain he didn't die in vain."
Jake walked into the room then. In his hand, he held a small square of fabric. Donovan looked at it more carefully and saw that it was part of the sheet that had held Snake's dragon. The big man held it almost reverently. He laid it on the table in front of Salvatore and stepped back.
Salvatore stared at the white cloth in silence. Martinez rose and left the room. When he came back, he held the remnant of the Rojo Fuego, still carefully wrapped. He also had a bag filled with the other colors, and Salvatore's brushes. He laid them on the table beside the cloth. Donovan nodded to the old man, and they turned. A moment later, everyone had left the room, and Salvatore sat alone.
"I'll return before morning," Donovan told Martinez. "I have to help Amethyst with the girl."
"Does she remember anything?" the old man asked.
Donovan shook his head.
"She's scared. The last thing she remembers is following her boyfriend to Anya Cabrera's circle. I don't think she'll go back there. Can't say that I blame her. If my boyfriend offered me up for a voodoo ritual sacrifice, I'd have some serious questions about the future of the relationship."
Martinez laughed drily.
"I'll watch over the boy," he said.
Donovan stepped to a window and glanced out into the night sky."Can he turn them back?"
"I don't know," Martinez admitted. "It's what I feared all along. If Snake had lived, there would have been balance. Now the portal between this world and that other ha
s grown thin. I have never been able to walk that road. The boy has been there many times. I wish I'd had the time to teach him more — but in this instance, he is the master."
Donovan glanced back through the doorway into the kitchen. Salvatore had the paintbrush in one hand. He stared at the cloth intently. Dragons guarded the doorways, their backs turned to give the boy privacy.
"I hope he has the strength," Donovan said.
He turned to the doorway. Martinez faced him, and, tentatively held out his hand. Donovan took it without hesitation.
"We will have things to talk about," he said, "once things are settled. I will see you before the sun rises."
He turned and slipped out into the night. Amethyst waited impatiently by the side of the road. He slipped up on the opposite side of the girl and daraped his arm around her back. They moved off into the shadowed streets without a word. Behind and above them, a huge shadow slid across the face of the moon.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Salvatore stared at the cloth. He traced designs across the surface with the fingernail of one hand. At first the motion was random. His mind was far away. He tried to concentrate on the city, or the dragons, but something intruded. It was a pattern, a geometric shape. His finger began tracing that shape onto the white cloth, and he frowned. It was familiar, and at the same time he was certain he'd never seen it before — not exactly.
His paints were laid out beside him. There was also a worn piece of black charcoal. He picked it up almost absently and began to sketch. He continued to trace the pattern. There were six corners. He filled in circular shapes near the points, and in the center he drew a larger circle, with a concentric ring inside it.
He shaded the edges, and darkened the spaces between the circles. At some point he reached for one of his brushes, and the paint. He started with green. He shaded one of the circles carefully. He lightened the green and highlighted the edges, then switched to white until the sphere appeared to glow.
He worked more quickly now. He shifted colors and brushes. He worked with violet, and blue, red and yellow. His hand became a blur. He painted the spheres around the outer edge, but his mind — his concentration — was fixed on the center. It was plain and white, but in his mind, it pulsed and glowed. He reached for the last packet of paint, opened it reverently, and dipped his brush.
The shift was sudden and absolute. The second his brush dipped into the Rojo Fuego he felt the chair fall away. He was dropping through the air, and beneath him the city spread out in a wide, geometric panorama of color and shadow. He saw the towers, one for each color, and the pattern of his painting focused. Beneath him, the glowing read upper chamber of the central tower approached at sickening speed.
He gripped the brush, somehow it made the passage with him, and though it swirled in the open air and not across the surface of the white canvas, he knew he could not stop. If he let the pattern slip — if he failed to blend the colors in his mind, he was lost. As he fell, his eyes filled with tears. They slid across his cheeks and whipped off into the night sky of a world that could not be. It didn't matter. He didn't need to see what was in front of him. He knew what to do — what to paint.
An impossibly loud scream rose above and behind him. Even over the whistle of wind through his ears he heard the crashing boom as enormous wings flapped. The dragon screamed, but this time it was different. The sound echoed with sadness. There was pain in its voice, and loss. Salvatore's heart nearly stopped from a sudden, empathic sensation of immense sorrow.
Salvatore gripped the brush more tightly. The tower was very close. Red light glowed from windows on all sides of a circular parapet. The roof was smooth stone. As he grew nearer to it, he saw what appeared to be a network of fine, dark cracks rippling across the surface. As he neared, they resolved into a pattern of scales. He couldn't tell if they were painted, or if the tower had actually been carefully assembled from thousands of separate pieces of stone.
He closed his eyes. The image in his mind was nearly complete. He'd filled in the red glow at the windows and now he willed the brush to shift colors. He painted the spider-web-thin cracks. Though he could no longer see the network of stone scales, he brought them to life in his mind.
There was a sickening shift that nearly cost his equilibrium. One moment he was falling, and the next he stood on solid ground. His first instinct was to open his eyes, but he fought it. He had a final line to draw. He bit his lip, steadied his wobbly knees, and drew the brush through the air.
Then he opened his eyes.
The chamber was circular. The walls were convex glass lenses. In the center of the room, too bright to look at directly, sat the largest ruby Salvatore had ever seen. Light shone up from beneath it, caught the carved facets of the jewel, and shot out in all directions. The very air was crimson, like walking through a froth of blood.
He was not alone. Facing one of the windows, seated in a very large, ornate throne, a tall man with long, wavy hair stared out across the city. He sat very still, arms resting on the chair and hands gripping the wood frame tightly.
Salvatore stood before a wrought-iron easel. The white cloth was stretched across it. The painting — the image of the city from above — was complete. Salvatore let his hand fall to his side.
"Is it finished, Sal?" the man asked.
Salvatore's heart nearly stopped. He knew the voice. Now, looking more closely, he saw that he knew the man, as well. It was Snake, and, at the same time, it was not. There were no tattoos on the muscled arms. There were flecks of gray in the dark hair. The man wore a dark red tunic and some sort of robes.
"Senor Snake?"
The man rose slowly and turned.
"No, Salvatore, I am not Snake. Not exactly. You know me, though. You know my brothers. We are connected."
Salvatore dropped to one knee. There was something in the man's expression, something in the tone of his voice that demanded respect. He felt as if he were in the presence of royalty, and he was frightened, but at the same time he was compelled to step forward.
"How…" he asked.
"It is not what you think," the man said. "We have met, you and I, but not like this. I have not spoken with one from your world in… centuries. I never thought to see the skies of that place again, though I have felt the pull. You opened a portal."
"I am an artist," Salvatore said. "The dragons… they haunted my dreams. I had to paint."
"I know," the man said. "I know."
He stepped closer, passed Salvatore, and stood behind the easel. The man stared long and hard at the painting. He reached out as if he would brush his fingers across the surface, but he did not. Instead he let his fingers flutter just above the paint. Salvatore thought, just for a second, that he saw the hint of a tear forming at the corner of the man's eyes. Then the moment passed.
"You must go," he said. "You are not safe here."
"You… and Senor Snake…"
"Yes," the man said. "We were bound — connected. You and I are bound, as well, and that is the only thing holding the portal closed. My brothers and I…change. Generations pass in your world, and sometimes we bond with those on other planes. It isn't common…and this generation? I believe it is because of you. Once your dreams connected your Dragons with my own, the bonds formed too rapidly to count."
"You are…a dragon?" Salvatore asked.
"I am a dragon, and many other things, Sal. What happened tonight — that hurt me deeply. It's going to take a lot of time to heal. There is at least one of my brothers in the same state — in the blue tower."
"Enrique," Salvatore said softly.
"Yes, but it is different for him. In your world, his spark is gone. In ours, he transferred. They are twins here, now. It has caused an imbalance, but I believe that it will pass. The man you knew as Snake was too far gone to be brought through, but I took the dark one."
"Anya Cabrera?"
"Yes, that is the name she went by on your plane. Here she has bonded, as well, though not with one
of us. There are lower things, in the seas, and in the ground. I am certain I have not seen the last of her, but she poses little threat in her current state. In the same manner that drawing us through to your plane increases the energy and power of those we are bonded with, drawing your kind through to us weakens what is here. Having your Anya Cabrera on my plane for the span of her days is a blessing, of sorts."
"But," Salvatore frowned. "I am here. I have not bonded with a dragon."
"You are different. Surely you see? You are bonded with this place. There will always be a connection. It makes you dangerous to us. It makes you dangerous in your own world, as well."
Salvatore took a step back, and the man let loose a thunderous laugh.
"I will not harm you. I only want you to understand — the gift you have is rare and wonderful. Most men — and dragons — never come to understand a single world. You have seen two, and your mind — your art — keeps them alive for you. In my lifetime, there has never been another Worldwalker, though I've heard stories."
"That is what I am?" Salvatore asked softly. "A Worldwalker?"
"It is your gift. This may not be the only world you will visit. For now, you must go. And you must do something for me."
Salvatore nodded.
The man stepped over to the easel and glanced down at the painting.
"It is a remarkable likeness…exactly as I see it from above. As you have seen it. You must take this back with you, and you must guard it well. Without this, you cannot return — in the wrong hands, another might open the portal. If it is open for too long, it will break. As long as the history of my people stretches, I cannot tell you what might happen if you were to allow this to happen."
"Can't you keep it here?" Salvatore asked. "Safe?"
The man shook his head. "It is of your world. It belongs with you…or your kind. Find a safe place for it. It would be best if its existence were forgotten."
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