Noah's Boy-eARC

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Rafiel could even see it. Sort of. “We still have to go talk to her father,” he said “and figure out how—”

  “Yes,” Cas said.

  “I’m coming with you,” Conan said, and glared.

  Cas looked at Rafiel and Rafiel sighed. He was the senior officer in the department, and though that came with absolutely no authority, people still tended to consult him. The fact that he came from three generations of Goldport policemen also contributed to the effect. “It’s a bad idea,” he said gently to Conan. Unlike Cas and Nick, Rafiel knew something of Conan—together they’d been involved in a very big fight against a very scary threat before, and Rafiel was aware that convincing Conan to stay home and wait for his girlfriend to be returned to him was not very likely. The young singer’s defining quality was loyalty, and after Tom, Rya was probably the person to whom Conan thought he owed the greatest duty.

  But if it were possible at all to convince Conan to stay safe, gentleness and logic would work better than ordering him to stay out. “You’ll get in the way of the trained professionals, Conan. Let us do this. We’ll call you if we need you.”

  But Conan’s lips went thin; his eyes went mutinous. “You can’t keep me out. And besides, while I might not be trained, I am the only one among you who fully understands the triads. If Tom leaves, they might follow. No, they will probably follow. And they’ll keep ahead of him, and move Rya accordingly. But if I go with you, they’re not likely to think much. They don’t think of me as a threat, or as someone who will act without Tom.” He smiled wryly. It was a smile without any joy. “Particularly if you handcuff me, and I do a perp walk, and Tom leaks something in the diner about you suspecting me of kidnapping Rya. In fact, that will probably throw them. They’d never understand my agreeing to be shamed like that in front of everyone, so they’ll think you really suspect me. They’ll go into a panic, probably try to talk it out with Tom, thinking their plan failed. In the end, they’ll be so confused that we can look for her without interference.” He looked at Tom. “Can you give us details on what these…non-triad people look like? Any names?”

  “I get the name Mike Miller,” Tom said, “and the impression he is a tall, blond man. He might live in the general area around the Founder’s Museum. By the way, I think they’re the same people who kidnapped Kyrie—properly chastised—perhaps the triads don’t know anyone else who’d do this? So, if you ask at the Tomahawk, someone should be able to give you directions.”

  “Got it,” Rafiel said. “Nick, you go to the Tomahawk. I’ll take Cas with me, since we’re apparently pretending to arrest Conan.”

  Nick got up, snapped a mock salute.

  Rafiel looked towards Tom, “If you come up with anything else, call me, or have Kyrie or Bea call me, right?”

  “Hey,” Bea said. “You’re not going into this—”

  Rafiel turned and smiled at her. She looked concerned, worried for him. Her green eyes showed something like what his mother used to look like when he was very small and tried to do something difficult. As much as it touched his heart, now was the time to stop this. A police officer who has his girlfriend following him around trying to protect him is already doomed. If she was going to be his girlfriend, she was going to have to learn that it was normal to be worried about him, and that she couldn’t protect him.

  Certainly, if she was going to be his wife, she would have to learn that. It might be difficult for a girl who could turn into a dragon to realize that she couldn’t fly over him, hovering, keeping him from harm, like a scaly guardian angel. But in the end the situation wasn’t much different from the dozens of officers’ marriages that Rafiel had seen ruined by wives who didn’t get that you can’t be a policeman and stay perfectly safe. “Now, Bea,” he said, softly, “I appreciate your concern, but it’s really impossible for you to come with me. You know it is. You’d add absolutely nothing to our or Rya’s safety. All you’d do is make me worry about you.”

  She opened her mouth. He put his finger on it. “Yes, you’re a dragon and perfectly able to take care of yourself, and if I need help, you’re the first person I’ll call. But this should be relatively easy. You know I face danger whenever I go to work. If—if we’re going to be together, you’ll have to get used to this.”

  He expected her to say something like “we’re not going to be together.” He’d flung the words out hesitantly, afraid she would say he was presuming too much, but instead she looked at him, her gaze filled with confusion, somewhere between annoyance and worry, somewhere between irritation and love.

  He grinned; then leaning down he kissed her lightly on the lips. “You stay here and help Kyrie, and I swear I’ll call if I need you.”

  Cas was already cuffing the hands that Conan willingly held out. As they left the storage room, Rafiel heard Bea draw a sharp breath and say, “The most infuriating man.” And Kyrie’s answer, “Isn’t he?”

  At this moment, with a potential alien invasion in the works, what Bea felt for Rafiel should not matter—and yet it did, as much as ever.

  *

  Looking resolute, Tom turned to Kyrie, and she knew what he was going to say. She’d heard it in Rafiel telling Bea to stay with her. Did the two men think they could order her to stay when Tom was about to run his head into danger in the most spectacular of ways?

  It wasn’t that Kyrie had any interest in getting herself in danger. Her feet hurt, and she was still very tired from her adventures, and she’d give just about everything to be safe in her bed and asleep. But it didn’t work like that.

  She and Tom were partners in the diner, in the house, and in life. She was the first to admit whatever it was that had happened to him, with this Great Sky Dragon affair, had left her discomfited and more than a little confused. She knew that he had something in his mind, something that Old Joe called the dragon egg. But it didn’t matter. He was still Tom—additions or not. He was still essential to her happiness and well-being.

  “Tom,” she said, urgently. “If something happened to you…”

  “Nothing will happen to me,” Tom said. And then his glance showed the kind of wavering it got when he was having second thoughts, or considering that perhaps what he’d said might not be perfectly true. He said, “If something happens to me, chances are the Earth as a whole won’t last much longer.”

  “Only fleshy things on Earth,” Old Joe said, and clacked his teeth. “And plants.”

  “Yes, of course,” Tom said. He turned a sudden, dazzling smile on Kyrie. “You see where that is a great relief. There is no way that you’ll know for very long that I’m gone.”

  Kyrie found that her hand had somehow twined itself into the material of Tom’s T-shirt, forming sort of a handle by which to pull him to her. “Tom, don’t be an idiot,” she said. “You can’t go alone. If you go alone, and something happens to you, one way or another…” She paused. “Tom, I have gone through this once, where I thought you were dead and gone forever. Don’t do this to me again.”

  “I have no intention of doing that, Kyrie. But truly, I can’t have you with me. And we can’t call Anthony back just yet. Chances are he isn’t even home yet. And you know how worried I’ll be if you’re not around to man the fryer. Conan likely left it set to explode.”

  “The fryer doesn’t have a setting to explode,” Kyrie said.

  “That’s what you say,” Tom said. He kissed her on the forehead. “Please, Kyrie. I don’t think I can think of recovering the Pearl and what to do with you there, while worrying about you.”

  “So,” Kyrie said, before she could think. She crossed her arms on her chest. “The little ladies are to stay behind and safe. Have you spent too much time with Rafiel? You know better. We’ve fought side by side.”

  And then it happened. Tom’s face changed. Okay, not in any way she could easily describe, but the weight of centuries seemed to descend on his gaze, like the knowledge of ages before humanity could speak, much less write.

  It seemed to take him as much b
y surprise as it took Kyrie. He frowned, then shook his head. “Yes, we’ve fought side by side, and yes, Kyrie, I know how well you can fight. But this time—this time—if Rafiel didn’t lie in his story, and I don’t think he did, then what is at stake is so immense, that if I lose there is going to need to be someone here to pick up the pieces.”

  She must have looked startled, or perhaps scared. It wasn’t a reaction to Tom, of course—she couldn’t imagine being scared of Tom. It was an instinctive reaction to the way his eyes looked, deep and dark and troubled, the blue looking like the depths of a stormy sea, a sea old as time and concealing cold, dark secrets.

  “Do you think,” he said, and his voice fell into careful cadences and exact pronunciation that betrayed an emotion that mere screaming and raging wouldn’t have. “Do you think I wouldn’t prefer to be with the guys right now, with Rafiel and Conan, looking for Rya? Do you think I’m not worried? The triad is my bailiwick. My lookout. Whether I want to think of dragonkind or not, dragonkind thinks of me first, and the only reason that Rya is involved in all this, is because Conan is my friend. I want to be there—setting that right. But I can feel the old Sky Dragon—the real Great Sky Dragon—stirring, and Kyrie, if I don’t get to him, we are going to have those…things here. We’re going to have them on Earth, and we’ll have to fight them here. I don’t know what you think they are. I’m not sure what I think they are. But if these projections feed off fear and pain, I don’t want to see what the real deal invading aliens will feed on. And Old Joe’s reassuring repetition that they hate all fleshy life including plants doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzies either. And that’s why you must stay behind, Kyrie. That’s why you must remain safe. As safe as you can be in this.

  “I don’t know if I will win or lose, and I’m very afraid I’ll lose, because we’re up against terrible odds, and I might never be able to activate the Pearl of Heaven—even if Old Joe tells me I can. And if I activate it, I don’t know if it can also be activated by the Great Sky Dragon afterward. I don’t know if these are one-use artifacts.” His hand lifted with the same kind of precise deliberation in his pronunciation of words. He let it rest on Kyrie’s shoulder, just rest, barely closed, a caress more than a grasp. “Kyrie, it’s entirely possible that unless I can steal the Pearl, run with it”—he grinned, recalling that he’d done that once before—“and keep away from the creature, from Maduh, until the Great Sky Dragon is himself again, she can manage to make the Great Sky Dragon open the gates, whether I activate the Pearl or not. And if that happens, if the creatures come upon the Earth, I count on you to save us all.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips very lightly.

  “But,” Kyrie said, “Tom!”

  “Yes?”

  “How can I save the world? I’m just the manager of a diner. I’m just—”

  “You’re the only person I trust to do it,” he said. And now the fingers squeezed, very lightly. And then he let go and looked at Old Joe who, Kyrie thought, looked terribly embarrassed, as though they’d been involved in some lewd display. Perhaps it was, Kyrie thought. After all, how many shifters had relationships? Good relationships? Sane ones?

  Tom had his hand on the handle of the door to leave the storage room when Kyrie said, “Tom?”

  He turned around again.

  She didn’t know what she was going to say, but his eyes were Tom’s again, and she spoke in a rush to the Tom she knew, to the man she’d first met when the old diner owner had hired him from the homeless shelter down the street. Tom had looked streetwise, and she’d known he was addicted to heroine. The old owner had known it, and had told Kyrie about it. And she’d spent months fighting her attraction to him, telling herself that he was bad, that he would turn on her.

  But in the end she had to give in, because Tom was Tom. He was caring, responsible…good. Tom was good through and through. And that brought the words pouring out of her mouth. The thought of that something else, the dragon’s egg in Tom’s mind, the thought of that thing—cold, ancient—the thought of it unleashed, permeating everything, touching all that was Tom, made Kyrie’s blood run cold. “Tom,” she said, and her voice was small and helpless, helpless as she’d never felt, not even when she was a foster child, shuffled from home to home, at the mercy of strangers and bureaucrats. “Tom.” She swallowed because there were tears in her voice, and she didn’t want to shed them. “I don’t want you to— I don’t want you to change. I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to do anything with the Pearl and…and the stuff the dragon put in your head. I’m afraid it won’t be you anymore. I’m afraid it will be like that sentence when I came in, and you said…you said it was something about being buried under the dragon. I’m afraid you’ll be buried under the dragon—that Tom will disappear under the dragon. That the man I love will stop existing, taken over by…the dragons.”

  Tom looked at her. It was a long, intent look, and his eyes were his own: worried, overshadowed, carefully controlled. For the first time, she realized what it must feel like to him, that alien thing in his mind.

  “Tom,” she said again in a strangled voice. “I just want you to come back. I mean, as you.”

  He blinked at her, and she had the odd idea he was trying not to cry. But there were no tears, no water in his eyes. His hand rose again and cupped her face. It was a tender gesture, intimate. “I’ll come back,” he said. His voice was husky. “If I come back at all, Kyrie, I’ll come back as me. For you.”

  And then he was gone, followed by Old Joe, who somehow gave the impression of an alligator’s reptilian crawl, even while walking on two legs. Then the door closed behind Old Joe. She wondered if Tom would manage to get out of the diner unseen. She wondered if he really would come back.

  A clap of thunder shook the building, like a bad omen, and she thought she’d best go and help make sure the fryer didn’t explode.

  Some people went out to fight ancient horrors. To others it was given to stay behind and make sure that fryers didn’t blow up. “However small,” she told herself, “I have my part to do.” But it didn’t feel small. Nor did the confidence Tom reposed in her—that she could save the world or some of the world if all else were lost—seem small. It seemed like he expected her, Atlaslike, to raise the weight of the world on her shoulders. And she wasn’t sure she had the strength to even lift herself.

  But she meant to try.

  *

  Rafiel walked out of the diner, and into pouring rain so close and heavy that all he could do was reach out and grab Conan’s shoulder, to make sure he didn’t lose him in the storm.

  It wasn’t, he thought, that he was afraid that Conan would run away, but he was afraid that the small Asian man would get lost in this mess and…And what? Drown?

  But immediately after the facetious word, it came to Rafiel it wouldn’t be that impossible. In the way of Colorado rains, sudden and violent, if it went on for more than a couple of hours, it would overwhelm the storm water system that was designed for no more than a trickle.

  Rafiel remembered being five and going to school at a time when it had rained for a week, and the entire road had become a raging river. The school hadn’t closed, but Rafiel’s mom had held onto his hand very tightly, as they walked on the sidewalk, a few inches above the roaring water.

  For just a moment, this cold torrent made him wonder if just maybe, it was an omen, if they were going to be fighting blind. Well, it wasn’t going to be helpful. They couldn’t have Conan fly above and find any landmarks.

  They got inside the car by touch, Rafiel pushing Conan through the door he’d heard open. Inside, they sat in the car, streaming water.

  “Take the handcuffs off,” Conan said.

  Rafiel looked at the diner. He was sure people were straining to see them, but the chances of their seeing inside his car, in this, were next to none. He reached across and removed the handcuffs. Both he and Conan looked like they’d stepped out of a shower.

  He saw headlights come out, and from the flash of a white t
op, thought that Cas and Nick had put their top up, at least. That car must be good and soggy.

  Conan pulled back at his streaming hair, and looked up at Rafiel. “We can’t fly above and…”

  “I can’t anyway,” Rafiel said. “At any time.”

  “No. But I can’t either. Not in this. Once, Tom flew to Denver to see his father in the middle of a storm, and said he was almost at Pueblo before he realized he’d gone wrong. It’s not…easy.”

  “So, we don’t go above. Our challenge right now,” Rafiel said, “is to stay on the road and find the motel.”

  They took off from the parking lot, the white SUV almost hydroplaning in the water already accumulated, and fishtailing madly as they hit the minor river that Pride Street had become. Rafiel was aware of the headlights of Cas’ and Nick’s convertible ahead of him, and just hoped he wouldn’t accidentally hit them.

  *

  “Well, no flying,” Old Joe said, as they stood just outside the back door to the diner, under the tiny cantilevered overhang there. “Not in this. Not that I could, of course.”

  Tom’s mind had gone instead to how convenient this downpour was. In the blind sheets of rain falling—something rarer in Colorado than a diamond in a sandbox—no one inside the diner would be able to see them leave. Even if they weren’t distracted with the drama of Conan being dragged through the diner in handcuffs, which Tom was sure they were because Rafiel, Conan and the other two officers had waited outside the storage room door for Tom and Old Joe to come out. When they’d come out and turned towards the back, the officers walked Conan to the entrance to the corridor from the diner, very effectively blocking both sight and the chance of anyone coming back there and seeing Tom leave. They’d been reciting Conan’s Miranda rights loudly as Tom and Old Joe got out the door.

  But even with all this, Tom thought, even with the distraction, even with most diners—or all of them—concentrating on the Conan drama and not on what Tom was up to, it would be useless to get out stealthily if there had been good weather. Tom was not so stupid—nor did he imagine Jao was—that he wouldn’t have a lookout flying above the diner.