“Don’t you want to take off your coat?” asked Alaythia, pouring his cocoa and trying not to seem too eager to please.
“I don’t think so. There’s still a bit of a chill in the air.”
“Really?” asked Alaythia, wiping her brow with a badly tailored sleeve. “I was thinking it was surprisingly warm.”
“It’s comforting to me. I come from a cold place,” said the Dragonman.
“And where is that?” The woman smiled. “If it’s not prying too much…”
“I consider my true home to be in the icy cold of northern England,” he said. “That’s where my ancestors come from. It’s very beautiful, and I miss it. All that pristine white sand on the beach, the foam at the top of the ocean, so perfectly white. But, as you know, art is my passion. The best place in the world for art is in New York. And perhaps in this very room. You have some terrific works right here.”
Alaythia blushed. “Most of them are just my own doodlings.”
“They show great talent,” said Venemon, his amber eyes flicking around the room.
She sat down in the chair beside him. She had never been given a word of encouragement for her own art, and his kind remarks had left her a bit dizzy. Dizzier than usual.
Little did she know the Dragon was actually thinking the room was painfully messy. It made his skin crawl to think how dirty it was making him. This woman was very beautiful, and he simply adored her, but her apartment was awful. She spent too much time on art, and not enough on dusting and pursuing whiteness, as far as he was concerned. There was a smell to the place. It almost smelled of…magic, he thought.
He was so caught up in watching the woman and her slightly jumbled hair, he did not realize he was smelling Dragonhunters approaching.
But would they ever get there? Simon and Aldric were aghast to see the elevator stopping for a little old lady.
“We don’t have time for this,” threatened Aldric. “Wait for the next one.”
The little old lady pushed inside with her cane.
“Back off, little man,” she squeaked. “I’ve got a date.”
Aldric pulled Simon out of the elevator. “We’ll take the stairs,” he said. They had six flights to go.
Meanwhile, Alaythia’s guest rubbed his hands together with contained excitement.
“I believe you promised me a bite,” he said, smiling broadly.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Alaythia. “I’ve just put in a roast beef.”
“Rare, I hope,” said the Dragonman.
“Oh, yes,” she answered, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “As rare as that artwork you’ve brought me tonight.” She was trying to prompt him to open the package he’d carried in.
“You want to see it now?”
“A brand-new Venemon? I want to see it more than anything in the world.”
“Maybe we should wait till after dinner.”
“No, no, no, I think we should open it now, right now.”
“Right now, this minute?”
“Right now, this minute, of course. You’re toying with me.”
Finally, he nudged her. “All right. Go on, open it.”
She rushed to the package with trembling hands. “The gallery will be so lucky to have it.”
The old reptile felt a thrill in his bones. The woman was soon to be his.
Slowly she peeled back the plain wrapper, to gaze upon a large white canvas painted with white blobs and dabs, flecks and flicks, spatters and spetters. It was a monument to blankness. To nothingness. To emptiness.
“It’s ravishing,” she whispered, for what she saw in the painting was something quite lovely and perfect. It was a great nothing, like all of his works, but this one was made just for her. And the magic was working.
The White Dragon licked his reptile lips with a long forked tongue.
Life could be as perfect as the color white.
Climbing the stairs, Simon and Aldric had finally reached the eighteenth floor. Simon was out of breath, even without armor. Aldric didn’t have any that would fit him. “I’ll protect you. Just stay out of the way,” he warned Simon, drawing his sword.
He rushed down the long marble-floored hallway, and his coat flew up behind him, exposing his dull-gray metal chestplate. He was not in full armor this time. He had decided to go light and wear only half the protection. He was still wearing the baggy gray painter’s pants and long boots he wore on the ship. Hardly anyone’s idea of a knight in shining armor. He had even left off his helmet.
But he moved so fast and smoothly, Simon was amazed.
He felt sorry for the Dragon.
Aldric muttered something, that the small apartment called for close combat tactics.
Simon pulled his own sword from its scabbard and slung the crossbow over his arm.
“Put that thing away,” snarled Aldric. “If I need you, I’ll tell you. Just find a corner where it can’t reach you. And catch up, for God’s sake.”
Simon ran to catch up to his father, who had stopped at the door of the apartment, listening.
Inside, Alaythia was staring at the painting and slowly losing her will to stay awake. Her eyes fluttered. She stood without moving a muscle. She was aware of nothing but the white painting.
She was not aware that the Great White Dragon had risen to its full eight-foot height and was slowly moving in behind her. The creature was so excited its fangs dripped sizzling white drool onto the carpet. He could almost taste her already.
What a beautiful prize she will be, he thought. What a beautiful flame she will make.
“What do you see in it?” he asked her in a low whispery voice, right over her shoulder.
Alaythia was so entranced by the artwork, she did not notice her neck being burned by the white strands of drool that had fallen from the Dragon’s jaws onto her skin. “I see…a knight in shining armor,” she said dreamily, and she seemed a bit confused by that.
“A Knight?” growled the Dragon, and he leaned his long neck back to strike at her.
Just then Aldric and Simon bashed through the door, swords drawn.
“Leave her, Vermin!” said Aldric in a voice Simon barely recognized.
But what Simon saw was not a Dragon at all, just a man in white clothes. Was Aldric completely mad?
It was the man in white. From school. The man who said he was Simon’s father!
Then Simon watched in amazement as his vision blurred, and he briefly saw the man in white in his real form, a lizardly man with all-white skin.
“Murderer,” hissed the Dragon, looking at them with utter disgust.
Aldric rushed in with his sword, calling out a war cry that would have scared the devil himself—and the White Dragon stepped back two paces on its curved, Tyrannosaurus-like legs.
Simon wanted to help his father. But the boy had never felt so small. His legs wouldn’t budge. He could hardly breathe. The beast was absolutely terrifying.
The Dragon leaned back its neck and its long, sharp face, and it looked at the rushing Knight with disdainful calm. Then its narrow jaws shot open, and a tide of white fire flooded from its throat.
Aldric hit the ground and rolled right into the Dragon, dodging the rush of fire. The white flames stretched over the floor, wiping out the paintings lying about and lapping at Simon’s feet. The heat was incredible.
Aldric pushed against the Dragonman, knocking him back, away from Alaythia, who was still locked in her sleepy enchantment. She didn’t even move as the Knight drove the Dragon against the wall.
“She’s mine,” the White Dragon whispered in Aldric’s face.
The Knight drew back his sword and slammed it into the creature’s belly. The White Dragon roared and dripped flaming spittle on Aldric’s hand. Aldric dropped the sword.
The Dragon roared, and shoved the Knight back, clutching its midsection.
Simon threw his sword to his dad. “Finish it!” he shouted, and Aldric slashed into the Dragon again. Howling, the creature stumbled
back, out of the window, which shattered with a shimmering crash. The creature landed on the balcony, shaking the rain of glass off of its head.
Aldric rushed again. But he was forced to retreat from the creature’s snapping jaws.
Suddenly the Dragonman’s bodyguards appeared at the door. They ran past Alaythia, who was now down on her knees, still staring at the painting on the floor. One of the men shoved Simon down. The boy landed just inches from the burning paintings. White fire licked at his eyebrows.
The men ran at Aldric, but he kicked them away with stunning skill. Simon was in awe. His father really was a Knight.
One of the men fell into the fire and went running out of the room, howling. The others had seen enough. They fled from Aldric’s gleaming sword. They vanished down the hall and soon melted back onto the street.
Angrily, the Dragon lunged, but the Knight banged the creature’s head with the hilt of his sword and got free. Aldric’s sword began slashing with so much speed Simon could hardly see it moving. It took everything the Dragon had to avoid the blows.
Simon finally had his wits enough about him to get his crossbow ready for action. Trembling, he fired a silver bolt across the room, but it slammed into the wall, missing the beast.
The Dragonman’s bright amber eyes flashed over to Simon, seeing him as a danger for the first time. Simon felt himself retreat a step, withering under those eyes.
But as his father drove the Dragonman back onto the balcony, the creature swung at him. Each of its claws was covered in white fire.
Aldric pushed in closer, stabbing at the Serpent, but the heat from the fire was almost too intense to bear.
People on the street stared up in bewilderment at the Knight and the Dragon, fighting eighteen stories up, at the lit-up corner building.
Finally, Aldric dived right at the heart of the Dragon—and slammed his open hand over its soft skin. The Knight had barely begun the words of the deathspell—
“Tyrannis mortemsa writhicus—”
—when suddenly the Dragon fell back, and with a hum of power, the monster’s chest glowed white. The White Dragon couldn’t believe it. Its eyes went wild. The Knight had done him in.
Aldric backed the stunned creature away, forcing a retreat from the night air, into the apartment. The creature fell into the room on its back. Aldric fell on its chest, his face bathed in the shocking white light.
He stared at his handiwork.
The last Dragon on earth was dying.
The White Creature wheezed out his last breath, his weakened eyes staring at the human who had destroyed him—
Aldric, his face bathed in the shocking white light, looked up at Simon.
“Run!” he shouted. “We’ve got to run!”
The flame-tattered apartment was filling with smoke. Alaythia was already unconscious. Simon grabbed her under her arms and pulled her toward Aldric. They couldn’t reach the door in the fire, so Aldric lifted her, and they all rushed for the balcony instead.
Running past, Simon had an instant to see the rolling white eyes of the Dragonman as the white fire at its chest grew brighter and brighter—
“Simon,” Aldric yelled, “grab hold.”
He knew the Dragon’s heart could explode at any second.
The Knight had torn loose a large cable from a flagpole meant to hold a giant American flag over the street. Aldric pulled the cable over to the balcony and gripped tight. He held the unconscious woman and Simon held on to him.
As Simon glanced back at the Dragon, all of a sudden it shot out a wall of white fire from its jaws and its body seemed to give way to a tremendous white explosion.
Half of the apartment blew up. The Dragon, the wall, the furniture—all of it vanished. The fire blew over everything on that side of the room.
Simon could only stare.
In the next instant, he felt himself shot forward, and his eyes took in a soaring view of the city at night, as he realized Aldric was swinging them across the wide street, high up in the air, a spider on a string. On his left he saw Central Park blurring by. The apartment behind them burst open with fire.
Simon looked down—the traffic was just a glimmer of tiny lights.
Behind him, he could sense the fire reaching for them.
But Aldric had given them enough speed, and the cable slammed all three of them into an apartment across the street as the humongous American flag billowed out in the night air.
They landed on a balcony with unexpected smoothness.
Simon stared at his father with awe. “You did it,” he whispered.
“I told you to stay out of the way,” he said. He glanced Simon over, for injuries.
Then he turned and put out his hand—and astonishingly, from out of the flaming building his sword flew over the street and directly into his grip! FWIPP! He caught it and scabbarded it quickly. “It knows how to find me,” he said. Then he handed back Simon’s own sword. Its tiny heart was beating fast.
Alaythia’s eyes gently opened.
“What happened?” she muttered.
“You’ve had a fire,” Aldric said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Come on!” said Simon. “The fire’s growing!”
They ran, all of them, out of the balcony, into a stranger’s empty apartment, and out again, down the stairs.
It was not until they were all the way outside on the street that Alaythia realized her guest Mr. Venemon, the man in white, had disappeared. She didn’t remember a thing.
“Don’t worry about him,” said Aldric. “He didn’t worry about you. He was out of there in a flash.”
Alaythia looked terrible. Her paintings were going up in smoke.
“They’ll be burned. I could lose every one of them,” she realized.
“I’m really sorry,” said Simon.
“It’s not mine that matter,” she said with a cracking voice. “We’ll lose several priceless Venemons.”
Aldric scoffed. “You could have lost a lot more than that,” he said over the sound of the sirens. A crowd was gathered now, people who had fled the burning and those who’d come to see it. He knew he had to leave immediately. Cops meant questions.
“Whoever you are, I want to thank you for getting me out of there alive. I just wonder what caused the fire to begin with,” Alaythia said.
But she was speaking to the cold night air.
Simon and his father had slipped away.
Chapter Ten
SOMETHING TO CHILL YOUR BONES
FOR SIMON, THE NIGHT had been a stomach-churning trauma. The creature could not be denied. It had been as real and absolutely terrifying as his father had promised. It took hours before he could stop shaking. When he and Aldric finally left Alaythia and got down the street, Simon was mortified to find himself throwing up out of pure fear.
Simon wanted to die. His legs buckled; his arms were useless.
His fears had overcome him.
But Aldric did not humiliate him. He did the kindest thing Simon could imagine. He kept his stride, and did not mention it directly. He simply said the body has a way of turning against you in a panic, in car accidents, or in warfare, and that Simon had done passably well under the circumstances. He said what they both needed was a good bath, a fresh set of clothes, and a night’s rest.
He delivered on each of them, back at the ship, except for the restful part. Aldric handed Simon oversized, homemade clothes, saying he had once worn them as a child himself. Then the Knight fell into a sentimental mood. And as the night wore on, drinking an old wine he’d saved for the occasion, Aldric grew happier and more pleased with himself. He told Simon stories, though few were about himself. They were mostly about his brother, Ormand, and how Aldric wished he’d seen the final outcome of their work.
“We finished the last of them,” he said to the sky with weary joy. “They’re gone, Ormand. Mankind can sleep.” He turned to Simon. “The White Dragon is dead. And you were with me, right there till the end.”
/> It wasn’t really praise, but Simon felt privileged. He’d seen what no one else on earth could have witnessed—the darkest of its evils destroyed. It was only when Aldric thought of the future that his mood turned bleak. “It’s all going to be different now. Don’t have much use in me, I’m afraid,” he said. “My talents aren’t exactly in demand. I just never really thought it would happen. No more Dragons to slay. No horizons to conquer. I may end up missing the wretched things.”
Simon felt bad for him, but wasn’t sure how to say it.
“I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do with myself,” Aldric said into his cup. “I suppose I could teach fencing at your fancy school.”
Simon wasn’t sure if he was joking. Aldric’s combat style would not be welcomed there, and his edgy way didn’t seem right for a teacher. Thankfully, he seemed to realize it.
“Maybe I’ll find work as a bodyguard,” he mumbled. “That’s good pay, you know. A decent living. So don’t be looking sorry for me—I’ll be fine.”
They stayed awake until the early hours, learning about one another, and listening to the lapping of the water against the boat whenever there was silence. They didn’t get up until late morning.
“The woman,” said Aldric, waking slowly.
“What?” asked Simon groggily.
“We might check on the woman,” said Aldric. “People don’t always fare so well after an encounter.”
“Oh,” said Simon, hopeful. “What was her name? Amathia, Arathia…”
Grumpily, Aldric brushed Fenwick the fox away from the kitchen, and Simon heard him say rather worriedly, “Alaythia.”
Alaythia had been busy while they slept. She had spent a restless night in a hotel and returned to her apartment early in the morning, against police orders. She found the place a sorrowful mess. Half of it was gone, and only a few of her paintings survived.
No one would miss them. They were a loss only to her.
Her paintings were just streaks of green and amber, overlaid with strange, runelike writing that she had painted feverishly since she was a little girl. She didn’t know what they meant, but she couldn’t stop painting them. Nothing else had ever seemed important enough to paint.
The Saint of Dragons Page 7
