Old Evil (The Last Dragon Lord Book 2)

by Michael La Ronn

  Elves sat on the front porches of the general stores and the restaurants, staring at her as she passed.

  True small town.

  How would they respond to a human driving around?

  At least if she was passing through she could have stepped on the accelerator and driven far away from here.

  But her GPS told her she had arrived at her destination and she looked for a place to park. She put on her turn signal and eased into an empty space in front of a Gavlin’s Magical Store. It was a small masonry building with two stories and a shingled veneer. Brown weeds grew in the cracks between the asphalt. Seagulls, who had made a nest on the building’s second floor, fluttered over the convertible, cawing.

  She shut the car off and took off her sunglasses.

  How many Gavlin’s had she been to in the city? Dozens if not more. They were always upscale magic stores, with superior construction, and they made you feel majestic when you walked in, like you were a part of something bigger than yourself.

  Here it was no different than a country store. She wondered if it was deliberate.

  She grabbed a portfolio on her passenger seat and checked it.

  Aerial photos of the Ancestral Bogs were inside, as well head shots of several people—all witnesses to the events that happened a few days ago.

  She flipped the page to a brown-haired woman. She was elven and wore thick glasses and a necklace that consisted of shiny plastic moons, stars, and planets.

  ANNETTE POTIONBERRY, AGE FIFTY-THREE

  BOGVILLE RESIDENT

  Amal memorized the woman’s profile. Thank God she still had a contact in the Department who gave her information on the sly.

  The bog incident mystified her, and she didn’t know why, but she was drawn to it. She shouldn’t have been doing her own solo investigation—there were so many risks—but she told herself she had no choice. Something about all of this was strange beyond explanation, and no one had answers.

  Once a detective, always a detective.

  She stepped out of the car and walked up to the front entrance of Gavlin’s. She expected the door to open, but it didn’t. She had to push it open and when she did, a bell chimed and the smell of spicy herbs and incense overwhelmed her.

  This definitely was Gavlin’s, all right. It was like a grocery store, but for magic.

  All along the walls, shiny stacks of grimoires reflected the daylight, neatly organized and classified by rune type.

  She passed a pyramid of frankincense and myrrh soap, strolled through an aisle of healing lotions before she reached the customer service desk.

  A young elven girl sat behind the counter, and she had been watching Amal from the moment she entered. She had bright, orange eyes that reminded Amal of burning topaz, and long silver hair. She wore a blue polo—he standard employee uniform at Gavlin’s.

  “I know you,” the girl said as Amal reached the desk.

  “Good morning.”

  “I said I know you,”’ the girl repeated. “You’re running for governor.”

  The girl’s frank demeanor surprised Amal.

  “Well, yes, I’m….”

  “You’re Amal Shalewood,” the girl said. “I’ve seen you on television.”

  “Nice to meet you, too. Listen, I’m looking—”

  “They’re murdering you,” the girl said, her face turning sour. “Why don’t you just quit?”

  “I’m looking for—”

  “Grimoire is walking all over you.”

  “Which one?” Amal asked, frowning.

  The girl pulled out a grimoire and it flashed in front of her face, projecting a holographic video of Lucan Grimoire. The lanky billionaire stood on a stage giving a speech. “I support the only Grimoire who matters.”

  Amal set the portfolio down forcefully on the granite counter.

  “May I ask why you like Lucan?”

  “He gets our positions.”

  “Which are?”

  “He’s elven. He’s a businessman. He’s an outsider.”

  “I’m human. I was a businesswoman. And if you haven’t noticed, I’m an outsider too.”

  “You didn’t build a billion-dollar business.”

  “Is money the ultimate measure of success?”

  The girl paused, flustered.

  Amal slipped her a business card. “I’ve known Lucan for a long time, and I don’t doubt his ability. And I get that you feel obligated to stick with your own. I understand that. But if you’re concerned about the environment, I’ve actually got a track record, sweetheart. Email me sometime and I’ll send it to you. Now can you do me a favor and find Annette Potionberry? I have a meeting with her.”

  The girl regarded the business card. Her eyes still had a stubborn look, and she wrinkled up her face as she ran her fingers along the embroidered stitched type that glowed when she touched it.

  “Is this your actual email?” the girl asked, “Or is it monitored by an assistant?”

  “It’s my personal email,” Amal said.

  They stared at each other for a moment until the girl looked away. She slid the card to the side and picked up a telephone. “Annette Potionberry to customer service.”

  The girl avoided Amal’s gaze and occupied herself with organizing some receipts in a junk drawer under the counter.

  Amal wasn’t getting her vote, that was certain.

  This hadn’t been the first time she was attacked. “You’re stealing votes from the one who deserves this election,” people would say.

  “Well, the one who ‘deserves’ it is stealing your future. What do YOU deserve?” Amal had always replied. It came off as abrasive, but she wasn’t going to sacrifice her positions. She wasn’t going to be bullied.

  She was running because she believed in the future of the planet. She had grown up in the mountains, where the aquifers first started to dry up. And she had watched as her father, an engineer, was powerless to do anything about it. She’d watched him weep like a baby when the mountain crumbled, the place where they had made their home for ten years.

  Her mother had refused to leave. She crumbled with the mountain.

  All over the world mountains were crumbling. Rivers were polluted and ran brown and society stood by and did nothing.

  A low, feminine voice distracted her.

  “You’re looking for me?”

  Annette Potionberry wore a blue polo with the word “manager” stitched into it. Her brown hair had streaks of gray in it, and her thick glasses looked even bigger in person. She looked like her headshot. Most people looked nothing like their photos, but this woman was an exception to the rule.

  Amal extended her hand, but Annette folded her arms. Typical elven hospitality.

  “What do you want?” the woman asked.

  Amal opened the portfolio and showed the aerial photos of the bog.

  “I’m investigating the incident at the Ancestral Bogs, and I understand you were a witness.”

  “I thought the government was investigating,” Annette said. “You’re a political candidate, not an investigator.”

  “I heard the government crossed you off its investigation witness list.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Amal pulled out her smartphone and showed a news website with an article titled Government investigation whittles down witnesses. The phone auto-scrolled down to comments, and it drew a red box around a comment written by Annette. It said:

  I saw what happened, but they won’t talk to me. Guess I’m not important.

  Annette puffed at the sight of the comment. “Yeah. They really pissed me off. There’s no dismissing what I saw.”

  “Then why don’t we take a walk,” Amal said, starting for the door. She held it open and gestured for Annette to follow. “I promise that I won’t dismiss you until you tell me everything.”

  V

  Miri sat in the backseat of Earl’s sedan as he rushed down the highway leading into Magic Hope City.

  Her clothes had been
caked in sweat, but they were dry now and she wanted to get out of them. She was grateful to be back in the city for a shower.

  The crew had just discovered hundreds of dead Magic Eaters. They had been piled into the water, stacked on top of each other.

  At least what was left of them.

  Days earlier, Miri had watched them explode after eating magic.

  But their shells remained.

  Magic Eaters weren’t known to self-drown. They could swim quite well because of their tentacled legs.

  To have so many of them dead in one place...To the untrained eye, it definitely smelled like foul play.

  She left Laner and Jasmine as they studied the dead bodies. They had lined them up for half a mile, taking photos and autopsying every body for any clues. She told them to order a crane. In just a few hours she was sure they were going to discover the treasure at the bottom of the water. That would distract the investigation further until she and Lucan could figure out what to do.

  Just what had Lucan done with the Magic Eaters? And where was the tomb?

  Even though she knew the events of that fateful night, her knowledge stopped the moment her spell-casting turned her arms to stone. The fact that she was giving a report to Ennius Grimoire made her stomach screw itself into tight knots, and she wished she were back at the bog.

  “How was the expedition?” Earl asked.

  “Don’t even get me started.”

  “Was the tomb really gone, like they said it was?”

  “As if it was never there. Do you know what they did with it, Earl?”

  The big-shouldered man was silent. He passed through a magic toll and the toll box on his windshield clicked several times. “I’m just the driver, Miss. They don’t tell me any more than I need to know.”

  Miri remembered that he had a family. Seven kids, if she recalled his photograph. “Have you been home since all this?”

  “Once,” Earl said. “Got to see my kids off to sleep last night.”

  “It must be hard on your wife.”

  “We do what we have to do. Twenty-five years of marriage and you learn that survival is what it’s all about. All of this is really no trouble at all, Miss.”

  “You’ve been married twenty-five years?”

  “This year,” he said, grinning. “Quarter of a century with a woman who hasn’t aged a bit.”

  “That’s really amazing.”

  “An anniversary’s just a date to embarrass each other,” Earl said. “Once you get to my age, dates are just numbers.”

  She felt guilty that she had been so demanding with him lately. He was always waiting for her whenever she needed a ride; he seemed to anticipate her every need, bringing her food and water whenever she needed it, and making timely suggestions that wouldn’t have crossed her mind for a few minutes.

  No wonder he was Lucan’s personal driver.

  But still, he had a family, and dragon conspiracy or not, he deserved to be with them. She made a mental note to ask Lucan for a different driver tomorrow. Earl would never agree to take the day off on his own.

  She felt good about herself as she settled on the decision. In these last few days, it was the only solution she could find. Everywhere she looked, there were problems. Finally she could fix something within her control.

  Miri looked out at the glass skyscrapers that stretched for miles along the shore. The city was a dense blue silhouette in the sky. Several news and police helicopters circled the Skyscraper Park Complex, a cluster of tall buildings with diamond-shaped crowns.

  “Wonder what happened there?” Miri asked.

  Earl shrugged. “Sure are a lot of helicopters, though.”

  “Wonder if there was a fire,” Miri said. “I’ve always said that Skyscraper Park is one big candle ready to be lit. There’s no way to control a fire up there.”

  “True. But that park is awfully beautiful.”

  A black helicopter roared overhead, its blades in a furious frenzy, drowning out all sound.

  Earl craned his head to get a good look at it. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was one of Lucan’s helicopters.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as my eyes can see, but I’m gettin’ old, Miss.”

  The helicopter swung over the expressway. It was black with a purple stripe down the side, and it fanned between two office high-rises as it climbed higher into the sky.

  Miri texted Lucan.

  EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?

  She waited, but there was no answer.

  “Strange. He’s not answering.”

  “Give him some time.”

  Miri waited for a few moments, then texted Celesse.

  IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?

  Celesse responded right away.

  YES. WHY?

  Miri cocked her head as she read the screen, figuring out the best way to proceed.

  I JUST SAW ONE OF LUCAN’S HELICOPTERS FLYING TOWARD SKYSCRAPER PARK AND WONDERED WHAT WAS UP. LOT OF COMMOTION THERE.

  Silence.

  Miri glanced out the window again. Maybe it had taken Celesse awhile to read her message. Miri was a fast typer and she always expected other people to type just as fast. She often had to tell herself to be patient when it came to texting. But still, the wait felt like an eternity.

  Celesse finally responded:

  CAN’T TALK NOW

  Miri read the message several times.

  Something didn’t feel right.

  “Turn on the radio, Earl.”

  They approached the city from the rear and it appeared around them all of a sudden as he emerged from an underground tunnel. Earl tuned in to the news, but there were no reports. Just sports. The news station played advertisements for Gavlin’s.

  “Oh boy,” Earl said, swerving down a side street.

  “What happened?” Miri asked.

  Earl sped around a corner, and it wound over the expressway below. A traffic jam lay ahead, backed up for several miles.

  “I dodged a big jam there,” Earl said, looking down at the expressway where people were exiting their cars, yelling and screaming.

  “The jam leads to Skyscraper Park,” Miri said, tracing the long beads of cars with her eyes. “What is going on?”

  “I’ll have to take inroads to get to your apartment,” Earl said, easing in between two cars.

  Miri looked at her watch. “It’s okay. Are we going to travel the outer roads?”

  “For a stretch.”

  “Then take me to see Old Dark. The factory’s not too far off. We have some time before my meeting, and I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Very well, Miss.”

  Miri watched the traffic jam and the helicopters circling Skyscraper Park, but when Earl turned away and a building blocked her view of the scene, she pulled out her tablet and began rehearsing how she was going to present to the governor.

  VI

  Frog ripped off his lapel microphone and walked out of his news studio. The studio was on the roof of the Frog Tower, his home in the middle of downtown. The sky over the roof had been magicked to look like a studio ceiling. Lights and cameras floated suspended in the air, shining down on him. A faint pink wall surrounded the studio, and every now and again he saw the city through the glowing membrane. But he preferred the simulated bog just outside the studio, a spell he’d learned from Lord Dark the First to recreate a natural space from a memory. It had still water, mud, and even lily pads and cat ‘o’nine tails just like the only real home he’d ever known. Even the sour, mushroomy perlite smell was the same. He positioned the bog in front of his desk in the studio so he could see it as he read his reports. It calmed him.

  Around the studio, several people lay on the floor, rubbing their faces. They were covered in saliva. They had tried to stop him in the middle of his broadcast.

  Again, for the second time in a week, he’d decided to muse about the past. About both Lords Dark and Lady Dark, and the way things used to be. The election had turned nasti
er and he saw it as his civic responsibility to shine a balancing light on the past since older dragons were too afraid to speak of it. Or they were cowards and wanted to forget it.

  But he wouldn’t forget.

  The moment he launched into his diatribe, the crew had tried to cut him off. But he wouldn’t be censored. He was too strong.

  He had processed himself into Abstraction because he wanted to speak his mind. He owned an entire building. It had offices and shops and garden atriums. And magic. Lots and lots of magic. And thousands of people inside whose salaries he paid, and who, in their own strange way, paid tribute to him, something that was still new to him compared to the cows and sheep from his childhood, and rivers and rivers of blood.

  He had influence. Not as much as other ancients, but enough. A few elves had taken pity on him and given him his own television channel, recognizing that his awkward personality came across as charming and lovable on television. He’d been successful as a newscaster, and he wasn’t going to appease his benefactors by not speaking his mind. A dragon had a right to free speech just like humans and elves, and if he had to prove it the hard way....

  A crew member with large headphones picked himself off the ground. “That was a whopping blow, Frog,” he said. “We were trying to save you from yourself.”

  “I don’t need savin’,” Frog said. “I was put on this planet to speak my mind and prosper, and I’ve’ll do that, Edmond.”

  Edmond wiped a glop of saliva off his cheek. Then he pointed to a woman in a business suit standing on the edge of the roof. She had graying hair and her face was heavily done with makeup. Her arms were folded and she waited for Frog with an air that told him that an argument was coming.

  “Who gave you the authority to go off script?” Martina asked.

  Frog croaked as he stepped in front of the woman. He towered over her and scowled. “I ain’t under contract.”

  “Your job is to forecast the weather,” she said. “The phones are going crazy. You’re generating news coverage you don’t need.”

  “There’ve three candidates in this election we don’t need,” Frog said.