The Last Dragon Chronicles #5: Dark Fire

by Chris d'Lacey

  Henry took a deep snort of polar air. “You’ll remember me to Suzanna?”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “Mmm. Don’t forget to feed my fish.”

  With that, Henry Bacon stepped through the arch. David squeezed Liz’s hand and let her go.

  The dreaming broke.

  Almost immediately they were bundled aside by a nurse and a young Asian doctor.

  “His heart’s stopped,” said the nurse.

  “Call a team. We’ll need a defib — now,” the doctor said, pulling the covers off Henry’s chest.

  “No, you will leave him,” a stern voice said from the back of the room.

  Everyone turned to look at the elderly woman standing in the doorway. “He is at peace. Let him go.” She looked pointedly at David, kindly at Liz. “You must be Elizabeth,” she said. “I am Agatha, Henry’s sister.” Her gaze ran the length of the figure in the bed.

  The doctor checked the monitor, looked at Henry, looked at Agatha, and obediently accepted the situation.

  Liz turned away with tears in her eyes.

  Henry Bacon, her neighbor of some fifteen years, was no more.

  11 FUNERAL BLUES

  Agatha Bacon turned out to be every bit as organized as her late brother. In the hospital, she gave her thanks to Liz and David for visiting Henry, but asked to be alone with him at his hour of passing. They did not hear from her again until later that evening when a card was dropped into number forty-two explaining that a modest funeral ceremony would be held at St. Augustine’s Church in a few days. Henry would be buried in the graveyard there. The family were invited to pay their last respects.

  Come the day, Lucy, who loved the chance to dress up for anything, wore a knee-length skirt with a matching black crossover top. Her wild red hair was pinned up in a clip, the odd strand winding a stalactite path toward her shoulders. Her mother, a little more conservative, chose a simple skirt and blouse. Black and cream. Pearl brooch at the neck. Both of the Pennykettle women were impressive, but they were each about to be eclipsed by Zanna.

  The young mother stepped out of the house in a chic black dress, belted at the waist. It flared slightly just below her knees and swept around each hip and curve with the design and grace of a very expensive Italian sports car. For the first time in many years she had applied an amount of dark makeup to her eyes, reinventing her gothic roots. Her glossy heels took her to over six feet. She was the only member of the family to wear a hat: a modest lace affair, tilted at a thin Saturnian angle.

  “Anyone would think she’d won an Oscar,” Lucy tutted, watching her part sister working the catwalk that was the Pennykettles’ driveway. “I bet she’s only done it to tick David off.”

  “Don’t be unkind. She looks fabulous,” said Liz.

  The chauffeur sent to pick them up clearly thought so, too. His jaw was almost dragging on the pavement as he rushed to open the door for her.

  Zanna got in discreetly, holding her hat. The weather was breezy. Pollen in the air. Henry himself would have probably said it was the perfect day for his own funeral.

  Alexa, in stark contrast to her mother, was dressed entirely in white. She had a cardboard fairy pinned to her shoulder (her personal tribute to Henry). She jumped into the backseat alongside Zanna, full of excitement for the forthcoming ride.

  Lucy glanced down the driveway at David, who was guiding Arthur toward the car. “Wow, you look weird,” she said.

  David smiled and handed Arthur into the care of the driver. “I was hoping for ‘smart but casual,’ to be honest.”

  “Is that one of Arthur’s suits?”

  David struck a pose. “This year’s must-have fashion.”

  “You look very handsome,” said Liz, adjusting his lapels and brushing a speck or two of cotton off the jacket. “I’d be proud … to call you my son.”

  That remark produced a grimace from Lucy, who turned her head to look at Agatha Bacon and the plump-suited gentleman accompanying her. They had just stepped out of Henry’s house and were taking the leading car.

  “What’s she like?” asked Lucy.

  “A female version of Henry,” Liz replied.

  “Should be a fun party afterward, then.”

  That earned Lucy an icy glare. “Get into the car. Now.”

  St. Augustine’s Church was a well-preserved eighteenth-century building halfway up the rise of Croxley Hill, looking back over the south side of Scrubbley. To Liz’s surprise their party of six was the largest present. Apart from a few colleagues from the town library, where Henry had worked for most of his life, there were no other friends or family besides Agatha (who, Lucy said, reminded her of Miss Havisham, “the old mad cow” from Great Expectations). But just as the service was about to begin, another figure strolled through the arched doorway. A woman in a two-piece business suit.

  “Oh, no. What’s she doing here?” Liz gasped.

  Zanna lifted her head from her prayers. Gwilanna was walking toward the altar.

  David, standing with Lucy in the pew behind Zanna, gripped Zanna’s arm to prevent her from moving. “No. Not here.”

  “Get off me,” Zanna hissed, shaking him away. She glared at the sibyl, who nodded at her coolly and slid into a pew on the opposite side.

  “Dear friends …,” the minister began, over a wisp of organ music.

  “Not for long,” Lucy said below her breath. Might be a fun party after all, she thought.

  The service was short and passed without incident. The small congregation then followed Henry’s coffin through the graveyard. As they shuffled down a path between the gravestones and the yew trees, Liz, puffy-eyed but still together, gave a firm order that no one was to engage Gwilanna until they were out of the church grounds. The sibyl had tagged on to the rear of the mourners, but well away from the Pennykettle family. Zanna, a hurricane bound in black, walked tall behind the figurehead of Agatha Bacon, dragging Alexa along at her side like a teddy bear with an outstretched paw.

  At the back of the family group, Lucy was sticking close to David. She was peering over her shoulder through the trees. “Leave it,” he said. “I’ll deal with Gwilanna afterward.”

  “It’s not her. I’m looking at the church,” Lucy muttered. “Why do they always have gargoyles? They make me crawl. They remind me of …”

  “Darklings?” David said.

  Lucy moved a little closer, taking reassurance from the brush of his shoulder. “What is a darkling? I’ve never understood how I was able to make one. I’d never even seen one before the Ix got me.”

  David checked ahead. They were still some way from the mound of earth that marked Henry’s burial site. “That’s not strictly true.”

  Lucy threw him a quizzical look.

  So he explained: “Long ago, when the Ix became a breakaway part of the Fain, they began to seek control of the medium of the universe that Arthur would call dark matter. To do that, they needed to combat the dragons. So they developed a template for what might be called an antidragon or darkling. A darkling is far smaller and less graceful than a dragon, but extremely robust and agile nonetheless.”

  “Can they kill dragons?”

  “In a straight fight, no. That’s because the Ix have never been able to create the dark fire to delumine one. If they did, a darkling would be a thousand times more deadly. The only way to create dark fire is to invert a source of spiritual purity, such as you might find in a dragon like Gwillan or a selfless act of love or a moment of inspired creativity. That’s kind of where you come in.”

  “Me?”

  “Humankind — well, near-human in your case. Apart from dolphins, dragons, and a couple of other species, humans are the only sentient creatures capable of displaying the altruistic emotions that might, under the right circumstances, be inverted into dark fire.

  “Thousands of years ago, the Ix tried an experiment in cumulative terror. Knowing that humans had a fantastic capacity for imaginative reconstruction, the Ix planted the image of a near-perf
ect darkling into the murkiest corners of our psyche and let it ferment in the playground of our thoughts.”

  “So we’d see it in our nightmares?”

  “Nightmares, stories, dimly held beliefs. People have been dragging the gargoyle — or the grotesque, to give it its correct name — from their memories ever since and reviving it on churches and in works of art. This is how you were able to create the monster out of obsidian during your capture. You simply found that elemental seed in your mind.”

  “OK, stop now, you’re making me feel sick.”

  David looked up. The mourners were beginning to gather around the grave. He placed a hand lightly on Lucy’s arm and stopped her walking. “One last thing. About your journal. I thought the bit you showed me was excellent.”

  “Oh, cool,” she said, blushing like a plum. Now she, too, was glancing ahead. “Shouldn’t we talk about this later?” She could see her mother wondering why she was dallying. The four men carrying Henry’s coffin were preparing to lower it into the ground.

  David toyed with a loose cuff link. “Why don’t you put it on my Web site as a blog — coded, perhaps, by Gwendolen?”

  “What?” Lucy wrinkled her nose as if she’d just sniffed a lemon. “Don’t be dumb. I can’t put stuff about our dragons on there. People read it, David. They’d think we were freaks.”

  “Not if they were like-minded people,” he said.

  Once again she threw him a questioning look.

  “You’re not alone, Lucy. Whatever Gwilanna may have told you” — he glanced back the way they’d come; there was no sign of the sibyl for the moment — “you and your mom are not the only living daughters of Guinevere.”

  Lucy gulped. Her upper body began to shake.

  He picked up her hand and kissed it softly. “Pretty soon dragons will be commonplace,” he said. “Trust me, you’re no freak. You’re a wonder of creation.” He tipped his head back. “Just like your sisters.”

  Lucy had been dreading the final part of the service and David’s revelation didn’t make it any easier. Even so, she managed to compose herself for the burial itself. It was surreal, she thought, to watch a box containing the remains of a man she’d known for all but a few months of her life being lowered into a hole in the ground. She fought back a tear when her mom followed Agatha Bacon’s lead and threw a handful of earth onto the coffin. But what finally set her off was the sight of a gray squirrel, sitting in the grand horse chestnut tree whose branches swept out over the hole. It was only there a moment before it chirruped and ran away. Alexa saw it, too, and pointed it out. A single five-thumbed chestnut leaf tumbled gently into the grave, burying with it the age-old squabbles Lucy had had with Henry over the right to have squirrels running free in the Crescent. At that point, she broke down in her mother’s arms. David, meanwhile, looked across the plot at Zanna. She was strikingly wistful, lost in her own cherished memories of the neighbor who had helped her so wisely, so often. Arthur was bent in prayer, and Agatha Bacon was standing at the foot of the grave like royalty. She neither wept nor seemed to take breath, her gaze fixed firmly on the coffin name-plate, gradually being concealed by soil. Her companion, showing a respectful solemnity, puckered his lips and stood just behind her, the way he’d done for the entire proceedings.

  Eventually, it was Agatha herself who broke rank and went around the grave, shaking hands and greeting the mourners. The only one she failed to acknowledge was Gwilanna. The sibyl had stayed in the sanctuary of the trees throughout the burial rite. But as Agatha led the walk back to the cars, David dropped off the pace and started sidling back toward the grave. Gwilanna was over it, sifting her own handful of dirt.

  He was about to challenge her when Zanna’s voice suddenly reared behind him. “You!” David caught her as she tried to sweep past, on her way to do murder, by the look of it. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t push you in there as well, you witch, even if it would be a sacrilege against a decent man!”

  “I will give you three good reasons,” said Gwilanna, with her typical arrogant zeal. “First, I still have this” — she twisted Gawain’s isoscele through her fingers — “which I could use to cast a spell that would boil your blood if you dared to attack me.” She swiped her palms. “Second, Elizabeth’s child will die at birth if I am not present. Third, I want to make a deal.”

  Zanna pushed forward again, still held tight in David’s grip. “You can go and play with the mushroom fairies. I will never make a deal with you!”

  “I was talking to the boy wonder!” Gwilanna snapped.

  David finally pulled Zanna away, pushing her several yards farther up the path. “No deals,” he said.

  The sibyl’s face contorted with fury. “Then you’ll die,” she snarled. “All of you. Is that what you want for your pretty little daughter? They’ll come for her, when they know what she is.”

  David turned his back and walked away.

  “If the darklings find her she won’t have a chance! Not even Gawain himself could protect her. You’re nothing but a meddler and a common thief, boy. Give the fire back to me!”

  David whipped around to face her again. “You’re the one in danger,” he said, with menace. “Leave the isoscele where you stand. It won’t be long before Gawain will be looking for that.”

  “You can’t raise him,” she hissed. “He’s stone, broken.”

  “Not while his ichor is dripping through your fingers. He’s in Liz’s dragons. In the ice. In me. Leave the isoscele. Run. Hide. There are dragons who would willingly see you dead. I repeat, there are no deals.”

  “Fool,” Gwilanna growled, closing her fingers in a fist around the scale. “You’re right, boy. The auma of Gawain is deep inside you — I can feel your heart resisting my squeeze. But for how long? Even a dragon has to sleep. It’s only a matter of time.” And with that the air bubbled and the sibyl was gone.

  “What was all that about?” Zanna demanded as David came sloping up the path toward her. She banged his shoulder to make him stop.

  “Nothing. It’s just talk.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Zanna slapped his face, leaving him looking at the grass verge beside them. “What did she mean?”

  “She has no control over me, Zanna.”

  “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about Alexa.”

  “Excuse me.”

  The warring couple looked up.

  Agatha Bacon was waiting on the path. Black dress, black boots, black laced gloves. She looked like a phantom, Zanna decided. An old Victorian ghost.

  “The cars are ready to return us to the Crescent. And your charming daughter seems anxious to see you.”

  “Yes, forgive me,” Zanna said, flustered. She moved her clutch bag from one hand to the other, straightened her dress, and walked on quickly.

  David followed a little more sedately, stopping momentarily as he came shoulder-to-shoulder with Agatha.

  “You —?” he began.

  “The cars,” she said, refusing to engage him.

  He nodded and continued up the path. When he reached the church and Alexa’s eager hand, Agatha Bacon was still among the trees, looking back at the spot where Gwilanna had been.

  12 LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

  The only people to return to Henry’s house were the Pennykettle clan, Agatha, and her companion. Several plates of food had been set out on the table, waiting to be uncovered. Liz, with Agatha’s approval, adopted her usual motherly role and handed out paper plates and napkins. A few minutes later everyone, barring Zanna, was eating. Zanna had taken a seat on the end of the sofa and was directing operations with Alexa, primarily the avoidance of chicken drumsticks beating greasy rhythms on the child’s dress.

  Agatha Bacon, eating a piece of mushroom quiche, sat very properly in the armchair opposite Henry’s favorite. That position was occupied by her over-round companion, whom she finally introduced once everyone was settled.

  “This is my brother’s lawyer. He is a partner in the firm of
Hamilton, Portley, and Smythe.”

  “Are they local?” asked Arthur.

  “They are from where I live and where my brother was born.”

  “So are you Mr. Port —?”

  “Hedley Hamilton,” he said, cutting Lucy off. He maneuvered like a bloated rodent and from the floor beside him picked up the most distressed leather briefcase Liz had ever seen.

  “Hedley is here to read Henry’s will,” said Agatha. “Of which you are all beneficiaries to some extent.”

  Lucy spat a droplet of tea at the fish tank. “You’re joking,” she said, inviting a warning glare from her mother. “I’m in Henry’s will?” After all the arguments they’d had? He’d probably left her his favorite rattrap.

  Agatha’s gaze moved sideways to Liz. “Henry always spoke fondly of your family. He often talked about your pottery creations. I would like to see one — if I may?”

  “I’m afraid they’re all next door,” said Liz.

  “I can fetch one!” said Alexa, jumping up. She looked hopefully over her shoulder at Liz.

  “Lexie, sit down,” said Zanna.

  “No.” Agatha’s voice overruled her. “Come closer, child, let me look at you.”

  Zanna cast a concerned glance at David, but he remained sitting calmly, sipping a cup of tea.

  Alexa came up and almost curtsied before the old woman.

  A ragged pattern of wrinkles formed around Agatha’s prune-colored eyes. She reached out and lifted Alexa’s chin. “You are a delightful creature,” she said. “I see you’re wearing a fairy, child. Do you like fairies?”

  “Yes,” said Alexa.

  Agatha said, “My brother liked fairies.”

  “What?” Lucy again. She left her mouth open for added effect. “Mr. Bacon thought anything like that was weird.”

  “Of course he did,” Agatha said. “The men in our families have never been able to come to terms with the etheric world, but they can never quite step away from it either. One only has to look at Henry’s collection of books to know it. Everything from Native American legends to the Loch Ness Monster to the works of Bram Stoker. He was drawn to ‘weirdness.’ He just didn’t know why. It frustrated him all his life.”