Bayang stared steadily ahead and downward of their path, steering around a truck loaded unusually high with crates… watching… waiting… as the diving monsters’ shadows swelled in size. And in the meantime, Badik was getting farther and farther away.
“They’re practically in our laps.” Koko gulped.
Bayang banked to the left so suddenly that it threw them all in that direction. Only the straps saved them from falling, and Bayang fought to adjust for the sudden shift in weight. But she had timed it perfectly.
A monster screamed past the spot where they had been and smashed into the top of a bus with a reverberating thump. Brakes screeched and horns blared all over the street as vehicles swerved and fishtailed, causing more collisions.
Bayang straightened the carpet out over the sidewalk, but they were now so low that they knocked the hat off a man. Pedestrians threw themselves to the pavement to avoid them as she unwound the chain from her waist.
She whipped the chain out so that it wrapped about a streetlight, arm and wrist straining to hold onto it. The straps cut into her ankles as the carpet swung violently around. She just hoped they were strong enough to stand the maneuver or Bayang herself would go flying from the rug.
When they had spun 180 degrees, she tugged the chain free and then angled the carpet upward. They had come up behind the remaining monsters, who were now hovering over the gigantic traffic jam as they tried to spot their targets.
“I got a shot,” Leech whispered excitedly.
Scirye said in a low voice, “No, don’t throw that axe!”
“Yeah, that axe is worth a mint,” Koko scolded.
“No rich, spoiled girl is going to boss me around,” Leech said rebelliously.
“No,” Scirye said, “I guess I’m standing in for your conscience.”
She had such a natural authority that Leech found himself lowering the axe.
Bayang rose up slightly, twirling the chain over her head as they charged forward. Her aim was true and the chain wound itself about one monster, pinning its wings to its back. With a jerk, she sent the monster spinning to the street where it smashed into a windshield.
With a shriek of rage, the remaining monster shot toward them, talons spread, fangs prepared to rip and tear. There was no time to get the chain ready for another strike so she turned the carpet. It would have to be up to the hatchlings to defend them.
Leech swung and missed as the monster slipped agilely to the side so that the monster was now over Scirye. The horrible creature ripped a chunk out of the carpet’s edge, flinging the disintegrating fragment away as it slashed at Scirye. Instinctively, the girl raised the leather gauntlet, and though the talons scratched marks on the tough fabric, they did not pierce it. But the force knocked her down against the carpet, her elbow causing another piece to flutter away.
With a shrill cry, the griffin plummeted out of the air and straight onto the monster’s neck. The startled monster dropped several feet before it bounced upward again. Hissing and snarling, it tried to twist so it could reach its tormentor.
Scirye swung the axe as she sat back up. The steel blade flashed in the sun as it bit deep into the monster’s chest. Green ichor gushed from the wound.
As the monster fell with a thud on the roof of a taxi, Kles flapped free, trilling in triumph before he settled again on Scirye’s shoulder.
Scirye, though, didn’t seem to share in her griffin’s jubilation. She was no longer the angry Pippal bent on revenge. Instead, she sat, staring in shock at the green fluid slowly trickling down her still outstretched arm. Nor did the boys say anything, their bluster all evaporated by the deadly flight.
As Bayang steered the carpet away from the street, she was already scanning for her enemy, but there was no sign of him.
Behind her, Scirye said in a small voice, “I never killed anything before.”
“Really?” she asked, keeping her eyes overhead. “You could have fooled me. You kept your head during the battle—just like a veteran warrior.” But the praise didn’t produce the smile the way it would have with a hatchling of Bayang’s people. Instead, it upset the girl to the point of tears. Bayang had no experience comforting human hatchlings so she tried to change the conversation’s course. “I mean,” she said lamely, “I thought every Kushan hunted. Half the objects in the exhibit were decorated with hunting scenes.”
“We left the empire when I was little,” Scirye said. “Most of my life, I’ve lived in foreign cities like this where hunting isn’t allowed.” She lowered her arm to her lap, where it stained her costume. “I wanted to be a Pippal so I used to read all the epics. Somehow in the novels and poems, fighting is always so glorious. My mother warned me that it was easy to want to be a hero, but it was difficult to actually be one.”
Dimly, Bayang recalled her first kill. She had been just as disillusioned as the girl. Even now, after so many battles, Bayang felt no thrill, only a vague unease and distaste for what she was doing.
It was almost as if the girl were a younger version of herself, despite belonging to a different species. Bayang found the notion puzzling and mildly annoying, for humans belonged to one of the more troublesome lower orders.
However, the girl had fought as bravely as any of her people, so Bayang felt she should acknowledge that. “Well,” she concluded clumsily, “your sister would have been proud.”
“Thank you,” Scirye said in a small voice. Her griffin had draped his lithe body about her neck and shoulders and was crooning to her as if she were his chick.
Curious, Bayang glanced at Leech. He seemed as shaken as the girl. Suddenly he seemed to notice the axe in his hand and a look of revulsion passed over his face. His hand jerked up to throw it away as if it were on fire, but he caught himself and lowered it again. “We’re fighting for your sister and for Primo,” he said as if trying to convince himself that the pursuit was the right thing to do.
No, he was taking no pleasure in the death of an enemy—even though that monster had been trying to kill him. The lap griffin was more bloodthirsty than Leech. Bayang wished the elders could see the boy at this moment. They might change their minds, too.
That thought exploded her orderly world like a bombshell. She had been taught that the elders were older and far wiser than she was. For centuries, she had never judged the rightness or wrong-ness of her missions—only carried them out with ruthless efficiency. She was not supposed to question, only obey.
And yet she could not deny her own experiences with her prey— she corrected herself. No, he was a person. And his name was Leech. Could the elders be wrong?
Bayang had dedicated herself to building an orderly world in which she was always in control. Now she felt her carefully constructed world beginning to crumble into a confused heap.
When they were about sixty feet over the street, Bayang banked in the direction that she had last seen Badik taking.
“The fighting will only get worse,” Bayang warned them, “so if any of you are having second thoughts, I’ll set you down.”
It would mean losing track of Leech for a while, but she owed him that much for saving her life.
Koko cleared his throat. “Maybe that’s the smart thing to do.”
Scirye wiped the back of a hand across her eyes. “I can’t forget what happened to my mother and sister, but even if I could, I can’t ignore the promise I made to Nanaia. I told her I would take her revenge if she would just help me. And so far she has.”
“Ah,” Bayang said. When she had been young herself, she had wanted to punish Badik just as much—no, wanted was too pale a word. The need for vengeance had burned white-hot in her. However, she had never faced such a heavy fate as Scirye’s. “When a goddess grants your wish, it’s hard to tell her that you’ve changed your mind. But perhaps you could make it up to her in some other way.”
“And I have to get even for Primo,” Leech insisted. “If I run away, it would be like saying he meant nothing to me. It would bother me the rest of my life.”<
br />
“Then we hunt,” Kles said, sounding pleased.
Bayang weighed what was the right thing to do. She knew what tradition would demand of her people’s own hatchlings. They would be expected to take revenge on those who had killed their kin.
These were human children who lacked the talons, fangs, and muscles of her people, and yet, as fragile as they were, they had boldly faced danger. Their vulnerability made their resolve all the more admirable—even if one of them was her intended prey. Through all the centuries, she had paid no more attention to humans than she would have to short-lived but pesky mosquitoes. But she found herself liking Scirye—and even Leech as well.
Reluctantly, Bayang decided that she had to treat their wishes with the same respect that she would give to those of her people.
And so, still despite strong misgivings, Bayang took them higher in search of her new prey, Badik.
Leech
Her short gray hair whipping behind her, the tiny woman named Bayang took them high above the skyscrapers, away from the honking cars and police sirens, until they circled slowly over the building tops. At this height, it was an all new San Francisco inhabited by pigeons and air sprites, tiny creatures that floated in the winds like dandelion fluff, in and out among the flagstaffs and water tanks. Here and there was an occasional windblown rooftop garden with bent shrubs.
Leech searched the skies for any sign of the dragon, eyes skipping over the gleaming nozzle-shaped column of the newly built Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and the houses clinging to the hill’s side like rectangular beads on a cloak.
“He’s gone,” Leech said in frustration.
“No, he changed direction,” Scirye said, pointing eastward.
Leech had missed the green dot skimming over the hangar roof on a pier.
“Hold on,” Bayang said. Leaning forward until she was almost double, she banked the carpet.
As they plummeted downward at a steep angle, Leech crouched over, feeling the carpet’s straps cut into his ankles. His hands grasped what he could of the carpet just as the others were doing. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the pesky little griffin had slipped down from the girl’s shoulder so he could dig his talons into the rug, as well.
Hunched over, he noticed the holes that had appeared in the carpet, some big enough to watch the city passing beneath them. How long will this thing hold together? he wondered. But then he told himself to focus as Primo had constantly told him to do.
But as they whizzed over the long, dirty warehouses that squatted right by the edge of San Francisco Bay, Leech felt the exhilaration rush through him like a wind blowing away all his fears.
There’s nothing like flying, he thought to himself. The funny thing, though, is that this pleasure is so familiar—like I’ve flown a lot of times before and yet I know I never have.
He couldn’t wait to tell Primo about his first flight, and the memory stabbed him like a knife. He couldn’t. His friend was gone. Once more, anger overcame sadness. He’d make the thief pay.
They soared toward piers and wharves jutting out from the sides of San Francisco like teeth; boats of all sizes were tethered to them by thick cables.
The area was buzzing with activity, as usual. Troll stevedores hefted huge stacks of crates down the gangplank of a tramp steamer while, sparks flying from his wand, a third-class wizard repaired a hull plate. The water frothed around a moored tugboat as water elementals cleaned off the rust and barnacles.
Farther out on the harbor, a merman shouted instructions to a slick, broad-backed leviathan, nudging a red and black merchant ship toward a wharf while ferries churned back and forth, leaving huge white wakes behind them. A Navy destroyer glided underneath the recently opened Bay Bridge that connected San Francisco to Oakland. The cars and trolleys on its two decks looked like toys. Sailboats slid through the white caps, their triangular sails gleaming in the sunlight, accompanied by flocks of hired air sprites.
Against the greenish water, though, it was hard to see Badik until he made the mistake of going too low. When the water heaved up, his passage left a telltale white streak on the surface.
“He’s making a beeline for that boat,” Koko guessed.
About a hundred yards ahead of Badik was a large yacht with an immaculately white, angled hull and polished mahogany cabin and decks.
“What would a dragon need with a boat?” Leech wondered.
“Why indeed?” Bayang asked. “But he’s definitely aiming for it so let’s find out, shall we?”
She sent the tattered carpet into another steep dive, leveling off as low as she dared as she tried to avoid being seen by the yacht’s crew. Near the surface, the air was misty with spray and tangy with salt, and she just hoped there would be no sudden high billows that could knock them from the air.
As they watched, Badik plunged into the water, white foam splashing from the spot. Then a blurred form continued beneath the water underneath the yacht.
Koko scratched his head. “What’s he up to now?”
Bayang saw two sailors in crisp white uniforms standing on the deck. “There’s a ladder on the other side. I bet that’s where he’s going.”
Even as she said it, the pink form of a man appeared on the deck, and the sailors quickly covered him with a blanket.
“He’s disguised himself as a human,” Bayang said.
Immediately, the water churned at the boat’s stern. The anchor slid up, water dripping from its flukes. The yacht began to move straight ahead toward Treasure Island and the International Seaplane Terminal that the artificial island housed.
“I’ve heard some collectors pay thieves to steal art treasures for them,” Leech said.
“They’d never be able to show it,” Scirye objected.
Leech had heard rumors about that on the street. “They don’t care,” he said, trying to sound worldly-wise, “as long as they get to enjoy it in private.”
“But why the ring?” Koko wondered.
Scirye touched the axe in her belt. “We’ll ask him when we catch him,” she said grimly.
As they sped after the yacht, a water sprite turned from his chore of cleaning the rust from a buoy to watch them pass. Leech waved in greeting but twisted around and looked up excitedly when he heard a roar of great propellers. A plane was sliding slowly out of the sky like some lovely silver bird. Its wings stuck out from the plane’s top with four propellers spinning so fast that they looked more like flashing disks. Smaller wings extended from its belly and its body tapered gracefully into three tails.
“It’s a Pan American Clipper!” he said, pointing. “I was hoping we’d see one. They say the Germans have a bigger one now, but they don’t crisscross the world like the Clippers do.”
Koko rolled his eyes. “Why do you have to be so bonkers about planes?”
Leech was capable of talking about planes for an hour, but his friend had made him feel self-conscious so he shut up, watching instead with gleaming eyes as the Clipper landed. Its elegantly curved hull skipped across the surface like a stone, leaving white splashes in its wake, the distances shortening between the touchdowns until the seaplane finally stayed on the surface. The bottom pair of wings steadied it as it glided forward, once again a thing of grace. The pilot killed the engines on the left wing so that it turned in a circle, aiming toward the pier ahead.
The whole world seemed to be arriving at or leaving Treasure Island, which had taken six years for engineers to create out of the bay. Seaplanes of all sizes bobbed up and down at the other piers, for this was a hub. Here passengers could transfer to smaller seaplanes to fly on to other destinations or use the bridge to go into San Francisco to the west or Oakland to the east. Trucks loaded with crates and luggage trundled back and forth among the streams of people bustling to and from the large terminal.
At the northernmost pier, tractors hauled a seaplane onto a submerged, wheeled trailer so that they could roll it onto dry land and into one of the huge rectangular hangars. The tractors l
ooked like little yellow chicks fussing over a plump mother hen.
Farther south, connected by a road, was the smaller Yerba Buena Island, formerly Goat Island, where commercial ship piers had been added to the Coast Guard Station. The beacon in the lighthouse and the foghorns had all been turned off in the bright, clear sunlight. It was here that the surface ships landed, their passengers traveling over to Treasure Island by means of a narrow causeway. Piers and wharves jutted from the sides of the island as thick as whiskers where dozens of sea taxis and private and public boats and ferries bobbed up and down, but they finally picked out the dragon’s yacht.
“Keep an eye out for incoming boats and planes,” Bayang warned.
There was a shout and a loud, angry squawk. She turned to see Leech lying on his back as feathers fluttered down on his chest and a large, indignant seagull flapped away.
“And seagulls,” Scirye said, trying her best not to laugh.
Koko had no such inhibitions. “He must’ve thought you were a hamburger,” he teased. “Come to think of it, there is a resemblance.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” The carpet shook as Leech righted himself.
Through a hole in the fabric, Bayang nervously saw the choppy bay waters slide past. “All of you, don’t move!” she warned. “I don’t know how much longer this carpet is going to hold together.”
Even as she spoke, a foot-long strip ripped off from the left edge and fluttered away across the water. The next moment, Koko gave a frightened whoop as a piece disintegrated underneath him.
Leech was laughing even as he hauled Koko onto a still intact section. “Time for a diet, pal.”
Kles petted the carpet as if it were alive and pleaded as one flying creature to another. “Hold, please, hold. Oado of the Winds, help us,” Scirye muttered hastily. Bayang did some praying to her own deities.
Despite their pleas, patches, some as large as a fist, began to break away and loose threads whizzed past in a haze. The more they lost of the carpet, the harder it became to fly. A rogue wave slapped at them so that they bounced upward, and the now sodden fabric became sluggish. The rug no longer responded quickly to Bayang’s corrections, instead rising and falling like a roller coaster car despite all her attempts to hold it steady.
City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) Page 8
