by Lee French
Leeloo fluttered her eyelids. “Come now. Please?”
Too many words, Claire figured. “Tell her we’ll come in the morning instead.”
“Morning?”
“Morning. Drew needs sleep. Tell Iulia we’ll come in the morning.”
“Morning!” Leeloo flashed silver to turn tiny and flew away.
“So much for a nice, relaxing morning tomorrow.” Claire looked back in the direction of the house. She decided not to bother Drew again to let him know. Instead of going back to her demesne, she’d stay here all night and make sure to intercept him before he tried to reach her. So much for talking things out with Rondy.
Chapter 25
Drew
Monday morning began with Mutt licking Drew’s face. “I’m awake, Mutt. Cut it out.” He elbowed the dog aside and wiped his face on his sleeve. His stomach growled and his skin itched.
“Master, I’m hungry and I need to go outside.”
Drew reached out and flicked his hand, pulling from the well he’d connected with last night to twist the doorknob. The effort took more energy than if he’d gotten up and done it with his hand. The magic thing needed more practice. A lot more practice. “Go. Grandma Tammy will let you out.”
“Thank you, Master!” Mutt stepped on his gut and jumped to the floor, then ran out.
Cradling his belly with a groan, Drew pulled the covers over his head again.
“Are we going back to sleep? Did you know sleep is the weirdest part of your day? Your dreams are really screwed up. I stand on my belief that you need therapy.”
“Shut up, Kay.” He closed his eyes. After breakfast, he’d head to the ley line, recharge, and then try to figure out how to get to Claire’s demesne.
“Wake up, Sunshine,” Claire said. “Mutt’s already out and about, so you should be too.”
Drew flipped back his blanket to see Claire’s head poking through the outside wall. “I thought you were going back to your demesne?”
“Change of plans. We’re going to visit Iulia this morning. Get up and get moving. I’ll be waiting outside.”
“Ugh.” Drew debated staying in bed for a little longer, but Claire had been out there, bored off her butt all night. She deserved more from him. He tossed the blankets off and trudged through showering and changing his clothes. His sweatshirt had bug ichor, so he slid it under the bed with the other one.
Someday, he’d have time to do things like laundry again. On that happy day, he’d have a sweatshirt to wear again. All he had at the moment was a plaid flannel that he shrugged on. When he finally reached the kitchen, he found no one there. A bowl of dry cereal sat on the counter with a note for him.
Grandma Tammy wanted him to know she let Mutt out and called school for him at Justin’s request. He imagined her frowning with disapproval as she wrote. Checking the room, he wondered where everyone had gone. Lisa had school, but Missy didn’t. Marie probably had to work. Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Jack might have gone to the grocery store. Justin maybe took Missy out to amuse her.
This house had too many people.
He poured milk and scarfed down cereal. By the time he’d finished and rinsed his bowl, the clock read 10:37. At school, he’d be in Physics class. When he got a chance, he still needed to do his Calculus homework from the holiday. Unless he decided to blow everything off and not graduate.
“You’re being stupid again. Of course you should graduate from high school. You’ve worked hard to get your grades, and giving up now means you wasted all that time learning these weird math things.”
“I don’t need that stuff to be possessed or a witch.”
“Maybe you’re wrong. Quadratic equations might help you. I know you’ve figured out how to tap that well of power, but it might work even better for you if you apply math or science or something. Girls can’t handle math or science, so probably no one has ever tried that before.”
“Shut up. Girls can handle math and science just fine. My Calculus teacher is a woman. So was my Biology teacher.”
“In my day, girls didn’t do that.”
“In your day? Are you kidding? When was that? Five days ago, when you came into being?”
Kay gave the impression of frowning and rubbing his chin. “I married my Emmy in 1930.”
“That’s Kurt’s memory. You’re not Kurt. You’re Kay.” Drew grabbed a coat and left through the front door. “But I didn’t realize he was that old. He had to be at least sixteen when he got married, if not older. That means he was born when? Before 1915 for sure. Knights live a long time.”
“So I’ve heard.” Claire floated around the corner of the house with a smile. “Probably not quite so long anymore.”
Drew couldn’t stop himself from answering her smile with one of his own. He had questions, about the reason they needed to see Iulia today, about what Claire did all night, about whether any other dragons got hurt. But he swallowed them back in favor of getting their visit with Iulia taken care of as soon as possible.
“Good morning.” Without waiting for her to respond, he spun mist around them and took her to Iulia’s container. They landed under drab, gray clouds in a light drizzle. In the gloomy daylight, he saw that her container sat on the back edge of a lot filled with cars in various states of disrepair. Ivy hugged the container, criss-crossing it several times, and trees had grown branches over it. Dandelions and grasses around the front edge, growing through cracks in the concrete, reached several feet tall.
“It’s definitely morning,” Claire said with a nod. “We’ll see if it’s good.”
Drew smirked and handed over her dagger while he tapped the nearby node. The container door swung open without him knocking. Iulia, wearing a long, flowing white dress, gestured for them both to come inside. The dress bothered Drew. It reminded him of drawings he’d seen of Ancient Roman citizens. She had no reason to wear that when she had access to modern clothing.
“It used to be customary to ask before tapping a node on someone else’s property.”
“This isn’t your property,” Drew said. He pointed at the building across the lot. “It belongs to that company.”
Iulia grinned. “I concede your point. Please, come in.”
They stepped inside and Drew sat down on the couch. Claire hovered beside him. Both watched Iulia as she hauled the door shut and went to her work table. Leeloo sat on the coffee table, gnawing on an apple.
“I said yesterday that I expected to need years to collect the power to craft a new seal. I was wrong.” Holding up the red-gold locket face, she sat in the chair opposite Drew. Dead flesh had been scraped from the locket and dried blood had been wiped away. The weathered gold gleamed in the light. “I should have suspected this, of course, since it was my instructions that caused it. The locket is tied to the Portland node. Through it, I can harness that node to build power directly into a seal.”
“Okay,” Drew said. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re bound to her, she’s bound to the locket. We probably need Enion too, now that I think of it. Leeloo, go get Enion. Tell him Claire is here and needs his help.”
Leeloo abandoned her apple and flew to the ceiling, where she pushed a trap door open and climbed out. The door clanged shut behind her.
“That was a crappy answer,” Kay said. “Press her for more. Let’s not do the dying thing for lack of asking questions.”
“Let me rephrase. What are you expecting Kay and me to do? And how will that prevent my soul from being ripped in half?”
Iulia’s mouth twitched with annoyance. Then she waved a hand in dismissal. “You’re bound to Claire. What I need you for is protection. While I’m crafting the seal, I’ll be vulnerable. I won’t be able to defend myself. Last time, I had Caius and his men to protect me. They fended off attacks from ghosts and magical creatures drawn by my efforts, as well as less obvious attacks from the Earth itself.”
Claire waved her hand to get attention. “Whoa. Protect you? We’ll need Justin
and Avery, and whatever other Knights we can gather, plus some witches.”
“No.” Closing her fist around the locket, Iulia stood. “That’s the mistake I made last time. One of the mistakes, at any rate. The whole mess of the Knights began because Caius and his men were there. Ideally, it would be only me present, and I’d spend a few weeks crafting defenses. But you two and the dragon are already bound to the locket, and I can’t sever that. So I might as well use it. The sooner this is done, the better off everyone will be.”
Drew glanced at Claire and caught her eye as she did the same. “Does this mean we’re going to be bound to the seal somehow?”
“No.” Iulia stepped to her work table again and collected her bowl of crystals.
“How can you be sure of that?” Claire asked.
“Because I know what I’m doing.”
“So your answer is ‘trust me.’ That’s not good enough.” Claire crossed her arms. “We’re talking about my existence and Drew’s life. And, since you asked for Enion, I assume we’re also talking about his life. Maybe all the dragons. Probably Mutt too. If you want our cooperation, you need to be clearer about this.”
In complete agreement, Drew nodded. “I’d like some more reassurance too.”
Iulia clenched her jaw. “Fine.” She picked up the journal Drew had seen on the work table and flipped through it. With it open to the middle, she held it for both of them to read the pages. Claire peered at it and shrugged.
Drew took the book and ran a finger over the crinkly paper. “This is in Latin.”
“Of course it’s in Latin,” Iulia snapped. “Did you expect me to write in your vulgar language?”
“I can read some, but I’m not fluent.” Drew puzzled over the words, picking out a few in each sentence. He recognized enough to know he didn’t understand any of it. The diagrams made even less sense than the words. Calculus didn’t help him with this. As a girl in Ancient Rome, Iulia couldn’t have had any formal mathematical schooling. Whatever she used, it held meaning only to her.
If he could learn more about how magic worked, he thought he could figure out the contents. He doubted Iulia would teach him without his participation in the creation of this seal.
“You could ask her,” Kay suggested. “But then, you’re still going by nothing more than her word.”
“Yeah.” Drew shrugged and closed the book. “This is beyond me.”
Iulia snatched the book back and tossed it onto her work table again. “That’s because it’s all magical theory, which took me years to research and understand. You can either trust me to know what I’m doing because I created the first seal, or you can doom thousands to death when the ghosts begin harassing the living. Your choice.”
“I don’t see much choice,” Kay said.
Drew grunted his agreement.
Claire jabbed a finger at Iulia. “You’re sure none of us will be bound to the seal? I don’t want to become Caius. If he could be corrupted by that, then so can I.”
“I’m certain.” Iulia raised both hands as if making a pledge. “Once I adjusted to Caius’s torture, I spent time thinking about this problem. I’ve been considering how to redo the seal for a very long time. Those notes and diagrams,” she gestured to the journal, “are the things I needed to sort out from the jumbles in my head.”
Drew watched Claire’s face cycle through emotions. He’d seen her do that before.
The trapdoor in the ceiling opened again, letting in two dragons. Both trilled in joy.
“Good job, Leeloo. I need you to stay here and guard our home while we’re out. Drew, please take us to the Portland node.”
Drew stood. He might have resisted or complained, but she used “please” and made it a request, not a demand. Hoping to avoid taking Leeloo by accident, he held out a hand for Enion. Too many entities had hitched rides in the mist. “I can’t touch the node, you know. It’s too powerful.”
Iulia laughed. “No one can. That’s why the locket makes this possible.”
“There are probably still ants in the tunnels,” Claire said. “We didn’t kill them all last night, just the roaches.”
“I doubt they’ll be a significant problem with the ley lines to tap,” Iulia said.
Enion glared at Drew’s hand and chirped at Claire, his tone angry.
“Enion,” Claire said with a sigh. “It’s just for a few seconds. You’re not declaring your acceptance of him, you’re just letting him transport you with me. The second I have a shoulder for you to sit on, I’ll let you know.”
The dragon scolded him again.
“Fine,” Drew snapped. He didn’t even know why Enion disliked him. “Let Iulia carry you instead.”
“This is ridiculous.” Iulia huffed and snatched the dragon off the table.
Careful not to bring Leeloo, Drew spun his mist and took them to the room under Nine Cans. He considered putting them deeper in the tunnels, but worried about the ants and accidentally dropping them into a ley line. They’d all burn if he did that.
Several craters in the ground, from six inches to two feet wide, held pools of simmering acid. The acid had dissolved its way deeper into the ground. Drew wondered how long the stuff would remain reactive, and if it would eventually evaporate.
Ki had to be livid that he couldn’t run his Shanghai Tunnels tours, and wouldn’t be able to for some time. Someday, Drew wanted to discover what Ki was. His and Kay’s suspicions had no basis in fact, so he chose not to indulge in them by asking pointed questions. Given how much power he thought Ki might have if the seals holding him in check ever broke, he preferred to stay on the bartender’s good side.
“This way.” Drew hopped across the potholes to the tunnel with the ley line along the wall. He chose caution in heading toward the node, wary of ants popping out.
“Tap the line.”
“Shut up, Kay.”
Kay grumbled about unfairness and lava.
“If I had a way to extract Kay from you without harming you, would you take it?”
Drew whirled to face Iulia. “What?”
“Be really careful,” Kay growled. “I can hear everything, and I’m not powerless.”
“You can’t remove him without killing Drew,” Claire said.
Iulia shrugged. “Perhaps that’s true now. Once the seal is in place, that may not be the case anymore.”
“She’s lying. Assuming it doesn’t kill us, her seal won’t change the part where I’m integrated into your soul.”
Drew nodded, though he barely understood the seal. “Let’s be really clear here. Are you proposing to destroy Kay, or to find a way for him to survive as a separate entity?”
“I’m merely asking if you wish to investigate the possibilities.” Iulia raised her hands in surrender. “I’ve noticed you quarrel with him a fair amount, and that must get tiring to live with.”
“This isn’t really the time,” Claire said. She floated between Drew and Iulia. “Whatever you might or might not be able to do, you want to get the seal taken care of, and so do we. Besides, we may need Kay’s fully capable help to get through that. So let’s leave this for later.”
Enion chirped and jumped off Iulia’s shoulder to fly down the tunnel. Drew wanted to grab Iulia’s shoulders and shake her until she explained exactly what she thought he could do. But Claire was right. Waiting to create the seal only left more time for things to go wrong in the world. He’d been prepared on Saturday for doing the right thing to get him killed. Doing the right thing on Monday deserved the same dedication.
“You know,” Kay said, “I have to be honest at this point. I didn’t like Claire at first. She threatened me and was really the only thing keeping me in check against you. But I’m coming around on her. We make a pretty good team, and she’s definitely on our side.”
“Yeah.” Drew tried not to let surprise at Kay’s admission show on his face. He spoke to everyone present, including Enion, when he said, “We’ll get into this later.” He strode down the tunnel, ea
ger to get this crap over with.
“Assuming we have a later,” Kay grumbled.
Chapter 26
Claire
In life, Claire had seen nothing but dirt, dust, bricks, and cracked plaster down here. In death, she saw a huge, pulsing ley line running along the side of the tunnel. Smaller lines aboveground hadn’t registered to her. She supposed her ability to see them needed time to focus, or maybe she needed practice.
Drew and Iulia both avoided touching the line, leading Claire to follow suit. They plunged into the maze, following the twists and turns until they reached a spot Claire remembered all too well. The blinding light in the next room marked the edge of the wild, pulsing node under the west side of Portland. At the doorway, Claire and Drew had worked together to fuse her locket to this node so the destruction of the Palace wouldn’t kill her.
She bit back a rueful laugh. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. At least they’d prepared, though. That effort forged the path to a new solution for a problem most of Earth never knew about until Saturday. Once Iulia crafted a new seal, people would forget about all of this. Portland would rebuild. The stories would fade. A hoax was born last night, they’d say.
Claire drifted aside, not sure what to do until a threat presented itself. She crouched over Enion’s tiny body, hoping to reassure him.
Iulia approached the node, holding the locket with her fingertips. “The process will take some time. I’m not sure how long, or how you’ll be able to tell when I’m getting close to finished. It should be obvious when I’m done.”
“Great.” Drew stood beside Claire. He tried to touch her shoulder and snatched his hand to his chest with a hiss.
Despite the near-completion of the color creeping across her, she still had no solidity. Maybe she never would. “Stay close, I suppose.” Looking down at her dragon, she considered asking Enion to get on Drew’s shoulder or arm. He wouldn’t do it. She needed to get him to do something with less effort. “Enion, please stand on Drew’s foot.”
