Highfire

by Eoin Colfer

  “I can’t imagine you swallowing that long-term, you being Lord Highfire and all.”

  “No, you’re right there. I was all set to challenge, had my mind made up, so I went up into the Highlands to toughen up a little.”

  “So what happened?”

  Vern’s posture slumped. “You happened. Humans. Elephants, too. Chinese powder and cannon. Blasted us right out of that eyrie. Our familiars drugged our wine and let the mob in. They tore the place apart. It was unbelievable—like being attacked by monkeys.”

  “But you survived.”

  “Yep, on account of I was in the Highlands, beating up rocks. Eighteen dragons died that night. We didn’t know at the time, but all over the world, humans were dominating. That was the end of the Dragon Age. From then on, we kept to ourselves.”

  “Shit,” said Squib. “That’s awful.”

  “My granddaddy had been alive for eight thousand years, kid. Old Gnarly Head—had eight rows of horn nubs. Eight. Humans drowned him.”

  “Drowned him?”

  “Yeah,” said Vern, “put out that heart flame but good. Jubelus fought as best he could, but he couldn’t spark up, drugged as he was. He took a stake from a war machine right in the gut. Bled out slow.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It was over by the time I got back. There was nothing left of my family but corpses. I lost my head for a few months, razed a couple dozen villages, then they set those damned elephants on me, so I hightailed it outta there. Haven’t been back since.”

  “Razed a couple dozen villages?”

  “More, probably. It didn’t mean nothing. I was up high so it was like destroying anthills. Burning that chair meant more. But I tell you something, a fella can’t burn away the pain.”

  Squib shivered, and it was nothing to do with the skein of mist floating over the swamp. It hadn’t before occurred to him that he was getting all pally with a hulking mass-murderer with some class of a complex. Inferiority maybe, or Napoleon. Maybe Miss Ingram would know.

  Screw it, he thought. I got a dragon friend and he ain’t Pete’s dragon, all furry and dumb. He’s the real deal.

  So he said, “Hey, boss. What d’you say I mix you a pitcher of martinis right now?”

  Vern was still a bit moody. “I dunno. I started on beer already.”

  “Come on. Wax told me you wasn’t supposed to be drinking beer. Ketogenic, right? I got some low-carb vegetable chips.”

  Vern was interested. “Low-carb?”

  “Martinis and chips, boss. And maybe you could use some of your dozen sentences to tell me about history?”

  “It’s possible. If you patch the floorboards.”

  “Deal,” said Squib.

  “Goddamn right, deal,” said Vern. “Like it’s a democracy.”

  HOOKE, KING OF the sneaks, was recording everything from his hide across the water. He thanked God for the first time in his life: He thanked God for Everett “Squib” Moreau, a teenager who asked more questions than Congress on a witch hunt. Hooke took to wearing a Bluetooth earpiece during work hours so he wouldn’t miss a minute of dragon-boy exchange. He even bought a smart watch so he could read their communiqués as they came in without having to root about for his phone.

  So far as intelligence gathering went, Hooke had never had it so good. These two fools, having no idea that they were being surveilled, spoke freely about all manner of shit. Including but not limited to:

  Squib: “Hooke was in the house the other morning, Mister Vern. Couldn’t believe it. Walked in and there he was on the chair.”

  Vern: “That prick. I heard shit about him.”

  Conclusions: Vern was the dragon’s name, and he spoke English.

  And:

  Squib: “Hooke thought I might be the guy hiding in the reeds watching him do his murder on Willard.”

  Vern: (chuckles) “He thought right.”

  Conclusion: Squib, you little asshole. Everything coming to you, you got coming.

  And another time:

  Squib: “Shit, boss. You need all this cooking oil? Shit’s heavy.”

  Vern: “Quit your bitching, employee. I need every drop of that oil. No oil, no flame. Get it? That shit’s like rocket fuel to a dragon.”

  Conclusion: So Vern is definitely a dragon. And a dragon needs oil to keep him lit. Interesting.

  Vern and Squib talked a lot about history, which seemed to interest the boy, who credited a Miss Ingram for this educational bent. Hooke wondered, would the boy confide in her? For if he did, then it was permanent retirement for the high school teacher, too. Hooke gleaned that Vern was three thousand years old, at least, and that he had lived all over the world. He was a little runty, so far as dragons went, and he still bore a grudge against his brother Jubelus, who sounded like a hoot to Regence.

  Still more revelations:

  Squib: “What’s your opinion of Game of Thrones, boss?”

  Angry clattering of furniture.

  Vern: “Game of Thrones? Are you trying to push my buttons, kid? Game of fucking Thrones! Those dragons are like servants—you see me doing any fucking mother of dragon’s bidding? I’d never serve humans!”

  Squib: “I didn’t mean nothing—”

  Vern: “Goddamn lapdog CGI motherfucking fire lizards. Heap of shit.”

  Conclusion: Vern really did not like Game of Thrones.

  And the intelligence kept coming:

  Squib: “You was playing ‘Blue Bayou’ the other night, and I thought I heard crying. So I stayed out on the bayou till the song finished.”

  Extended coughing.

  Vern: “Yeah, I smelled you out there. I can smell you all the way from Petit Bateau, good as I know you. That song was part of something on TV. An old movie. Good song, though. Great tune.”

  Conclusion: Vern had himself a dose of sentimentality and an excellent sense of smell.

  The info piled on up, and it got so Hooke was obsessed with the files he was amassing.

  I got my act of God out in the swamp, he realized, but he ain’t no use to me there ’less I can get Ivory upriver to check out the new run I am about to be proposing for his product.

  Hooke had long believed that the Pearl River was an ideal way to traffic upstate. Ivory had never agreed to commit more than Carnahan could personally carry, but if a few of his regular deliveries were hit, then maybe he could be persuaded to come take a gander. But that plan seemed unnecessarily complicated.

  Colonel Faraiji would laugh his ass off at that plan.

  Keep it simple, stupid.

  Faraiji once said, “Do you know the difference between a sundial and a wristwatch?”

  Hooke had allowed that he knew many differences, but perhaps not the specific one Faraiji needed to get his message across.

  “The difference, Sergeant, is that a sundial has no moving parts. Sundials do not malfunction.”

  Hooke could have pointed out that sundials weren’t portable, or that sundials were no use in a sandstorm, but he knew that these observations would just drag out the lesson, so he nodded like he got it.

  “A plan should be like a sundial, understood? The fewer moving parts, the better.”

  So it made no sense to move Ivory’s crew to the swamp. It made more sense to lure Vern to New Orleans.

  But what did you use to lure a person/dragon to where you wanted them?

  You used that thing the person/dragon loved.

  Vern might not love Squib, but he sure was fond of the boy.

  And Squib is a pain in my ass anyways, thought Hooke.

  Two birds, one stone: win-win.

  Except for Vern.

  And Squib.

  Also Ivory.

  Chapter 14

  HOOKE COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT. THAT DRAGON FELLA MUST surely have a yearning for vegetables, the amount of effort he was putting into their cultivation, sending his boy down here with a barge-load of manure most nights for a start. Though Hooke did get a perverse pleasure from watching the boy shoveli
ng shit.

  I must keep this chore going when I’m shacking up with his momma, he thought. Just for the hell of it.

  But back to the dragon and his veggies.

  A guy wouldn’t think it, he mused from his position in the oaks behind Waxman’s houseboat, a dragon loving him this many vegetables.

  But then everything he knew about dragons was gleaned from TV and other such unreliable sources.

  Never figured dragons actually existed, he admitted now, but he wasn’t all agog over Vern’s actuality anymore; he’d gotten over that. In fact, the shit-shoveling surprised him more than the dragon.

  It seemed to Regence Hooke that old Vern walking the earth was the answer to his prayer.

  Vern shall smite mine enemies and lay waste to them who would oppress me.

  Hooke smiled in the darkness, thinking how happy he was, nestled in here among the bamboo stalks with fireflies alighting on his camo veil.

  Whaddya think of that, Pop? “Smite mine enemies.” Sure sounds biblical, don’t it?

  Imagine, a heathen like Regence Hooke having his prayers answered. Just went to show that blessings could land on any shoulders. It was what a person did with them that counted.

  Hooke knew exactly what he would do now: He would lure Vern to the Marcello and use the dragon to excoriate the mob hotel.

  And then Regence Hooke here will take advantage of the chaos. Just like always.

  At the very least, he would be rid of Squib Moreau, and at most, he would be right there in position to step into the vacuum created by Ivory.

  It’s all good, thought Hooke. For me.

  He allowed Squib time to tie off and fill the barrow with the night’s steaming pile. It pleased him to watch a teenager engaged in physical labor since they generally took so hard against it. But when the boy was maybe a dozen shovel-loads in, Hooke had a mind to get on with his evening and threw his camo sniper veil back over his shoulders. The veil looked a bit like a Snuggie, he’d always thought, but you couldn’t argue against its convenience. Folded up neater than a handkerchief.

  My very own cloak of invisibility.

  Hooke came out of the copse slow and quiet, picking his steps so’s not to spook the kid, but he needn’t have bothered because Squib had a headful of his own tunes, piped direct into his skull by tiny white headphones.

  Hooke wondered what the boy might be listening to. Rap, most likely. Or hip-hop, whatever the difference between those two might be. Hooke didn’t care too much for music in any case, though occasionally, in times of stress, he would catch himself humming a snatch of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” which was the only hymn his father considered not to be sacrilegious—which only went to prove that the dead never really did die.

  This notion pleased Hooke almost as much as watching Squib dig dragon shit.

  I sure do hope there’s a scrap of you floating around, Poppa, bearing witness to all the devil’s work these hands of mine are doing.

  Hooke flexed his right hand, testing for residual snake-bite damage, but there was nothing much. Maybe the ghost of a twinge? If anything, Hooke was feeling less with this hand since it shrank back down to its original size. Nerve damage, probably. His aim might be off a tad, but he could punch shit harder.

  Hooke stepped silently over to Squib all the same. The boy had proved himself a slippery customer in the past, so no point in giving young Moreau points in this spread. Best to keep the game one-sided from the get-go. He was tempted to tap Squib on the shoulder before punching him, just for a little theater, but the kid could swing a shovel, and shovels had blades.

  Nope, keep this streamlined, Regence, he told himself. If everything goes right, there’ll be theater aplenty later in the evening.

  SQUIB NEVER SAW it coming. One second he was trying to be a good Renfield, giving “What a Feeling” a listen and the next it felt like the back of his head had been stoved right in and he was facedown in the shit he’d been shoveling so assiduously.

  Holy Christ, I musta been struck by lightning. Surely to God I am dead, was more or less what he was thinking, but there wasn’t any concrete shape to his thoughts, just a spew of pain with sharp edges.

  Squib somehow managed to roll his face out of the shit and hoist himself upright, only to realize that the rolling and hoisting had been assisted by someone.

  Squib heard a ringing of feedback in his ears like he’d come off a plane, and then a voice hacked through the membrane and the voice said, “Time for a reckoning, Squib. You gotta pay the piper, son.”

  Squib did not immediately recognize the voice, but he knew who it was just as sure as the Lord recognized the devil when he spoke to Him in the desert.

  Hooke, he thought. He found me.

  “You hearing me, son?” said the voice. “Anybody in there?”

  Squib felt his jaw go slack, and he might have drooled like a baby. Also, he could still hear music in the background, so it was like his misfortunes had a soundtrack.

  “Huh?” he said. “What?”

  Hooke laughed. “‘Huh? What?’ I reckon I scrambled your brains, son. Or maybe the stink of that dragon shit did that.”

  And that statement smartened Squib right up, scything right through the brain fog.

  Dragon shit? Hooke knows about Vern?

  Hooke tossed Squib back down in the dirt. “What are you doing here, boy? Every day shoveling shit? Old Vern loves his vegetables that much? I can’t believe it.”

  Squib coughed, and his head felt like it might fall to pieces like a busted egg. “I just put the crap on the patch,” he muttered almost to himself. “Orders from the boss.”

  “Vern’s orders, huh,” said Hooke. “Fair enough, I suppose. Each to his own.”

  Squib made a stab at loyalty. “No. Waxman’s orders. I see to his patch while he’s down. Down South.”

  “Yup,” said Hooke. “Sure, okay, whatever. You are misunderstanding the situation, son. I already know what I need to know. That information is banked, you get me? For your part in this unfolding scenario, all you gotta do is keep breathing till you die. Simple, ain’t it? Shouldn’t be no problem for you, even with a busted head.”

  Squib couldn’t rightly figure what was going on. The soggy earth was seeping through his clothes, and his head throbbed like pain incarnate was living inside there. It seemed like Hooke had the situation all figured, so far as Vern was concerned. He had enough sparks left in his brain to ask one vital question.

  “You ain’t gonna kill me now, Constable?”

  “Kill you?” said Hooke. “Don’t you know a thing about hunting? The best kind of bait is the live kind.”

  Squib watched his hands sink into the mud and felt the worms on his skin. I’m the bait.

  “What are we hunting, Constable?” he asked. He didn’t have the strength to lift his head so he could look Hooke in the eye.

  Hooke turned him over with the toe of his boot so they could face each other. “I think you know what we’re hunting,” he said, looming above the battered teen. “We’re hunting chaos incarnate.”

  Squib wasn’t sure what the word “incarnate” meant, but he reckoned the word “chaos” referred to Vern.

  “Chaos,” he mumbled. “You can’t track chaos.”

  Hooke screwed a cigar into the corner of his mouth and lit it, grinning all the while. “Ain’t you the clever dick, son? You saying chaos can’t be tracked on account of there’s no pattern? But what I can do is lure chaos: get it where I want it and see what happens. I wonder how well Vern does in enclosed spaces.”

  It was clear that Hooke was all up to speed as regards the whole dragon thing, so Squib decided to abandon all pretense of ignorance on that front.

  “Vern will tear your enclosed space to pieces, dipshit,” he said. “You ain’t got no idea.”

  “Hey, boy,” said Hooke. “Your sentences are coming back. How about that. Guess I didn’t bust your fool head hard enough. Never mind, that’s an easy fix.”

  Hooke reached un
der his camouflage poncho, pulled out a shotgun, and showed Squib the butt end. “Nighty night, Squibster,” he said. “See you in the Big Easy.”

  Squib closed his eyes and allowed his jaw to hang loose, which was counterintuitive, but Charles Jr. had once told him it would save his teeth in the event of a head trauma, and Charles Jr. should know as he’d rammed his quad into more walls than he had limbs.

  This is sure gonna hurt, thought Squib, while Hooke was swinging his Mossberg. If I can even feel a higher level of pain with my head in smithereens.

  “Smithereens,” he thought. One of Waxman’s words.

  And you know what they say: Think of the devil and he shall appear.

  HOOKE WAS HAVING the time of his life, busting up Squib’s noggin and setting up crime lords. A guy had to wonder if life could get any sweeter than this.

  Sure it can. Soon I’ll be tangling with a dragon.

  Across the river, he could see a bonfire throwing light against the night sky and thought, I better check that shit out. Prob’ly Bodi burning his trash again.

  And in a case of mind-bending irony, Hooke gave himself a mental pat on the back for his professionalism, tending to the law even on his day off. I ain’t even full-time, and here I am looking out for the environment.

  Because Regence Hooke took his job seriously, in spite of the way he gleefully shattered the state and human laws on a regular basis.

  Two separate things, he told himself. We all got duality in us. Dark sides and so forth.

  Which was why cracking Squib’s skull didn’t bother him none; in fact he reveled in it.

  Don’t kill the boy, though, Regence, he reminded himself. A dead hostage ain’t nothing but a sack of meat, and no dragon is going to come out of hiding for a sack of meat.

  And so Hooke held back a few pounds of force when he brought the wooden stock down on Squib’s head, but nonetheless he enjoyed the dull thunk it made, like an axe going into a tree trunk.

  That boy is gonna have a nasty welt, he thought. Still, that’s gonna be the least of his problems considering the mutilations I got planned. He wondered if there was ever a version of himself who would have had some qualms about taking his blade to a kid?