Their plan was simple: Xavier and his great-nephew would come at the farm from the south. Xavier would use the most powerful skill an elder dasher could muster, throwing himself at the ground like a meteor. It didn’t hurt the dragon, but it could cause a commotion and distract the beaststalkers.
Naturally, Jonathan didn’t think his wife was stupid enough to be fooled by a single distraction. So he suggested Gautierre come in from the southeast, moving fast and looking exactly like a young dragon trying to stay hidden but not quite succeeding. His shape would be the first the beaststalkers would spot, and they would concentrate fire there. Gautierre would get covered in paint—something that actually made the boy smile when Jonathan told him that. The kid had spirit.
Jonathan would come in from the north, over the water. Yes, the beaststalkers would think of this. But between Xavier’s open distraction and Gautierre’s “secret” approach, the chances were at least two or three of the guards would head south, leaving a sole sentry to watch out for this tactic. It would be impossible to post this sentry closer than the shore, which would give the best shooter they had—Elizabeth—only a few seconds to spot Jonathan, even in perfect daylight weather. Which it decidedly was not.
He shifted his scales to a midnight black, and let streaks of snowflake white trickle randomly over his skin. His body sank until he was a mere foot above the restless lake waves.
An explosion to the south, beyond the cabin, made him smile. Xavier’s meteor falls were spectacular. This one went off like a dozen firework displays at once.
Immediately afterward, a great howl went up in the forest. This was Jonathan’s fail-safe—a dozen newolves he had asked to serve as an additional distraction. Newolves were a breed of mysterious, elusive wolves. They could spend the next half-hour shooting paintballs into the woods, and not hit all of the animals he was sending their way.
Good luck, honey. By the time you sort all this out, I’ll be coming out of the cabin to offer you a thermos of coffee.
He increased speed to a good sixty miles per hour. It would take military radar to track his shape this far off the surface. Last he checked, his wife hadn’t ordered any military radar.
Through the distance, he could make out the darkness of the shoreline trees. There was no sign of any human form anywhere on the shore, which meant he had a clear path to—
A splash distracted him, and then a startling spray of gunfire.
RATATATARATATATARATATATARATAT . . .
A hot streak of pain ran down his belly, causing him to flinch and lose control of his flight trajectory. His left wing tip slid into the water, forcing him into a disastrous roll that brought him skipping off the water and onto the wintry shore. He ended up on his back in the north yard of the cabin, six feet from the well-lit porch, clutching his belly. Since his wing claws felt a sticky substance all over, he assumed he was bleeding out. He raised his head.
Neon green. Dammit, it’s paint. Why couldn’t it be blood?
His crested head hit the ground again in despair. “Unnnnnh . . .” He lay there for some time, until he heard splashing from the lake and a victorious scream from the water’s edge.
“WOOOT!”
Unusually emotive for Liz, but she deserves it. She got me good. Cripes, she waited in the ice-cold water for me! What was she wearing, scuba gear?
“WOOOOOOOT!”
He turned his head and saw the beaststalker in wet street clothes run at him, paint gun raised above her head, silly grin plastered on her face.
Not his wife, the best shot in the Great Lakes region. His daughter, the novice.
“WOOOOOOOOOOOT! Check it out, Dad!” She showed him the weapon, which resembled something out of a science fiction movie. The nozzle took up half the length of the gun. “The Angel LCD, .68-caliber, electro-pneumatic goodness! It has twenty-four different modes of fire, with up to twelve shots per second! Twelve shots per second, Dad! I think I got you with about two full seconds’ worth.”
“Maybe three,” he groaned. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“You can only get these from England—I had it on the fully automatic setting, which Mom tells me isn’t completely legal in this country . . .”
“You shot me in the groin.”
She shrugged. “You were moving fast, and I had to hit what you gave me. You and Mom keep saying you’re done having kids, anyway. What’s the big deal?”
“How the hell did you stay in the water that long?”
“Dragon form kept me insulated. I balanced this on my nose until I saw you coming.”
“You saw me . . . ?”
“Not you, exactly. The trail of turbulent water you kicked up behind you.”
Jonathan groaned at his arrogance. He thought he was so clever, flying so low so fast!
“Fire in the hole!”
Jennifer’s eyes went wide at her mother’s voice, and she darted away. Jonathan looked up just in time for the grenade to go off.
SPLAT!
The explosion occurred two feet above him, spraying hot pink paint over an area twenty feet in diameter, with him in the center.
“They call that the ‘Poltergeist,’” Elizabeth’s voice explained from the darkness above the cabin roof. “Sneaks up on you like a ghost, doesn’t it?”
He spat. “You had no practical use for those!”
“True, I only ordered one for a victory dance. I wouldn’t have done it on one of the Longtails. I had to hope it was you coming from the north. Of course, I knew it would be.”
“Of course.” He lifted his head again, looked over his hot pink and neon green body, and slammed his head back down on the earth. Snowflakes landed in the pools of paint on and around him, shimmering softly in the strange colors like stars in an alien sky. “I assume you found Xavier and Gautierre?”
“Wendy took care of both of them. We figured you’d use them for distractions, so she gallantly offered to cover the south.”
“What about Eddie?”
“With Jennifer in the water and me up here, I could spare Eddie to use your newolves for target practice. He still flinches slightly when he shoots, whether it’s a gun or a bow and arrow. Once he steadies his hand, he’ll be an amazing shot. Good training opportunity.”
“He’d better watch himself around them.”
“I’m not worried. Since you recruited them on a volunteer basis, I’m sure they’ll behave.”
“Could you have the good grace to pretend this was difficult for you?”
“Difficult for Jennifer, maybe. Dragon skin or not, I’m sure the lake was cold. And if she had missed you, I would have had to put some effort into my shot.”
“What, you don’t have an electro-angel-pneumatic thingie?”
“Sniper model. Only three rounds a second. Though the way you were coming in, one would have been enough. Were you trying to do a speedboat impersonation out there?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Very well. Jennifer, get a bucket of soapy water for your father, and a sponge. He’s not coming in the house until he cleans himself off. Same goes for the Longtails, though I expect it’ll be easier for them.” She pretended to sound severe toward her daughter. “Wendy was a more efficient shot.”
It was more than an hour later before Jonathan came into the living room, clean but shivering inside his robe. A silver moon elm leaf, strung around his neck on a light chain, tickled his chest. The leaf, and the tree that bore it, was a gift from his daughter to all dragonkind. The touch of these leaves allowed (Xavier might say forced) dragons to take human form under the crescent moon, and dragon shape under all other phases. It was a remarkable blessing for Jonathan, who could now pursue his career and family life on his own terms.
Normally, he would be grateful to his daughter for making this possible. Not tonight.
He sat down in his comfortable leather chair, which used to be his father’s, and glared at her as she relaxed on the couch. Her friend Susan sat on one side of her, covered head
to toe in flour from making bread earlier, and her mother sat on the other. “You cheated.”
Jennifer grinned back as her long fingers scratched behind the ears of Phoebe, their black shepherd collie mix. “Cheated? That’s a sore loser talking.”
“You took dragon form waiting in the lake. A real beaststalker couldn’t do that. You ruined the simulation.”
“Real beaststalkers improvise, Dad. They’ll come up with stuff we wouldn’t think of normally. That’s what I was simulating.”
He turned to Elizabeth, who was comfortably seated next to her daughter with a thermos of coffee. “You told her to say that.”
His wife took a sip. “I didn’t tell her to say anything. She’s perfectly capable of seeing through your illogical whining without my help. You’re just a sore loser.”
“I already told him that,” Jennifer pointed out with a grin.
“You’re right, honey.” Elizabeth turned back to her husband. “That ‘sore loser’ thing? She told me to say that.”
Jonathan ground his teeth. “Why are you so cheery? This wasn’t the way the simulation was supposed to go! We failed!”
“We learned,” Xavier corrected him from the chaise lounge across the library. “I thought that was the point.” The elder kept his long dragon form, forcing his great-nephew to find sprawling room on an oriental rug. Jonathan could have sworn he caught a faint smile around those yellowed teeth. As Xavier shifted on the chaise lounge, a small red and green shape crawled up his spine and settled on top of his flat, black head. This was Geddy, a gecko Jennifer once had for a pet. She had given the gecko to Xavier as a gift, after an extraordinary adventure together in another universe. Despite Jonathan’s lingering misgivings about the prickly dasher’s attitude, the gecko symbolized a strengthening link between his family and theirs.
“Where are Wendy and Eddie?” he asked his wife.
“Making nice with the newolves, I suppose.”
“Without a dragon there?”
“Best way to learn, dear.”
Jonathan turned to Xavier for support. The dasher gave him nothing more than a shrug.
“Fine. If we find their remains in the forest, I’ll pass on condolences to Hank.”
“I don’t imagine Hank cares one way or the other what happens to them in the forest,” Elizabeth reminded him. This was true: Since the recent ruin of the heirloom Blacktooth Blade, Hank had kicked his family out of the house—first Eddie, and then Wendy after she’d left her bed at the hospital. They were staying with the Scales until they could find a better solution.
“When do you think you’ll be able to hold some talks in Winoka?” Susan asked. Jonathan noticed the girl’s habit of twisting her black curls around her fingers. “If Jennifer’s and Eddie’s moms are already beaststalkers, isn’t that a good start?”
Elizabeth put her hand on Susan’s knee. “There are about five hundred beaststalkers in Winoka. The vast majority of them are blindly loyal to Glorianna Seabright. She despises diplomacy, and she doesn’t tolerate disagreement.”
“Then aren’t you and Ms. Blacktooth in danger?”
“Ms. Blacktooth and I are”—Jonathan caught Elizabeth’s pause—“special cases. The problem won’t be getting our family into town for diplomacy. The problem will be with other dragons, like the Longtails. More and more dragons will want to come to Winoka before long.”
“Like Catherine Brandfire and her grandmother were going to do?”
Jonathan winced. This was true—Winona Brandfire, the Eldest of the Blaze, and her granddaughter, Catherine, had been poised to move from their Northwater home to Winoka, in an effort to ease diplomatic efforts. The revelation that Jonathan was responsible for the death of Catherine’s parents had damaged that relationship, perhaps forever. There were dragons, Jonathan knew, who now despised him as much as Glorianna’s most loyal beaststalkers did.
“I still don’t get why you have to practice tonight,” Susan continued. “If you all have access to the silver moon elm, and you can shift shape by touching or not touching its leaves, then why do you have to fly in at all? Why not go in as people, and mingle however you like?”
Xavier’s black head lifted off the chaise lounge. “Let me ask you a question, Susan Elmsmith. Why should any of us have to hide who we are, to go into any town we like? If you were banned from Winoka because you weren’t a dragon, would you feel it necessary to dress up as one so you could go outside and buy your groceries?”
Susan’s ears reddened, and she bowed her head. “Sorry. I was just asking.”
Jonathan held his hand up to Xavier. “Don’t apologize, Susan. It was a legitimate question. Not everybody is an expert in how to make Elder Longtail happy.”
“And not everyone is as comfortable as Elder Scales pretending to be someone he isn’t.”
“My father doesn’t pretend—”
“Jennifer.” Now the raised hand was directed at his daughter. Temples burning with irritation, he got up from his chair and walked over to the chaise lounge. He felt all the eyes in the room—those of his family, Susan, and the Longtails—follow him. With a set jaw, he pointed right at Xavier Longtail’s snout.
“Xavier. I want you to understand this perfectly. I know who I am. And so does the mayor of Winoka. If she wanted to show up at our door with a dozen of her best, she would. You might want to consider why she doesn’t. It isn’t entirely because of my wife.
“If you think so little of me, perhaps you want to go find Winona Brandfire and a dozen of her best. See if you can find that many who want to come knock on that door, right there.” He moved his finger so that it pointed at the porch door.
Xavier was chuckling, but it was not a cruel or disrespectful laugh. “No, Elder Scales. I don’t think so little of you. I hope you and the girl”—he motioned to Susan with a wing claw—“will forgive my bad temper. I’ve been fielding questions like hers for far too long. I’m sitting with you here tonight because I respect self-knowledge. You know who you are. So does your wife, and your daughter. This knowledge lends you a certain . . . integrity. There are dragons in the Blaze who don’t have it. Given a choice, I prefer your company.”
Jonathan relaxed. He lowered his finger and smiled. “I’m glad you do, Xavier. And Gautierre, I’m sure you agree with your great-uncle. It’s good to have you here.”
The young dasher didn’t respond. He was busy staring at the couch where Jennifer sat, whispering something to Susan. The fascination on his face made Jonathan lose his smile.
Xavier wasn’t amused, either. He smacked his great-nephew on the head with a wing claw. “Boy, where’s your head? An elder’s talking to you.”
“Sorry, Uncle X. I was . . .” The kid trailed off, because he plainly had no ready lie, and the truth would not do at all.
The truth is, Jonathan told himself, he’s infatuated with Jennifer. He couldn’t blame the youngster—in his humble opinion, his daughter was the most perfect person to grace this earth—but this was getting tiring. Eddie Blacktooth, for years, had demonstrated an obvious crush on his childhood friend. Then last year, as Eddie faded a bit, Skip Wilson, the son of ex-wife Dianna Wilson and murderous thug Otto Saltin, arrived on the scene. The two boys seemed to take turns in irritating and attracting Jennifer. Given their parentage, Jonathan found this whole romantic seesaw to be an exercise in heightened blood pressure.
And now, on top of it all, came this Gautierre lad. Who didn’t come from a long line of Jonathan Scales fans, either. How could a father who came equipped with a built-in flamethrower have so much trouble keeping these young bucks off his daughter? And what would Gautierre’s mother, Ember, think of the idea of Jennifer dating this boy?
Probably some of the same things you think, he answered himself. And worse.
“Have you heard from your niece?” he asked Xavier, holding his breath.
Xavier shook his head. “Since Gautierre told his mother his intention to learn from the Ancient Furnace, she has not spoken to either
of us. She rarely comes out of Crescent Valley, so I don’t expect there will be any confrontation here at the cabin. I would recommend caution for any and all of you should you cross through the moonlit water into that refuge.”
Gautierre scowled at the mention of his mother. “Mom’s being a twit. She thinks she knows everything that’s good for me. I can make these decisions for myself.”
“Your mother is not a twit,” Elizabeth snapped, making them all sit up straight. “Your mother is an orphan. When you lose family, you look for any reason to lash out. In her case, she doesn’t have to look far.”
“It is possible,” Xavier added with a courteous nod to Elizabeth, “that we will have to practice a great deal more than how to evade paint guns, before our efforts can succeed. There could be dragons standing in the way of diplomacy. Some of them have considerable power.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I’m not worried about individual dragons. With the possible exception of Winona, not one of them can do anything Jennifer can’t.” He watched his daughter swell with pride at his words.
Xavier looked skeptical. “You’ve already taught her the elder creeper skill?”
Here, Jonathan’s blood went cold. “No.”
The dasher’s head tilted to one side. “It might help. You think she’s too young?”
“Not at all. I just can’t do it myself.”
“You can’t? Why not? Surely Crawford taught it to you years ago?”
An unwanted memory washed over Jonathan’s skull: his mother coughing blood all over the bedsheets, and her golden irises rolling back. A funeral pyre at the stone plateau, and his father’s harsh words to him: I will never teach you another damned thing about being a dragon.
“He didn’t” was all he could say.
Xavier glared at him, and Jonathan was certain the old geezer could piece it together. “This is bad news. Crawford was the last elder with memory of the skill.”
“There aren’t any others?” Jennifer’s brow furrowed. “How can that be? I’ve seen some elder creepers on the Blaze. Don’t they know it?”
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