by James Riley
The Old One paused in midair, then shrank to the size of a house fly and flew through the gap between the wall and portal.
“NO!” Rachel shouted, but it was already too late. Their paralysis once again faded, and there could only be one reason why: The Old One had made it to Earth.
“We need to get after it!” Rachel shouted. “There’s no time to waste!”
“We’re not going anywhere until my father’s okay!” Fort shouted at her.
“What?” Rachel said. “Think about what that dragon can do! And there’s a teleportation circle still opened to the school, from where we came in!”
“He’s okay to move,” Jia told Fort. “I don’t know what’s keeping him unconscious, but he seems fine physically. We won’t hurt him if we take him with us.”
Fort gritted his teeth. He didn’t like it, but he also didn’t want to stay in this dimension another second, especially with the Old Ones on their way. He leaned down to pick up his father, and Jia helped from the other side. Together, they lifted him up and held him between them.
As soon as they had him, Fort opened a teleportation circle vertically in front of them, one that emerged just inches below the portal, set diagonally to shoot them out to the stone floor beyond.
“Because the portal is in midair, you’re going to need to run through the circle here,” he told the others. “Your momentum will take you through the portal, but be careful how you—”
Rachel didn’t bother listening to the rest, and instead leaped through the circle. Gabriel’s eyes flickered in multiple directions, but when he saw Fort waiting for him, he nodded and leaped through next.
A moment later, his upside-down hands extended back through the teleportation circle at the top. “Hand him to me!” Gabriel shouted, and Fort and Jia passed his father into Gabriel’s arms. The older boy lifted Fort’s father through the portal, leaving it clear for them to follow.
Once they were all back in the cavern below the old Oppenheimer School, Fort immediately closed the teleportation circle beneath them. He started to do the same to the dimensional portal, then stopped.
If they were somehow going to force the Old One to return to its dimension, they’d have to get it back here and through the portal, which presented a big problem. Obviously he couldn’t close the portal now, or they’d be trapped with the dragon on Earth. But if he left it open, there was no telling what might come through. The Old Ones had to be almost to Dragon’s Teeth, and it wouldn’t take them long from there to find out what had happened to the Dracsi.
“We’re going to have to guard the portal until I bring the Old One back,” he told the others.
“What?” Rachel shouted. “Did you lose your mind like that elf? The Old Ones are coming! You think we’ll be able to stop them from walking through this thing?”
“That’s why I need to get the dragon back in it before they arrive,” he said. “There’s no time to argue. I’m the only one who can teleport it back here, so I’m going after it. Rachel, you and Gabriel should stay here—”
“No way,” she said. “You won’t be able to fight that thing without me.”
“If it comes to fighting it, we’ve already lost,” he told her. “It can freeze us in place. No, you need to stay, because you’re the only one who can collapse this place and bring a ton of rock down on top of anyone who tries to come through.”
She growled, but nodded. “This is all on you, Fort, from start to finish. You need to fix this!”
Fort turned to Gabriel, thinking he was going to object to being left behind, but he just nodded and put a hand on Fort’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure she’s okay,” he said. “Good luck with that dragon.”
Happy to not have to argue, Fort nodded. “Jia, I’m going to teleport you and my dad to the school’s hospital, then see if I can find the dragon. If it did go through the teleportation circle, it shouldn’t be hard to find. If not, I’ll just turn on the news.”
“Of course,” Jia said, moving to pick up his father from Gabriel, with Fort helping. “I’ll call Dr. Ambrose in too.”
“Thank you,” he said, knowing the words weren’t enough, but they were all he had. “Be back soon,” he told Rachel and Gabriel, then opened a circle in front of him, and together with Jia, carried his father through.
They found two doctors in white coats staring at them as they emerged, one already on the phone for the guards. When they saw Fort’s unconscious father, both immediately moved to take him, gently carrying him to one of the free beds.
“What’s his situation?” one of them asked Jia.
“Unknown,” she said. “Physically he’s okay, but… he’s sort of been trapped as a giant monster for the last six months or so.”
The woman just stared at her for a moment, then began checking his vital signs. Jia turned to Fort, who couldn’t look away, and gently pushed him toward the teleportation circle. “Go,” she said.
He nodded in acknowledgment but stood still, unable to leave his father. After all this time, his dad was just feet from him, back where he belonged. But why hadn’t he woken up? He’d said Fort’s name, so at least he hadn’t gone feral like the elf had after who knew how long being a Dracsi.
“Fort,” Jia said. “He’ll be fine.”
As much as it killed Fort to be anywhere other than at his dad’s side, he knew that Jia was the one who could really help heal him. And right now Fort had to make sure no one else got hurt because of the risks he’d taken to save him.
With one last look at his dad, Fort forced himself to turn and run out of the room. He stopped just outside, unsure where to go next. If the Old One had come here, there should be some signs of him, like screaming students and the guards defending the school. But the facility was also big enough that he might not be able to hear it from where he was.
He needed to get somewhere more central first, and then see what was happening. He teleported himself to the armory, the place he’d most feared the Old One would go, but thankfully, the room was empty.
Unfortunately, the screams coming from beyond the armory’s door told him that the hallway outside wasn’t.
Fort unlocked the door, then ran down the hallway as alarms began to blare. The screams were coming from a few hallways away, so he raced as fast as he could only to stop dead, shocked into paralysis by the trail the Old One had left.
Two guards had been merged with the wall, somehow still alive and otherwise unharmed as they tried to free themselves. Another was tied up in her own arms, which were now long enough to wrap around her body over and over. Two more had been connected at the back, and both were trying to pull away in opposite directions, just trying to escape.
“Help us!” one of the guards shouted.
But there was nothing Fort could do, not without Healing… or rather, Corporeal magic. Instead, he sprinted through the hall, knowing that he had to get the Old One out of here above all else. Jia and the other healing students could help the Old One’s victims.
As he continued following the trail of guards, gradually Fort began to recognize where he was going. He came to a halt, realizing that of course that was the dragon’s destination. Instead of running any farther, he opened a teleportation portal straight to the display room, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake.
He wasn’t. The dragon stood before the ancient bones of his children at the other side of the room, the rage-filled power pulsating off of him so strong that Fort could feel it on his skin.
Just in front of him, Sergeant Tower lay unconscious, a silver staff lying a short distance away. Considering that his body hadn’t been magically changed, the dragon must have fought him physically. Still, it looked like he was breathing, so that was something.
With the Old One distracted by the skeletons, Fort held his breath, then opened a teleportation circle directly below the dragon, one that spit out right above the portal back to its dimension.
But instead of falling through his circle, the dragon instead just hung
in midair, neither falling nor even moving in the slightest.
“I WARNED YOU NOT TO INTERFERE!” the dragon said, his head turning to face Fort, eyes glowing with rage. “ARE THESE THE LAST DRAGONS YOU BARGAINED WITH, THE EARTHLY REMAINS OF MY CHILDREN?! YOU WOULD TAUNT ME WITH THEIR BONES?!”
An invisible force grabbed Fort by his throat and yanked him into the air, flying straight at the dragon. He struggled to breathe or free himself, but the magic was far too strong. “Didn’t taunt…,” he gasped. “These aren’t… the last…”
Darkness pushed in on his vision as his lungs cried out for oxygen, but the dragon didn’t release him. Instead, it just sneered. “THEN WHERE IS MY CHILD? WHERE IS THIS FABLED LAST DRAGON?!”
Fort’s mind scrambled as he slowly lost consciousness. Gabriel seemed sure he knew that the last dragon existed, but Fort had no idea where it could be. “I… can take… you,” he bluffed, but whatever the dragon replied, it was lost to Fort as he passed out.
A moment later, he awoke on the floor, blue magic fading around him as the dragon healed him. “ENOUGH LIES,” the dragon said, his face just inches from Fort’s. “AND ENOUGH BARGAINS. BRING ME TO MY CHILD, OR I WILL RAZE THIS EARTH TO ITS MOLTEN CORE.”
Fort started to respond, trying to think his way out of this, but one of the dragon’s claws pushed into his chest, and he gasped in pain. He nodded. “I’ll… bring you.”
“NOW,” the dragon said, and slid the claw beneath Fort’s back, picking him up in his hand. “TAKE ME NOW.”
- THIRTY-SIX -
THE DRAGON HELD FORT LIKE a rag doll in his hand, claws digging into him painfully as he waited for Fort to open a teleportation circle. Just thankful to be breathing, Fort had no idea where to start on a search for the last dragon, or even if taking the Old One to it was the safest choice. For all Fort knew, any new dragon they found could be just as much of a threat as its Old One creator.
And anything that happened would be Fort’s fault, just for going after his father.
He shook his head, unwilling to think about that until the Old One was taken care of. For now, he had to stall until he figured out what to do. Fort reached out and opened a teleportation circle to the first place that occurred to him, and the dragon leaped through without pause.
They emerged from the circle at the Great Wall of China, with the dragon’s momentum crashing them right through the wall. He quickly recovered and beat his wings hard, sending them soaring into the air to hover over the wall as visitors below looked up and screamed.
That’s when Fort realized his first mistake: It was broad daylight here. Of course there would be a ton of tourists around. And far too many of them were recording the dragon with their phones, which meant this was going to hit the news in a matter of moments.
“I SENSE NOTHING HERE,” the dragon roared, and the tourists below all ran at the power of its voice. Fort didn’t blame them: He’d have loved to run away right now too.
“They must have moved the dragon, then!” Fort shouted, bluffing for all he was worth. “I’ll take us somewhere else!” Preferably somewhere the sun wasn’t shining.
A shot rang out from below, and Fort glanced down to find local police aiming their weapons at the dragon. It roared in rage and started to dive toward them, so Fort immediately opened another teleportation circle right in front of the creature, more for the police’s sake than his or the dragon’s.
They emerged over the Eiffel Tower, diving straight for it. Paris sparkled before them as the sun began to rise, so at least he’d picked somewhere with less light out, but the dragon hadn’t stopped its dive, and they were quickly closing in on the streets.
Even at this early hour, people were up and about, and any that saw the creature coming for them screamed. This time Fort joined in as the dragon pulled up at the last possible moment, skimming just above the various cars and pedestrians. His tail swung out for balance right into a café’s awning as the dragon took a tight turn down a narrow street, and Fort looked back to find the awning still attached to its tail.
“I CAN SENSE SOMETHING!” the dragon shouted, sounding almost excited as they careened toward the Arc de Triomphe in the middle of a traffic circle. “SOMEWHERE CLOSE, ON AN ISLAND!”
“Okay but look out!” Fort shouted, and teleported them away just before the dragon’s wings hit the Arc. They emerged in the sky above London, just in front of an enormous Ferris wheel. The dragon braked, then swung out to the right to avoid hitting the wheel, its massive wings passing within inches. He circled around Big Ben and Parliament as his head snaked in every direction.
“IT IS CLOSE,” the dragon declared, then took off away from the direction of the rising sun, which unfortunately seemed to be heading them straight for an airport. A massive passenger jet was coming down right above them, but the Old One barely seemed to notice it, all its attention on the dragon it sensed. At the last possible moment, it swooped right over a plane so close that Fort could see the pilots’ horrified faces.
Fort just about threw up as the plane’s airstream hit, almost knocking the dragon from the air. “WHAT EVIL IS THIS?!” he shouted, barely righting himself as he turned to face the offending airplane. “RETURN TO ME, METAL BEAST, AND I SHALL DESTROY YOU!”
“I think that was an accident!” Fort shouted, not wanting to point out who’d really been at fault. “Don’t you want to find your child?”
The dragon sent a jet of fire after the plane in a huff, then turned and continued west.
As they flew, Fort wondered where they were heading, and if the dragon had actually managed to locate the last of its kind. Was this where Colonel Charles would keep a dragon imprisoned, in the United Kingdom? That seemed unlikely. But what else…
Wait. The UK had its own school for magic, the one that Cyrus had attended briefly. What if they also had a dragon skeleton, found with the book of Clairvoyance?
If that was the case, Fort was going to be left with one extremely angry Old One on his hands.
“Actually, I think this is a false alarm,” Fort said, screaming over the wind. Behind him, he heard the sounds of jet engines, and looked back to find two military planes coming up fast. “I’m taking us somewhere else!”
“NO!” the dragon shouted. “I SENSE IT HERE!”
The planes behind them launched a missile, and Fort screamed as one passed right over them. “We can’t stay here!” he yelled, and opened another circle just in front of them. He had no time to think, so he dumped them out in the first place that came to mind as the planes sent more missiles in their direction.
Unfortunately, the first place he could think of was New York City.
They shot out of a teleportation circle on the side of the Empire State Building with the missiles just behind them. Fort shut the circle as quickly as he could, but it was too late; the missiles emerged just before it closed, gaining quickly on them.
“Dive!” Fort shouted, right as the missiles were about to hit, and for once the dragon listened to him, plummeting to the streets below. The missiles passed harmlessly above them, but that wouldn’t be the case for long. What if they hit a building in the city, or kept flying across the river and hit something in New Jersey? Anyone hurt because of the missiles would be his fault, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Fort quickly opened another teleportation circle as they plummeted, this one just in front of the missiles, leading the only place he knew they wouldn’t cause any damage. He desperately hoped he’d aimed accurately, because it wasn’t easy casting a spell while falling through skyscrapers in New York, but the missiles flew right through the circle, and he sighed in relief.
Hopefully two explosions on the moon wouldn’t make the news, not with a dragon attack in multiple cities.
Just as he began to think they might be okay, the dragon tightened its grip on him, crushing the air from his lungs as the Old One pulled out of his dive, barely above street level. The dragon’s feet plowed into a row of parked cars, sending them cras
hing into each other as a row of traffic honked at it, and Fort waved his apologies at the New Yorkers, too breathless to do anything else.
Fortunately, it was still night here, so not as many people were around to see them as they soared back into the air. But they were still far too noticeable for Fort’s taste, and it was only a matter of time until another round of jets came after them, or worse. Missiles were one thing, but Colonel Charles’s soldiers with magical bows and lightning bullets would be a lot more dangerous.
“I SENSE ANOTHER,” the dragon said, to Fort’s surprise. He slowed to hover over the skyscrapers, then chose one to land on. They landed with a crunch, and part of the building gave way beneath the dragon’s weight, but at least they were stopped. Fort had never been so happy to not be flying in his life. “AWAY FROM THE SUN.”
So, west? Okay. At least that kept them moving, and harder to track. “We’ll keep looking until we find it,” Fort promised, inwardly still trying to think of a plan as he opened a teleportation circle a few feet away.
The dragon leaped off of the building, sending Fort’s stomach dropping, and they emerged in the middle of Chicago, where it was even darker than in New York. The lights below were almost peaceful in the silence of the night sky, though Fort wished he were seeing it from anywhere but a dragon’s hand, especially one that was going to wipe out humanity if it didn’t find its last remaining offspring.
“FARTHER,” the dragon said, and Fort opened another portal.
They emerged below the St. Louis Gateway Arch this time, and Fort hoped that wherever this last dragon was, it’d be near a landmark that he’d seen at least once. “FARTHER,” the dragon repeated, and Fort jumped them again, this time into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
Wait, why hadn’t he thought of this before? He’d seen pictures of national parks, mountains, lakes, all kinds of things that wouldn’t have many humans nearby. If the dragon was around one of these spots, Fort could surprise it, have it fly straight for another teleportation circle, and send it back into the cavern before it could realize what he’d done. It’d be hugely dangerous, but might be the only way to—
