Heart of the Dragon King

by J Boothby

  There’s another explosion, and it looks like one of the houses is on fire now. There are sirens, close by and in the distance, and more police are arriving.

  “Are you ok?” he says finally. “Look, you should get out of here. Do you have a ride?”

  “What will you do? It wasn’t their fault, you know. The refugees. The smaug. Ozzie started the whole thing. They were just minding their own business.”

  “That’s good,” he says. “That will help. Go. I’ll find you later if that’s ok? For questions?”

  I nod.

  “Give me your phone,” he says.

  “My phone?”

  “Just for a second.”

  I hand it to him. He takes out one of his cards and takes a picture of it. “There,” he says. “Now you have my number. Call me if you have more trouble from this.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “You didn’t see an old motorcycle with a dog in it, did you? When you got here?”

  He nods, and points down around the corner.

  I run in that direction, and there’s the motorcycle and Sam and Moose. A mom and her kid are standing there with them, looking uncomfortable.

  “Are you Kylie? Your husband asked me to watch your son for you?” she says. “He wanted to go help—”

  “Thanks, I—”

  “Kylie!” Max calls, stumbling up behind me. His eyes are streaming, and his face is all red. He coughs and spits. His clothes are torn and there’s a bruise spreading across his jaw. “You’re ok! I’m sorry, I—”

  I open my mouth to respond, but then I’m hit with a flying missile of Sam. He wraps his arms around my waist, buries his face in my stomach, and then he bursts into tears.

  I lean down to hug him and he looks up at me with tears streaming down his face.

  “Don’t leave!” he yells at me. “You can’t leave too!”

  And so, of course, I burst into tears also, and poor Max is left with the two of us there, bawling our eyes out in the middle of the street.

  14

  We get Sam quieted down and back in the bike, with an anxious Moose panting at his side, and then I get myself calmed down too.

  I’m generally not a cryer—I swear I’m not. But after everything that happened in the desert, after seeing the smaug attacked like that, and then seeing Sam so upset? It’s just a lot.

  Max offers to cook us dinner. “It won’t be much,” he says. “I sort of live in my studio. But I can make a mean meatball if you like a good meatball. Plus if those guys know where you live, that might be a problem?”

  He means the grogans, and he’s got a point. More police are arriving. Another helicopter is circling. I still feel strangely responsible for the smaug, but I don’t think there’s much I can do now. And aside from vegans and grogans, who doesn’t like a good meatball?

  We get on the bike and get out of the insanity.

  Max lives up on Church Hill, an old residential section on the other side of Richmond. His building is a big old garage, with a large metal door on it that he rolls up to pull the bike in.

  Inside he has a big easel set up in the center of the floor with a large, empty canvas on it. A lot of other paintings are stacked face-in to the wall. The floor is all gray-painted cement, covered with some beat-up rugs and some furniture that looks like he might have found it on the street. There’s an old door on sawhorses along the back wall that has some kitchen things on it—a hot plate, toaster oven, a propane burner you’d use for backpacking. An old sink that looks like an afterthought. Flickering fluorescent tube lights hang from the ceiling.

  An unmade bed is up in a loft area, where there are two small windows. An old dog bed for Moose is near the battered leather couch.

  It smells like oil paint and solvent, but not in a bad way. I like it. It’s about ten times bigger than the van I was living in, with half the amount of people in it.

  “Very cool,” I say. “What do you paint?”

  “Mysteries,” he says, smiling. His face gets a little red. “Enigmas. I’ll show you someday if you want.”

  I don’t push it. “Sure, that’d be great.” Could he be more secretive?

  Sam sees a big box of Legos off in one corner and looks at Max with big eyes. “Go for it, buddy,” Max says. “Knock yourself out.”

  That’s all Sam needs to hear—he runs over and digs in, followed closely by Moose. I borrow the restroom to clean up and check my cut. Fortunately, it’s not a bad one.

  “I don’t exactly have chairs,” Max says when I come back out. He looks a little embarrassed. But he drags some rusty metal stools over to the flipped-over door. He opens a bottle of cheap red wine and pours two glasses.

  “To, um, adventure?” he says, handing me one of them.

  “Look,” I say. “I’m sorry. That was all really stupid of me. I thought...I don’t know. I thought that I could help stop something from happening. I thought I could maybe make a difference? I feel…”

  I feel pretty bad. It was a dumb move that left Max holding the ball with Sam. I need to be more responsible.

  He shakes his head and runs his fingers through his beard. “It’s ok, I get it,” he says. “Someone needed to be a voice of reason, right? I just got worried there—I wanted to help, but I couldn’t leave Sam. But then I couldn’t leave you in there once everything went to hell. Not that I managed to do anything.”

  “You did great,” I say. I raise the glass in his direction. “Did you see the wolf?”

  “A wolf?” Max looks at me strangely. “Like an actual live wolf-wolf?”

  “A huge one, like the size of a car. It probably saved my life.” I tell him what it did to the grogan.

  He shakes his head. “Are you sure you’re really ok? You didn’t get hit in the head or anything?”

  I feel around on my head. “It feels about as intact as it ever does.”

  “To wolves,” he says, raising his glass. “And the people they save.”

  We clink glasses together and drink some of the wine. He puts on a big pot of water to boil. Then he pulls out some ground beef, some bread crumbs, and some spices and starts mashing them all together.

  There’s something really cool about watching a guy cook. His hands are very distracting.

  Sam comes over to show us some cars he’s built out of Legos, and we act excited for him. He goes back to make some more, humming happily to himself under his breath. I’m glad to see he’s recovered so fast.

  Max sticks the meatballs on a pan and puts them in the toaster oven to bake.

  “So, do you have a theory on what your dad and my family were working on?” I ask.

  He nods. “Apparently, my father had several patents. All of them have to do with sources of energy.”

  “Like solar?”

  “Sort of. They’re pretty complex, but I managed to wade through them. He believed that with the right equipment, in the right locations, you could tap into sources of energy that were extra-dimensional.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “You’ve heard of lei lines?”

  Given that it’s how I get to my fire, I’m kind of an expert on the practical applications of them, but Max doesn’t need to know that right now. “Sure.”

  “Lei lines run around and through our planet. But most people didn’t actually believe in them, much less believe that they were good for anything, until recently. But my dad did. He thought they actually originated from somewhere else, somewhere where there was a whole lot of energy just waiting for us to use. He was able to theorize that there were places nearby that we couldn’t see, that we were connected to, and that the lei lines were evidence of that.”

  “Like the Elhyra?”

  “Exactly like the Elhyra.” He dumps some pasta into the boiling water. “He argued that something like the Elhyra existed, and that lei lines actually connected us to it. He thought that the lei lines might be a source of power—potentially unlimited energy—that would have no negative impacts on the environment c
ompared to coal or gas or nuclear.”

  He digs around under the table while he’s talking, and comes up with some cans of tomatoes. He opens them and dumps them into a pot along with some spices and capers and some olive oil out of a giant green bottle.

  “Even solar power requires rare minerals that need to be mined. And wind turbines leave behind these huge blades that nobody can recycle, right? So if there actually was a source of power that could be tapped, it would be hugely lucrative, as well as being great for the planet.”

  He sautés garlic in another pan, enough of it to fend off an army of vampires, and dumps that in too.

  He pauses and looks at me. “Um, I hope you like garlic,” he says.

  “It’s like a whole food group all on its own,” I grin. “So my uncle was pretty good at math. Programming, too; sometimes he’d stay up all night after Poe’s was closed, working on stuff at the computer. I’d have to wake him up at his desk in the morning before I went to school.”

  He nods, and pulls out the meatballs, which are nicely browned, and adds them into the sauce. “What if they were all working on a way to get to that energy?”

  “Secret lab sort of thing? Did your dad have a lot of money?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But I think he did do a lot of work with parts of the government. What if they were all set up in a lab to do it?”

  “And then something went wrong.”

  He nods. “And maybe something went right, too.” He pours the pasta out into a strainer and then portions it out onto plates.

  I’m confused. “What do you mean?”

  He adds the sauce and then sets a plate in front of me. It smells phenomenal, and it’s all I can do to not bury my face in it.

  “I think my dad and your family are the ones who opened up the way to the Elhyra.”

  I cough wine out through my nose.

  15

  “You can’t be serious.” I’m sitting there with my mouth open, looking at Max, while Sam starts to shovel in the pasta faster than I believe possible.

  “Completely. The timing lines up, right?”

  I think about it. “OK, maybe there’s that.” But it’s a pretty big idea to get my head around. “So they were experimenting, opened the Elhyra, and something went wrong?”

  He nods. “Your uncle never talked about anything to do with the Elhyra at all? Anything unusual?”

  If he only knew.

  But I shake my head and keep a straight face. I’m not ready to share any of that yet.

  “He didn’t really talk about anything that happened before we came to Richmond. It used to drive me nuts for awhile until I just got used to it.”

  “What about that key you have?”

  “What key might that be?” But I sigh, and I take it out of my shirt and lift the cord up over my head. I lay it on the door. “I was supposed to keep this a secret, so now you’ll have to too.”

  “No prob.” He studies it closely without touching it. “It looks ancient.”

  He’s right. It’s a dark metal, like iron, but really lightweight—even though it’s small, you’d think it would be a lot heavier. The rounded handle-end has a sheen to it, maybe polished from years of being held. It has raised lettering or symbols all over it, but they’re so worn it’s almost impossible to read. Plus, they don’t look like any lettering I know. The other end has three tiny teeth on it, also worn.

  “Could it be from the Elhyra?”

  I shrug. “It could be from Mars for all I know.”

  He runs his fingers through his beard. “You wear it all the time?”

  I nod. “Except at night. I take it off to sleep. There are some times that it actually feels warm, by the way..”

  “Really? Can I hold it?” He takes in his hand and studies both sides. He closes his hand around it. Then he hands it back. “Feels normal to me, but I believe you. I guess you’re right. It really could be from anywhere, but the warm thing is pretty weird.”

  We eat. It’s freaking phenomenal. I go for seconds, and Sam does too. Sam ends up wearing a bunch sauce down his face and down the front of his shirt, and I can’t really blame him.

  After that, the three of us get down on the floor and race Sam’s Lego cars around. Moose keeps bringing over his favorite toy, a stuffed green chicken from Goodwill, and dropping it at my feet, so I will throw it for him. Then Sam starts chasing Max around, with Moose barking excitedly at both of them.

  I’m not exactly sure how it happens, but I’ve gone to put my LEGO car back in the pile when Max says, “Um, Kylie?”

  His voice sounds weird. I spin around.

  Sam is standing in front of Max, holding out his hand.

  In his palm is a small purple flame.

  Sam has an eager look on his face, as he looks up at Max like he’s proud of another car he’s built.

  He’s showing off for Max.

  Oh, shit.

  “Sam,” I say slowly. “Are you OK?”

  He looks at me and nods, and then back at Max. He gestures with his hand like he wants Max to look at it.

  Max is frozen there by the beat-up couch with a strange look on his face.

  “That’s an excellent job, Sam. Right, Max?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Max says, getting where I’m going. “That’s, um, really cool Sam. Totally cool.”

  Sam grins, and as we watch the flame melts and flows up and around his arm. It spirals around up his forearm and then flows back into the palm.

  “But you should probably put it away now, Sam.” I say. “It’s pretty late?”

  Sam frowns but closes his palm.

  The flame goes out.

  I have to say I’m amazed. It took me years of practice to be able to do something as simple as just that small flame, not to mention moving it around like that. It requires a lot of control. The tricky part isn’t actually calling up the lei—the challenge is to keep it all from spilling out through you once you do, all at once. It takes focus, a calm mind, careful breathing. How did he manage it? It’s only been about a week since the desert.

  Moose barks from the other side of the couch, and Sam spins and chases off after him again. I look at Max. He’s looking a little confused.

  “Do you have more wine?” I say. “I think we’re going to need it.”

  Fortunately, he has another bottle. We drink it on the couch.

  I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. Still, I tell him just about everything. About Sam and the incursion. About me growing up and getting used to my abilities. About some of the memories I have of what might be the Elhyra, and about the Blackstone Institute coming around with their questions, too.

  Max takes it all pretty well.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I just try and keep it all a secret.”

  “I get that,” he says. “You probably should, but I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me. Or at least that Sam does.” He grins.

  “He’s much smarter than me,” I say.

  “Cuter too,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  He grins. “Kidding. Seriously kidding.”

  I dodge the implied compliment. “This makes your theory of our parents all the more realistic, you know.”

  Max nods. “They opened the way to the Elhyra, and went to live there for some reason.”

  “It sure seems like it. But why?”

  “First contact?” Max says. “With a new race of people we’d never seen before? If I discovered something like that, I’d totally go.”

  He’s right. I think I would too.

  Later, we gather up a sleeping Sam and get him home. The streets look quiet—no helicopters or protestors. No gangs of grogan running around. I figure I’m OK to be back in our own place.

  “You should meet my roommate,” I say when Max is ready to head out. “She’s a great cook too. I’m surrounded by people who cook—I must be doing something right with my life.”

  “What are you doing with your life, Kylie?” he says, suddenly seri
ous.

  “Having more pasta?” I say.

  “No, really. Are you staying in the city for a while?”

  I think about it a minute. “I’d like to open up Poe’s again,” I say. “It was such a cool place for me to spend time in, growing up. With the way things are now, I think everyone needs more places like that. And then figuring things out?”

  “I’d love to hang around with you some more, while you’re figuring things out if that’s OK.”

  I study his face. He looks painfully sincere behind the beard. “I think that can be arranged,” I say.

  I put my hand on the side of his head and lean forward.

  He leans forward too.

  His lips are warm in all the right places.

  16

  “Look at this,” Mason says. She scrolls back on the video play bar. “This is from the drone.”

  “At the riot?”

  Mason nods. She's been studying the footage endlessly on the iPad, Devon knows. They're both in a small trailer that serves as an office, out in the mountains at one of Blackstone's facilities. It's an old prison that's been repurposed into a housing facility.

  A housing facility for smaug.

  The trailer-office was set up fast and leaned a little to the left. Pens keep rolling off their desks and across the crappy, fake-wood floor. Out the window, through the fencing, he's been watching the smaug milling restlessly around the open courtyard.

  He has a lot of mixed feelings about this, he realizes. Yes, it's for their own safety that they're being kept here. He saw first hand what happened in the city. And yet, it's still a prison, even if Blackstone is not calling it that. The smaug were strip-searched on their way in. Most of their things were confiscated. They're sleeping in cells that are locked at night, watched by armed guards in the observation towers. What kind of life is that?

  Plus, he knows Blackstone is making a ton of money running this place, and others like it.

  He misses the simplicity of jumping out of helicopters.

  Mason plays the video again for him, for maybe the fifteenth time. It's shot from when the fighting first broke out, before the rest of the team was there yet.