Heart of the Dragon King

by J Boothby

  Max nods. He puts pasta in to boil. “It sounds simple to me. You have crazy magical powers and can open a portal to a place where your uncle is fighting a war with someone—”

  “The Narrow King.”

  “—With someone called the Narrow King, and also you can walk through mirrors to fight giant dragon worms who live in trees. And smaug seem to like to talk with you.”

  “At least one of them does,” I agree.

  “And a secret agency wants to use you for mysterious experiments with the nature of reality,” Zara adds.

  “Wants to use all of you,” Max says.

  “I was probably just along for the ride,” Zara says.

  “When you put it all like that,” I say. “It seems completely reasonable.” I pour myself more wine.

  “And you're sure it was your Uncle that came through the incursion?” Zara asks. “You weren't just imagining that?”

  “Completely sure.”

  “And he admitted to helping to open the way to the Elhyra in the first place?”

  I nod. “We didn't have a lot of time, but yeah.”

  Zara turns to Max. “And your father was involved too, somehow.”

  “Yep.” Max drains the pasta, filling the room up with steam. “They definitely knew each other.”

  “So, what don't we know?” Zara says. She pulls mismatched silverware out of Max's kitchen drawers and setting out place settings on the counter.

  “We don't know what anyone wants,” I say. “Not the smaug, not Blackstone. And honestly, not my uncle either. We don't know why there's a mirror in my basement that leads to some woman's tomb. We don't even know why there's a war on, and why that war is involving Earth.”

  “No offense to your uncle, but we don't know who the good guys and bad guys are, either,” Max says, shrugging.

  “True,” I say. “Though I put a lot of trust in him.”

  “The man who never told you you might have grown up in the Elhyra? Who never told you anything about your family? Who probably hid a mirror in your basement and gave you a key to the multiverse, but didn't want to actually mention what any of it might be?” Max shakes his head. “My father didn't tell me much of anything either, but that's because he was dead.”

  “Ouch,” Zara says.

  “Ouch, yeah,” I say. “I get the point, but Uriah also raised me as basically a single dad. And I wasn't an easy kid to handle. He gets some leeway for that.”

  “Yeah, you're right,” Max says. “I mean about the single dad stuff. Sorry, just hungry.”

  “So there's a heart in the wall at Poe's,” Zara says. “Does your uncle have a sense of humor?”

  “Always,” I say.

  One of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous pieces was called the “Tell-tale Heart,” where a killer hides a body in his house, only to be driven mad by the sound of a beating heart.

  If my uncle had anything to do with the mirror, which seems likely, I suspect he appreciated the irony.

  Max turns and plates the pasta and then puts it in front of us, and we all inhale the tomatoey-garlicky steam. He also takes a few meatballs over the Moose's dish and puts them on top of his food. Moose swallows them whole. Sam flies a lego spaceship over to the counter, and we all dig in. The meatballs are even better this time. I didn't think that was possible.

  “What if that's your mom in the crypt?” Zara says, suddenly.

  I freeze with a fork full of noodles halfway to my face. I put it back down.

  Holy crap.

  “I should have thought of that,” I say. “But that would mean she didn't die in a car crash.”

  “Or a lab explosion,” Max adds.

  “That could be why my uncle wanted me to have the key,” I admit. “But not why he wants me to keep it secret. It also doesn't explain what that rock is doing in there.”

  The three of us look at each other while Sam sucks up the last of his spaghetti.

  “Some sort of beacon?” Zara says. “Or a memorial? Like when a soldier dies and someone sets up a small flame that never goes out?”

  “There's so much more we need to know,” I say.

  “Kind of frustrating your uncle just wants you to sit tight,” Max says. “Instead of finding things out for yourself.”

  “Maybe he's just trying to keep you safe?” Zara stifles a yawn. “And is it bad that I want to lick my plate or just cliche?”

  “Or he wants to keep you in the dark,” Max says. “Just saying.”

  Sam leans back and yawns the biggest yawn I've ever seen from him. “Sounds like a good debate for tomorrow,” I say.

  “Yep,” Zara says. “I'm out. I'll bed down with my parents tonight. There's room for everyone, if you want—staying away from Poe's for a while is probably an excellent idea.”

  I look at Max. “Plenty of room here too,” he says, staring intently back at me. “You can stay as long as you want. I'll take the couch.”

  I study him for a minute. I confess, even though all I want is a few weeks of uninterrupted sleep, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. “Thanks,” I say. “I'd like that.”

  Zara gives us a knowing look. “Sounds good, you two. Sam, do you want to come stay with me tonight? Explore a new house?”

  Sam looks at me and then Max with a sad, exaggerated expression. He wraps his arms around Moose.

  Max says, “Totally cool, tiny dude. You take the couch.”

  30

  Sam is asleep on the couch even before Zara's ride shows up, with Moose curled up against his feet.

  Zara hugs us both on the way out.

  We open another bottle of wine. Outside the window, the moon is just starting to come up over the homes across the street. “Do you want to see some art?” Max asks quietly.

  “Absolutely.”

  He leads me up into the loft area, reached by a set of narrow wooden steps that are almost a ladder, and we sit on the edge of his bed. There are some canvases up here, up against the wall, and Max turns a couple of them around.

  “These are some older ones,” he says.

  They're exaggerated portraits of people: highly detailed, but painted with colors that are brighter than reality, and you see the person from angles that you wouldn't expect. One is painted looking up from the sidewalk at someone walking. The man's bright red feet are huge, his legs are long, and his head is really tiny and far away. He's frowning and looking at the viewer with an expression that's both annoyed and amused.

  Another is of a woman reaching for something on a grocery store shelf, painted from the perspective of the thing she's reaching for. Her hand is massive. You can see all the lines on her palm, and some ink smudged on her fingertips. Her hand is edged in emerald. Her arm is big, like a branch of a tree, and it stretches away into the distance where the woman herself is standing. She's tiny, and the rest of the grocery store wraps around her like it's being seen through a fisheye lens. She's wearing an old coat and a deerstalker hat, and she looks excited by what she's about to pick up. I can't help wondering what it is.

  “These are very cool,” I say, and they are. He's got an excellent eye for detail in the bodies, and his colors are thoughtful and precise and just unreal enough that it makes them stand out.

  “Thanks,” he says, grinning. “You should have seen the looks I got when I was painting some of them. These are some newer ones.” He turns more around.

  They're paintings of incursions.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “They're so real!” They're incredibly vivid, and accurate too.

  In one, an incursion has opened in the wall of a room in a suburban home. There's a regular flat-screen TV against the wall, furniture and some generic art on the walls, and then right in the middle of the room is a rip in reality, pulsing with reds and violets.

  It's reflected in the screen of the TV and the glass of the photos.

  It's almost like you could reach right through it right now.

  I shake my head and give a low whistle. I touch the surface of it, gently, but i
t's just paint.

  Another is in a child's bedroom, painted from the perspective of the kid in a bed full of stuffed animals. You see his or her Star Wars pajamas and then a red blanket covering their legs. Stuffed animals are everywhere around the room: elephants and lions mostly, along with some Star Wars toys.

  The room could be anywhere—white walls, beige carpet, a nightlight in one socket near the door. But by the closet, near the floor, a tiny incursion is open on the wall. It throws bright light across the carpet and stretches shadows of all of the toys up other walls.

  Through the incursion, you can see the faint outline of a tree branch.

  Or maybe a hand.

  “That one's creepy.”

  He nods sheepishly. “Thanks.”

  I stifle a yawn with one hand. “You could be painting parts of my childhood. How did you get them so accurate? They're really well done.”

  He shrugs. “Pictures online. YouTube videos. And some of it I just made up, I guess.”

  “You have a good imagination.”

  “I wondered what you would say. I was hoping they would look real to you, since you're the expert.”

  “Reluctant expert.” I yawn again.

  “You're tired,” he says, hesitantly.

  “A little,” I say. “OK, a lot.” I look over the edge of the loft at Sam, who still looks fast asleep. Moose is also snoring loudly. “But not too tired…”

  “You sure?” he says. “You've been through an awful lot. I wouldn't want to—”

  I put my finger over his lips, or at least where I think his lips mostly are. “Shh,” I say.

  I lean into him, close my eyes, and I kiss him for a while. I have to work to find his lips inside that beard, but it's worth the effort.

  He's very different from my ex, Michael. Michael was a very take-charge, alpha kind of guy. At the time, I guess I liked that, but it was a lot of why we didn't work out.

  Max is quieter, more gentle. Reserved, even. He's letting me take the lead.

  I like that, for a change. I help him take his shirt off.

  He's hairy underneath there, too.

  I'm warm. Without me even thinking about it, aether creeps up from the lei line and fills me. My skin feels super-sensitive. My breathing feels quicker. I place my hand on his chest, and the aether trickles goose-pimples across his skin.

  He gasps.

  We roll back on the bed, which is pretty lumpy, but I'm not about to complain right about now.

  He's got his hands in my hair.

  I sit up and take the key off from around my neck and set it on the floor beside the bed.

  Then I take off my shirt too. Which is also his shirt, technically. But I think you know what I mean.

  Or I start to take it off, anyway. Max stops me.

  “Hey, buddy,” he says, sliding a little away from me on the bed.

  Sam has popped his head up over the edge of the loft.

  “You OK, kiddo?” I ask gently. He looks a little freaked out.

  Sam shakes his head.

  “Bad dream?”

  He nods emphatically.

  “You want to sleep up here too?” Max says, patting the mattress.

  Sam looks at Max, and then at me. He nods, and then he launches himself into the middle of the futon and burrows underneath the blankets.

  “Sorry,” I mouth to Max.

  Max shrugs. “It's OK, no worries. I'll grab the couch after all.”

  “There's probably room,” I say doubtfully. It's not the biggest futon, but I feel bad about kicking him out of his bed.

  “Someone's got to keep Moose company.” He kisses me on the forehead when Sam's not watching and climbs down the ladder. I hear him shoving Moose over, wrapping a blanket around himself.

  I feel hot. My skin still feels flushed from the attention—after all, it's been a while. There's a lot of aether spinning around with no where to go.

  I'm thinking it will be a long time before I actually fall asleep. Particularly with Sam in the bed too.

  I nudge Sam over and carve out a spot under the blanket. I lay my head back against the pillow.

  I'm out cold within a minute.

  It's one of those sleeps that is so deep and so relaxing that it's almost like I'm dead, but really happy about being dead.

  It's not until the morning that I realize that everything has gone horribly wrong.

  31

  It’s two in the morning. Max stands in the loft, watching Kylie snoring.

  She’s pretty loud about it. Louder than Moose, actually. She has a big, rattling intake of air followed by a pause, and then a deep sigh of all the air out like it’s whistling out of a cave.

  In another world, it would be totally endearing.

  In another world, he’d probably be asleep there next to her, even with Sam in the bed. Not much room, it could work.

  In another world.

  There, he’d wake up early too and make her some espresso before she was awake. When everyone was up, he’d make peanut butter pancakes for all of them. Moose included.

  Moose can put away a lot of peanut butter pancakes.

  They’re the same pancakes his dad used to make him before everything happened.

  But in this world, Max realized that the domestic scene just isn’t going to happen, even though a good part of him wants it to.

  Tonight he knows he won’t sleep at all.

  Not with what he has to do.

  With what he’s been preparing to do for most of his life.

  He sighs quietly. Sam mumbles in his sleep. Kylie wiggles herself down deeper in the blankets, and her snoring shifts into a lower gear, like that old truck of hers climbing a hill. Outside, a few cars pass. Their headlights trace an image of the windows across the back wall, across the paintings he showed her.

  And the paintings he didn’t show her.

  Those are stacked deeper in the pile, up against the walls.

  All of the walls. There are a lot of them.

  He doesn’t want to look at them right now.

  He can’t forget what they look like, though.

  Kylie will see them later, he realizes. Maybe they’ll help her understand why he has to do this thing. His fate was decided a long time ago, in an entirely different world from the one they live in.

  In this world, he doesn’t have a choice.

  Quietly, he pulls on the t-shirt from the floor and pulls it over his head.

  Then he feels around on this side of the bed.

  There it is.

  Kylie’s key.

  He picks it up and puts the cord around his own neck, under his shirt.

  When the key touches his chest, he realizes she’s right—it is definitely warmer than it should be from just lying there on the floor.

  It’s almost like its alive.

  He feels awful. His stomach is unsettled.

  Sweat beads up on his forehead and under his arms.

  He knows he’s about to feel worse.

  A lot worse.

  He squats down next to Sam. Hey, buddy, he whispers. Hey, Sam.

  Sam yawns and rolls over the other way, and scrunches up part of the blanket between his two hands like he’s holding a stuffed animal.

  Max gently shakes the kid’s shoulder, and the boy rolls over and blinks at him.

  Hey buddy, Max says. Do you want to help me find a surprise for Kylie?

  Sam looks at him bleary-eyed. Then he nods sleepily.

  Max holds his finger over his lips and leans over to scoop the kid up. He’s really warm.

  He grabs another blanket off the floor for him, wraps it around the boy and carries him down the ladder.

  Moose, ever alert for anything that might indicate a walk, lifts his head up from the couch. His eyes glint green in the streetlight from the window.

  Shh, he says, remembering the way Kylie said it with her finger on his lips.

  Shh. Maybe later, he whispers.

  Moose is a great dog, much smarter than Ma
x deserves him to be, and he understands Max’s tone if not the words. He lowers his head sadly onto crossed paws.

  Kylie’s truck keys are still in his pants pocket, along with his phone.

  They leave. He closes the door quietly and gets Sam buckled into the front seat of the truck. He’s asleep again, so Max leans him gently up against the door with the blanket as a pillow between his head and the metal.

  He drives to Poe’s.

  The street is quiet.

  The yellow police tape is still out front.

  The upstairs windows are still blown out, and there’s shattered glass across the lawn, though it has been swept back off the sidewalk.

  He pulls up and cuts the engine.

  He comes around to the passenger side and carefully opens the door.

  Come on, buddy. We’re almost home.

  Sam wakes up enough to see the front of Poe’s and offers a sleepy smile. He lets Sam pick him up again.

  A tired raven watches them approach from a branch in the tree near the front door. It squawks and flies off into the night.

  The restaurant door is locked, but there’s a key on the truck’s keyring that fits.

  Inside, the power is off. Awkwardly, he gets his phone out of his pocket and turns on the flashlight.

  The kid’s heavier than he looks.

  He maneuvers his way to the back of the restaurant, which isn’t easy—tables are tipped over, and chairs have been flung around for no apparent reason he can see. Everything smells of smoke.

  The bar doesn’t look bad, and behind it everything is in order, as if Kylie was ready to open the restaurant tomorrow.

  He considers a shot of whiskey for courage but decides against it.

  In the kitchen, his phone’s light is reflected back at him from the metal prep table and the counter in front of the grill. Everything looks clean, and the smell of bleach covers up the smoke’s odor here.

  The basement door in the back is ajar.

  He shifts Sam to his other arm before going down and flicks the light switch even though he knows there’s no power.

  The mirror’s in the back. It looks just like Kylie described it.

  It looks just like the mirror in his father’s sketches.