“And what about the business that your company just set up in Grayfair? How did you do that if you didn’t manage to create a rift?” Jevyn demanded.
Cole shook his head slowly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He did look genuinely puzzled, but Jevyn and I both knew Cole was lying. If Famil, back in Pathya, knew about him and his company there, he must have some way of creating a rift. If he had a traveler dragon working for him, that was possible, but the only two on Earth were Nindock and Jevyn. The only other possibility was that one of Earth’s magical community was helping Cole. That left a much wider field of suspects. I wondered for a moment what had become of Lynnette. It had been ages since she had been seen anywhere.
Could she be helping him?
It seemed unlikely. From what I’d learned of her, she didn’t come across as the altruistic kind. Maybe if she had found Cole somehow, he might be paying her to transport him and his people to Grayfair. If not her, and he was telling the truth about his machine, then someone else was helping him.
The big question about why he was doing it was still unanswered. Jevyn clearly didn’t buy the whole I’m-doing-it-for-the-vampires routine, and frankly, neither did I.
Trouble was, short of kidnapping Cole and beating the truth out of him, I couldn’t see any way of getting the truth without letting him know we were onto him.
Facing off on a cold street in Nindock’s town, with him and Jevyn having a chest-puffing competition, entertaining as it doubtless would be, wasn’t going to get us any answers either.
As far as I could see, the only way we would find proper answers about what Cole was up to in New York was for us to go there and find out for ourselves.
The two men continued their face-off for a few moments. Then the quiet of the street was broken by the sounds of shouting coming from back at their quarters or at least somewhere in the vicinity. I could make out what the shouting was about, but it didn’t sound good. Panicked.
“Look, Cole,” I said. “I need to go find out what’s going on back there. Don’t disappear. We need to talk properly. Okay?”
“Sure, as long as your henchman doesn’t mind me hanging around here.”
I looked at Jevyn’s face and could see he was fuming. If it were physically possible for him to have steam coming from his ears, I was pretty sure he would have, and he definitely had his fists bunched at his sides. I’d never seen him lose his temper, but if I didn’t get him away from there quickly, I think there would be a first time for that.
Grabbing Jevyn by the arm, I pulled him away as best as I could. He must have been okay with it as I could never have pulled him away if he’d wanted to stay talking to Cole.
Holding Jevyn’s sleeve, I headed back to the quarters to find out what was going on. When I glanced over my shoulder, Cole was standing where we had left him. When I looked at Jevyn, he was still eyeballing the diminutive figure as I dragged Jevyn away.
I heard another shout from up ahead and let go of Jevyn. I started to run. Somebody sounded hysterical.
By the time I reached the building, everybody was outside. One or two were looking up and down the rough dirt pathway in front of the building. I saw Sparks sitting on the steps, weeping uncontrollably into her hands. Penny was trying her best to console Sparks.
Frankie and Nova were standing off to one side with Marty.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Nova stepped away from the other guys and headed over. He nodded a greeting to Jevyn and then faced me.
“Sparks is upset.”
Talk about stating the obvious!
“Yeah, I see that, but why is she upset? What’s happened?” I asked.
“Derek has vanished,” Nova said quietly, leaning in to make sure only Jevyn and I could hear.
I looked back to Sparks. She and Derek had become a lot closer, but this reaction seemed a little over the top.
I wouldn’t have said it aloud, but I couldn’t admit that I was too concerned about Derek.
Nova spoke again. “When she woke up this morning, he wasn’t in bed with her.”
“What?” I asked.
“He wasn’t in bed.”
“Since when were they sleeping together?” I whispered harshly, pulling Nova and Jevyn closer.
Nova looked at me strangely. “For a while now,” he said. “Didn’t you know?”
When I stopped and considered my answer to his question, I realized that I didn’t know. Over the last few days and weeks, my thoughts had been so preoccupied with trying to find a cure . . . and with Jevyn, that I had, to my shame right then, been glossing over what was happening with my friends. I had no idea about Sparks and Derek, and I hadn’t sat down and talked with any of them for a while.
I could feel my cheeks heating up with that realization.
That was something that I was going to have to change. We had been together for so long and gone through so much that I couldn’t risk alienating them by ignoring them, especially if the worst happened and I had to face a future without Jevyn. If that did happen, I was going to need my friends, so I could hardly bug out and leave them to sort out what was going on with Derek.
Chapter Fifteen
Katie
The team’s quarters
Nindock’s town near Boise, Idaho
“SO, WHAT CAN you tell me, Sparks?” I asked.
Between us, we had managed to persuade Sparks to come in off the steps outside our quarters and sit on a sofa in the main communal area.
I’d asked Nova, Frankie, and Marty to go out into the camp to see if they could find Derek anywhere. We would all have looked foolish if he had walked up with a bunch of flowers for Sparks and pastries for everyone else while we were all having a panic about him.
Sparks sniffed a couple of times and then slipped off her glasses and cleaned them with the hem of her shirt.
“Not very much in truth,” she said. “We stayed up late. Playing games, you know? Then we went to bed. I went off to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night for my watch duty, and when I got back here, he’d gone.”
“Did you say anything?”
“No. I went back to bed. I thought he must have gone out for a walk; he’s been doing that lately. I kind of assumed he’d be back when I woke up again.” The sniffs started up again, and I could see tears in her eyes. “But he wasn’t.”
Penny drew Sparks in so she could put her face on Penny’s shoulder.
I looked at Sparks with concern. “Did he say anything to you? Do you know where he was going when he went out for a walk? That seems odd as I’ve never known Derek to go out for walks before and especially not alone.”
Sparks shook her head. “He had trouble sleeping sometimes and said the walks helped him to relax. I never thought to ask where he was going.”
“Did he ever say anything about meeting anyone?” Jevyn asked. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew he meant Cole.
Sparks shook her head even though she had it buried in Penny’s chest.
“So, you have no idea where he might have gone?” I asked. “I mean, he didn’t leave a note or something, did he?”
Sparks lifted her head and looked at me with sad, red-rimmed eyes. “No. I’m worried about him, Katie. He isn’t very worldly. I don’t want people taking advantage of him, you know?”
“I know, Sparks. Listen, Jevyn and I will go see Nindock, see if he can get some of his people out looking for him too, okay?”
She nodded sadly and hid her face again.
“You gonna be okay with her on your own?” I said quietly to Penny.
“I will stay with her,” Penny said.
“Make sure she stays here. We don’t need everybody wandering about, and if he comes back, at least you’ll be here with Sparks.”
She nodded her agreement.
“Come on,” I said to Jevyn. I headed out of the quarters building. I’d wandered out of it an hour or more ago, not really knowing what I was going to
do that day.
Then, I knew.
Not only did we have Derek to find, but, and I hadn’t said anything to Jevyn yet, I’d decided that we needed to go to New York and do some poking around about Cole and what was going on over there. I didn’t think Jevyn would mind that tactic, given his evident dislike of Cole.
That was more than enough for the time being.
The first call was on Nindock, so we headed straight to the saloon.
He wasn’t there. That disproved my theory, thought but not spoken, that he never moved out of that place.
Kam was sitting at the table that Nindock was usually at, so we headed for Kam instead.
I sat down opposite him.
He looked up at the bartender and requested coffee for all of us. He shivered and put his head down to make the drinks.
“You okay, Kam? You look kinda stressed,” Jevyn said.
Kam looked at Jevyn.
“We got a problem,” Kam said.
“What kind of a problem?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that Jevyn and I had troubles too.
“We got dragons going down sick.”
Suddenly, Jevyn was alert. “What do you mean by sick?”
“I mean, sick. Ill. Infectious. Dying.”
“Dying?” Jevyn asked.
“Seems like it.”
“What are they sick with?” Jevyn looked over at me with a sideways glance.
“Looks like the vamp virus.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“We had a case break out in the night, right at the other end of town. It was messy.”
“Messy how?” Jevyn asked, his voice going up a notch.
Kam just shook his head. I didn’t want to know. If it was messy enough to make a bloodthirsty maniac not want to talk about it, then that went for me too.
“So, what’s happening now?” I asked.
“Nindock is quarantining all the dragons who have been involved in the tests, keeping them all in one place, because the guy who went down had taken part too, so we figured it must have come from there.”
That explained Nindock’s absence.
“So, what did you two want anyway?” Kam asked. “I guess you aren’t here to talk about this.”
“No, it’s the first we heard of it,” I said, looking at Jevyn who seemed to be lost in deep thought. I thought I’d leave him to his thoughts for a few moments.
“So . . . ?”
His question brought me back.
“One of our group has gone missing.”
“Damn. Who?”
“Derek.”
Kam frowned. “Who?”
“Derek. Quiet. Anxious. Nerdy.”
“The dork?” Kam asked.
“You got it. He vanished during the night.”
“So, why come see me? I didn’t take him.”
“No, I didn’t think you had.”
“So?”
“So, I was hoping to get you to organize a search of the town to find out where he is.”
Kam thought about it for a moment. “Depends,” he said.
“On what?”
“On Carol.”
“Why on Carol?” I was confused. I couldn’t see how Carol might fit into all this.
“She won’t help us with this outbreak. Says it must be something else because nothing she has done could have infected anyone. She’s shut herself into her house and isn’t letting anyone else inside. You go see her and get her to help, and I’ll look around for Derek the dork.”
“You and some of Nindock’s men?” I asked. I wanted a real search, not just Kam doing a half-assed sweep through the town.
“Me and a couple of guys, yes.”
“And you’ll be thorough?”
Kam just looked at me. I guessed that meant yes.
“Okay, we’ll go talk to Carol. We’ll come back here later to see how the search is going.”
“We won’t be here,” he said just as I’d turned to leave with an urgency the day had not started with.
“Why?” I stopped and asked.
There was a moment of delay while Kam pulled a face. “Because we’ll be out searching, of course. I’ll drop by Carol’s or your quarters to keep you informed. What do you want me to do to Derek if I find him?”
“Nothing,” both Jevyn and I said together.
“Just bring him back to the quarters, unharmed, please,” I said.
I saw disappointment sweep across Kam’s face that he couldn’t have his fun with Derek, but Kam agreed.
Jevyn and I headed out to Carol’s place.
By the time we got to the house, Nindock had already arrived and was hammering the door, yelling through it at Carol.
Carol was having no part of it, and it was driving Nindock crazy.
He pounded the door with his fist.
I stepped up to him and put a hand on his arm to stop him.
When he shifted his gaze to me, his eyes had a wildness about them I’d never seen in him before, and I realized then what was going on. He was scared.
“Nindock, stop,” I said. “She’s never going to answer the door with you doing that.”
“She’d better,” he yelled. “Or I’ll . . . I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Kick the door in? Beat her when you get in there?”
“Well, no, but—”
I pulled him away by the arm, so he was facing me, looking down on me with his hard, wild eyes.
“So, why not let me have a try. Carol trusts me. Maybe we can get this all worked out. What is it you want her to do?”
“To find out what the virus is that’s affected my people and find a cure.”
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. Let me talk to her. Back off somewhere so she can see where you are.”
He glared at me for a few moments, and I held the stare, not backing down.
“Go with Jevyn. If she sees you both standing back, she’s more likely to answer.”
His whole body slumped after a couple more seconds.
Jevyn took Nindock by the arm and led him away, putting an arm around the old adversary’s shoulder.
I faced the front door and spoke loudly. “Carol, can you hear me? It’s Katie. Can I come in?”
“Is he there still?”
“No, Nindock has stepped away. He’s with Jevyn. Go look out your window, and you’ll see him.”
I head footsteps away from the door, and then more footsteps returning.
“Is it just you, Katie? I don’t want anyone else in here.”
“It is.”
“You sure?”
“I promise, Carol. Just me.”
The sound of rattling bolts came through the door, and eventually, Carol opened the door enough to look around with one eye. One frightened eye.
“Can I come in?” I smiled to reassure her. She roamed her one eye around for a second and then pulled the door a little wider, enough for me to sidle in past her. Then she slammed the door closed and slid several bolts across and finally a door chain.
“You not wanting any visitors?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Only certain ones. Nindock’s been hammering my door for the last hour trying to get in. He won’t say what he wants, but I can see in his face he’s either mad or terrified, and either way I don’t want him in here. Do you know what his problem is?” She moved into the cozy lounge area and sat on a sofa.
I went over and sat next to her.
“He’s worried because one of the dragons seems to have become infected with the VAMP virus,” I said.
“I told him already, though, that I only gave the virus to one dragon. Ypalde.”
“How is she?” I asked, looking around for the sun dragon.
“She’s in bed. She hasn’t been very well.” Carol’s eyes dropped away from mine when she said that, looking down onto to her fidgeting hands.
“Symptoms?”
“None that we can see other than a little bit of a sniffle, but she just feels wiped out.
No energy, you know. Almost as if she has the flu but without all of the cold-like symptoms.”
That certainly wasn’t my memory of the symptoms of the VAMP virus when it emerged. I’d tried to shut out what happened those few days when the new form of the virus spread like wildfire. My memory was patchy anyway, having spent some time unconscious or, at the best, unaware of what I was doing.
“Nindock says he has a sample he wants me to examine.” Carol was still wringing her hands, but she had looked up again.
“Are you willing to? It would be a massive help.” I tried not to sound too pushy. Not only would it help Nindock in his efforts to save the dragons who had came to Earth with him, but it would also be a help in our quest to find Derek. If Kam heard Carol was helping, he’d have no excuse to pull out of the search.
Something else was bothering me too.
If an outbreak was about to happen in camp, I wanted Jevyn out of there or at least quarantined and protected against it. We had nowhere else to go other than our quarters, and being cooped up there would drive him crazy, but better that than infected or even worse—dead.
“I’ll go get the sample, okay?” I asked.
Eventually, after a lot of internal seesawing, Carol came to a decision and said, “Go ahead, but no Nindock in here.”
“Gotcha,” I said and offered her a smile by way of thanks. ”You don’t know how much this means to me.”
When I got back from outside, she already had the cotton apron on that served as her makeshift lab coat. I handed over the tube of some body fluid that I didn’t really want to think about too much.
She held it up to the light of the window, gave it a shake, and then nodded her head slowly.
“This will do for starters.”
Chapter Sixteen
Katie
Carol’s house
CAROL ALREADY HAD her head down, working away, occasionally muttering something to herself. She’d evidently gathered a bit of equipment in the previous couple of days in readiness for her move to a more useful laboratory space.
She’d already spun the sample through a centrifuge for ten minutes and used a pipette to extract a tiny amount, which had been spread on a glass slide. That was set up on a microscope, and she was peering down the instrument.
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