Dark Fire Read online

  At that moment, Liz tapped the door and walked in. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “Just the future of the human race,” Zanna muttered.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re getting along,” Liz said. She held out a plastic container to David. “Here’s the icefire, what there is left of it.”

  David took the box from her and opened it. Inside was a small fraction of the snowball, given to Liz long ago, still glistening with Gawain’s auma. The fire that melts no ice, David thought. He could feel it resonating in his heart. He placed it on the workbench next to Gwillan, then stood the obsidian chunk beside that and called Gollygosh and G’reth off their shelf. Groyne folded his wings and rubbed his toes against his leg scales to clean them of clay.

  “What is that he’s holding?” Zanna asked.

  “Grace’s fire tear,” David said. “I want to try a mutual auma shift with it.”

  She threw him a withering glance. “And for those of us who flunked our Star Trek master class …?”

  “If we open the obsidian and bring the tears together, I believe that we can neutralize the dark fire, especially if we add the ice into the mix.”

  “Open it?” Liz’s expression paled. “Won’t that be dangerous?”

  David’s silence assured her there was no other way.

  She moved up behind him, clutching at her arms to hold herself together. “Assuming the procedure works, what then?”

  David looked at the two gray dragons. “We divide the neutralized tear between them.”

  “You’re gonna split it?” Zanna railed back, puzzled. “But this is their life force. Their whole personality is determined by their tears. Surely this will mean that neither will be the individual they were before?”

  She exchanged a glance with Liz, who said, “How will you open the obsidian, David?”

  “We’ll leave that to him.” He nodded at Gollygosh.

  The healing dragon stepped forward and studied the problem, then put down his tool box beside the obsidian. The cantilever flaps opened up right away and an asterisk of purple light zipped out. It settled in his hand and turned into a small magnifying glass.

  David raised an eyebrow. “It appears he intends to draw it out.”

  Hrrrrr, said Golly, frowning thoughtfully as he circled the chunk.

  “And focus it onto Grace’s tear. Groyne, when this happens, the tears should naturally commingle. When I give the word, I want you to pass them over to G’reth. We’re going to need to make a wish.”

  The wishing dragon flexed his paws in readiness.

  “Why the two steps?” asked Zanna. “Why can’t G’reth hold Grace’s tear and the dark fire be focused straight toward him?”

  David tapped his foot. “Because if anything goes wrong, Groyne can dematerialize and take the tears with him.”

  “And go where?”

  “Into the heart of the Fire Eternal.”

  All eyes turned toward the shape-shifting dragon.

  “I feel faint,” said Liz, covering her mouth.

  Zanna showed her to the stool. “Sit down.” She put a hand on Liz’s forehead. It was already clammy. “So that would be three of them gone, then: Gwillan, Grace, and Groyne?”

  David shook his head. “Groyne’s skillful; he’ll drop the tears and escape. But Gwillan and Grace, they won’t survive, no.”

  “This is madness,” said Zanna, toying with her sleeve. “This whole procedure is incredibly risky. What if they end up changing gender? There has to be another way.”

  “Magicks are not going to solve this,” said David, raising his voice to a mild command. “I’m already going out on a limb here, Zanna. The best you can do is put a cloak around the den to shield it from prying eyes — and trust that this works.” He swung toward Liz. “Liz, when G’reth takes charge of the tears, I want you to adopt the frame of mind you’d be in if you were making a special dragon, then put the icefire into his paws. Your auma is the key to success. Only an act of loving creation can truly rise above the darkness. When you’re done, I’m going to commingle with G’reth and make a wish for Gwillan and Grace to be restored. Are you OK with that?”

  “Yes,” she said, with a nervous nod. “What do you mean you’re going out on a limb?”

  “Never mind,” he said, cradling her hands. “Golly, are you ready?”

  Strangely, Gollygosh failed to respond. But what was even more bizarre was that G’reth at that moment launched himself forward and bundled the healer onto his back, spilling a jar of paintbrushes in the tumble. Liz and Zanna both jumped in shock. And though David barked a stern rebuke, G’reth would not resign the attack. None of the humans had seen what he had seen. None, he thought, was aware of the danger.

  While David had been speaking, the wishing dragon had been watching Gollygosh twisting and turning his magnifying glass, calculating the likeliest path through which the dark fire might leave the obsidian. But in doing so the healer had allowed himself to be exposed to the malevolent gluttony of the fire, which had spun back into the depths of his eye and corrupted his creative auma, causing an inversion of his natural healing instinct. The first and only indication of this was when the magnifying glass suddenly changed its form — and morphed into the shape of a small hammer.

  The flurry of activity behind the turntable was brief. Wings flapped. Claws flashed. Growls were issued. Gollygosh had never been a fighting dragon, but empowered by the force of temporary madness, he dug his isoscele into G’reth’s left knee and punched the wisher hard on the jaw, sending him reeling across the bench. Then he stood up and swung the hammer.

  The obsidian exploded: every which way from its evil center. Splinters of the volcanic magma it was made from showered the room and all its occupants. Liz screamed, and in trying to cover her face toppled sideways off the stool and collided with a shelf of plain clay dragons, causing several to fall to the floor and break. From the bedroom next door, a terrified Lucy yelled, “Mom?! What’s happening? Mom?!” Footsteps sounded on the landing.

  “Zanna, keep Lucy out of here,” hissed David, as a snarling Bonnington appeared beside him in the form of a strapping, violet-eyed panther. The cat’s gaze was fixed on a point above the workbench — where Gwillan’s fire tear was hovering like a small eclipsed sun.

  Gollygosh by now had broken free of its spell but was gaping openmouthed at the incredible floating object. His eyes were like the atmospheres of alien planets, swirling gas clouds of violet and green.

  “Get away, both of you,” David whispered.

  G’reth, recognizing this order was really aimed at him, hobbled forward, grabbed the startled healer by the tail, and yanked him off the bench to hide amid the debris on the floor. Groyne, meanwhile, had instinctively dematerialized the moment the hammer had struck. On a telepathic order from David he remained invisible on the windowsill, guarding Grace’s fire tear.

  The dark fire pulsed and seemed to wrinkle the air around it, distorting the visual dimensions of the room as if it were gathering up a sheet by its middle. Suddenly it moved, recentering over Gwillan.

  “Don’t let that thing go near him!” cried Liz, stumbling forward through broken clay.

  David, who’d assumed that Liz had left the room with Zanna, took his eye off the tear for a moment. In that moment, Bonnington lunged. His plan was simple: swallow his prey whole. Let the Fain entity commingled with his brain do battle with the darkness, even if it tore his mind apart.

  But even Bonnington wasn’t quick enough on this occasion. The dark fire evaded his leap and closed in on Liz. It struck her directly in the center of the forehead and dissolved smoothly under the skin. She crashed against the wall and slid down to the floor, her head lolling as if her neck had been severed. She began to blow a series of short, shallow breaths.

  “Liz!” David was with her in an instant, cradling her face to make her look at him. “Can you speak?”

  Her eyelids closed with a heavy flutter and her head thumped back against
the wall.

  At that moment, Zanna burst in. “Oh, my goodness, what happened?” She dropped to her knees and gripped Liz’s hand.

  “The dark fire has gone into her.”

  “What? But, it’ll kill her. And … and what about the baby?”

  “Let’s get her to the bedroom,” David said. He picked Liz up and carried her to the landing.

  There he was met by a frantic Lucy. Zanna immediately took the girl’s hand and whipped it down hard to gain her attention. “Come with me,” she said plainly. “Your mom’s had an accident. She needs you. So do I. But you have to be calm. I’ll explain everything when David’s got her settled.”

  Lucy closed her gibbering mouth and nodded. Together they turned toward Liz’s room, passing Alexa on the way. The child was in the doorway of Lucy’s room, looking like something from a horror movie. Still, ghostly, totally silent. One of Lucy’s old plush toys was dangling from her small white hand. But it was her eyes that Zanna found most disturbing. They were angled upward, like a doll’s, as if she was tracking the mysterious power that was now a part of Elizabeth Pennykettle.

  23 A MISSION FOR LUCY

  Leaving Liz in Zanna’s care, David telephoned the university to inform Arthur what had happened. He kept the details sparse, adopting the approach that Zanna had taken when calming Lucy. Arthur arrived in a taxi shortly afterward and went straight to the bedroom. Meanwhile, David took Alexa to the Dragons’ Den and together they made the room tidy. When all was done, David called the little girl across to the workbench and ordered Groyne to show himself again. This time, David allowed Alexa to hold Grace’s fire tear, encouraging her to feel the power of its natural creativity and love. Then, taking up the last of the icefire, which despite the commotion still remained unmelted in its box, he touched it onto Grace’s snout and used the auma of Gawain inside him to help it soften the membranes of her nose. When Grace was ready, he invited Alexa to reintroduce the tear to her. The spark was engulfed as if a light had blinked off. Grace spluttered and shivered and almost fell over. A worried Gollygosh put down his tool box. The flaps opened and the usual asterisk of light turned itself into a small blanket that he draped around Grace’s slender shoulders. David looked at Liz’s dragon Guinevere and sent her a message in dragonthought. Alexa gasped as Guinevere opened her eyes and two violet rays of life-giving energy poured out and wrapped another kind of blanket around the ailing listener.

  David took Alexa’s hand. “What do you feel?” he asked her.

  “Grace and Gwillan are going to get better,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand until she looked up at him. “Do you dream it? That Gwillan will live?”

  But Alexa just shrugged and led him downstairs.

  By now she was her happy self again, content to play with the clay on the kitchen table. As David watched her building “something” (as yet undescribed) he made his second telephone call. “It’s time,” was all he said and placed the phone back on its stand.

  A short while later, Tam Farrell was in the house.

  Leaving Alexa at work on her creation, David drew Tam outside to talk.

  “OK, what’s wrong?” the young Scot asked. “Usually when I come here the house is overflowing with good-looking women. Where are they all?”

  “Upstairs. We had an accident,” David said. “It hasn’t been a great day.” He explained what had happened in Africa and the den.

  Tam’s breath whistled through the air at pace. He looked down the garden, absently nodding. “Pretty place, this. Lovely plum tree. My grandma used to have one just like it.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Who’d have thought that a quaint little garden in suburban Scrubbley might be the setting for an interdimensional war?”

  “There’s no reason that should happen,” David said. “We can contain this. You, me — Zanna.”

  Tam’s expression failed to match that view. “Come on, David. You messed up, big-time. You should have taken the fire north when you had the chance. Isn’t that what the dragon clan wanted?”

  David’s eyes slipped into their scalene profile. “If I’d gone north, they would have cast whatever was left of Gwillan into the Fire Eternal. I couldn’t let that happen. I owe a great debt to Liz and Lucy. They taught me what it’s like to feel human, Tam.” His eyeline fell upon the rockery and its alpines, the scene of so much domestic adventure: the squirrels, Caractacus the crow, Henry Bacon. But even as the happy times flooded back, the sadness overwhelmed him again. For all of those memories only led one way: back to Sophie Prentice. David closed his eyes and recentered himself. “The Wayward Crescent dragons are practically my kin. How could I not try to save Gwillan’s life? The attempt to commingle the dark fire with Grace’s tear was valid. If nothing else, it would have proved that the Ix can be easily transmuted.”

  “If it had worked,” Tam pointed out. “Surely all it’s shown you is a greater danger? It might be more than Gwillan you have to sacrifice now. What’s the situation with Liz?”

  Before David could answer, the back door opened and Arthur’s voice called out to him.

  “Coming!” David replied. Then in a quieter voice to Tam, “Do you have everything you need from Steiner?”

  Tam nodded. “‘The Chronicles of the Last Twelve Dragons’ comes bursting off the pages on Friday morning. Pretty mind-blowing stuff. Got a draft in my bag if you want to see it.”

  David shook his head. “I want you to take Lucy to Scuffenbury before publication, before the crowds descend. I want her well away from here, in case we have problems.”

  “Lucy’s not going to leave if her mother’s in danger.”

  “Then we’ll have to persuade her somehow. Come on.”

  “One more thing.” Tam caught his arm. “Gadzooks has been sighted again. He turned up in India and left another message.”

  “A new location?”

  “Yeah. Steiner’s translated it. Somewhere on Svalbard this time. I’ve got a team of reporters and two film crews heading up there, and to Fujiyama to record whatever happens there. But something’s puzzling me about all this. Why did Gadzooks choose Scuffenbury as the main focus of awareness for Steiner? I mean, it’s an interesting place, but compared to a dormant Japanese volcano or some remote Norwegian archipelago it’s a modest little hill in Maine for a dragon to pop out of — by newsreel standards. If you’re going to make a splash, make a big one, is what I’m saying.”

  David glanced toward the kitchen. Arthur was standing there, cradling Bonnington. Gretel had just buzzed by, snatching the heads off several flowers. “Gadzooks has always been a step ahead of time. If he chose Scuffenbury, he chose it for a reason. Keep your camera handy. The National Endeavor might be on the brink of another big scoop.”

  With that, David led Tam back to the kitchen and introduced him, in brief, to Arthur. “How’s Liz?” they both asked.

  Arthur felt for the countertop and leaned back against it. Still cradling Bonnington, he said, “She appears to be stable, but in some kind of semiconscious state.”

  “And the baby?” asked David.

  “Zanna believes it’s unaffected — for now.”

  “For now?” Tam said.

  Arthur’s strokes over Bonnington’s head became shaky. “Would I not be right in thinking, David, that because of Liz’s ancestry my son has the potential to be dragon under the right — or possibly the wrong — conditions? And if a dragon could develop, then given the nature of the ‘spark’ that entered his mother, surely a darkling could, too?”

  Before David could answer, Alexa ran in as chirpy as ever. “Daddy?”

  David trapped her absently against his hip. “Not now, sweetie.” His gaze was on Arthur. The professor, his “father,” was looking pale and disoriented.

  “But I made something.” She pointed to a figure beside the mound of clay.

  Arthur angled Bonnington’s head toward it.

  “A horse?” said Tam.

  Not just any old horse. It had a rib
bonlike body and tapering neck. Its legs were so thin it was a wonder how Alexa had ever made it stand.

  A bedraggled-looking Lucy came in behind the child. Though her breath was briefly taken by the sight of Tam, she made no attempt to tidy her appearance. “That’s the Scuffenbury horse,” she said, sounding tired. “How did you learn about that?”

  Alexa, as always, gave no answer. She bent forward and stroked the horse’s nose, then marched across to Tam and took his left hand. “You touch it,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m clumsy,” said Tam. “I might knock it over.”

  “No you won’t,” said Alexa and drew him toward it.

  On a nod from David, Tam touched his finger to the horse’s back. To Lucy’s amazement, a spark ignited in the region of its heart and radiated slowly outward, turning the bland gray clay the crystalline white of Arctic ice. “How did you do that?” she gasped.

  Alexa clapped in glee. “I’m going to show Mommy.” She scooted away with her prize.

  David signaled to Lucy to get her attention. “Tam’s going to take you to the real horse, Lucy. I want you to pack, right now.”

  She looked at Tam. “Don’t be dumb. Mom needs me.”

  “Scuffenbury might be where she needs you the most.”

  Surprisingly, this notion gathered further support from Arthur. “It seems appropriate,” he put in, “that Alexa should create a replica white horse at a time when the Scuffenbury dragon might rise. She appears to be picking up on something. Considering Elizabeth’s current condition it falls to me as Lucy’s guardian to make a decision: I give my blessing for the journey.”

  “Arthur!” The girl dropped her hands onto her hips.

  “Go,” he said, with an audible gulp. “Find whatever powers might help your mother.” A film of moisture sliding across his eyes made them appear more eerie than ever.

  “My car’s outside,” Tam said quietly. “I’ll … well, I’ll be waiting, OK?” For the second time in a matter of days, he went past Lucy making only eye contact.