Chapter Six
I hit the roadside with a grunt, and for a moment, everything went black. But I could hear voices, and shouting. I could feel anger. Thick, thick anger. Then there was this weird whooshing sound, and heat filled the morning, burning bright. The taint of burning rubber and paint began to touch the air.
I forced my eyes open. Saw flames, leaping high. Flames that were coming from Trae, who stood behind our car, and flames that roared from the fingers of the dark-haired man standing in front of the other car. The two fiery lances met in the middle of the parking lot and erupted upward.
Then the car behind the hunter exploded, sending him and the men who were cowering behind it flying. Trae appeared and dragged me upright, shoving me hastily into his car. Pain swirled, and I made a sound that was half groan, half curse.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Trae’s voice was raw, and filled with the anger I’d felt moments ago. “But we have to get out of here before they come back. How’s that shoulder?”
“Hurts,” I said, voice sounding distant even to my own ears.
Something pressed against it. “Hold that. Don’t let go.”
When I didn’t move, he grabbed my good hand and pressed it against the cloth. “Hold it, Des. Hold it tight, and just stay awake.”
“I’ll try.”
I did try. I just didn’t succeed.
I have no idea how long I was out, but waking was a long, painful process.
My shoulder felt like a throbbing furnace, and there were a thousand tiny gnomes armed with sharp little axes working away at the inside of my head.
I shifted, trying to ease both the aches, but that only managed to make them both worse. A groan escaped my lips, and the sound seemed to echo.
The hollowness reminded me of the cells that had been a part of my life for so many years, and my heart began to race. Part of me wanted to open my eyes and find out where the hell I was. But the cowardly part was afraid of what might be revealed. Of what it might mean.
Because there was no sound of the car. No feeling that there was anyone or anything near. Just an unearthly, unending hush that had the hairs along my arms standing on end.
I breathed deep. Dustiness filled the air, along with a sense of age and regret—as if wherever I lay had once been cared for but now lay abandoned.
At least the air wasn’t filled with the scent of antiseptic cleanliness, which surely had to mean I wasn’t caught. Wasn’t with
Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open. Afternoon sunlight streamed into the room from the ceiling-high windows that lined the end wall directly opposite. The brightness sliced through the middle of the room but left the corners to shadows and imagination. But not even the shadows could hide the neglected state of the room. Ornate wallpaper hung in fading strips down the walls, and what paint remained on the high ceilings and fancy cornices was so cracked and yellowed that it was hard to say what color it might have been originally. I shifted to get a better view of the rest of the room, and discovered the hard way that my skin had decided to cling to whatever it was that I lay on. It peeled away with an odd sort of sucking sound and almost immediately began to sting and itch.
The reason, I discovered, as I looked around at the high back of the old sofa on which I lay, was plastic. The whole sofa was covered in it. And the T-shirt I was wearing had ridden up at the back, exposing my butt and spine.
There was another plastic-covered chair stuck in the far corner but little else in the way of furniture. Just a tired-looking fireplace that added to the cold and forlorn air.
“Trae?” My voice came out a croak. I cleared my throat, and the sound echoed softly. “Trae?”
No answer came. I wondered if I were alone. Wondered if he’d run out on me again.
I forced myself upright—too fast, I quickly discovered, as the ax-wielding gnomes got to work with a vengeance. Sweat popped out across my forehead and a hiss escaped my lips. I closed my eyes, waiting until everything stopped spinning, then slowly, carefully, got to my feet.
My arm and shoulder throbbed in protest, and suddenly felt heavy. I looked down. Bandages were poking out from the frayed end of an old gray T-shirt. And though I doubted that Trae had actually abandoned me again, at least if he had, he’d patched me up first and given me a clean shirt.
I scratched my back with my good hand and glanced around the room again, spotting a door at the far end. I took a deep breath, then began a careful walk toward the door. The caution paid off, because the axwielding gnomes made no further protest.
A wide, marble tile floor lay beyond the grand old room in which I’d woken. Stairs curved upward about halfway down the hall to my left, and an ornate entrance foyer and doorway lay to my right. Beyond the stairs there were more doors, and the smell of coffee was suddenly, tantalizingly close.
I followed my nose and eventually found a kitchen that seemed big enough to fit a regular-sized house in. Trae wasn’t there, but he had been. His tangy scent clung to the air, as tempting and rich as the aroma of the coffee.
A timeworn percolator sat on a bench at the far end of the kitchen, and beside it, a sheet of paper held down by a coffee cup.
I walked across and poured myself a drink, then tore open the sugar packets Trae had left near the percolator. Once I’d fortified myself with a sip of the strong, sweet liquid, I finally read the note.
But how long had I been out? I had no idea, but that wasn’t exactly an unusual state for me lately. I absently scratched my leg as I glanced at the kitchen window and studied the long sweep of wildness that had obviously once been a lovingly manicured garden. Was this another of his previously scouted locations? Or had my getting shot forced him to find suitable accommodations fast?
If it was the latter, he certainly had a knack for finding high-class, abandoned properties. There can’t have been many places around like this. Good land was getting scarcer and scarcer these days—especially prized plots near lakes or the sea.
Places like my mother’s ancestral home in Loch Ness. Her family had lived there for hundreds of years, using the loch’s deep, dark waters as not only a safe place to give birth, but a sort of “winter home” when the storms made the sea a dangerous place to be.
Not all sea dragons did this, of course. Most simply migrated to calmer, warmer waters during the winter months. But Mom’s lands on the loch had been her pride and joy—a place where she and her family could be themselves without worry or concern. And the good thing was, even if a dragon form was occasionally spotted, the legend of the monster covered it amply enough.
But then the scientists had come. Taking her and taking her lands, all without a quibble from the uncles and aunts I could barely remember now. Even Dad didn’t discuss them, though I have vague memories of him arguing with a man whose hair was as blue as the rich Pacific waters. Dad hadn’t been happy with him, and I think it was because they refused to help Mom.
Sea dragons didn’t live in large family groups, as air dragons seemed to, but that didn’t mean there was no contact, no closeness. I’d seen my uncles and my aunts many times in the brief few years that we had lived in peace on the loch’s shore. But then Mom was taken, Dad had fled with me—at Mom’s insistence, apparently—and the visits had stopped. Except for that one visit from the man with the blue hair.
I drank my coffee and stared blindly out the window, seeing nothing, and trying not to think about anything, just letting the coffee and the sunshine work its magic on my cold, itchy body. By the time I reached the bottom of the cup, I felt a little more “human” and a lot less shaky. I poured myself another, and decided to undertake a little exploration.
The remaining rooms on the first floor consisted of a huge butler’s pantry, a dining room, what looked to be a
