But his timing was off. Open the outside door, the inner one wouldn't budge. Try again. Inner door opened, but outer wouldn't move. Black lizard darted into the chamber and out again, faster than David could blink. Like a rattlesnake striking.
Notches in the levers, had to move just right or the metal rods wouldn't pass each other. He blinked and concentrated, made the mistake of breathing deep again, and doubled over coughing. Get out. Clear your head. Try again.
But the tiny dragon coughed and staggered. It would die if it stayed here, same reason.
Hands on levers, focus, push both slowly, aim metal tab at metal slot, insert Tab A into Slot B, interlock clicks, both doors.
Dragon in portable cage. Lock door. Bug out. Small cage rattles, won't move. Still latched to big cage. Brain going, going, gone.
He flipped one latch, then the other, clicks barely heard. Made sure that the door was still locked. Turned away. Moved towards the light. Bumped up against cold metal. Light was on the wall, overhead, glowing one-eyed headlight of a battery pack. He was lost.
He staggered against another bench, shattering glass. It held him up, and he pushed along it with his free hand, searching out another light. This one grew, developed ragged edges, turned white instead of glowing yellow. He crawled over shattered stone and clattering metal, dragging the small cage behind him as a dead weight chained to his hand. One hand, one leg, one hand, other leg, he crawled through the vapor and the murk. Light drew him. Gas hissed in his ears, and cold washed across his cheek.
He crawled across jagged edges out onto soft damp dirt. A paw as large as his own body gently dragged him out of the hole. He flopped on the grass and concentrated on breathing. The fresh air tasted like fine wine.
Fire. If Fiona had been playing around with germs and bio-war, they'd better sterilize the place. He staggered to his feet, head still ringing with oxygen deficit or whatever poisons he'd been trying to breathe. He found a drum of kerosene and a fuel can in the garden shed, filled one from the other, made trips to the kitchen and the study and the bedroom, soaking everything in sight. Khe'sha pulled the barrel out and batted it into the basement hole with glugging holes from his claws. The fuel reek spread.
He searched for matches, found none, and then remembered that they wouldn't work in this land of magic anyway. But he found live coals in the stove, and blew them into flame, and touched fire to soaked curtains and rugs. Outside again, he tossed his homemade torch into the cellar lab and watched orange flame spread into darkness. Whatever the gas was, or the spell, that had tried to suffocate him, it didn't hinder fire. Something flared blue in the shadows with a whomp of volatility, some solvent like acetone or alcohol. A string of soft booms followed, a chain reaction marching down a lab bench.
They retreated, dragon and Bard and hatchling hissing defiance in her cage, and stared as the flames soaked into wood beams and flooring and thatch and raised black smoke to the sky. They'd done it. They'd walked into the witch's lair and walked out again, alive.
{Singer, you are bleeding.}
Something had shredded his left sleeve. Blood welled up from long scratches and short, deep punctures. Chemicals stained the cloth and the skin beneath it. He stared at his arm in stupid disbelief, until a dull ache throbbed into pain and built until it slashed him like a hot knife. The wounds were real.
It couldn't be a bite. He'd kept the hatchling safely caged. It couldn't be a bite. But God alone knew what he'd broken, down in that lab. God and Fiona only knew what she'd left, poisons or tissue cultures or spells, scattered across those benches and tables.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A bee lumbered past Fiona's nose, heavy with nectar and with its pollen baskets stuffed round and yellow. It had buzzed close enough that she felt the brush of its wings, but she was used to bees. They never bothered her. Her own hives teemed with her sentinels and spies, carrying pain in their tails. Sometimes she told them to mob intruders. They would kill, if she wished.
She froze in mid step, a chill shaking her shoulder blades. That wasn't her bee. Not here, not in this forest. Just like those weren't her hawthorns and briars and climbing roses.
Low humming sounded from the tree next to her, and she eased away from it. She traced the tiny bodies, in and out, in and out, a steady stream focused on a knothole above arm's reach. Now that she'd paused to notice, she could even smell the sweet-sour hive tang on the forest air. And she noticed small dots circling her, closer behind and farther in front, circling three times before moving on to the bee-tree or out to forage. A second shudder ran down her back. They knew her, watched her, waited for a command. She backed away from the tree, step by slow step, barely checking where she put each foot.
Maybe Maureen hadn't witched those bees. Maybe they were the only thing in this forest that was innocent, but somehow Fiona doubted that.
She glanced up at the sky, turned, and stopped. No. The sun shouldn't be on her right shoulder. It had been on her left. Dougal's keep was west of her cottage. Straight west and uphill. Now uphill lay to the east. She knew she hadn't circled the hill, couldn't be coming at it from the other side.
Fiona could swear fluently in seven languages, and she used all of them -- independently and in mixed combinations. Sweat stung the scratches on her cheeks and hands and up her arms, and tufts of snagged wool destroyed the sleek curves of her sweater and slacks. Tangles and dead scraps
