“Someone like me? And what am I?”
Reese sneered. “A nobody. A pathetic low-life just out for himself. I know the things you’ve done, Randall Conners. The Slayers kept me well-informed of all those dark little secrets. A daughter? Really?”
The desk groaned as Randy clenched it harder. “Keep her out of this. She has nothing to do with our world.”
“You go through all this trouble to keep your own flesh and blood out of harm’s way, but when it comes to my little sister you drag her into this like it’s just a big joke.”
Kaylee shifted one of her arms. She held the scales up to the glittering light. “Look at me, Reese.”
“Leave, Kaylee,” Reese said gruffly. “Go outside.”
“Please, Reese.”
“Kaylee—”
“Don’t have the guts to even face what they want you to kill, do you?” Randy said.
“Reese.”
Reese’s eyes must have been tethered to a thousand-pound weight, because it took him forever to drag them up from the floor and affix on her arm.
“Oh God, Kaylee. You—”
“I’m the same person I was,” Kaylee said. “I’m still your little sister. At first, I didn’t want this either, but it’s a part of me now. It’s my blessing and my curse.”
“And Jeremy?” Reese said. “Is he…is he like…?”
“He’s normal,” Kaylee said. “At least as normal as Jeremy can be.” She gave a small smile. Reese didn’t return it.
“I don’t know what the Slayers told you, but they’re lying,” Kaylee said. “Not everyone in the Convocation is bad. Not all dragon-kin are monsters.”
Reese was silent, save for a few labored breaths. Kaylee let her arm fall. “You can help us,” she added. “The Slayers are planning something with the Book of Kells.”
“Trust me, he knows all about that,” Randy said. “Like he said, he didn’t come home to see you or the folks. I knew that the day he arrived. He’s been gathering as much info on that book as he could get his grubby hands on.”
“Shut up,” Reese growled. “Shut up right now.”
“Aw, did somebody decide to grow a conscience?”
“If they get that book they’re going to kill all the dragon-kin,” Kaylee said. “They’ll kill me.”
“No.” Reese shook his head. “No, that’s not it at all. That book’s going to save us. Lesuvius said that book—”
“Get your head out of the sand and think for yourself, boy!” Randy barked.
“Shut up!” Reese produced a black gauntlet from behind his back. Runic symbols were carved into the palm. “You’re the reason she’s involved in the first place!”
Reese splayed his fingers and a glowing light appeared beneath Randy’s desk. He leapt aside a second before it ignited, sending shards of wood spraying every which way. Kaylee felt Randy’s body pummel into her and wrap her tight. Felt the jarring thump as they were tossed into the wall. Randy pulled her up. “Get out of here!”
“Don’t hurt him!”
Reese had summoned a glowing circle in front of him. Shards of dagger-like light were gathering within it. Randy grimaced at it. “Don’t hurt him? He’s trying to kill us, Kaylee.”
“He wouldn’t. He—”
They dove again as the daggers sliced towards Randy. With one swipe, he shot an arc of electricity and snapped them away. Reese was already readying another volley.
“Stop!”
Reese didn’t have time to turn before Kaylee plowed into him. She found his wrists and held tight as they hit the wall, pinning him there. “Stop this, Reese!”
Reese struggled but Kaylee dug her claws into the wood behind him. Her feet were shifting to talons, digging into the ground. “This isn’t you. You wouldn’t hurt Randy and you won’t hurt me.”
For just a second Reese’s struggling slackened.
“I’m doing this for the good of everyone,” he murmured.
Kaylee ducked as a bolt of light cut across her cheek. Reese thrust out his palm. It connected with Kaylee’s stomach, there was a push, and she was thrown through the doorway.
Kaylee’s world spun as she tumbled. She barely remembered to shift her back to scales in time before she collided with the stair railing and splintered through it. There was a weightlessness, then a sudden stop as she hit the ground. Kaylee gasped for breath. The pain was dulled by the shift, but the air had been knocked from her lungs.
“Kaylee!” Randy’s cry sounded far away. Kaylee was aware of another crash, this time of glass. Then shouting outside. She rolled to her feet just as Reese’s car roared out of the driveway and down the road.
Randy thudded down the stairs. He paused beside her. “You okay?”
“Y-Yeah.”
Randy held her steady with one hand. “You sure?”
Kaylee waved a hand, too winded to answer more. All she wanted was for the world to stop spinning. Randy looked at her a moment longer, then threw open the front door and rushed outside. Kaylee didn’t have to guess where he was going.
Her lungs felt seared, her back a pulping mass of bruises, but still Kaylee limped to the shed. By the time she arrived, Randy had already strapped about a dozen weapons on the back of his motorcycle. He was pulling down others, moving with practiced efficiency. The leather bags slung over the back were filled with traps, swords, daggers. More gear than he’d ever need for a simple Convocation mission, or to train her.
“What is all this?” Kaylee croaked. “What are all these weapons?”
Randy finished stuffing a particularly nasty contraption with barbs at the end into his motorcycle’s saddle bag. “This is my big secret. Happy now?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, but you should. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of stories about me by now. These,” he gestured to the weapons on the back, “these are the tools I use for the good of all dragon-kin. I lie, I kill, I make the world safer for us.” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “I guess I sound like a regular Slayer, don’t I?”
Once again Kaylee’s world started spinning. “Randy, you won’t…what do you plan to do with all this?”
“What does it look like?”
“You can’t hurt him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”
Randy let out a barking laugh. “I’d expect that excuse from a three-year-old. Your brother knows exactly what he signed up for.”
He tightened the final strap. Kaylee pulled her magic to her claws as Randy straddled the bike and kicked the ignition. A searing bolt of pain shot into her tender skull as the engine noise filled the shed, rattling the panels. Kaylee stumbled back.
“You can’t hurt him!” She shouted.
“Go home!” Randy said. “Tell Alastair I’ve found what I came here for and I won’t be coming back.”
“What are you talking about?”
Randy’s eyes were shadowed as he pulled goggles on. “I’m going after the Book of Kells. That’s why I came to Scarsdale. Consider your training over.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The rumble of his engine still shook her bones long after Randy had left; until her legs actually were shaking and she collapsed.
When she woke, someone was calling her name. Kaylee forced herself to stand and limped outside, every muscle protesting. Jade, Edwin, and Maddox were fanned out around the house and surrounding yard. When Jade spotted her she let out a small gasp and helped Kaylee into Edwin’s car. Kaylee expected them to bombard her with a million questions, but Alastair must have filled them in on what had happened in the office. Or they saw Randy’s motorcycle was missing and the result of her fight and figured it out.
Either way, Kaylee was grateful for their silence.
The next couple days passed in a haze, and Kaylee avoided everyone. She barely left her room. Even Jeremy, who loved tormenting her in some form or fashion whenever he passed her room, gave her an odd sort of distance.
A few times her parents came
up to see how she was doing, and Kaylee simply said that she was swamped with school. After making sure she was all right her mother would hover at the doorframe for a brief moment, and Kaylee fought the urge to say Did you know Randy had a daughter? Did you know why he was really here? Know he never really cared about any of us?
Because maybe he never had. She didn’t know what was true about him anymore. One thing she did know, though, was that she’d been stupid enough to believe him in the first place.
Her parents had asked her where Reese was, but Kaylee had made up some excuse about one of his crazy training exercises and left it at that. Because what did it matter? When it came to him and Randy, one lie was as good as another.
Kaylee made sure the window didn’t squeak as she pushed it the rest of the way up. She lowered herself as much as she possibly could towards the ground and dropped into the bushes. Her still-sore body screamed in protest. Wishing she had Edwin’s levitating board, Kaylee brushed twigs and leaves off her clothes and hurried across the front yard, not worried about being spotted by her family. Everyone was asleep, and her mom had already checked on her that night.
Once she reached the street Kaylee traced the familiar route Edwin had shown her the previous year. Kaylee had been down this way a couple times since. Once more with Edwin, once alone.
She checked her phone. Speaking of Edwin…he’d texted her a few minutes ago, asking if she was awake. Kaylee had debated whether to answer, or whether to ignore her friends again. That didn’t seem fair. None of this was their fault, and she did miss them.
Her fingers hovered over the reply, then pressed it.
Out right now. See u tomorrow.
There. Already she felt less guilty about closing them off the last few days.
The street dead-ended and Kaylee turned up a squiggly gravel lane. The wrought iron gates of the Scarsdale cemetery came into view a second later. Kaylee hopped the fence where it was lowest and used the gnarled oak tree on the other side to climb down. She didn’t have to look hard to find the mausoleum. It was by far the biggest structure around, a clean-cut design of marble and granite rising above the jumble of headstones.
The second Kaylee went inside she could feel the tension draining out of her body. She imagined all her problems from the last few days thudding against the mausoleum walls outside, failing to reach her quiet space.
Kaylee ran her hand over the engraved plaques. The second time she and Edwin had come here she’d finally thought to ask whose space they were invading.
“Convocation members,” Edwin had said.
“Oh,” Kaylee had answered, suddenly embarrassed they were there. “Then maybe we should go…”
“Some of them died from old age,” Edwin said. “Others were killed by the Slayers. But it’s no big deal we’re here, if that’s what you’re worried about. They need to be remembered, you know? Even if it’s just by us.”
Just by them. Kaylee sat on the floor now. She stared at the far wall and simply let the silence take her.
Footsteps crunched outside.
In an instant she was up. No one came to this cemetery, and especially not at night.
Kaylee shifted her claws as the footsteps stopped outside the mausoleum. If they were Slayers, they’d really picked the wrong night to mess with her. Manipulating her brother into joining them had assured that any future Slayers would get a one-way ticket to Painville.
“Kaylee?”
Edwin’s voice sounded hesitant. Kaylee swallowed her surprise and poked her head out. He was peering curiously at the mausoleum entrance. He glanced at her claws when she emerged and chuckled.
“I had a feeling it’d be a bad idea to sneak up on you. Dealing with your wrath once this week is enough for me.”
“What are you doing here?” Kaylee said. “How’d you find me?”
Edwin held up his cell phone. “You said you were out. At two in the morning. I figured there weren’t many other places you’d go.”
He grinned, and Kaylee saw narrow scabs on his cheek; nicks from the glass in Alastair’s office that had cut across his face. Edwin must have realized what she was staring at because he put a finger to them.
“This is nothing. You know that. Didn’t even hurt.”
“I’m sorry anyways.”
“Don’t be. You were kind of awesome, actually.”
Kaylee gave him an incredulous look. “I attacked your dad. I’m surprised he hasn’t locked me up by now.”
Edwin laughed again, hands now stuffed in his pockets. “Yeah, about that. I talked to him after it happened. He wasn’t mad at all. He was more impressed than anything. I’m not sure how much you know about my dad but he’s no pushover when it comes to a fight. He was proud to see how far you’ve come. Randy will be happy to hear—”
He cut off. “Sorry. But, yeah, he doesn’t blame you for reacting the way you did. I don’t blame you either. That was the worst way to find out.”
Kaylee shivered, overcome by a sudden chill. “I think I’ve known for a little while and just didn’t want to accept it. With both Reese and Randy. Randy was never here for me. It’s so obvious now that he only showed up after all these years just when the book was found. I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Edwin said fiercely. “And Randy did—does—care about you.”
Kaylee met his defiant gaze. “How do you know?”
“You have any idea how many times Randy came ranting to my dad about how stubborn you were, how slowly you were progressing, how you fought him on everything? He sounded frustrated and proud. Nobody does that if they don’t care. And that night at the bowling alley? You can’t fake fear like that.”
“Look,” Edwin went on. “Randy…I don’t know a lot about his past ‘cause my dad won’t tell me, but he’s complicated. And Reese…” Edwin sighed. “He screwed up, I’ll admit. We don’t get to choose our family, but they are our family.”
“You’re saying I should go after them?”
“I’m saying at the very least you should find them and give them a piece of your mind.”
“And how do you suggest I do that? I haven’t heard from Randy in days.”
“You haven’t heard from anyone in days,” Edwin muttered. Kaylee glared at him and he cleared his throat.
“And…” Kaylee added. “I have no idea where Reese went.”
“Reese and Randy both went to the same place. I was right about Rothsburg. A display containing the Book of Kells showed up in the Rothsburg Museum of Natural Science and Ancient History a couple days ago. My dad and some of the Convocation left to get it yesterday. I guarantee your brother and uncle will be there too.”
“Then it’s too late,” Kaylee said. “The Slayers will have gotten it by now.”
Edwin shook his head. “Not yet. At least, not since a few hours ago.”
Just then, Maddox’s minivan pulled up to the front gates and honked. Edwin waved and turned back to Kaylee. “What do you say? Want to go help save the Convocation again?”
He offered her a hand.
Kaylee could feel a smile spreading across her face. “So romantic,” she said as she took it. “Let’s do this.”
“I think that guy’s tailing us.”
Maddox hunched farther over the steering wheel, glancing in the rearview mirror for what had to be the tenth time. “I’m not making this up, guys.”
“We’re on a one-lane highway, Maddox,” Jade huffed. She banged the GPS on the dashboard again. “Maybe, just maybe, they’re going to the same place we are.”
“What idiot would be driving around at four in the morning?”
“We are.”
“Exactly.”
“Here, Jade.” Dani reached across Kaylee and gently plucked the GPS unit from Jade’s hands. “I think it needs a little more tender approach.”
“All this magic is screwing the stupid thing up,” Jade said. Dani pressed a few buttons. A clipped British voice creaked, “Rothsburg, five miles.”
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“There!” Dani said brightly.
Kaylee was simultaneously happy to see Dani with them, and also a little terrified she was with them. Sure, she’d harnessed and used her elemental magic faster than Kaylee had thought possible, but one encounter with the Slayers didn’t mean she was ready for the intensity of a true battle. Kaylee wasn’t sure she was ready, but they were almost there. It was too late to stop now.
Edwin zoomed in on the GPS. “Once we enter Rothsberg we need to find the safe house my dad set up. It’s on a commercial street above a hardware store.”
“The Convocation run it?” Maddox said.
“Yes, but last time my dad talked to me he said some of the rogues were there too.”
“Seriously?” Jade groaned.
“They’re on our side, Jade,” Kaylee said. “Can’t you just accept their help?”
Jade clenched her jaw. “This once. But the second that book is in our hands it’s back to severely disliking them again.”
“Fair enough.”
“Oh! I printed these out for us,” Dani said. She pulled out a thin stack of papers and began handing one to each of them. It was a full color map of the inside of the museum. There were even little scribbles to mark the entrances and exits. A gallery on the second floor, marked Celtic History, had little stars and rainbows drawn around it with the words, ‘Book of Kells!’
“Wow,” Edwin said, clearly impressed.
“I figured the better we know the layout, the better chance we had,” Dani said. She pointed to the first floor on the map. She’d drawn a chubby giant sloth waving its claws at them.
“The exhibits are kind of mixed together, but bottom floor is mostly natural history. There’s the main entrance hall, auditorium of science, and a planetarium. The ways in are the main entrance and a side entrance from the street out back that I think the employees use.”
“Any way to get into the lowest level?” Edwin said.
“Here,” Jade put a finger on it. “There’s one entrance that goes straight into Griffon theatre.”
“But we don’t care about the lower level,” Kaylee said.
Dragon's Curse (Heir of Dragons: Book 2) Page 19