by Jamie Davis
Taylor smiled at Quinn from the front seat. “It’s nice to ride up front for a change with the grownups. You kids keep the noise down back there.”
“Very funny,” Quinn replied. “Enjoy it while you can. I call shotgun for the ride back.”
“Damn, I should have done that,” Taylor said. “I was distracted by getting the dragon coordinates locked down. That should count for something, right?”
“You still have to call it,” Quinn said. “That’s the rules.”
“All right, you two,” Clark said. “I’ve heard enough of this argument. It’s fair. Taylor rides upfront on the way there, and Quinn gets to sit up here for the trip back.”
Both women stopped talking but smiled at each other, eyes twinkling with delight. They enjoyed teasing Clark and knew their friendly bickering annoyed him. He’d spent too much of his life alone.
Clark drove to the outskirts of Baltimore through a series of blue-collar neighborhoods until he reached a waterfront area northeast of the city and parked in a gravel lot beside a large marina. Most of the vessels appeared to be working boats of one sort or another rather than pleasure craft.
“I’m looking forward to getting out on the water again,” Quinn said.
Taylor laughed. “You used to hate it, remember? Then I made you come swimming with me at one of the city pools. You were a natural.”
“I’m even better now. Wait until you see what I’ve learned to do,” Quinn replied. She hadn’t told them about everything she’d learned from Gil and Terrence.
Clark pointed at one of the piers. “Our boat’s out there. The guy’s a little dodgy. I’m almost certain he uses his boat for smuggling. He’s a Selkie, a type of seafolk from the British Isles that settled here with the earliest European settlers. If anyone can find us a way into this dragon’s cavern, he can.”
Quinn and Taylor followed Clark down to the dock and out onto the pier. There weren’t many people in sight, and Quinn figured most of these watermen and women got moving early in the morning and were probably done for the day in the early afternoon. At the very end of the pier, past all the others, sat an old wooden boat with a large cabin at the front and an extended open deck behind it.
As they approached, Clark called, “Ho, Jori. You there?”
A head poked out of the cabin’s door. The man had thick, curly brown hair and a beard to match. He smiled, revealing a gold tooth in the front. “Clarkie, it’s been how long since we saw each other?”
“It has been a while.”
“I was surprised to hear from you. The last time we talked, you threatened to kill me if you ever saw me again. We Selkies take that kind of threat from a Hunter seriously.”
“The last time we talked, I was pretty sure you were dealing in stolen dark magic artifacts. The original owners and I were worried about how they’d be used. You weren’t very discerning when it came to buyers for one of your impromptu auctions.”
“You never found anything to associate me with that heist. If you had, you would have followed through.”
Quinn grew uneasy with the direction this conversation was going. She had a job to do, and they’d never find the dragon’s hidden island if this guy and Clark started fighting. “Gentlemen, let’s leave the past in the past. We have more important things on our table.”
Jori laughed. “She’s got you on a short leash, Clarkie. She your new girlfriend?”
“Ew,” Taylor said. “Now I’ve got to get that out of my head.”
“Jori,” Clark said, “meet Quinn Faust, the Huntress of the new Baltimore clan.”
“That’s her?” Jori snorted and looked Quinn up and down. “She’s a kid.”
Quinn squelched the anger rising inside. She was beginning to understand why Clark had threatened to kill this guy. “Don’t let my age bother you, Captain. When you can kick supernatural ass the way I can, age doesn’t matter. The question isn’t whether I’m the real deal. The question is if you’re the one who can help us. Having me as a friend can work in your favor, but I’m sure there are other watermen around Baltimore who’d like me to owe them.”
Jori studied Quinn, one eyebrow raised. He seemed to be looking past whatever he saw at first, which was good. They didn’t have time to find someone else.
“Owe me something? What might that mean?”
“I won’t help you kill or harm anyone, but if you get yourself in trouble and I’m in a position to help you out of it, you can call in your marker. You’ve obviously heard some of what I’ve done around the city already. You know what I’m capable of.”
Jori smiled. “I do indeed. Clark, you found yourself a live one here, didn’t you? She’s every bit as hard-nosed as I’d heard.”
Clark shrugged. “I wouldn’t cross her. You’d be wise to remember that. No marker you hold will save you if she thinks you’re on the wrong side of what is right.”
“I can live with that. As long as she doesn’t mind a guy who occasionally walks the narrow line between right and wrong. All right, girl, what do you need from me? I assume it has to do with my boat.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Quinn asked Clark.
“I just checked to see if he was available. I figured it was better to tell him what we need face to face.”
Jori frowned. “I don’t know if I like the sound of that. What exactly do you want me to do?”
“We need you to take us out into the middle of the bay,” Quinn said. “My friend here can direct you to the approximate coordinates. Once we get there, we’ll be searching for something specific.”
“Show me,” Jori said to Taylor, who was standing behind Quinn, clutching her backpack to her chest. “Bring them in here where I have my charts.”
Quinn, Clark, and Taylor carefully stepped from the pier to the boat and followed Jori into the cabin at the bow.
Jori had turned on an overhead light above a long counter with paper charts laid out on it. The boat’s wheel and controls were at the far right side of the cabin.
Taylor set up her laptop and opened it. “We’ve localized the general area as being midway between Annapolis and the Eastern Shore south of the Bay Bridge. There’s supposed to be a hidden island around there, one that doesn’t show up on the regular charts.”
“Damn you, Clark. You didn’t say you were after Chessie. Are you insane?”
“We just need to find an entrance to her lair, Jori. That’s all. No one expects you to go anywhere near the dragon.”
“Wait,” Quinn said. “This dragon has a name? You acted like you didn’t know anything about this, Clark.”
“It’s an old legend. No one has seen the Chesapeake Bay dragon since the earliest days of Baltimore. Most people assume she’s dead, like most of her kind.”
“You could have told us,” Taylor said. “I could have done a search and learned more about it.”
“Why? We have all we need knowledge-wise here with Jori. I always suspected you and your family were up to no good all these years. I was right picking you for this job. You know all about Chessie, don’t you?”
“Look, she’s not the kind to take intrusion lightly. She’s been resting for nigh on twenty years. The last time she woke up was during the purges. She took out a boatload of the bastards chasing Hunter families to even up the odds, ate a few of them, and went back to sleep. It didn’t matter in the end. The fleeing Hunter families she saved were killed by attackers waiting on the far shore.”
“So, this Chessie is a friend to the Hunters? That’s good, right?” Quinn asked.
“She ain’t a friend to anyone, girl. She’s old and cantankerous and serves her own interests.”
“Clark mentioned you and your family,” Quinn said. “What’s the connection between you all and the dragon?”
“The Selkies have always been tight with dragonkind. We frequent the same caves and underwater tunnels they do. It’s one of the ways they keep their lairs hidden from the intrusions of men who’d like to steal from them. When we first cam
e here, we sensed there was an ancient dragon in the area. My great-great-great grandda reached out to offer our services. Over the years, we’ve delivered things to Chessie when she needed them. That’s all. She sends word when there’s something she wants, and we bring it out to her.”
“So, you know where the entrance to her lair is?” Taylor asked. “That’s great. You can take us right to it.”
Jori shook his head. “I only know the general area. She surfaces and retrieves what she wants, pays the fee, and goes back to her cave.”
“So, you’ve never swum down to see if you could find the entrance?” Quinn asked.
Clark laughed. “She’s known you for all of five minutes, and she has you pegged.”
“I might have done that once upon a time when I was much younger and foolish. Chessie showed me the error of my ways.” Jori lifted his sweater and t-shirt. A long line of round scars ran across his chest and back.
“What’s that?” Taylor asked, gulping.
“That’s where she caught me in her mouth and brought me up to the surface to return me to my father. Mind you, that’s just one side of her massive jaws. At the time, the top half of my body was inside her mouth, screaming.” Jori shuddered at the memory. “I can take you out there. You’ll have to find the entrance on your own. I’m not going into the water out there again.”
“Just get me close. I’ll take care of the rest,” Quinn said.
Jori looked at the deck outside the cabin. “You didn’t bring along any scuba gear. How do you expect to get in there? I don’t have anything for a dive operation. The entrance is underwater the whole way until you get inside the cavern.”
“You let me worry about that,” Quinn said. “We’ve talked about this enough. Let’s cast off, or whatever it is you do to unpark this thing.”
Jori stared at Quinn for a second and then nodded. “The correct term is ‘shove off,’ in case you’re wondering.” He smiled. “Make yourselves comfortable here in the cabin. It’ll be tight, but you’ll be cold and wet if you sit out on the deck this time of year.”
The Selkie captain left to untie the lines holding the craft to the pier. He returned a minute later and fired up the engine, then steered them out into the channel to the Chesapeake Bay.
Quinn wasn’t quite sure about Jori or the wisdom of going into a dragon’s lair like this on purpose, but she kept her misgivings to herself despite the knot of fear in her gut. She refused to turn back now. The little dragon in that egg needed her to save it. That was all that mattered. He or she was family now, just like everyone else in the clan. This old dragon wasn’t going to get in the way of that.
It took them the better part of two hours to motor across the choppy waters to the correct location. Without saying a word, Jori shut off the engine and left the cabin. He walked across the deck and lifted a heavy steel anchor up and over the side, then did the same up at the stern.
He returned to the cabin. “This is as close as I’m getting. You’ll have to go the rest of the way yourself.”
“How far out are we?” Quinn asked.
“A quarter-mile, maybe more.”
Clark said, “Quinn, you said you’ve got a way to do this. I don’t know what you’re planning, but it’s time to let Taylor and me in on it.”
Quinn smiled. “The plan is this. I’m going to swim down there, sneak in, take what we need, and get out. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“You heard Jori earlier. We don’t have any scuba gear.”
Jori nodded. “That and the water’s pretty cold this time of year. I’m a Selkie and used to swimming in cold, choppy water. You’ll die of hypothermia in ten minutes.”
“Don’t worry, either of you. You just make sure you’re here when I get back.” Quinn started stripping out of her jeans and sweatshirt until she was standing there in a tankini swimsuit she’d put on earlier under her clothes. She bent down and reconfigured her Bowie’s sheath so she could strap the belt around her waist and thigh. She also clipped a large nylon fanny pack around her waist and settled it at her back. She’d packed it with plastic zipper bags for the dung and a folded nylon drawstring bag for the scales.
Ignoring the others who stood and watched her prepare for her dive, Quinn reached out with her mind, feeling the water’s power all around her. The wild magic of the sea filled her, and it was overwhelming compared to the smaller lake. Opening her HUD, Quinn clicked the glowing icon in the center and prayed the wild magic wanted what she did.
She relaxed as her body shifted around her.
Taylor gasped behind her. “Quinn, are those…gills?”
Quinn used the remaining air in her lungs to laugh and say, “Pretty cool, huh? See you in a few hours.” She pushed off the deck with her flipper-feet and dove into the lower Chesapeake Bay’s briny waters.
Time to find a dragon.
Chapter Twenty-One
Quinn used her powerful legs to kick away from Jori’s boat, drawing water in through her mouth and pushing it out through the gill flaps in her sides. She ignored the chill of the water since she knew she’d get used to it. As she went farther, though, unusual fatigue set in. She stopped and tried to catch her underwater breath.
As she tasted the briny salt, Quinn realized her aquatic form was fighting the difference between the freshwater lake it was used to and the alien saltwater environment. She tried to push through the difficulty using brute force of will, trying to make her body adapt.
That got her nowhere.
Quinn floated about fifteen feet beneath the water and closed her eyes, then gave in and relinquished control to the wild magic. Within seconds, Quinn’s physiology adjusted to the difference. Her breathing became less labored, and her chest stopped aching.
Feeling more comfortable in the new environment, Quinn opened her HUD map overlay. She used it to scan the surroundings nearby with her new earth sense in play. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for but was overjoyed to see it worked in the water. Glowing green and yellow dots moved on the display. Quinn focused on a few closest to her. The nearest dot was a striped bass, and the remaining dots were other types of fish. The green ones appeared to be harmless. The few yellow ones on the display represented potential threats, including a lone hammerhead shark about a half-mile away. They were only dangerous if she went looking for trouble.
Quinn started to drop the map overlay, then stopped. The green and yellow dots showed up everywhere except in an area southeast of her position. She swam in that direction, and the section with no fish in it grew. In fact, nothing showed up in that area. There were no terrain features or depth indicators. It was as if it were a hole in her map.
Or maybe something blocked her abilities with wild magic there—something like a dragon.
Quinn centered her focus in the middle of the blank area and swam ahead. As she approached the boundary of the empty zone, Quinn fought a growing urge to turn around and swim away. She ignored the feeling and pressed on, drawing down her mana store about thirty percent to push back against the dragon’s protection zone.
It worked. The sense of dread almost disappeared. No wonder the fish stayed away. This would keep any ordinary humans out of the area too, allowing a dragon to live in secret with no one being the wiser. Quinn smiled. She wasn’t an average human, so the mysterious blank spot had told her exactly where to go.
Quinn passed into the blank area and dropped her HUD to scan the dark water around her. The bright moonlight overhead filtered into the upper layer of water, giving her a clear view twenty or thirty feet away. Using her best guess at where the center of the mysterious blank circle was located, Quinn swam onward. She scanned the rocky bottom beneath her for any sign of a cave entrance.
She soon reached the area she’d estimated to be the center of the dragon’s protective circle. A rocky island barely a hundred yards across rose from the bay’s floor to about twenty feet above the water’s choppy surface. Quinn swam around, searching
the underwater shelf surrounding it.
The circular cave entrance was so large it surprised her. She could never have missed it and suspected it was visible from the surface in the daytime. Of course, the repulsion spell that protected the island would prevent anyone from getting close enough to see it under most circumstances.
As she dove toward the cave’s mouth, Quinn tried to gauge its size. The opening had to be about twenty feet across at its widest point. The walls were smooth rock as if bored by a drill, except at the floor right near the entrance. That area had a soft and muddy bottom. Quinn wondered if she should have asked Jori how big the dragon was, then her mind popped up the image of the bite scars the captain had shown her.
When the plan had first formed, she’d assumed she could fend it off with her Bowie if she failed to sneak in and out successfully, but if it was large enough to fill this opening, her knife would barely scratch it. Gil had been pretty large as a lake dragon, but this dwarfed him by a good bit.
Quinn checked the fanny pack behind her sheathed knife. If brute force wouldn’t work, she’d rely on her ability to hide and sneak around. She’d have to work fast to avoid detection, but she didn’t want to stick around long anyway.
Reaching out with her webbed hands and giving a powerful kick with her legs, Quinn dove and entered the dark cave. Quinn couldn’t use her night vision underwater, so she had trouble penetrating the gloom. She ran her hand along the wall to help guide her through the tunnel.
The underwater passage angled upward after about fifty feet, which should be near the edge of the rocky island above. Quinn continued swimming until she breached the surface in a large cavern. She stifled a gasp, trying to remain as silent as possible. With the top half of her head out of the water, Quinn activated her night vision. The aquatic eyes distorted things in the open air, but she could see the cavern well enough to tell it was empty. The rough, rocky walls around her that were different from the smooth sides of the passage she had swum through to get here.