ACT V
XXXVI
Amal entered The Cistern stadium amidst a loud commotion of police officers and detectives. She forced her way through the crowd and spotted her husband.
Demetrius was standing next to an ice water stand, writing in his notebook.
He needed a new outfit. His beige trench coat was fading, and his derby hat was fraying at the edges. He was drenched from the rain. The look on his face was somewhere between stoic and concerned. She knew him.
Something was wrong.
He looked up and smiled.
“This must have been pretty important,” Amal said.
“You’re not going to believe it,” Demetrius said, running a hand along the side of his cheek. “Come with me.”
She followed him up some stairs and into the performance area. Immediately she heard whispers and camera flashes that told her she was at the scene of a murder.
They crested the top of the stairs, and then Amal gasped when she saw Mynthia impaled on the stage. Thunder shook the area, and the rain picked up, pouring sheets onto the stage in a jagged, irregular pattern.
“Oh my God,” she said, putting her hands over her mouth.
“I’m about to lose my remaining hair,” Demetrius said, taking off his hat and revealing a bald spot where his nappy hair was thinning at the top. “It’s a mess.”
“Who could have done this?” she asked.
“Only a dragon. A powerful one at that.”
Several photographers moved across the stage, photographing Mynthia’s dead body. Amal wanted to go to the stage but her feet wouldn’t move.
“This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill murder,” Demetrius said. “In all my years in the MCU, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s downright vicious. Whoever killed her wanted her to die, and they probably enjoyed doing it.”
Amal worked up the strength to walk to the stage. She moved down some steps but Demetrius grabbed her arm. Below, a trail of blood started next to her foot.
“Any leads?” she asked.
“I’m not even done telling you the rest of the story,” Demetrius said. “We found her sister, Meah, dead at the Museum of Natural History. Poison.”
“Good lord.”
“We’re thinking it was the same suspect. She was poisoned by a grimoire. The killings happened within an hour of each other.”
“Have you notified Moss?”
“Here’s where it gets strange. Moss is nowhere to be found. We have some unconfirmed reports that say he left the city shortly after all of this happened.”
“You don’t think he did it, do you?”
Demetrius shrugged. “I don’t see a motive. If anything, he fled because he might be next.”
“But where’s he going to go?” Amal asked. “He’s in Abstraction. He’ll have to return after a while or he’ll lose energy.”
“No idea. We’ve got authorities searching for him. But in the meantime, we need to figure out who did this.”
Amal reached into her purse and pulled out a gift card to a local coffee shop. She had been meaning to use it but had never gotten around to it. She handed it to him. “You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks, baby.”
“Can we go closer?” she asked.
Demetrius whistled and got the coroner’s attention. The coroner, a thin man with a beard in a blue suit, motioned them forward.
When they reached the stage, the smell of slight decomposition reached them. Sickly sweet. Flies were beginning to gather around the dragon’s head.
“Stay back,” the coroner said. “We’re seeing some rigor mortis.”
As if commanded, the dragon’s tail flipped upward and curled on itself, then slammed down onto the stage.
Amal was thrown back but Demetrius caught her. He rubbed her shoulders and asked if she was okay.
“Chief, good to see you,” the coroner said, nodding to Amal.
“Good to see you.” It was strange to be called her old title, but in a way, she preferred.
“You thinking about coming back to this line of work after the election?”
“Not if I win,” she said, laughing. She walked around the stage with a look of concern, studying the dragon’s bloody scales. She stopped short of a pool of blood.
“It was a damned bloody struggle,” the coroner said. “I don’t think anyone in this stadium has ever seen anything like it. We’re looking at around seven bite marks all over her body. No major arteries hit, though. fifteen bruises, scratch marks everywhere. Cause of death was blunt trauma to the neck.” The coroner exhaled, as if what he was going to say was a surprise even to him. “This is a dragon murder to end all dragon murders.”
Amal knelt down. In the middle of the pool of blood was a yellow, decaying tooth.
“We found a couple of those around the stage,” the coroner said.
“Are they the victim’s?”
“We don’t think so. The curvature is more along the lines of a Keeper. An older one. We’ll have lab results in a few days.”
Demetrius flipped a page on his notebook and traced a finger along his notes. “Happened about an hour after the concert was over. Witnesses reported gruesome noises from the stadium, and very loud music even though the concert was finished.”
“Did you check the cameras?” Amal said.
“Nothing. They’re only in the atriums. Witnesses report a silver Keeper dragon flying out of the stadium right after the noise ended. But he flew into the storm clouds so no one could comment on which direction he fled.”
The coroner’s phone rang and he excused himself.
“This is going to be one hell of a news story,” Demetrius said. “It’ll take some focus off the election.”
“That’s also why I’m here.”
She motioned him to follow her as she moved behind a stage curtain. When they were out of earshot of the photographers on stage, she whispered “Lucan Grimoire is finished.”
Demetrius’s eyes widened.
“The incident at the bog? It was him.”
“How?”
“He found the tomb of Old Dark. Apparently the dragon is alive and in pretty bad shape. Lucan’s been keeping him in his factory. They covered up the discovery. Not only is he in violation of the Magical Lands Act, he lied about the shooting. I found the shooter’s son, and he’s willing to cooperate with you in exchange for protection.”
A sly smile crept across Demetrius’s face. “Are you sure? This is too good to be true.”
“I gave Lucan forty-eight hours to come clean to the media. He’ll be the one doing the exposing, not me. It’ll be a two-person race this time tomorrow—me and the governor.”
“I knew he was up to something,” Demetrius said, rubbing his head.
They both stared at the dragon again.
“What’s this society coming to?” Amal asked. “When a billionaire can cover up a historical secret, a dragon can be murdered like this, and the electorate can be so anesthetized? What does that say about us?”
“That sounds like the beginning of a great stump speech,” Demetrius said.
“I don’t know.”
She folded her arms and frowned. So much had been going through her head in the last few hours. “I’m tired of the negativity. I’m the honest candidate, remember?”
Demetrius put his arm around her shoulder. “Baby, sometimes the truth’s gotta hurt.”
XXXVII
Lucan beheld a large suitcase with a computer screen embedded inside. It weighed twenty pounds, and the computer screen showed a green radar field.
Celesse stood over his shoulder and studied the suitcase. “You sure this is going to work?”
Lucan ran his hands along the elaborate stitching of the suitcase, and then brushed some dust off the computer screen. “Yeah, it should. I had a tech insert a chip in one of Old Dark’s front legs. We’ll know where he is once I boot this up.”
Miri and Earl entered, and Lucan waved at them. “There you are.
Everything okay?”
Miri sat in a chair next to him. Her air was heavy. “Aside from resigning from my job, sure.”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Lucan said. “You resigned?”
“Yep.”
“When I told you to shore up your liabilities, that’s not what I had in mind.”
“Laner and Jasmine found out. They were going to go to Dean Rosehill. I had no choice.”
Lucan ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Well, you’re unemployed now, huh? I’ll match your salary until this is all over. Help you get back on your feet.”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that.”
“I got you into this mess, so it’s my duty,” he said. “Besides, I can’t do any of this without you.”
“Do you think the dean will tell the governor?” Celesse asked. The moment of camaraderie was lost on her. She was wearing a white blouse and a pencil skirt, and her bright red hair was tied into a bun.
“I don’t think so. He was pretty upset when I left,” Miri said.
“Good. We need a few more hours before we reveal everything to him.”
Miri’s eyes fell to the suitcase. “So what exactly are we doing?”
Lucan flipped some switches on the panel and the computer screen beeped to life. “We’re going to find Old Dark’s location, and then we’re going to find him and destroy him.”
“The three of us?” Miri asked. “I don’t think we’ll be able to handle him, even if he’s weakened.”
“Not us,” Lucan said. “A mercenary force. They’re standing by, waiting for my command.”
“Mercen—” Miri’s hand went up to her chest. “Lucan, what if this fails?”
“Then we have a Plan B,” he said with a sly grin. “And if we need it, it’ll be a lot more fun than this.”
“I’d rather not find out,” Miri said.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to,” he said, as a red, blinking dot appeared on the radar field. “We’ve got him.”
Miri and Celesse crowded around. Lucan pressed a button on the panel and a city grid overlaid the radar field.
“He’s over the Half Eight right now,” Miri said.
Celesse grabbed her phone and dialed someone. “We’re beaming his location to you now. Do it.”
“Now we wait,” Lucan said, resting back in his chair. “Let’s hope they find him before he realizes what’s going on.”
XXXVIII
Dark coasted through a storm cloud as thunder shook the sky. Through a patch in the clouds below, the city lights sparkled in the rain. It was as if the storm—his freedom—were washing the city clean.
He grinned as he spread his wings and changed direction. He had flown high since leaving the stadium for fear of being caught, but he was far enough away now that his escape was all but assured.
How thrilling it was! To sink his teeth in the gullet of the offspring of his enemy! Mynthia’s blood had barely dried on his lips. Not even the rain had washed it away completely.
Moss would now feel a fraction of the pain that Dark had felt. If Moss had killed his parents, if he had watched them burn as Miri said he did—this wasn’t enough. No, it was hardly a good start. Everything that the traitor had built needed to be dismantled. And only then could he die in Dark’s jaws.
Sometimes I wonder if I had to go through this adversity just so I could rise again and remind you scoundrels who I am.
He drifted downward as lightning flashed across the sky. As he passed into a lower thundercloud, he felt the rain almost immediately. It covered him in a swarm, beat against his wings, tried to flush him out of the sky. But he went with the wind, let himself fly on its cold, silent edge as he listened to the rain crackle and the wind ripple and the car horns blare below.
For a moment he closed his eyes, drunk on his success, but then he remembered his previous solo flight and thought better of it.
“I am risen!” he yelled.
No response from the sky. Just the silhouette of a Crafter flying through the rain far, far away.
He focused his attention on the city. He remembered the way back to Frog’s, noted the skyscrapers and which ones seemed familiar. Frog had given him very specific instructions on how to get back, and so far Dark had followed them exactly. The last thing he needed on a night like this was to get lost.
He drifted down further.
Suddenly he saw a red blinking in the corner of his eye.
He swiveled his head, thinking it was an oncoming object.
But the skies around him were clear.
He pulled himself upward into a loop to make sure he hadn’t missed anything outside his field of vision. As he brought the loop to a close, he verified that there was nothing around him—no dragons, no metal birds, no metal hornets with bladed wings.
And then he saw it.
The blinking was coming from his front leg.
A small pearl-shaped jewel was lodged between one of his scales. Why hadn’t he seen it until now? It blinked with the incessancy of a distant star. A measured, bright, crimson-toned light.
“What in heavens is this?” Dark asked.
Strangely, it didn’t hurt. But it glowed and glowed, and he had never seen anything like it.
He flew for a few minutes, thinking it would go away, that perhaps it was residue from his personal cache of magic manifesting itself. After all, he was running low and after a few more uses it would be gone completely and he’d be on his own again, with no real advantages in this strange new place.
But the blinking did not stop. For a moment it paused, but then it started again.
Dark negotiated through the rain and landed on the roof of a glass skyscraper. He looked around to make sure that there were no dragons inhabiting the building—there were not from what he could tell—and he inspected the red light more carefully.
He brought his face down to the light and licked it. Smooth as a pearl, with no rough edges. The taste was almost metallic, with traces that he couldn’t describe. Artificial. Bitter.
He sniffed it. It had no real smell that he could detect.
All the while the red light kept blinking.
Then he heard a familiar noise.
A whirring sound. Dull, droning.
Dark stepped backward, looking around the rooftop.
There was nothing. There was no one.
Something told him to be on his guard.
The droning sound grew louder and louder, and then he remembered—it sounded like the metal hornet he had encountered the night before.
What had Frog called it?
A heli-something. Heli-dragon? Heli-machine?
No, a helicopter!
An odd name, indeed.
But as soon as the name came to Dark, a black helicopter rose over the edge of the rooftop. It hovered in place, its blades spinning so furiously they drowned out all sound. Several men dressed in black tactical armor stood inside.
A tremendous spotlight from the helicopter shone on him, casting him in a white light.
Dark saw his leathery, eye-patched face reflected on the side of the helicopter. For a moment, he lamented his appearance.
Then he roared.
One of the men shouted, “We’ve found him. We’re at 1504 South Chakra Street.”
It couldn’t be! How could they have found him?
Instinct took over and he lifted into the air. Fire danced into his mouth, and he prepared to spray the entire area with it.
Suddenly the helicopter darted backward, out of his range of breathing.
Dark flew closer but the helicopter retreated, and soon he was chasing it.
Why aren’t they attacking?
He growled, snuffing out the flames in his mouth, and smoke escaped his nostrils.
It was a trap. He spun around and flapped as hard as he could.
He ascended quickly but the helicopter was right behind him.
How are you going to get out of this one, old dragon?
He rose highe
r and higher toward the rain clouds.
The helicopter stayed on his tail.
But as he kept rising he noticed that it could not. He looked back with a grin as he escaped into the cold, wet comfort of a cloud.
The helicopter did not follow him.
He climbed above the thunderstorm, his heart racing.
He’d outsmarted them!
They had looked like formidable opponents, to be sure, but they were no matches for a dragon’s flying skills!
They had retreated from his fire because they knew it would have destroyed them and sent their machine plunging into the bowls of the city. Yes, indeed!
Hadn’t they known who they were dealing with? Lord Alsatius Dark II. Not some wild game. Not some disgusting dragon in Abstraction.
They were pursuing the Lord of this world.
And a few days ago they might have brought him down, but not now.
He circled back on his flight, flew in different directions just in case they were following him.
No human or elf could track a dragon who didn’t want to be found.
He growled as he realized how much time was being wasted.
He had things to do. Time hadn’t been kind to him these thousand years, and it most certainly wasn’t on his side now.
His wings began to weaken. He guessed he had been evading them for about fifteen minutes now. Long enough to throw them off.
He needed to rest. His wings were going to start failing him if he didn’t find shelter soon.
He dipped through a cloud.
The city was below.
But where was he?
In the shuffle he’d forgotten Frog’s directions. The city lay endlessly before him, and he had no idea where he was.
Then his heart sank when he heard the helicopter below, ascending to meet him.
“How?!” he screamed.
He should have evaded them. They shouldn’t have still been in pursuit. Was he truly losing his luster as a dragon?
Dark roared and flew down toward the helicopter. The machine stopped its ascent and began to fly away.
“Stop flying away and come meet your death, you cowards!”
Old Evil (The Last Dragon Lord Book 2) Page 19