by Tia Reed
“Do you intend to go to print with the threat Genord poses?” the Premier asked.
“It’s the truth.”
“You have no evidence those girls are the grotesques.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked askance at Adam.
“There’s DNA evidence,” Rob said.
“Which Ms Jerome, a reporter for the Informer, collected,” Osborne pointed out. Her newspaper’s name dripped with contempt. For once she wanted to defend it. “Chain of custody was never maintained.”
“You do realise, if people accept those girls are the grotesques and I sanction their deaths, the next election will be the least of my worries,” the Premier said to Osborne.
“Welcome to the club,” Ella said.
“Cecily and the others, the missing women, they’re helping keep the dragon at bay . . .” Adam took a couple of deep breaths. The Premier gave the military man a nod. “. . . and looking for the head,” Adam continued when his rival for the Premier’s attention had left the room. “They’re our best chance to defeat it. You can’t let anything happen to them.”
The Premier’s noncommittal platitudes inspired little confidence. The brusque way his aide ushered them out she liked even less. And when Osborne reappeared with a group of soldiers she found herself dreading the outcome of their little chat.
“Gentlemen, Ms Jerome. This will all be over within the hour. A pilot is preparing to bomb the church and dragon as we speak. Nothing could possibly withstand the detonation. The evacuation has commenced. And that information is best leaked to the terrorist.”
“But the girls, the grotesques!” Ella cried. “You’ll kill them.”
“Then I suggest, Ms Jerome, that you find a way to return them to their natural form. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bombing to oversee.” He swept into the room, leaving the aide to usher them back to North Terrace and the waiting police cars.
“Romain, do you understand what’s going to happen? The grotesques will be destroyed when the bomb explodes,” Adam said as they skipped down the steps, looking up for any sign of the dragon.
“Dragon kill.” The mason hunched over and hit his forehead with his fists. They ushered him into the back of a patrol car and squashed in beside him. Rob took the front seat. One look at the dour driver was enough to convince them all the Port was off limits.
“Romain, can you warn them?” Ella asked.
“Warn.”
“Yes. Warn the girls, Romain.”
The mason closed his eyes.
“Can the statues stay alive? I mean during the day.” Rob was looking over his glasses through the rear view mirror.
“That’s not the issue. It’s just that they can’t transform with anyone watching. And with all this media attention . . .”
“’Tesques go,” Romain said. “Romain warn.”
“I don’t like this,” Rob said.
Ella bit her lip. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice. You heard him. If they become human now, the dragon will kill them. I know which fate I’d rather suffer.”
A gold Jaguar was parked in Adam’s drive. The lights were on in his living room.
“I locked the door,” Adam said to Doer. The felon had made himself at home in Adam’s favourite armchair with a Coopers stubby in hand. He was staring at Tilly. Her little cat sat in front of him, still as a statue except for an occasional swish of her tail.
“You did,” Doer answered, averting his cool gaze before Tilly did. “But I heard word we’re not done.” He gestured at the television. The five of them peered at church roof. A news helicopter had breached the no fly zone for that all exclusive career-making segment. As it circled, Ella spotted Caroline stretching her wings. The reporter obviously had too because the chopper banked for a closer look. Caroline lifted her beak and chattered at the aircraft, her action caught for posterity. The camera moved onto Bekka as she scurried down the side of the church, then panned onto the smudge of a fighter plane. Ella held her breath.
“There,” Adam said, as a speck winged away from the church. It might have been either Caroline or Cecily.
An explosion ripped through the city, rattling windows and throwing dust into the sky. Tilly darted behind the sofa. Adam latched onto Ella as she fell. They counted the minutes as they waited for what seemed like an eternity while the scratched compact disc of an anchor reiterated over and over that the bombing was complete. Long minutes ticked by until the stations finally broadcast pictures of the devastation. The church had disintegrated into a pile of rubble.
The reptilian grotesque waddled onto the screen. Seconds later, the beaked grotesque touched down.
“Where is she?” Adam murmured.
Ella took his arm and searched the screen for any sign of Cecily. She bit her lip as the grotesques stole forward. At the other end of the pile, stones tumbled down the incline. A head appeared. With unnatural grace, Genord ascended the ruin.
“He can’t have survived the explosion,” Rob said.
“He’s not human.” Ella was clutching Adam far too tight but he didn’t complain.
The grotesques began digging in the rubble, sending stones clattering onto the grass. A rock popped out of a depression, then another shot into the air. A shaky paw emerged from the resultant crater. A muscular arm followed. The beaked grotesque shovelled stones away. The gecko latched onto a leg and dragged the dusty and dishevelled leonine grotesque from under the rubble.
“Cecily,” Romain moaned.
Adam stared at the screen in frozen disbelief. She hugged him in her joy.
“The head,” Doer said.
A sapphire snout was poking up from behind the rubble. Caroline nudged Cecily but Adam’s cousin was flat on her stomach, her sides heaving as she struggled for breath. Caroline squawked warning of the vicious teeth gleaming in the dragon’s maw. Cecily tottered to her feet, took a stone in her mouth and threw it at Genord. It clacked onto the rubble when he sidestepped. Caroline seized Bekka in her talons and sprang into the air, her wings labouring in a struggle for height. With a growl, Cecily backed down the pile, turned, and ran. Adam exhaled as her wings lifted her into the sky.
“They didn’t fight,” Adam said, incredulous.
“If those things are such a nuisance, why didn’t he kill them?” Doer asked.
“Because he’s so close,” Ella answered, certain now. She sank onto the sofa and stroked purrs out of Tilly as the cat wormed her feline way onto her lap. “He needs one more human sacrifice to resurrect the dragon. He’s not going to risk draining the power that feeds it. Not unless he has no choice.”
The lights flickered. The room plunged into darkness.
“This is how it started,” Ella said, mouth dry. “Before the fire.” She eased Tilly onto the sofa to reach a glass of water but the cat wriggled back on with a mock growl.
Adam dressed the coffee table with bowl-shaped candles he had stashed in the laundry cupboard. The flickering flames cast oversized shadows around the room. A clatter on the roof startled her. Tilly sat up, ears flattened.
“’Tesques. ’Tesques follow Ella.” Romain added a satisfied hum.
In spite of herself, Ella smiled. “Romain seems convinced I’m important.”
“I always knew you were,” Adam replied.
“Head,” Romain said.
Deciding there was no threat, Tilly turned a circle, kneaded Ella’s thighs, and curled into a ball. The rest of them settled in for a long night. Their discussion scrutinized every centimetre of the church but they couldn’t come up with any conceivable hiding place for the head.
In a bid for attention, Tilly jumped from Ella’s lap and batted her toy fish around the room, meowing an invitation at the humans. On any other day, Ella would have joined in her game. Oblivious to their talk, Romain ambled outside. He returned with a piece of firewood and a knife from the kitchen, settled back into his chair, and began to whittle. An hour later, their talk subsided. The only sounds were the scrape of Romain’s
knife and the soft swish of Tilly’s tail as she enjoyed her game.
“Come here, Tilly,” Ella called softly as the cat paused to consider which way to flick the toy next. Tilly offered a languid blink as she lifted her nose at the sound of Ella’s voice. Ella called again. The cat picked up the toy in her mouth and sprang onto Ella’s lap then the coffee table.
“Naughty girl,” Ella scolded, reaching over. “You know you’re not allowed up there.”
Tilly, well aware she was committing a misdemeanour, dropped the fish onto one of the candles, and bounded down before Ella could catch her. Alarmed, Ella plucked the toy off the flame and dropped it into her glass. Thankfully it had not caught fire. The candle had gone out. She stared at it, a thought forming in her mind.
“I think I know where the dragon head is,” she blurted.
Chapter Thirty-three
31st October. Morning.
A MORNING DODGING evacuees while navigating from contractor to contractor along congested roads had failed to find a single excavator willing to risk going anywhere near the Port River. In the end, Doer pointed a gun at a manager and informed him they were requisitioning the equipment. The manager looked set to argue until Rob flashed his badge and declared he would lock the man up where the dragon could find him unless he co-operated. Two hours after Doer sent Brendan to tell his second to round up his men, they were rolling out the equipment under the surly eye of the manager who was threatening to sue Doer, the police, and those goddamn grotesque looking whatever-they-were if his equipment suffered so much as a scratch. Considering several businesses metres down the road were either razed or flooded, Ella thought his priorities needed attention.
The row of tanks guarding the barricade on the corner of Commercial and Grand Junction Roads turned her palms sweaty. Rob stopped the car and rolled down the window. Ella swallowed as the turret of a tank turned to point the gun right at them. Her hand went out to still Rob’s tapping finger. She bit her lip and hoped the four soldiers marching over wouldn’t notice how stiffly she sat. Their rifles were the very definition of mean. Since a little way down the road their clones were knocking a recklessly curious youth in the back with the butts, she didn’t think they would hesitate to use them. And they would have every reason to if Doer’s charade was exposed. Despite calling in every favour owed, Roan had failed to convince Osborne to allow them access to the area. Doer had shrugged the news off and told them to chill. One phone call, a short trip, and a passport-sized photograph had been all that was required to put them in possession of a set of fake IDs. She couldn’t make eye contact as she flashed the badge, and was glad the window was back up by the time the guards moved the barricade. Her long exhalation had to be a dead giveaway she wasn’t meant to be here.
As the soldiers waved car and trucks through, she watched the soldiers bundle the screaming youth into a paddy wagon full of other bravados. After this, she would never trust an official badge again.
They stopped within a few streets of the canal.
“We probably have one chance and one chance only to make this happen. Deserters answer to me,” Doer said when his men had unloaded the bulldozers.
“We’re good,” Jake said. He spat before climbing into the operations seat of the heaviest piece of equipment there.
Ace, lanky-haired and full of nervous energy, jumped onto a bulldozer.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Doer barked.
The youth pouted as he struggled with the ignition. “Brodie was me mate.”
Doer jumped onto the wheel and dragged him out of the cab.
“You can’t stop me. I’ll move the stones by hand if I have to.”
“Mates are on special detail. Now do what you’re told before I have to deal with someone saying ‘Ace was me mate’,” Doer said as a broad man took Ace’s place.
Ella scanned the sky for bats. She couldn’t help feeling Genord knew exactly what they were up to but no one had so much as glimpsed a sapphire scale this morning. There were victims aplenty if he cared to emerge. Too many people were ignoring the military’s command to stay inside and lock their doors. Thankfully most showed better sense than the lads the soldiers had apprehended and were fleeing the city.
“Right,” Doer said, shoving a backpack at Ace. “You know what to do. No heroics, understand? You can save those for tomorrow when it won’t matter so much if you’re not around after.”
Ace climbed on his bike. “Five minutes.” He turned the ignition, kicked the bike into gear, and zoomed off.
Doer knocked on the boot of the car. Rob opened it but stood aside as Doer passed around the hand-held rocket launchers he had stashed.
“Not my usual line of work,” he said when he caught her balking. “But you should be grateful I’ve got the contacts and the cash.”
She was relieved Cecily and Caroline chose that moment to take flight: it prevented the need to answer.
“Let’s go,” Adam said. He tracked Cecily’s path across the sky as they jogged to the white-capped lighthouse. Ella swore she was going to attack the gym when this was over.
A dead bat dropped in front of them. Ella broke her stride. From above, a bird-like cry claimed responsibility. Taking her hand, Adam pulled her around it.
Both the lighthouse and the Queen’s Wharf markets to their left displayed large signs declaring they were closed until further notice. The vacant walled square to their right, designated for development, added to the forlorn appearance. Rumour also had it that the dolphins had fled the estuary. With jellyfish wafting through the water directly in front of them, Ella began to get the jitters. There was little hope of escape if the dragon made an appearance, yet their plan hinged on just that. There were so many of them here. Genord only needed one.
A motorbike engine buzzed through the still air. Ella held her breath. Doer’s choice of messenger was risky. She couldn’t deny the teenager had a right to be involved but Ace was likely to take a stupid risk in his grief for his mate.
“Right,” Doer said. He had made short work of a river-facing side door in the market building. With the first floor balcony restricting the dragon’s access, it was the safest place to hide.
“Come on.” Adam pulled her through. Romain shook his hands and backed up.
“I’ve got him,” Rob said, tugging the mason around the corner. She bit her lip as Adam closed the door. The lighthouse offered Rob and the others scant protection.
When a bike screeched onto Black Diamond Square and around the market building, she clicked the door ajar. They glimpsed Ace hunched low as he sped past. Her mouth went dry. He was supposed to have hightailed it out of there after throwing Doer’s proposition on the church rubble. At least he had the sense to ride beneath the balcony. She had no idea how much good it would do him. Air was stirring from the flap of tremendous wings. The dragon glided past, wings tucked so it could negotiate the open path between balcony and river. Cecily and Caroline glided along its finned back, tearing at scales. Neither her visions nor her fleeting glimpse last night had prepared Ella for the spectacle of the dragon in flight. A sense of ancient mystery bathed it, of a time when gods walked the mist-covered earth and humans were but fledglings, struggling to establish their place in the world. She almost keeled from the intensity of it.
A thud announced Bekka had leaped onto the glass panels of the foyer. Ella listened to her scamper across. With luck, her reappearance would alert the excavators to move their equipment to the ruined church.
The dragon roared, obliterating any sound of the grotesque. A blast of hot air hit them through the slit of doorway. The engine of the motorbike whined. Metal crashed. She would have cried out had Adam not squeezed her arm. Her heart thudded at the scrapes and scuffles. Rob and Doer raced around the corner. They knelt by the canal, hefted the rocket launchers onto their shoulders and fired. The dragon was already beating into the air. The grenades flew beneath it, across the car park and Nelson Street, and exploded into the red brick building hous
ing the Australian Maritime and Fisheries Academy. The force set her wobbling and threw Doer and Rob flat on their backs. Adam held her until the bangs and splashes of falling rubble subsided. They burst out and helped the men to their feet as the grotesques slunk over the debris. The dragon was winging out over the river, Genord seated across its shoulders. Ace dangled from its talons. The foolish boy had lost them everything.
“It’s not over yet.” Doer was hoisting the launcher back up. She was surprised to see a tear glisten in his eye as he fired between the berthed dolphin cruise boats. The dragon spiralled up and over in a loop. Ace slipped through its talons and crashed into the water. Romain loped to the river, jumped in, and thrashed toward the ripples. The grenades collided with the new bridge, throwing a cloud of debris and dust into the air. Above it all, the dragon flew straight for the wharf. A blast of fire forced them to roll through the shimmering air. They scrambled behind the red lighthouse as talons clacked on the paved wharf and stone clattered all around. Ella peered into the sky. The grotesques were circling just out of snapping range of the dragon’s vicious teeth.
“You requested an audience,” Genord called, dismounting with the grace of a lord. “Are you too cowardly to face me?”
Doer stepped around the lighthouse, rocket launcher at the ready. Before he could shoot, the dragon belched fire. He dropped the weapon and dived for cover behind the searing metal structure.
“Coward is a name I’d stick to someone who preys on women and children,” the drug dealer called.
“Your son followed in the tradition of a long line of criminals. You should be proud.”
“Let’s talk.” Doer was dripping sweat. Knowing it wasn’t all the heat made Ella’s knees weak. “I’m sure we can reach a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“I need no treaty. I have a dragon. I shall say this only one more time. Bring me Miss Jerome or I shall kill you all. La Gargouille hungers insatiably, and I have need of one more sacrifice.”