“No,” Oliver said. Tyler just shook his head.
“Oh, well.” Sally shrugged. “At least help me get it around to the back. I’ve got a rig set up.” She looked toward the jeep. “Did you say you brought the dagger that cuts everything?”
“Yeah,” Oliver said.
“Bring me the bag,” Sally said. “I could use a dagger like that here. You can watch me do the cutting.” She grinned. “Maybe you guys will learn something.”
Chapter 15
“I can’t believe you know a dragon,” Oliver said. Then he coughed. The curry he’d just taken a bite of was significantly hotter than he’d expected.
Sally had butchered the lamb in what seemed to Oliver like an impressively short amount of time, her dagger slicing through skin and muscle as it they were made of butter. Most of the meat went into a freezer, with the rest becoming one of the ingredients in a vindaloo she prepared for dinner. Tyler hadn’t said anything in hours, retreating into his own thoughts. It had taken nearly half an hour to coax Jeffrey out from under the couch, where he’d taken refuge after the dragon’s arrival.
“Thrax is a good guy,” Sally said. “He’s just frustrated and lonely. Dragons are a tight-knit community, I take it. He tells me about it sometimes. It gives him the sniffles.”
Tyler finally broke his silence. “That thing gets the sniffles?”
“He’s emotional,” Sally said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you make him angry he’ll tear your head off and suck the marrow from your bones, but he’d probably feel guilty about it later.”
Jeffrey had passed on the curry, claiming he was too upset to eat. “It’s a goddamn monster,” he said from his seat on Oliver’s lap.
“People said that about me, too.” Sally shrugged. “Didn’t you say that once, Oliver?” She gave him a crooked grin. “No hard feelings. I never said you were wrong.”
“I said I was wrong,” Oliver said. “You’re not a monster. You screwed up pretty bad, but…” He sighed. “Everyone screws up. It’s what people do. You tried to fix it. Unfortunately, it made things a lot worse, but if you ask me, intentions need to count for something.”
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” Tyler said absently. He caught Sally’s eye. “I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just a saying.”
“I intend not to see any more dragons,” Jeffrey said. “After that, I’ll never complain about dogs again.”
“Yes, you will,” Oliver told the cat.
“I won’t complain very much.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Tyler muttered.
Sally finished her curry by rubbing a piece of bread into the remains of the sauce and eating it. “You guys want to stay the night, or do you want to get going?”
“We’re not done talking about this,” Oliver said.
“We really are, Oliver,” Sally said. “I’m not leaving the Island. Blame this damn pacification field if you want to, but escape is the farthest thing from my mind.”
“It’s not really escaping if you come with us,” Tyler said.
“You know what I meant.” She looked around. “I’m at peace here. I like it. I’ve even got a dragon to keep me company. Things are pretty good.”
Oliver sighed. “I just can’t accept that. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t make me do anything, Oliver.”
“I know. I’m going to change your mind, though.”
“We don’t have to decide this tonight,” Tyler said. “We’ve got time. Anyway, it’s dark. Why don’t we all sleep on this and take it up in the morning? Maybe one of us will feel differently tomorrow.” He looked at Sally pointedly.
“Sure,” Sally said. “I’ve got a spare bedroom. I’m not sure why I have a spare bedroom; maybe more than one person at a time has stayed here before. The bed was made up when I got here. It’s a twin mattress, though. One of you may want to take the couch.”
“I’ll take the couch,” Tyler said. “It’ll let me stretch out.”
“I’ll take the bed,” Jeffrey said. He looked at Oliver. “I guess you can sleep in my room.”
“How generous of you,” Oliver said. He wasn’t sure when he’d really slept last, but it had been long enough that he was exhausted. Things would look clearer in the morning. He’d convince Sally to come with them if it was the last thing he ever did.
Sally left Tyler in the living room with a pile of blankets and showed Oliver to the spare room. When they were at the door she said, “It really was good seeing you again, Oliver. You could always come back and visit when you get done with the big rescue at…where are you going, again?”
“The power nexus near London,” Oliver said. “That’s where he’ll do the spell. It’s some kind of standing stones thing…”
“Near Stonehenge,” Sally said. “Where the ley lines meet. I’ve been there once. It’s nice. Rolling hills all around. Lots of grass and fresh air.”
“You should come see it with us.”
“Nah,” Sally said. She hesitated a moment, and then stepped forward and put her arms around him. “I missed you, Oliver.”
Oliver was shocked by the physical contact at first, but regained enough composure to hug her back. “I missed you, too.”
Sally continued the hug for a moment longer, then kissed him on the cheek and turned away. “See you in the morning. Help yourself to whatever’s in the refrigerator if you get hungry in the night. I’ll make breakfast before you go.”
Oliver watched as she headed down the hallway, and then went into the bedroom. Jeffrey had already curled up on the bed and was sound asleep. Oliver lay down, but sleep didn’t come easily. His brain was too full of thoughts about the mission to come. And what were they supposed to do without Sally? He had to make her reconsider, but how? The pacification field had to be messing with her mind. There was no way she’d act like this under normal circumstances. And actually kissing him? That was a sure sign something was wrong with her. The Sally he knew would never do that. And she certainly wouldn’t back away from a fight.
Sleep found him before much longer, and when he woke up the sun was just peeking over the horizon through his window. He got up and went into the living room to find a distraught-looking Tyler. “I can’t find Sally,” Tyler said.
“What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.
“I woke up fifteen minutes ago. Her bedroom door was open, but she’s not in there. She’s not anywhere.”
A sinking feeling hit Oliver in the stomach. He and Tyler searched the house, and then the grounds outside. There was no sign of Sally anywhere. “Where the hell would she have gone?” Oliver asked.
“Sally was never comfortable with goodbyes,” Tyler said. He looked at the ground. “And she was probably sick of that look you were giving her.”
“What look?”
“That look that said how disappointed in her you were.”
Oliver put his hands in his pockets and looked away. “I wasn’t giving her that look.”
“You were giving her that look, boss,” Jeffrey said. “It was like that look when you cook me dinner, and then I decide I don’t want that dinner and ask you to cook me a different one, but then I don’t want that dinner, either.”
“No, that look is called rage,” Oliver said. “Maybe she went hunting or something?” He looked around and shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t be able to kill anything. Maybe she’s out gathering berries for breakfast.”
“You think Sally’s out picking berries?” Tyler asked. “Did you hit your head earlier?”
They waited at the house for nearly two hours, but it quickly became clear that wherever Sally had gone, she wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Oliver didn’t say a word as they drove back to the airstrip. This entire trip had been wasted. Maybe when everything was over they could come back and get her out of here. The Island wasn’t nearly as bad a place as Oliver had feared, but if he was sure of anything, it was that Sally didn’t belong here.
Daniel Vega was waiting for them outside the plane. Oliver expected him to complain about being left overnight, but the man appeared to have been stunned into silence by something. He barely reacted as they arrived. “What’s going on?” Oliver asked.
Vega turned to look at him with a dazed expression on his face. “There was…” he trailed off.
“What?” Tyler asked.
“A dragon,” Vega said. “There was a dragon here.” He looked at them with a guilty expression. “I haven’t been drinking, I swear. I saw a dragon.”
“Yeah,” Oliver said. “That’ll happen. Are we gassed up? We’ve got a long flight.”
“It threatened me,” Vega continued, ignoring the question. “It said if I didn’t give it some candy it would bite me three times.”
“So we’re ready to go?” Oliver asked.
“It was going to start with my legs…” Vega said.
“If I saw a dragon, I’d kick its ass,” Jeffrey said. “I don’t take any of that smack talk from lizards.”
Oliver gave Jeffrey a stern look and the cat began nonchalantly washing his face. “Did you have any candy?” he asked. “You don’t appear to have been bitten even one time.”
Vega shook his head. “We had a couple bottles of peppermint schnapps in the galley. I gave it those.”
“You gave a dragon liquor?” Oliver asked.
“It said it would bite me three times!”
Oliver shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what a dragon’s alcohol tolerance is like, but let’s hope we don’t run into it on the way out of here. Come on, let’s get going.”
They were at cruising altitude half an hour later. Daniel Vega had just nodded when Oliver told him they were heading to London. He seemed to want to put as much distance between himself and the dragon as possible.
The jet’s flight range was incredible by any conventional standards, but they still had to stop in New York to refuel. Oliver called and had Seven arrange it for them. “It’s too bad we didn’t get Sally,” Seven said over the speakerphone. “I haven’t come up with anything good for taking out a magician. I don’t even understand the full range of his powers. The grimoire has a lot in it, but there’s reason to believe this wasn’t his only one. Who knows what else he came up with?”
“We noticed that,” Oliver said. “There’s also the fact he may have picked up a lot more skills while he was in the Nether Lands. He had three hundred years to practice.”
“Maybe we’ll get a lucky shot in,” Seven said.
“He seemed pretty bulletproof,” Tyler said, frowning.
“A shield like that is only good for so long,” Seven said. “That is, there’s only so much damage it can absorb. It’s like using up the battery on your phone. You get a lot of life out of it if you’re not doing much, but once you get on the Wi-Fi and open up a bunch of apps, it burns right up.”
“So maybe we just shoot him a lot,” Oliver said. “He can neutralize Tyler’s werewolf form without much effort, and he has a trump card for whatever it’s called that I do. He was trying to bottle up my power before. Like he was plugging a leak.”
“That makes sense,” Seven said. “But you were still able to transport yourself away from him before it was too late.”
“You should transport everyone this time,” Jeffrey said.
Oliver looked at him. “What?”
“Once you get your hands on Artemis, use your magic and get us all out of there before Armitage can put the whammy on us.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you to stop saying the whammy,” Oliver said.
“But I like to say the whammy.”
Oliver sighed. “Fine.” He looked at Tyler. “Actually, that’s not the worst plan in the world. Forget beating him; we don’t have to for now. We just grab Artemis and make a break for it.”
“Can you do that, though?” Tyler asked. “You’ve only teleported twice since I met you. Once was just you, once was you and Artemis together. It seems like a pretty big jump to moving us all at once.”
“We also don’t know if it’s possible to move that much matter,” Seven said. “Or if you have to be touching all of us, or if there’s a certain range we have to be in. It might be better if you tried putting the whammy on Armitage, instead.”
“I really need everyone to stop saying whammy,” Oliver said.
“I kind of like saying it, too,” Seven said.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “We’re all going to stop saying whammy. I agree with the point, though. You got rid of the Kalatari just by thinking about it. Maybe doing just one guy wouldn’t be so hard?”
“If it had ever worked under combat conditions I’d agree,” Oliver said. “But I’ve never had that much control over it. Pretty much everything I’ve done has happened by accident, except changing the color of coffee mugs.”
“You change the color of coffee mugs?” Tyler asked.
“Just for practice,” Oliver said. “It’s about all I can do so far. But what you guys are asking is like cooking a gourmet meal right after I’ve learned to scramble eggs. Plus the kitchen is on fire.”
“Your analogies suck,” Jeffrey said. “Just put the whammy on him and we’ll go home. Maybe we’ll get a little Thai food for dinner.”
“Enough,” Oliver said. “Seven, we’ll see you in London. If you come up with any brilliant ideas between now and then, let us know.” He clicked the phone off.
They flew in silence for a while, Oliver looking out the window while Tyler ate a succession of three sandwiches. Jeffrey slept. After a while Tyler said, “We don’t have much of a chance here, do we?”
“No,” Oliver said.
Jeffrey stirred in his seat. “Then why are we doing this?” he asked.
“Because it’s what we do,” Oliver said. “Artemis is one of us. We don’t give up on each other. We don’t run away from something because it’s hard, or because we know we probably won’t win.” He looked Tyler in the eyes. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Tyler considered that for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “You’ve changed, Oliver.”
“How?”
“When I met you, you were…you weren’t this guy, that’s for sure.”
“You were kind of a wimp,” Jeffrey said. “No offense, boss.”
Oliver wasn’t sure how to take that without offense, but he decided to let it go. “People change,” he said.
“Hey, I didn’t say it was bad,” Tyler said. “It’s just different, that’s all.”
Oliver shrugged and went back to looking out the window. Things had changed, that much was certain. A year ago he wouldn’t be talking the way he was now. Of all the things he’d learned recently, maybe that was the most profound. Being a member of a family of primordial gods seemed like a big deal in and of itself, but it paled next to finding the strength to believe in himself. The old Oliver would have shrugged and gone back to his desk when he was told he couldn’t do something. That man was gone, and that was probably a good thing.
He wasn’t going to give up, no matter what the odds were.
Chapter 16
Night was falling when they landed at a private airport on the western outskirts of London. Seven met them on the tarmac with a sedan he’d rented, his spiky blond hair looking as if he’d covered it with gel and then gone outside in a hurricane. He gave Daniel Vega enough money for a hotel and sent him away in a black cab. Oliver wasn’t sure they’d ever see the pilot again after everything that had happened in the last few days. Vega might decide that enough was enough and get out of the private aviation business before he got eaten by a dragon. He certainly had enough money to do so now. Oliver had arranged a large wire transfer to the man’s bank account shortly before they’d landed. It hadn’t been enough to make Vega rich, but he wouldn’t need to work again for a few years.
“The moon is fullest tomorrow night,” Seven said as he drove them away. “I got us a hotel about an hour from the site. Do you guys want to get some sleep, or did you
come up with any ideas to find them we can act on now?”
“We’ll never find them tonight,” Oliver said. “You didn’t come up with anything?”
“No,” Seven said. “I searched airline manifests but couldn’t find two men traveling with a child that came even close to how I’d describe them. They must have arranged a private plane.”
“The same way we do,” Tyler said. “Nice and anonymous.” He frowned. “What do you think they’re doing for money?”
“Artemis hasn’t moved anything,” Seven said, “so I know they’re not using her reserves. Armitage is a very good alchemist, though. I got that much from the grimoire. He could probably turn blank paper into passable bills. Or he could have made a stop in Silicon Valley and put a charm on some tech executive to get their money from them. It doesn’t really matter. He’s smart enough he won’t leave a trail.”
“Alchemy,” Tyler said. “That’s turning something into something else, right?”
“More or less,” Seven said.
“I think you learned that the hard way,” Oliver told Tyler. “Back when you got turned into a sheepdog.”
“I wish I could have seen that,” Jeffrey mused. “I might have died laughing, but that’s not a bad way to go.”
“Shut up,” Tyler said.
It was too dark to see the English countryside now, which Oliver regretted. He’d never been here before, and he’d have liked to develop a better sense of where they were and where they were going. Other than road signs telling him they were moving west, he had very little idea. “Do you know where we’re going?” he asked Seven.
“It’s about two hours from here.” He looked at Tyler in the rear-view mirror. “We should be in time to get you something to eat.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tyler said.
“You were thinking it,” Oliver said. “I think our best plan is to be up early, get to this power nexus thing, and be waiting for them when they arrive. They shouldn’t be expecting us to be there. We could catch them off guard.”
“I don’t know,” Seven said. “Armitage wouldn’t have a reason to expect we’d know where to go, except he knows we work for Artemis, which means he knows to expect the unexpected.”
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