He nodded. “Of course.”
“They are a means of channelling mass between this plane and another.”
His gaze was attentive, but no spark of understanding lit his grey eyes. I may as well have been speaking Greek.
“The mass of a dragon, Garth. Where do you think it all goes when we take human form? Dragons are enormous. Other shifters’ trueshapes are roughly human-sized, so there is no displacement of mass. But our human forms would be gigantic if we couldn’t relocate the extra mass. So we send it otherwhere when we shift and call it back when we wish to assume trueshape.”
“Otherwhere?” He didn’t sound convinced. “Where the hell is that?”
I had neither time nor inclination for a dissertation on dragon lore. “It’s not important. The point is, each dragon is born with a channel stone nestled next to their heart. It’s the core of our ability to shift from trueshape to human form. Think of it like the tide running through a channel. It comes in, it goes out, but the sea is always the same size.”
He shook his head, struggling with the concept. We came down off the mountains while he thought and joined the stream of Sydney-bound traffic. There was always traffic. Humans were like ants, scurrying to and fro on errands that only made sense to themselves. At each red light I tapped impatiently on the steering wheel. When we got onto the M4, we would make better time.
A nagging whine intruded, growing louder. Frowning, I glanced into the rear vision mirror and saw blue lights flashing behind me.
Garth twisted round in his seat, suddenly conscious of the wailing siren too. “Police. You’d better pull over.”
“What do they want?”
“You were driving rather fast, mistress.”
Annoyed, I pulled on to the shoulder. Three lanes of traffic whizzed past as I wound down my window.
The patrol car pulled in behind me and a uniformed officer got out, putting his cap on as he approached.
“In a hurry to get somewhere, madam?” His bored expression disappeared when he got a good look at us. “What happened to you?”
“We’ve been fighting fires in the mountains. My friend’s hurt. I’m taking him to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m afraid I still have to see your licence.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. I didn’t have my licence—I didn’t have anything to prove my identity. My wallet had been left behind somewhere in Valeria’s mansion.
“Oh! My licence …” I glanced at Garth, panicked, and mouthed: “What do I do?”
He cocked his head, puzzled till he realised Leandra was gone. Then he fanned the fingers of one hand and wiggled them. “What did Obi-Wan do when the troopers were looking for the droids?” he muttered.
I glared. Him and his stupid Star Wars obsession. Was this really the time, with a police officer at my window?
Oh, right. The “force”. I looked back at the cop and gave him a nervous smile. He was young, and probably not all that intimidating out of uniform.
Could I do it now that Leandra had slipped away again? Only one way to find out.
I met his eyes and stared hard, focusing my will. It felt … right. “I don’t have my licence with me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m sure you don’t mind.”
His expression hardened. I’d faced plenty worse lately, but there was still something unnerving about the glare of a highly unimpressed policeman.
“You’re driving without a licence? I’ll need to see some identification, madam.”
“I don’t have any. The bushfire …”
I trailed off. Damn. Jason had completely thrown me with his pleas—so out of character. I had to get to King’s and stop Nada. Whatever she was doing, it was something bad. I could feel it.
And she has the stone.
I clamped down hard on that thought. That was Leandra, not me. I had no need for her precious channel stone. Unless, of course, Nada meant to use it against Leandra. I stared at the policeman, willing him to let me go. Much as I wanted to be rid of my toxic hitchhiker, I wasn’t leaving the job of evicting Leandra to Nada’s tender mercies. Any scheme of hers would probably involve killing me too.
The cop’s face looked even flintier than before. “I’ll have to run a registration check. Are you the owner of the vehicle?”
“No.”
“Who is?”
I hesitated, a shade too long, and he stepped back.
“Please get out of the car.” There was no “madam” any more.
Panic bloomed in my chest. Could I take him down? He was a highway patrolman. Unlikely to be a crack shot.
I got out, shaking all over. The rush of passing traffic buffeted me. God—why was I even thinking like this? I couldn’t attack a policeman.
The air still reeked of smoke—or maybe that was me. I was hot and dirty and spattered with blood. Mostly other people’s. His eyes widened as he took in my dishevelled appearance, and his hand crept closer to his gun.
“You say you were fighting a bushfire?” Clearly he wasn’t buying that story.
My heart hammered so loudly I was sure he could hear it, but I moved closer, watching his gun hand out of the corner of my eye.
“Stand still!”
I froze. A door slammed behind me as Garth levered himself out of the car.
“You stay right there!” the cop snarled, and now the gun was in his hand.
Garth was a big solid guy, and looked even more disreputable than I, but I could tell from the way he leaned on the car’s roof he wasn’t going to be any use in a fight.
The cop retreated to his car, never taking his eyes off us, and reached in for the radio. Calling for backup. I closed my eyes.
I didn’t have time for this.
“Officer!” I caught his gaze with mine. Easy does it. He still had the gun. “I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding.”
I stepped forward, forcing my will on him, moulding him to the proper subservience. Slowly the gun hand drifted to his side.
“A misunderstanding.”
“That’s right. You’re sorry you stopped us. My friend needs a doctor.”
He blinked like a man waking from sleep and offered a slow smile. “Of course, madam. You’d better get your friend to hospital. He looks a mess. Would you like a police escort?”
“No thanks, officer. We’ll be fine.”
“You take care, then.” He watched us get back into the car, still smiling. In a few minutes he’d be wondering why he was standing on the side of the road in the middle of the night holding his gun.
Humans. So easy to manipulate.
Sudden fury surged through me—
—and I was back. That bitch. She’d taken me over again. I pulled out into the traffic. My hands were shaking. The crack she’d made in the steering wheel snagged at my palms.
Garth gave me a lazy grin. “Obi-Wan would be proud.”
“Easy for you to laugh, you stupid lunk. You’re not the one driving without a licence.”
Or the one being shoved out of your own head by some dragon parasite. How the hell did she keep doing that? There was no sign of her presence now, but that was no guarantee she’d stay buried. At least she’d done some good this time, using her fancy mind control tricks on the poor cop.
I followed the tail lights of the car in front, careful not to speed. We needed to be far away before he came back to his senses, but I didn’t want to attract any more attention. I changed lanes a few times, weaving my way through the other cars, trying to lose us in the crowd. At least we were driving a white sedan and not something that stood out more.
“Kate?” Garth’s expression had turned serious.
“Yes?”
“You’re back?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, I’m back.”
And he’d better not be disappointed his mistress was gone, because I was going to fight to keep her out. This was my body, dammit, and she had no right to it.
“Why did she want you to swallow the c
hannel stone? Do you know?”
Yes, I knew. I knew a hell of a lot more about dragons than I ever wanted to. They were vile. A bunch of egotistical murderous users, the lot of them.
“She thought if it was part of my body, she could use it to transfer her consciousness to me. She hoped to throw me out of my own body and take over.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. She seemed to be getting better at it all the time, and it scared me. “It was a gamble, but she had nothing to lose—she was dying anyway. Too bad about my life. I guess dragons aren’t big on considering other people.”
We stopped at a set of traffic lights and I glared across at him, daring him to defend his precious mistress. “She’s picked the wrong woman to mess with. I am not letting her win.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Have you ever heard of King’s?”
Garth gave me a funny look. “It’s a boys’ school for rich brats. Near Parramatta. Isn’t that where we’re going?”
I glanced across at him. Though he still leaned back against the headrest, he looked better, not quite so beat up. I could stop worrying his brain was about to leak out his ears—and the little pink nub that an hour ago had only been a proto-ear now almost matched the undamaged one. Of course, he was still smeared with blood and dirt, and sporting some serious gashes. He wouldn’t be getting into any swish hotels without a good wash and a clean set of clothes—but then, there weren’t likely to be too many fancy hotels in our immediate future.
“Well, that King’s, of course.” I’d even had Lachie’s name down there for high school. “I thought there might be some secret dragon place of the same name. Like Hogwarts for shapeshifters or something. Micah said Nada was going to King’s, but what would she be doing at an Anglican private school?”
“Probably stirring up trouble.” His face had a healthier colour now. He caught me looking at him and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “What are you staring at?”
“Just fascinated by werewolf physiology. Not so long ago you were half dead—but spend an hour relaxing in a car and look at you—a new man.”
“Being driven by you isn’t relaxing.”
The lights changed and I turned off the highway into the heart of Parramatta.
“And anyway, what’s the big deal? Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
“What do you mean?” I checked the rear vision mirror, thinking he was still complaining about my driving. No flashing lights.
“You think werewolves are such fast healers? What about dragons?”
He gestured at me, and I looked down, confused. “But I’m not …” I trailed off. When I’d got into the car my arms were throbbing lumps of tenderised meat, riddled with burns and blisters from flying embers. Somewhere along the way the pain had eased, and then I’d stopped noticing it altogether. Now I could see why. There wasn’t a single mark on my bare arms.
I sat at the lights outside the old wrought iron gates of Parramatta Park and turned my arms this way and that, staring at the smooth unblemished skin while a cold fear seeped into my bones. The car behind me honked. Oops—lights had changed.
“I’m not a dragon,” I said, uneasy now. Whatever I was, it clearly wasn’t human.
“Well, you heal like one.”
Did that mean Leandra was taking over? I felt a flutter of panic and swallowed hard, fighting it down. I had to stay in control.
“It’s not such a bad thing, you know. Being a shifter.”
The look on his face was almost sympathetic. Garth? Being nice to me? He must have been injured worse than I thought.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have someone trying to force you out of your own body.”
“Sometimes it feels like that.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged. “The wolf is hard to control, you know? It makes me do things—well, things I wouldn’t have done before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I was bitten.”
Oh. Somehow I’d assumed he’d always been a werewolf. I sneaked a glance as we stopped at the lights outside the swimming pool, its car park dark and deserted now. On a day like today it would have been bursting with people earlier, all with nothing more to worry about than avoiding sunburn in the heat. Lucky bastards. Garth’s head was turned away, looking out at the night. A million questions hovered on my lips but that averted face suggested a lot of them mightn’t be welcome.
“But now you like being a wolf?” I ventured.
Another shrug. “Doesn’t matter, does it, whether I like it or not. That’s the way it is. You just have to deal with whatever life throws at you.”
A werewolf philosopher. Every girl should have one.
“So you’re suggesting I just deal with having a dragon parasite inside me? Let her take over? Oh, sure Leandra, you can have the body. What do I need it for? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d get your precious mistress back.”
He gave me a flat stare. “Not so precious. I doubt she would have hit that guy with a shovel to save me.”
Well, that was plain speaking. But how far would his gratitude go?
“Do you know of a way to get her out?”
“You must be joking. I’m just a wolf. I keep my head down and try to stay out of dragon business. Have you tried asking her?”
“No!” That came out a bit too forceful. I tried to speak normally. “I’m not going to invite her out. She takes over enough as it is without me asking for it.”
“In that case we’d better find this stone and hope Luce is right about it having some kind of message for us.”
That damn channel stone. I was pretty sure now there was no message. It had just been the means for Leandra to colonise my body. As to why she wanted it back so badly—it was safe to assume it wouldn’t be good news for Kate O’Connor.
What if I let it go, let Nada destroy it, or whatever she meant to do with it? Maybe Leandra would die off for real, and I wouldn’t be forced to share my body with her any more. I felt her surge inside me and fought her down again. Didn’t like that idea, did she?
But she’s part of you now, a little voice said. That same little voice which lived inside every mother and worried about every possible calamity. I knew from bitter experience that sometimes the voice was right to worry. What if killing her kills you too?
Garth still watched me. This time I saw sympathy in his eyes for sure. “I’m not your enemy, you know.”
“Says the guy who tried to eat me in my kitchen.”
That surprised a laugh out of him. “Told you—sometimes the wolf gets the better of me.”
We turned on to Pennant Hills Road. King’s was only a couple of kilometres further along. It was a huge place, set on over a hundred hectares of sprawling parklands, with every imaginable facility—theatres, sportsgrounds, even a fifty metre pool. A network of roads connected the various parts of the property. I’d come here for a tour when Lachie was still small, and the place was so big they’d loaded us into minibuses to ferry us around.
I’d been thinking what a wonderful opportunity it would be for Lachie. I hadn’t wanted him to board, naturally, though it was surprising how many people who lived in Sydney did board their boys, even if only on weekdays. But the school had a reputation for excellence, and I’d hoped we might have been able to afford to send Lachie there for high school. That was before the divorce, of course. Living as a single mum put such expensive dreams out of reach.
We turned in through the big sandstone gates and drove down to the main car park—there were several dotted around the campus. Not surprisingly, since it was nearly eleven o’clock at night, it was empty, so I kept going. Silent buildings loomed out of the dark as we made a circuit of the grounds.
After ten minutes I’d been down every side road and dead end, with no sign of Nada. A few lights burned in lonely windows, but apart from that we might have been the only people here. At any minute I expected a security vehicle to glide up behind us and demand t
o know what we were doing.
Back in the main car park I pulled in behind a row of bushes and cut the engine.
“Maybe she’s been and gone.”
“Or maybe she hasn’t arrived yet.” Garth got out and slammed his door.
I got out too and frowned around at the tree-lined roads and vast dark swathes of lawn.
“Why would Nada bring the channel stone here? Do you think there are other dragons here?”
“Could be. You find money, you find dragons—and there’s plenty of money here.”
“Micah said she was hunting something. I got the impression it wasn’t good news for Jason. She’s got a huge chip on her shoulder about Jason. Thinks he and I are in some big conspiracy against her.”
“Makes sense. She’s probably had her nose out of joint since the day he showed up. I mean, she’s been Valeria’s second since before the proving began. And then a dragon muscles in and tries to take over her role.” He popped the boot and pulled out a tyre iron. “She’s only a griffin—hard to compete with a dragon. Bet she’s been looking for a way to take him down from day one.”
I indicated the tyre iron. “What’s that for?”
“Something to persuade Nada to hand over the stone when we find her.”
“How are we going to find her?” If she was even here. I glanced around, hoping by some miracle to spot a brunette with a bad attitude coming my way. “This place is so big. We could wander round for hours and never see her. Can you … I don’t know … smell her or something?”
He gave me an impatient look and tapped the length of steel against his other palm. “Track her in a place like this, with a thousand people coming and going? Even wolves aren’t that good. Besides, I’m not even sure I remember her scent. We’re not exactly best buddies.”
Damn. Short of any better ideas, I started up the path to the nearest building that showed a light. My stomach coiled into uneasy knots. I was all too aware that time was ticking away. Maybe we’d be better off staking out the house at Mosman, hoping to catch her when she came back. And then what? Politely ask her to stop her car so we can belt her over the head with a tyre iron and take back the channel stone?
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