by Eileen Wilks
When he looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes briefly, he was a proud papa surveying his brood. “We all know what our jobs are in Operation Retrieval. Most of you can go on to your regular jobs for now. Sharon, Chuck, Greg—please remain. I have some additional instructions for you.”
BREAKING NEWS ALERT
BREAKING NEWS Saturday, July 23 11:07 AM EDT
DRAGONS BREAK THEIR SILENCE, SPEAK AS ONE
Governors of fourteen U.S. states, as well as the leaders of China, France, and Italy, report being mentally contacted by the dragons in their regions. The contacts appear to have taken place either simultaneously or within a very short time span. All of the dragons made the same announcement. They denied that Mika, the missing Washington, D.C., dragon, bears any responsibility for the mysterious fires in Virginia and West Virginia.
The dragons warned against any attempt to seize or harm the red dragon or otherwise violate her current lair, stating that this would be an “irredeemable breach” of the Dragon Accords which would nullify the Accords in their entirety.
While the content of the announcement appears to have been consistent with each recipient, some leaders reported additional statements from their dragons. The Chinese president, Chen Wei, stated that the dragons are extremely angry with the United States. French Prime Minister Nicolas Bellamy said that Le Érudit, as the Paris dragon is known in his country, is very reluctant to leave France, but he would have no choice if the Accords were breached. Prime Minister Bellamy urged the U.S. to act with extreme caution and restraint.
The fires the dragons referred to took place in Virginia and West Virginia earlier today. All three fires are now out. One person died in the fire at the Roanoke, Virginia, plant; two were injured at the Monticello blaze, one of whom remains in critical condition. No injuries took place at the fire near Lewisburg, West Virginia.
While no witnesses have reported seeing who or what caused the fires, the FAA has confirmed that radar sightings of bogeys took place at all three fires at or near the moment of combustion. The bogeys were too large to be drones and flew too low for most conventional aircraft; experts say that their manner of flight was inconsistent with any known type of aircraft. Prior to the dragons’ announcement, many officials had been attributing the attacks to the missing Washington, D.C., dragon, because of the size of the bogeys and their motion, which suggests winged flight. Eric Ellison of Homeland Security has reiterated that claim, pointing out that the inability of witnesses to see anything supports that conclusion. Dragons are known to be able to go unseen.
Officials speaking off the record indicate that the president is meeting with officials from multiple departments, and that she does not intend to act precipitously.
FORTY-ONE
AFTER the brief ceremony, Rule lounged on the mossy ground of the village green, propped up on one elbow. He loved the smell of moss. The entire reservation smelled good, but the scents were especially welcoming here. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the moment as any warrior must in the pause before battle.
He drew in his mate’s scent along with the moss. Lily sat next to him, writing in her spiral notebook. Making a record of what had just taken place.
Along with those scents were many more . . . brownies, of course. Not a lot of them, since many of them were busy. They might have started out frantically trying keep him from learning about the eggs, but now that those eggs were threatened, they were his enthusiastic supporters. He was coordinating their defense with an old brownie called Codger. “You see,” he’d told Rule when they met, “when Gandalf changed her name, I decided I would, too. Keeps things even between us.”
“You’re Gandalf’s husband?”
Green eyes nested in fine wrinkles had opened wide in astonishment. “Well, of course!”
“And you’re in charge of the reservation’s defense?”
“No, I just tell them what to do. I’m not as bossy as Gandalf,” he said with pride, “but I do okay.”
Rule also smelled lupi. His lupi. Leidolf. Ten more of his men—all fighters—had found their way to the reservation, giving him a force of fifteen. They sat or stood nearby, chatting with each other or simply waiting. Lupi knew how to wait—unlike brownies, who were no good at it at all. If a brownie wasn’t sleeping, he was doing—working, walking, talking, playing. Most of the ones nearby were playing tag.
Amid their shrieks and laughter he could hear the television in what Harry called the TV place. Rule had asked them to turn up the sound so he could keep track of the news. He kept half an ear on that while they waited for Gandalf. All the newspeople now referred to Mika as “she,” just as Danny had done earlier. No one noticed that this was not the pronoun they’d used for the red dragon in the past.
Rule had decided to think about what that meant later. He had enough to juggle mentally right now.
They’d called Fagin before Danny left. What the old scholar told them confirmed what they both suspected. Dragon scales were mentioned in numerous references to potions and spells—including the more credible accounts of potions that purported to increase a spellcaster’s power. Due to the dragons’ long absence from Earth, their eggs were more a matter of myth than historical record, but Fagin was confident that they would be even more potent than the scales.
All the great-mothers and many of the mothers were now at the tunnels with Mika—singing to her, Lily said. Gandalf had promised to come listen to Rule’s proposals soon, but it was hard to know what a brownie considered “soon.” Many of the brownies weren’t in the reservation at all. They were acting as scouts. If some kind of military or police buildup occurred nearby, Rule would learn about it quickly. They were keeping watch even though most of them thought there was little danger. The bad government people didn’t know where Mika was. Even if they did somehow learn that, now that the dragons had made their joint announcement, the Big People wouldn’t dare act. And if they acted anyway, the wards would stop them.
The brownies were wrong. Rule was convinced of that. The fires had taken place in what was nearly a straight line leading to the reservation, with the last one less than an hour’s drive away. Rule didn’t know how Smith had learned where Mika was. According to Lily, one of the Gifted children was a Finder; maybe, in Mika’s current condition, she’d been unable to prevent the child from Finding her. Or maybe the sorcerer had some secret knowledge about how to find dragons. Whatever the means, Smith knew where Mika was, and he knew about the wards because everyone did. Which meant he had a way to get past them.
And the dragons’ announcement? It had bought them time, that was all. The government wouldn’t be eager to send troops to deal with a supposed rogue dragon when they risked having all the other dragons quit their jobs as magic sponges. No one wanted tech to start crashing regularly the way it had after the Turning, and without the dragons soaking up excess magic, it would.
They risked a lot more than that, though Rule doubted they were aware of it.
But Edward Smith was a fanatic. He’d do whatever it took to turn the tide in his direction. Rule was very much afraid they’d hear about an atrocity soon. A daycare burned, or a school, or a major shopping center. Something that forced the government to act. When they did, they’d use massive strength. No bombs, because Smith wanted the eggs. Ground troops of some sort.
And Rule had fifteen men.
Still, if fifteen men weren’t enough, fourteen would have been little worse. He should have sent Little John with Mike and Danny. Demi. Dammit, he was sticking with Danny for now. If she . . .
A finger poked him in the ribs. “Hey. You’re doing it again.”
He looked up at Lily. “Doing what?”
“Worrying.”
Lily shouldn’t have been able to tell. It didn’t show on his face or in his body. He knew how to make sure of that. “I don’t like sending a child to do an adult’s job.”
She nodded. “I can’t promise that she’ll be okay, but she’s better off away from here.
If Smith uses Nicky . . .”
He sighed and sat up. “I know.”
Lily had made that point earlier, when they were arguing about whether to send Danny to D.C. Lily had drawn Rule aside and pointed out quietly that Danny’s friend Nicky might be part of the attack they expected. How better to kill a dragon than from a distance? Danny didn’t need to see her friend kill. She didn’t need to see what might happen to Nicky, either. Rule had promised to help the children, but he’d left himself a back door, hadn’t he? He’d vowed to help them if he could do so without “undue loss of life.”
If Nicky killed Mika, the number of lives lost would be undue as hell. Rule didn’t know what form the other dragons’ anger would take, but Sam had spoken of widespread disaster, death, and destruction. That was probably as good a description as any. He understood the last part of Sam’s message very well now.
When the attack comes, Lily must lead your side, Sam had said. And: She is Unit Twelve. The government must . . .
The rest had been lost to distance, but Rule had figured out what Sam meant. To keep the Accords from being broken, those with official authority who acted against Mika had to be stopped by someone with greater official authority. In effect, the government must stop itself, or even the attempt to violate Mika’s lair would break the Accords.
Unit 12 agents were way up on the official authority ladder. They could, in an emergency, issue orders to the military. And as Sam had pointed out, Lily was Unit 12.
So, too, were Rule and his men now. She’d just sworn them in.
Not that anyone would take his word for it. That wasn’t the point. Legally, they now had the necessary authority, so whatever actions they took to halt an attack on Mika would be done in the name of the government.
Rule was hoping—they were all hoping—those actions would be limited to getting Lily to whatever officer was in charge of the force sent to kill or capture Mika. That officer shouldn’t doubt Lily’s authority—her face had been all over the news—and would have to comply with her orders.
Danny’s friend Nicky was another story. He might not be with the troops or under the command of whoever led those troops. How do you stop someone who kills from a distance? First you had to find them. They had no idea how close Nicky needed to be to his target, and that was only one of—
“Lilyu!” one of the brownies called, running toward them with a mobile phone in his hands. It was the smallest phone on the market, but still looked huge in the brownie’s hands. “Felix Thompson wants to talk to you.”
With Danny gone, they’d lacked a way to make secure phone calls. That, it turned out, was easy to solve once the brownies realized what they wanted. Brownies loved cell phones almost as much as they loved chocolate—and dul-dul, he’d been informed, worked on phones.
“Ah . . . how?” Rule had asked one of the brownies who’d told him. “I thought dul-dul didn’t work on sound.”
Dilly had giggled. “There’s still sound, silly. You have to be able to hear each other, or why call? Dul-dul’s for hiding, so it hides the call. No one can listen in because they can’t find the call.”
Rule had tried to translate that explanation into what he knew about electronic eavesdropping. He’d come up dry, but the brownies were certain of their ability to hide calls. He and Lily had decided to take them at their word.
The little brownie with the phone climbed into Lily’s lap and held it to her face. He had to keep the phone in his hands to make the dul-dul work. “Mr. Thompson?” Lily said. “This is Special Agent Lily Yu. Thank you for calling me back.”
“Curiosity is my downfall sometimes. When my voice mail included a message from someone claiming to be the missing FBI agent, I had to call.”
“Did you honor my request not to tell anyone?”
“I did, but before we continue, I need some kind of proof that you are who you say you are.”
Lily’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s reasonable, but I’m not sure how . . . ah, hold on a moment.” She covered the tiny phone with one hand. “Can you hide text messages, too?” she asked the brownie.
He could. Lily dug out her ID and held it up to her face. The brownie took her picture and sent it to Felix Thompson—the expert Ruben had recommended days ago when she wanted information about telekinesis. A moment later, he called again. The brownie answered, then held up the phone for Lily to talk. “Your secretary has a very high-pitched voice,” he said when Lily greeted him again.
She grinned. “I suppose so. I need to ask you some questions about TK.”
“Shoot.”
“You know that I’m a touch sensitive?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ve encountered magic recently which feels very similar to TK, but not identical. I’m told this magic came from someone with a Gift that allows him to use pure force—and that force can be shaped into a weapon. He can’t pick up a spoon with it, but he can batter someone or shape the force into a blade that cuts.”
“Oh, sure. I’ve run into a couple people like that. It’s still TK, but the person got only part of the skill set that usually comes with the Gift. See, all TK is force. That’s how we move objects around, by applying force to them. Most TK’ers experience our Gift kinetically, as if this force were a physical part of us that can reach out and pick things up. Like it’s a hand, usually, though I’ve met one guy who said it felt like a tentacle. Creepy, if you ask me. The people who get the half-assed version—it’s like they have an arm without a hand. They can use it to whack away, but they can’t grip things. The funny thing is that they’re a lot stronger than most TK’ers. The two I’ve met were anyway. I don’t know why that would be so, but those guys had a lot of power. Not much control, but lots of power.”
“And they could shape this force into a blade?”
“I don’t think the guys I met could, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It probably wouldn’t be easy. That form of the Gift is hard to control. But with practice, sure, someone might learn to do that. Shoot, I could probably learn how myself, if I wanted to spend the time and effort. A hand’s a lot more useful, though.”
“That’s a big help.” Lily was jotting notes madly. “Another question. I’ve been told that a TK-Gifted has to see an object to use TK on it. Is that so?”
“Absolutely. The Gift is triggered by vision. If I close my eyes, I can’t use my Gift. Same if I’m in a really dark room. I can’t use TK on an object unless I can see it. I can’t use it at all if it’s too dark to see. Funny, isn’t it, that I experience TK kinetically, but it’s triggered visually? But that’s how it is. And it’s not just me. Every TK’er I’ve ever met is the same way.”
Lily exchanged a quick glance with Rule. “Including the ones who only got half the skill set?”
“Sure.”
Lily asked a few more questions, narrowing down how well he had to be able to see to use his Gift. Finally she thanked him for his time, disconnected, and thanked the little brownie for the use of his phone. He giggled and jumped out of her lap, phone in both hands.
She looked at Rule. “That was interesting.”
“It means we probably don’t have to worry about Smith sending Nicky against Mika at night.” But there were hours of daylight left, so that wasn’t entirely reassuring.
“Probably.” Her fingers tapped on her thigh. “I keep wondering how Nicky could have seen the homeless man clearly enough to kill him. Or the victims in Whistle, for that matter, though I don’t have much information on those murders. Maybe he stood right in front of them, but he didn’t stand in front of the first victim.”
“Was he the first?”
“Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.” She was quiet for several moments. “There’s no motive for killing the homeless guy, is there? Unless he was practice.”
“An ugly possibility, but logical. You don’t go into battle using a weapon you’ve never tested.”
“So maybe there were other victims involved in getting that weapon tested a
nd ready. Seems like I read about a body or bodies . . . I can’t recall the details, dammit. But on the way to Whistle I read up on recent events in the area, and I know there was something about another unexplained death.”
Rule nodded, frowning. “Have you ever touched someone with two Gifts?”
“Other than Cullen, you mean?”
“Other than him, yes. I’m wondering if it’s possible Nicky has a minor secondary Gift. A farseer could peer around the corner in order to target someone with TK.”
“Danny would’ve told us.”
“Maybe she didn’t notice. We don’t know how strong her Gift is.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine missing something like that. Farseeing feels nothing like TK. I suppose, if she didn’t know how TK is supposed to feel, she might not realize she was feeling two Gifts instead of one, but . . .” She shook her head, then glanced at her watch. “It seems unlikely, but it’s nearly time for me to check in with her anyway. I’ll ask.”
Rule watched as Lily’s eyes lost focus and drifted closed. It fascinated him, this new ability of hers. And frustrated him. He had no way of sharing it with her, no way to really understand what she experienced. Did she feel that way about his ability to Change?
Dumb question. Of course she did.
She still hadn’t reached Danny. At least he didn’t think so; her lips hadn’t moved. She’d gone from needing to vocalize to needing only to physically shape the words she sent, leaving them unvoiced. He frowned. It seemed to be taking a—
Lily swayed and started to topple over.
Rule caught her. “Lily!”
Her eyes popped open. “Whoa.” She blinked several times.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Dizzy, though. Give me a minute.” She closed her eyes. After a moment her posture firmed up and her eyes opened again.