by D J DuMont
Willow had never felt so overwhelmed in her life. As she ran in and stood next to Locke’s slumped, moaning form, she had a hard time even telling where the attacks were coming from. Perhaps that’s because they were coming from everywhere. All she could see was a blaze of laser beams, burning in neon colors like lime green and hot pink. She felt like she was in some sort of weird arcade game, and she might have actually laughed at that thought if the situation hadn’t been so serious.
Willow had put up a protective magical shield around herself, and the shield was keeping her from being struck by the laser beams themselves. But the force of the beams hitting the shield was still enough to make her groan. If she survived this, she was going to have a heck of a lot of bruises tomorrow.
“Pertundo! Pertundo!” she yelled over and over. Her attack spells seemed to do a good job of holding back the attackers, at least. Whoever these people were, they did not seem to have any sort of magical abilities. Their protective clothing and shields didn’t do much to stop a magical attack, and so, Willow slowly made progress against them. It felt to her like there were hundreds of attackers, but in reality there were probably more like thirty—although they moved quickly. She had a hard time actually hitting them with a spell, but once she did, the attacker would fall instantly.
As more and more of them fell, the remaining attackers seemed to grow restless. They must have realized that they were fighting a losing battle. Willow stood protectively over Locke, finally feeling like she was actually doing a good job of saving him.
“Get back!” she screamed. “You can’t win! Pertundo!”
The remaining attackers, despite their obvious, growing fear, did not retreat. Willow grunted in frustration. Were they really going to make her fight all the way down to the last man? So be it, then. If that’s what she had to do, that’s what she would do. She kept her magic shield up, and kept throwing attack spells. She was growing tired, and it was getting harder to hold up the shield and throw attacks at the same time. But she was doing it. She was managing to stay on her feet and protect Locke.
And then, a loud sound that reminded Willow of a war horn filled the air. Suddenly, all of the attackers started to turn and flee. Someone had called them back into a retreat. Willow breathed a huge sigh of relief. Was it possible that this nightmare was actually over? But as she watched the attackers starting to whiz away, she found herself suddenly overcome with anger. Who did these people think they were, that they could just attack a group of kids? Perhaps they had thought that Willow and her fellow trainees were actual Dragon Heart Agents, not just trainees. But still, it was pretty low to try to kill a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year olds!
Angrily, Willow ran and hopped onto Cayenne. “Fly girl, fly!” Cayenne pumped her giant wings and rose into the air, flying as fast as she could. It didn’t take long for Willow to see that she stood no chance of catching up to the group of attackers. Cayenne flew faster than any of the other dragons, but she still couldn’t fly faster than a jetpack. Reluctantly, Willow told her dragon to turn around and head back to Locke.
Locke was sitting up when Cayenne landed next to him. Yarrow had limped over and was nuzzling Locke’s dirty, scratched face. Both Yarrow and Locke were covered in scratches, but other than minor surface wounds, they seemed fine. Locke’s uniform, which had been so pristine and impressive this morning, was torn in several places. But Locke himself was smiling sheepishly.
“Are you okay?” Willow asked him, her eyes searching for signs of any serious injuries that she might have missed. But Locke seemed fine.
“I’m alright. I guess I owe you one. Thanks for coming back for me.”
Willow sat next to him. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I have? You’re my team member. I’m actually a little angry that Anjali didn’t think it was necessary for us to save you instead before retreating ourselves.”
“Yeah, about that…”
Willow narrowed her eyes at Locke. “Okay, spit it out. What did you tell Anjali?”
“I, uh, may have told her that I was fine, and that I was about to get on Yarrow and ride off.”
Willow sighed. “You lied to her.”
“I know. But all I could think about was the fact that if I needed rescuing, I probably wouldn’t get the Golden Dragon Heart.”
“Yeah, well, you definitely wouldn’t get the Golden Dragon Heart if you were dead! Jeez, Locke, I know it’s important to you, but you can’t sacrifice your life or your teammates’ lives for something like that.”
“I know.” Locke hung his head, and he looked sorry enough that Willow decided to let it go.
“Well, anyway. You’re safe now. I don’t think we’ll be getting back to Anjali within the time limit, but I think she’ll forgive us for that, given the circumstances.”
Locke raised his head and his eyes darkened. “Yeah. She said that this wasn’t part of the practice mission. What was it, then?”
Willow shook her head. “I have no idea. But I think we should get back to Anjali as soon as we can. Who knows what other trouble is lurking out here. Someone must have thought we were on an actual Dragon Heart mission and attacked us because of that. Although I have no idea how they would have found us.”
Locke started to stand, but wobbled a bit and winced when he put weight on his left leg.
“Careful!” Willow said. “Do you think you can ride on Yarrow? That is, if Yarrow can even fly.”
“I think he’s fine, aren’t you boy?” Locke said, patting his dragon’s side. “He hurt his leg, but his wings are what are important for flying.”
Yarrow grunted in agreement and nuzzled Locke.
“Well, then,” Willow said. “Let’s get going.”
“Not quite yet. First we should search for any useful information these attackers might have left behind. Those jetpack-wing contraptions they were all wearing look like they had storage compartments in them. Maybe there’s something in the storage compartments that might be useful.”
Willow hesitated. “Shouldn’t we ask Anjali, first? She might prefer that we come straight back instead of spending more time here. Who knows when those guys might come back?”
Locke grinned and shrugged. “Anjali said the watches are only for emergencies, right? This isn’t an emergency situation at the moment. No one’s life is in danger. So I say we search the bodies.”
Reluctantly, Willow agreed. She didn’t like the idea of poking around a bunch of bodies, but Locke was right. They should try to get some useful information out of all of this. So she followed him, trying not to look at the faces of any of the fallen attackers as she struggled to open their jetpacks.
But the jetpacks weren’t so easy to open. Willow tried several different jetpacks, and used several different unlocking spells. But only one jetpack cracked open for her. She was so surprised when it did open that she yelped and jumped backwards. Locke looked up.
“Did you get one?” he asked.
Willow nodded. “The inside is just full of wires and stuff.”
“Let me see.” Locke came over and peered in. “We should take the whole thing back to Anjali. The Dragon Heart leaders and the CIA will probably want to take a look at this.”
As if she somehow knew they were talking about her, Anjali’s voice suddenly came squeaking over Willow’s watch.
“Willow! Why does your GPS locater show you haven’t moved since I told you to get out of there twenty minutes ago? What’s going on?”
“Uh, I’m fine. The attackers are gone, and Locke is alright. We’re about to head out.”
“You’d better be gone within the next three minutes. We’ve got a team of Master Dragon Heart Agents coming in to check on things. They’ll handle the situation. You just get yourselves back here to safety.”
“Roger that,” Willow said. Then she looked at Locke and shrugged. “I guess we need to leave.”
He grinned and held up the jetpack, with its wires hanging out in messy tangles now. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take t
his with us, though, would it?”
Willow grinned back at him. “I guess not.”
They both hopped onto their dragons and took off, barely clearing the treetops before a huge explosion sounded out below them. Startled, Willow looked down to see the whole area where the attack had been now engulfed in flames. She looked over at Locke to see him staring down as well. Then he looked back at her.
“Someone must have set off some sort of self-destruct sequence,” he said. “Let’s just hope this little jetpack doesn’t have its own self-destruct feature as well.”
Then he laughed, and urged Yarrow to fly faster. Willow shook her head. Locke might act foolishly sometimes, but no one could say he was a coward. For all of their sakes, she hoped the jetpack he was carrying didn’t self-destruct.
She’d realized that, despite everything, she would have missed having Locke as a classmate if anything had happened to him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Willow hadn’t expected to be greeted by the sight of dozens of dragons and at least twice as many black armored vehicles when the dragon stables near Birch Point came back into view. In retrospect, it made sense. A major attack on four Dragon Heart trainees had just taken place. Something sinister was happening, and the CIA and Dragon Heart leadership wanted to know what it was.
Willow herself had a thousand questions, but she didn’t have a chance to ask any of them before she was whisked away. She wasn’t even given time to properly say goodbye to Cayenne. Sam took over caring for the dragon as soon as Willow’s feet touched the ground outside the dragon stables, and two Dragon Heart Agents grabbed Willow and started marching her toward the main Dragon Heart training facility.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Locke being grabbed by two agents as well. He proudly gave them the jetpack with all its wires hanging out, but they didn’t seem impressed. They took the jetpack and started escorting Locke right along with Willow.
“Where are we going?” Willow asked, feeling indignant now. Who did these people think they were, shoving and pushing her around without so much as a hello? Just because she was a trainee didn’t mean they could forgo manners completely!
But the two agents leading her had no interest in manners, or in answering her questions.
“Anjali will come talk to you soon. Our orders are only to get you to your room,” one of the agents said gruffly.
“My room?” Willow asked. But no one answered. She didn’t have to wonder long, though. Once they were back in the main building, the agents deposited her in the same bedroom where she’d spent the night after first discovering that dragons and magic existed. That night seemed like such a long time ago now, even though it had only been about ten months.
The agents gave her strict orders not to leave the room, and then left her there. Locke was presumably taken to some other quarters, although Willow didn’t actually see where they went with him. Dejected, she went to sit on the bed, and saw that fresh clothes had been laid out for her. There was also a small toiletry bag filled with her shampoo, shower gel, toothbrush, and toothpaste. Someone, probably Anjali, had gone over to her room in the Birch Point Academy dorm and packed up some of her clothes and things for her. Willow should have been grateful, but instead she felt a little angry. Why were they snooping through her stuff and then throwing her in here with no explanation?
Willow was tempted not to touch any of the clothes or toiletries out of spite, but in the end her wish for a long, hot shower got the better of her. She stripped off her dirty, torn uniform and spent a long time under the hot stream of water in the bathroom that was adjoined to the bedroom. She lathered up her body and hair, and let the warm water wash away the dirt of the day. Then she went to get dressed, pulling on the long-sleeved t-shirt and pair of jeans that had been brought over. When she pulled on the jeans, she felt something crinkling in the pockets. Curious, she reached in, expecting to find some sort of candy wrapper left over from when she last wore these jeans. Instead, she found a small sheet of paper folded over several times. Willow unfolded it to see that it was covered with handwriting she would have recognized anywhere.
“Alexis. You rascal. You managed to get me a note without anyone else seeing it.”
Smiling despite everything, Willow sat down on the bed and started reading.
Dear Willow, I have no idea what’s going on, and this has to be quick because I can’t let Anjali see me. She made up some random excuse for needing your stuff, but I’m worried about you. I just wanted to let you know that if you need anything from me or there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here for you. No questions asked. Seriously. No questions. Xoxo, A.
Willow’s smile deepened. With all the craziness of this year, Willow had lucked out on a lot of things, including her roommate. She couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Alexis.
But the note made her feel a little sad, too. Was this what the rest of her life was going to be like? Not able to tell her friends and family about what she was really doing? And always being kept in the dark herself by the leaders at the Dragon Heart Agency?
Willow frowned and tore the note from Alexis into tiny pieces. Then, she went and flushed all of the pieces down the toilet. She hoped the paper wouldn’t ruin the plumbing, but it was only a small amount, and she didn’t want Alexis to get into trouble.
For the next several hours, Willow paced back and forth in her room, thinking that at any moment someone would come explain things to her. But as the clock inched forward, she started to grow angrier and think it was never going to happen. She peeked out the window, and saw guards and armored vehicles everywhere, but nothing to give her any other clue as to why she had been shut away in here. She tried to push the purple call button that she’d used to call Anjali the first night she’d stayed here, but no one answered her call. Once, she even tried to leave the room, thinking that maybe in all the chaos she’d been left unguarded. Of course, that was not the case. Right outside the door, a guard waited to politely let her know that she needed to stay in her room for the time being.
And so she stayed, and stayed and stayed. She thought a lot about what had happened that day, and wondered if Sylvie and Cara were also prisoners in a room down the hall from her. She also thought about her dad. She tried to push him out of her mind, but it was impossible.
She wondered what he would think if he knew she was being held here like some sort of hostage. She wondered if he was still alive, or if he knew anything about the group that had attacked her. She wondered if she would ever be able to convince anyone at the Dragon Heart Agency to help her look for him.
Willow was tempted many times to throw in the towel and announce that she wanted to quit. Her memory would be wiped, and she could go back to a normal, quiet life. The idea had some appeal, but she knew in her heart she would never do it. She had been awarded the virtue of loyalty, after all. For better or for worse, she was going to be loyal to this Dragon Heart Program. Besides, she couldn’t imagine giving up her magical powers. Not really. She had struggled to master them, but she still believed deep down that she could do great things with her powers.
And she still believed her father was out there. She couldn’t quit. Not while there was still a chance to save him, however small that chance might be.
And so, with these thoughts swirling in her head, Willow passed the late afternoon and then the evening. Finally, she fell asleep on the bed without even pulling the covers back. She didn’t want to settle in. She wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice when Anjali came for her.
Just after five-thirty a.m., Anjali came. A knock on the door startled Willow out of her restless sleep, and she heard Anjali’s voice drifting in from the other side of the thick wood.
“Willow, are you awake? Can I come in? I have news of your father.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Willow rubbed the sleep from her eyes as Anjali walked over to open the thick purple curtains and let the gray light of dawn into the room. Willow herself stayed o
n the bed and waited, trying to appear calm. On the inside, though, her heart was pounding. She wanted to demand that Anjali spit out whatever news she had immediately, but she also feared that the news wouldn’t be good. If her father had been found dead, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She’d almost rather go on living in blissful ignorance, spending the rest of her life with the vague hope that he might still turn up one day.
“He’s alive,” Anjali said abruptly, as though she’d been able to read Willow’s thoughts.
Willow gasped, and her heart went from plummeting in despair to soaring with hope. She had the same sort of strange sensation one gets from being jerked up, down, and around on a rollercoaster.
“He’s been captured, though, by an enemy we didn’t even know existed until yesterday.”
Willow’s heart plummeted again. She grabbed a handful of bed sheets to try to steady herself. “Was it the same group that attacked us yesterday?”
“Yes.”
Anjali bent to open a large messenger bag that Willow hadn’t even noticed she’d been carrying. She pulled out a large manila folder, and handed it to Willow. “These are printouts of just a few of the records we found encrypted into a hard drive contained by the jetpack you and Locke brought back yesterday. The hard drive contained mostly older documents. In fact, only a handful of documents were newer than a year old, and none were newer than six months. Still, these older documents actually gave us a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with.”
Willow flipped the folder open. On the first page was a portrait of a stern, ugly man wearing some sort of military uniform. The man’s eyebrow was arched into a skeptical expression, and Willow shuddered at the underlying sinister feel in his gaze.
“Who’s this?” she asked, holding the portrait up.
“That is Stein Viker. He is head of an organization known as the Dark Sparks, which we didn’t know about until yesterday.”
“The Dark Sparks?”