Dragon Coast (28 page)

“Dawdling is death,” he said, and he hurried the team along the two miles to Treasure Island.

The tunnel terminated at a marble staircase with an iron gate at the top. They hunkered on the top step and looked out through the bars. They'd surfaced about a hundred feet away from the Cavalcade of the Golden West building. Dominating a weed-cracked courtyard rose a monumental statue of a woman, at least eighty feet tall. She had a strong carved face reminiscent of an Easter Island moia mixed with classical features. A great span of dragon wings spread from her back. This had to be Pacifica, goddess of the Pacific. Gabriel's mother had told him of this monstrous creature who devoured one hundred osteomancers every day. She was said to be patterned on the Northern Hierarch.

A guard with a rifle slung over his shoulder paced around the base of the statue.

Cassandra screwed together a length of pipe and poked it between the bars. She put it to her lips, and blew a strong puff of air. The guard let out a small squeal and put a hand on his neck before sinking to his knees. He fell forward on his face.

Cassandra made quick work of the gate with bolt cutters, and they were on the island.

Sniffing the air, Max motioned for Gabriel and Cassandra to come away from the tunnel. They sprinted across the courtyard and gathered at the feet of the statue.

“It's this way,” Max said, pointing across a field to a long building standing in a tangle of neglected brush. It might have been a factory or a massive barracks, but more likely, it was one of the fair exhibition pavilions.

Max's face shone with sweat, and his breathing was labored.

Gabriel put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Max? Your face looks like cookie dough.”

“Don't you smell that?”

“The dragon?”

“Yes, the dragon,” he snapped. “How can you not smell it?”

“Plug your nose and keep quiet,” Cassandra whispered. Then, she seemed to notice Max was suffering. She reached for her med kit. “What's wrong?”

“The magic's hitting him hard,” Gabriel said. “It does that sometimes. He'll be okay. Max, drink some water.” He offered Max his canteen, but Max pushed it away, splashing water on Gabriel's shirt.

“We shouldn't have come here,” Max said, gasping. “Why did you ever think you could tame a dragon? It's not an animal. It's a god. It's
burning
me, Gabriel.”

“We need to get him away from here,” Cassandra said.

She was right, of course. Gabriel had seen Max stricken by the presence of strong magic, but never like this. His eyelids fluttered, and his breaths came in short, ragged gasps.

“All right,” Gabriel said. “All right. Max, back into the tunnel, back under the bay.”

“No,” Max murmured.

“You're no good to me like this. And I can go the rest of the way on my own.” He looked at Cassandra. “Take him.”

Gabriel felt rather shitty right now. Of course he was worried about Max. But that wasn't why he was telling Cassandra to get Max away from the thick magic overtaking him. He wanted
her
out of the way. He
needed
her out of the way. He couldn't have her interfering when he tried to take control of the dragon.

 

TWENTY-FOUR

There were lots of buttons and buckles in places that couldn't be reached without assistance, and Daniel had to rely on Moth to help him get dressed. The jacket was black as nothing, with silver epaulets and braids and stiff collar tabs, padded and cut in a way that gave Daniel an actual physique.

“Where did all these clothes come from, anyway?” he said, as Moth puzzled out complicated cuff fasteners.

“Your closets. Your tailors. Your seamstresses.”

“I have tailors and seamstresses?”

“You even have a valet. But I sent him on vacation to the wine country. I'm not letting anyone get close enough to you to insert pins.”

Daniel examined himself in the full-length mirror. It was framed in bone, just because. “Look at us. We're so fancy.”

Moth was similarly dressed in a simpler version of Daniel's black with silver doodads. “This hasn't been such a bad gig in some ways. I like the threads and the nice cheeses and booze. I'm going to miss this life when it's done.”

“We've come a long way from scams and heists and doing incredibly dangerous and ill-advised things to take something that doesn't belong to us.”

Moth snorted.

Their first heist together had been a complicated operation to steal beer from the back of Kelly's Liquor on Centinela and Venice. They'd spent two days planning it: staggered entrance, a diversion involving Moth knocking over a jerky display, the snatch of one six-pack, and an exit that required running like hell with the beer tucked under Daniel's arm. As jobs had a tendency to do, this one went to shit. Daniel got caught and Otis had to bribe a cop to get him out of the back of the squad boat. If he'd ended up being taken to jail as Sebastian Blackland's fugitive son, he might have found himself dead and deboned in less than twenty-four hours.

Daniel reached up high to pluck lint off Moth's shoulder. “In case I haven't said it, thanks. Not just for this job. Or even for the last year of chasing after Sam. But for all of it. You know? From day one. I couldn't ask for a better friend.”

“That's it? A friend? What about brother? Am I not more like a brother? I would have said brother, if I were the one getting all goopy.”

“I killed my brother.”

“Friend is okay, then. Friend is fine. Now stop being morbid and let's go get you your promotion.”

“Wish we could delay this.” Daniel hadn't gotten word yet from Cassandra or Gabriel. Either they still hadn't located the dragon, or else they had but couldn't get word to him for some reason. Which meant that Daniel would have to snatch the
axis mundi
and escape the palace, and then lay low for an undetermined period of time.

More risk.

“Nothing we can do about the schedule,” Moth said, dour. He was just as worried about Cassandra as Daniel was.

Daniel checked his pockets for the last time. The counterfeit
axis mundi
. His old and reliable thief's tools. Altogether, fewer than five ounces of metal and bone, upon which Sam's life depended.

*   *   *

Not until he entered the main throne room did Daniel appreciate the Hierarch's genius. Walls of glass could be cold, but here, lit by fires in braziers, the grand hall was a symphony of color. The oranges and reds were primordial fire. The greens and golds, forests of spring and autumn. The blues were all the colors of water, from tropics to arctic seas, and the ceiling seemed to change with every flicker, from pristine blue sky to the blackness between the stars. The Hierarch's throne room had become the universe.

Atop her throne, the Hierarch presided over her world like a god. She sat perched on a pillar of skulls, with claws and vertebrae and armored plates hanging on the walls in her orbit, as if she were the sun. She was dressed in an emerald gown and a crown of black griffin teeth, elegant and simple, but undeniably rich. Across her lap lay her sword, and in her right hand, she gripped the slender golden
axis mundi
scepter. The bone set in its crest gleamed darkly in the flames.

“Thought she'd come in last to make an entrance,” Daniel said to Moth.

“The throne room is her world. Here, she's eternal. You're supposed to believe she was present long before you arrived and will be here long after you're gone. Kitchen assistant told me that.”

Daniel tried to make eye contact with her, to show that he had nothing to hide, but she seemed to look through and beyond him.

Lord General Creighton stood at attention at the foot of the Hierarch's throne, and despite all the medals festooning his coat, he looked more like her receptionist than her consort. To be fair, Daniel supposed anyone in proximity to her would suffer by comparison.

The competing candidates for the High Grand Osteomancer's office took to different corners of the chamber.

Allaster, in the red and black colors of the Doring family, was there with his retinue of courtiers, happily chatting, a confident star quarterback before the big game. He gave Daniel a quick smile and pointed at him in greeting, then turned his attention back to his pals.

“He's so cool,” Moth muttered.

Daniel didn't fault Allaster for it. He could only envy his ability to stay relaxed at a time like this. Or his ability to fake it.

Even Professor Cormorant was dressed smart, in purple and gold academic garb. He mingled with his flock of gray-haired companions, fluttering in their voluminous sleeves. Daniel couldn't hear them from across the room, but it seemed like they were pestering him with free advice and getting rebuffed.

Cormorant winced a smile at Daniel across the room. Daniel gave him a wave.

Cynara was the last to enter, in a long coat of brilliant scarlet that rivaled the Hierarch's flame-and-magma glass effects. She had paired it with a simple black button-down shirt and narrow-cut pants tucked into boots. Daniel admired her outfit. She looked smashing in it, and the coat could be easily shed for freedom of movement. He suddenly felt encumbered.

Ethelinda's governess led a procession in red plate armor, followed by twelve of Cynara's household. None carried weapons—the only blade in sight belonged to the Hierarch—but Cynara's private guard didn't need weapons. Daniel smelled lethal magic on them. Coming to a precision halt behind Cynara, they separated just enough to give Daniel a view of Ethelinda. His heart sank. If Cynara challenged him, he would have to fight her. At least when he'd killed Ethelinda's father, she wasn't there to witness it.

The flames in the braziers lowered and the room changed, like theater house lights dimming to signal the show was starting. Only a single beam of red remained, projecting from the Hierarch. Murmuring ceased. Court observers took their places in seats around the room's perimeter.

“This is my cue,” Moth whispered in Daniel's ear. “I gotta go stand with the other toadies. I'll make sure I'm right by the door. When you're done, get over to me as quick as you can. Don't get killed.”

This was basically a summation of all their jobs: Do a thing, get out quick, don't die. Over the course of Daniel's career this plan had succeeded only to a limited degree.

Once everyone else had taken their places, the Hierarch's light expanded to bathe Daniel, Cynara, Allaster, and Cormorant in its blood-tinged glow.

“The candidates will approach,” Lord Creighton called out.

Daniel joined the others to stand before the throne. The Hierarch's gaze felt like extra gravity.

He expected a speech. A lengthy pronouncement. Something more than a single, incontrovertible sentence: “Lord Baron Paul Sigilo shall be our High Grand Osteomancer.”

There was a silence in the chamber, no actual echo, but surely her words bounced inside the heads of the assembly, just as they bounced inside Daniel's. He refrained from pumping his fist and emitting a hearty, “Yeah!”

Moth had coached him on what might happen next. This was one of the most crucial and dangerous moments of the job. Daniel took a breath to gather himself and stepped forward.

In the early days of the Northern realm, the High Grand Osteomancer was the victor of a battle. It was a contest of blood and magic, and the red light of the throne room was one relic of that tradition. Another relic was the Rite of Challenge. Any of the other candidates could invoke it. They could even take turns, one after the other, and make Daniel survive a contest against them all.

He could feel Cynara's eyes on his back as he climbed the steps to the Hierarch's throne. He was almost at the top step, mere feet away from the Hierarch's thrumming magic, his eyes on the scepter, when a voice thundered:

“I invoke the Rite of Challenge.”

Gasps escaped from every corner of the room. Daniel suppressed a bark of profanity. He turned to face his challenger, Lord Professor Nathaniel Cormorant.

 

TWENTY-FIVE

There was a scream. It was the sound of the sky tearing in half, of such pain and fury that Gabriel clawed the earth with the instinct of a primitive little mammal trying to hide from a world filled with giant predators. He threw himself over Max, trying to protect him with his own body, just a flimsy strip of flesh. Max was right. They should never have come here.

The pavilion came apart in a tumble of masonry and cracking timbers, and a great, dark shape shifted behind swirling clouds of dust. The firedrake raised its head on the soaring tower of its neck, armored with blue and green iridescent plates. The arrow-shaped head was as long as a bus, fringed with javelin spikes. Its eyes were the color of molten steel, so bright they hurt to look at.

The neck swayed drunkenly, and it shuddered with the clang of massive slabs of metal. Cables embedded in its flesh snapped like thread, and chunks of the ruined building went flying. Spreading its wings, it flung away debris, broken blocks of concrete tumbling through the air and smashing craters when they landed. The broad sails of its wings stretched out, kaleidoscopic blues and greens and purples, undulating gracefully like a liquid curtain.

Hot air wavered before the dragon's snout.

Anyone inside the pavilion was surely dead under tons of rubble. Everyone on this island would surely die.

Pointing its head skyward, the dragon unhinged its jaw, and from the gaping, saber-lined cavern, it roared fire into the air.

Hunkering at the base of a fountain with Max and Cassandra, Gabriel dug into his bag for a rack of bell-shaped glass bulbs. Daniel had an identical set and they'd agreed that Gabriel would contact him over the hydromantic organ once his team had found the dragon.

Gabriel never intended to tell him the truth. With tuning forks, he'd inform Daniel they'd found Sam outside the Golden Chain on a garbage scow hidden in the heavy fog. Cassandra and Max would never know he was lying.