Dragon-Ridden (38 page)

“Fulcrum, fulcrum,” she mocked,
slapping his arms away from her. “That’s all anybody ever refers to him as.
He’s a boy, Ryu. It’s like they don’t even see him as a person.”

“They don’t.”

Tate stopped and gave him a
stricken look.

“They see him as their base of
power, not as a boy.” His eyes were serious. “And you caused them to lose it
right as they were about to reclaim it.”

“If I hadn’t interfered, Umi would
have had him in the warehouse,” Tate said tiredly. She rubbed her forehead. “Or
killed him. She set that place on fire without even knowing where he was.”

“Did you know Umi was planning to
attack?” he asked sharply.

Her mouth snapped closed, and she
found a point on the wall to study.

The sound of his teeth grinding
together was loud in the little room. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re so trustworthy,”
she said harshly. “All you’ve done since we met is push and manipulate, telling
me half truths and maneuvering me into dangerous situations.”

He tightened his lips and his brows
furrowed. “If not me then you should have warned Jost once you’d figured out he
was part of this. He’s crew.”

“But I’m not.”

A deadly silence built between
them, and she refused to meet his eyes.

“Why would you say that?” he asked
silkily.

“I heard it. When I was sneaking
in, I didn’t know they were Jost’s men until I overheard them. I’m not crew. He
said it himself,” she said flatly.

“Is that what this has been about?
Hurt feelings? You did all this because of what Jost said? I thought you were
better than that. Not some spoilt little child to lash out when her feelings
are hurt.”

“That’s not why,” Tate protested.

 “Listen.” He shook her when
she tried to wiggle away. “You’ve screwed things up. I don’t care why. All that
matters is that you did. This isn’t some game. You don’t get to prove your
worth here,” he said harshly. “People have died and will continue to do so.
This might mean war. Now, I need to leave and help them if I have any hope of
salvaging this.”

“I want to help.”

“No,” he bit out. “You will stay
here out of trouble, or I’ll lock your pretty little ass up in chains.”

She glared at him but was forced to
nod when it looked like he was going to shake her again. All the shaking was
making her feel like a misbehaving child. Worse, she was beginning to think he
was right.

She wanted to believe she hadn’t
stolen the fulcrum in a moment of petty hurt, that her reasons had been sound.
However, there was a small piece of doubt that remained. Facts were the boy was
in the very hands she’d tried to save him from. Worse it looked like they’d
taken Dewdrop.

“You should take Night,” she said
when he reached the door. “He knows the tunnels and the Red Lady better than
them.”

He paused with his back to her. For
a moment she thought he was going to listen but in the end he left without
another word.

She held very still in his absence,
afraid that if she moved she’d break. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up
to the ceiling. Somehow things had gotten so very mixed up. She rubbed her head
tiredly as Night came and brushed against her leg. He gave a sympathetic croon
as he rubbed his head against her. She smiled sadly down at him and finally
looked over at Tempest’s body.

 She took a shaky breath and
knelt at his side. She’d always heard that a person could look peaceful in
death. She didn’t see it. Tempest’s slack features looked almost unrecognizable
to her, death stealing his personality and leaving an empty shell in its place.
She reached out to touch his face. His skin was cold and soulless.

She bowed her head and the words
for a prayer came to her. “May Death keep you and guide you to the shadowed
realm. May he care for you and hold you against the anything that might hurt
you. May he shelter and comfort you until your loved ones join you in that
peaceful place.” She picked up his hand and clasped it in hers. This part was
from her. She knelt and said into his ear, “I won’t forget your sacrifice, and
I’ll make sure the rest of the world knows it too. Find peace in the land
beyond death, you deserve it. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Night peered over her shoulder.
That
was beautiful.

“Thanks,” she said softly. She
looked up at him. “We need to cover him properly.”

He padded over to the bed, pulling
one of the sheets off with his teeth, and dragged it over to Tate. She took it
gratefully and spread it over Tempest, hesitating before pulling it up over his
face. She wished she could remember his real name, not the one she’d called him
by. She was sure Umi had mentioned it at some point, but she hadn’t been paying
attention and had forgotten it quickly.

They stepped out of the room after
they’d tended to Tempest, neither one of them able to stay with the body. Tate
took a seat on the stairs and rested her head against her folded arms, Night a
warm weight as he leaned against her. Tate hadn’t known Tempest long and of
that time they’d been adversaries for most of it. She’d found him rigid and
unwilling to see things through other’s eyes. Her face crumpled. But he’d been
noble and good, willing to die to protect another. He’d deserved better than
being stabbed in the back by a gutless coward.

What should we do now?
Night
asked.

Tate shook her head. There was
nothing to do. All of their cards had been played and the consequence of their
failure was in the other room.

Night’s whiskers brushed Tate’s
skin, and she jerked when he stuck his wet nose in her ear. She put one hand up
to the offended ear and shot him a scandalized glare.

“What are you doing?”

His tail swished as he gave her an
expectant look.
What do we do now?

“Nothing,” she yelled. “There’s
nothing we can do. You heard Ryu. He wants us to stay here, and we’ve already
screwed everything else up, so I’m inclined to listen to him for once. Besides
we’d just get in the way if we went down there.”

You’re feeling sorry for
yourself
, he observed lifting his lip to show one fang.

Stung, she said, “There’s a
difference between feeling sorry for myself and accepting defeat.”

Well while you’re ‘accepting
defeat’ maybe you can see your way to remembering that the Red Lady was driven
out of her territory when we drove the Tsuchigon into it.

She propped a chin on one hand.
“So?”

He huffed at her.
She would have
found someplace deeper and not normally associated with her name to hide.
If a cat could roll his eyes, Night would have.
Ryu and the Kairi are
probably heading for the old hide out. The one where she won’t be.

Tate’s face was thoughtful as she
drummed her fingers on her thigh. “That doesn’t mean she’ll be any easier for
us to find.”

True, but I spent a lot of time
down there and know many of the places she might have retreated to.

She nodded slowly. If they went
down there, they could rescue Dewdrop and clue Ryu and his friends in on the
real location. She rubbed at a spot of blood on her pants. Utterly aside from
the rescue mission, there’d be the very real possibility of settling debts with
a couple of false friends.

“You really want to go down there
again?” Tate asked Night.

 
Don’t you?

“No.” Tate rolled her head around
her shoulders then reached up and massaged her neck. “Yes,” she finally said.

He gave her a feline smirk and
bounded down the stairs.

“I’m not going down there again
without a plan,” she shouted after him. “And supplies.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me
into this,” Tate said in disgruntlement to Night’s back.

After all her promises to never set
foot in the tunnels again, here she was meekly following as Night led her
deeper and deeper underground.

So you’ve said. Over and over,
Night said.
You don’t have to do this, you know

“You know I do. Everybody is so
focused on Umi and the fulcrum. Nobody’s concerned about Dewdrop. It’s my fault
he got mixed up in this.” Tate’s throat tightened with emotion. “We never
should have stayed in the room. I forgot Umi knew about it. I should have been
more careful. More alert.”

Night’s ears flickered back and
forth.
We’re getting close.

Tate hugged the wall behind him.
She strained her ears but couldn’t hear anything. Her hearing still wasn’t back
to normal after the thumper. Night’s either, but he relied on smell just as
much as his ears. His hearing had always been exponentially better than Tate’s
anyway, so even damaged he could detect movement from a fair distance.

“Remember the plan,” Tate told him.
“We’re only going to confirm the presence of Umi and the fulcrum, then you’ll
go find Ryu and lead him back here. We don’t make a move until then.”

Her face was serious as she met his
eyes. She didn’t intend this to be a suicide mission. That would leave Dewdrop
and the boy at the Red Lady’s mercy, and that was unacceptable. Even revenge
came second to getting the two boys out.

Night flicked his tail and prowled
down the tunnel, Tate following behind as silently as she could. Luckily for
them, this was an older section of the catacombs. One that had been half
underwater. They’d gotten a little wet as they waded up to one of the drier
sections. The water level must have been lower when these things were first
built because other tunnels they’d past had been fully submerged. Night had
assured her very few knew about this entrance. He’d stumbled on them by chance
and almost drowned when the tide came back in unexpectedly. For that reason,
they’d passed no guards and weren’t likely to. A continuous breeze brought the
smell of salt water through the gaping cracks where water had worn them down
over time. Tate’s foot slipped on a slick rock she’d been trying to use as a
steppingstone. Unlike the dry tunnels, this one had rocks and silt littering
the floor.

We’re here,
Night whispered
before stopping and listening. Tate froze. She didn’t see anything.

This tunnel, unlike the others, was
clearly above the waterline and didn’t have to contend with puddles and sand as
they had with the previous tunnels. Unfortunately, their way forward was
blocked by a cave-in. It was the first sign of major damage to any of the
tunnel’s structure that she’d seen. She looked enquiringly at Night. He reared
up on his hind legs and indicated a narrow hole in the rock next to the
collapse.

Her eyebrows rose. He expected her
to crawl through there? Was he crazy? He climbed up and belly crawled through
the opening. Within moments he’d disappeared inside. Evidently he was. Tate had
no choice but to follow or be left to find her way back out. She chose to
follow.

It was with much mental swearing
and lost skin on her elbows and back that she made her way after Night. How she
envied his paws right now. And his fur. She crashed into Night’s hind legs when
he stopped unexpectedly. With a curse she backed up. He should have warned her
he was stopping, she thought, rubbing her head. She tried to look around him to
see what was causing the holdup, but with Night’s bulk in front she couldn’t
see much except fur and darkness.

Tate settled for grabbing Night’s
tail and shaking it. He didn’t answer so she pulled harder. He jerked and then
kicked back letting her have a paw to the face. She let go and spit out the
dirt and fur he’d left behind. After being pinched once more, he flicked his
tail at her.

 
Wait.

The dirt in front of her face
plumed up from her sigh as she plunked her chin on her arms. Tate hated
waiting. Especially when she couldn’t tell what was happening. She just had to
trust that Night knew what he was doing. Not her strong point.

With nothing else to do, she got to
thinking about the very small space she was in. Not a good thought to have.
Perhaps she should think of other things, like how this small tunnel had been
formed. She chewed on her lip. That was a good question. It hadn’t been built
as the others had in an almost perfect rectangular path. It wasn’t very big
either with barely enough space to crawl through on her stomach. This one was
much more circular and whatever had made it had left deep groves on the wall.
She held one hand up to a mark as long as her forearm. Maybe this wasn’t a good
line of thinking after all.

Night crawled forward flinging dirt
back into Tate’s face. She shook her head sharply, not wanting to use her hands
to clean her face, since they were equally as filthy, then hurried in his wake.
She wanted out of this place as quickly as possible before whatever had made
those marks came back.

As they crawled, they began to hear
human voices.  The volume rose until the sound felt like it was coming
right from under them. Tate put one ear to the ground, listening. Her heart
leapt when she made out the high and slightly manic laughter of the Red Lady
and the deep baritones of her guards. Yet she didn’t hear Umi or the boy.

The murmur of sound overlapped and
erased the distinct words, leaving only the rise and fall of pitches. It was
impossible to make out what they were talking about. Damn it.

Night kicked her to signal they
were moving again. Tate’s ouch was mental, knowing that their enemies were
right under them and could probably hear her if she was loud enough.

Night’s eyes glowed blue briefly
from the reflected light as he bared his teeth in a silent hiss before he
turned and crawled again, Tate following.

Tate dropped down to land silently
beside Night. The room they’d tumbled into had oddly shaped chairs bolted to
the floor and empty floor-length glass capsules looming from the shadows. Tate
shivered at the sight, reminded of another chamber similar to this one. Glass
crunched under foot as she moved to a pile of fallen rubble against the ruins
of one wall. Night had bounded up it and then belly climbed into a small
crevasse. He looked back at her and then bobbed his head at the small
horizontal crack in the wall. Tate bared her teeth in distaste and rubbed her
smarting elbow. She really didn’t want to have to fit through any more crawl
spaces.