Noah's Boy-eARC (40 page)

Tom didn’t. Fortunately at that moment, he felt the rope part behind him. He had to change fast, and he wasn’t even sure that he could. He didn’t know if the blow to the head that they’d given him might not have killed him—however briefly.

He willed the change upon himself and felt, with relief, the horrible pain that came with shifting, and the cough that caused his body to twist.

Taking advantage of Maduh’s momentary surprise, he ran past her and to the stairs. He was sure that she had locked the door behind her. But it would be nothing to the force of the shifting dragon, whose very mass, as it increased, would pop the door out like the cork of a champagne bottle.

Either that, or Tom would die crushed, from trying to shift in the narrow stairway.

Chapter 21

Tom felt the door give before him, and he exploded upward, like a popcorn kennel leaving its envelope.

He had practice now thinking as Tom even in the dragon’s body, and he was thinking that he needed to get away from here, fast. He needed to get reinforcements.

His wings felt abraded and bruised. His paws felt raw, and he could see spots rubbed clear of scales near his front paws. But he must fly. He spread his wings, to the blessedly cool breeze from the lake, thinking that it had stopped raining.

And then he realized he couldn’t fly away. He must kill Maduh. If he didn’t kill Maduh, she would hold the Great Sky Dragon hostage. Even if she couldn’t make Tom come to heel, she knew that he could open the world gate. Her semitransparent friends from other worlds had told her so. And while she was alive, she would keep him on the spot. She would kill or hurt everyone he cared for. If she truly could control dragons through the Great Sky Dragon, she would bring them, one at a time or all together, against him. And if she couldn’t, she would blackmail the triads to do it.

No, he had to fight her now or—

He heard her laugh from down in the hole in the ground. He heard her say, “You can run away, dragon boy, but you can’t get me, unless you come back in. And if you run away, I will find you. Sooner or later I will get you to do my bidding. I have been alive much longer. I am more cunning. I am smarter.”

Tom realized he couldn’t just flame down into the subbasement and make the whole structure catch fire, because then the Great Sky Dragon would die also. Which would mean Tom would have to step into the old dragon’s shoes. And he had no intention of doing that.

And then he understood that he didn’t need to flame Maduh directly. All he needed to do was make it so hot that Maduh, who was free to move, would have to come out. Oh, yes, it might also temporarily kill the Great Sky Dragon again, but it wouldn’t incinerate him, which meant he could come back from that death.

And then, very carefully, Tom leaned into the underground chamber and aimed his flame at the cement wall. The idea was to heat the chamber. And if he could flame Maduh as she ran out, all the better.

He heard her scream. And then he felt something in his mind and knew she hadn’t been bluffing. She had called the dragons.

* * *

Nick served bacon and eggs at the granite-topped isle in his kitchen. Conan fell upon them as if he hadn’t eaten in ages. Rafiel hadn’t shifted since the last time he’d eaten, and contented himself with a cup of coffee. Cas didn’t seem to let his lack of shifting stand between him and a meal and neither did Nick. Rafiel found himself wondering if wolves burned an unusual amount of calories, because he couldn’t understand how those two could eat like that and remain less than completely spherical.

At some point, Nick had gotten up and gone to the window. He’d mumbled something about Ben, whom Rafiel guessed must be his partner.

But what he’d said, when he’d twitched the curtain was, “What the hell?”

And when Rafiel had gone to take a look, he’d seen them—a lot of men, all of them Asian, dressed in a variety of styles, up front. On the lawn.

It looked like something out of a horror movie, and Rafiel thought,
It Came from the Chinese Restaurant
, then felt guilty about it. Aloud, he said, “The triads. Okay. Conan, get ready to take Rya—”

He never got any further. The guys up front all jumped as though they’d been poked. Without transition, they went into the coughing, writhing fits of shifting.

As Rafiel watched, his mouth dropping open, they grew wings. One took to the sky. Then another. A car driving down the street stopped suddenly, as the driver, no doubt, doubted his own sobriety and pulled over.

A plate clattered to the tile floor. Nick and Rafiel turned as one. Conan was writhing, coughing, his body contorted in agony.

Rya shouted, “Conan!” and started towards him, but he made a gesture to keep away, and yelled indistinctly, “I’ve been called. Not Tom.”

He flung the door open, ran out. Rafiel ran to the window, and saw Conan shift and fly out with the other dragons.

Before they could say anything, a tall man, with reddish hair and impeccable shirt and tie, stood in the door. He was holding onto the door frame and looked…bug-eyed. He stared at them, found Nick and said, “Nick.” And then, “I saw…there were…dragons?”

Nick rushed forward, “Darling. You were out too late. Dyce took you somewhere funny. Too much coffee? Come in. I’ll get you a drink.”

* * *

Kyrie saw Bea step back from the grill and bend in two. She looked at the other woman, alarmed. “Are you okay?”

Bea turned towards her a face that was already less than human, elongating into the shape of a dragon muzzle, the eyes slanting oddly, the pupils vertical. “No,” Bea said. “Shifting.”

“What? Why?”

“Being called. Great Sky Dragon. Not Tom. Must… answer.”

Without removing the apron or her clothes, Bea ran out back. When Kyrie followed, she found Anthony standing over a pile of rags, the torn George apron conspicuous among them.

Anthony looked into Kyrie’s eyes. He didn’t look shocked, or even curious. For a moment she wondered what he shifted into. Then he looked at Kyrie and said, “So, that’s what’s been going on, is it? Good to know. I thought I was imagining things.”

“I—” Kyrie said.

“No, not now. I’m going to guess there’s some big emergency afoot? That dragon-girl took off out of here like an express train. Come and show me what’s what and what orders are started, before you too take off on the wing.”

“I don’t—” Kyrie started, then decided there was no point. Either Anthony was a shifter, Anthony knew about shifters, or they’d driven Anthony nuts. Now was not the time to figure out which. “Okay,” she said. “Come on.”

* * *

Tom saw the dragons rushing towards him. The sky was blue and green and, here and there, golden and red with them. He thought he must take to the sky. He couldn’t allow himself to be trapped down here. True, Maduh didn’t want to kill him, but she would have no objections to having his wings burned off, or his feet bitten off, or both, so he couldn’t escape.

He flapped his wings, to take to the sky, but too late realized he was surrounded by dragons. Dragons above him too.

He landed awkwardly on the nearest perch, the top of the wooden roller coaster—famed throughout the world, the part of him that was still Tom remembered. It creaked and swayed with his weight.

The other dragons clustered, flying around and around, making Tom dizzy. None of them landed on the roller coaster, though, and none of them got too close, because if they did, Tom flamed them.

Unable to get into flaming range, they started flaming the structure itself, trying to make it catch fire. Fortunately the wood was still too wet from the storm, but it would eventually catch.

Tom felt panic rise somewhere within him. He could choose to land, and allow the other dragons to capture him. He could try to fly, and allow the other dragons to pile on him and bring him down. Or he could become dragon flambé, on a bed of roller coaster.

Somewhere in his mind, something gave, something whispered, “Call the other shifters.” And he felt in that direction blindly, like a man who gropes in the dark for a weapon with which to fend off sure death.

And he found that though his connection with the dragons was cut off—not by the Great Sky Dragon’s wakening, but by whatever Maduh had done to the Great Sky Dragon—there was, still inside, a connection to other beings. Somehow, whatever the Pearl had done—was it because it, the artifact, was the last and he the last of such leaders?—had linked him to every shifter on Earth. Every one of them. Including Kyrie, standing by the grill at The George. He could feel her, talking to Anthony. Anthony wasn’t one of them, but most of the diner clientele, over twenty of them, were.

Tom reached out to every shifter within flying, galloping and loping reach.
Come,
he said, mentally. He knew the call was irresistible.
Come to me.

* * *

Rafiel felt the call. He knew it was Tom. He could even see the scene. Tom, in dragon form, on a roller coaster track—what the hell was Tom doing on a roller coaster?—fending off masses of dragons, most of which were trying to set fire to the roller coaster. Tom needed help. Tom was asking for help.

There was a moment of Rafiel’s body starting to twist and change. Around him, Nick and Cas and Rya were writhing in transformation.

But Rafiel had fought shifting before. And won. And had shifted before in response to a blind imperative and—

The scene of the mating in that glade came back to him, in shades of nausea, and helped steady him, helped his human mind take control. He would not shift.

Yes, Tom needed him. But the horrible blind call and the horrible need to shift weren’t right and reminded him too much of the mating.

If he was right, Tom was at Riverside. Even a lion couldn’t run there that fast. The thing to do was get in the car and drive like hell, then shift—if it warranted it—and help Tom.

“Don’t shift,” he yelled to the other three. “We’ll go by car and we—”

The other three were already shifted, but the canines did stop on the way out the door, and look at him. He sighed. “To the car,” he said. “You guys can ride in the back. We’ll get there faster that way.”

He ran out the door, past Nick’s partner, who was looking white and like he would presently either throw up or pass out. Nick was going to have great fun explaining this one. Rafiel wanted tickets.

But right then, he knew—knew with incontrovertible certainty—that Tom needed him desperately.

Fortunately, policemen could exceed the speed limit in an emergency, he thought, as he opened the back door to his companions. Even if his police car was full of dogs.

* * *

Kyrie had just told Anthony that they’d need to put another batch of fries in, when she heard the call, loud in her mind.
Come,
it said.
Come to me.

She could see Tom, in her mind, atop a roller coaster, surrounded by hostile dragons, even Conan. It couldn’t be Conan. She refused to believe it was Conan.

Kyrie reached for the apron, started to remove it. It was the middle of the night. There were about twenty people at various tables, but only because people from the nearby warehouse district often stopped by before going to their shift. Jason and James were tending the tables, but had enough time to stop and talking to people.

She could go and—

“Oh, my God,” Anthony said. “Mary, Mother of Jesus.”

He was looking out towards the diner, and now Kyrie looked too. Everyone in the diner—or everyone she could see—was writhing and coughing, twisting and changing and shifting.

Jason, already in bear form, rushed to the door and hit it full with his body impact, before running, on ursine four down the street.

James ran out the door before shifting, to suddenly explode into the form of a majestic black Pegasus out on the sidewalk, under the corner light, and take to the sky. A car’s brakes shrieked outside, and there was a sound of metal on metal, but Kyrie didn’t even look.

There were wings, feathers, and fur…all of it moving in the same direction, out of the diner and northward.

When it was all over, there was only one old man in the corner, so absorbed in the crossword puzzle in his newspaper that he had seemingly seen nothing.

Perhaps he’s deaf?
Kyrie though.
And dumb. And blind,
her mind added.

The call was still insistent in her mind, but her body wasn’t shifting.

“Aren’t you one of them?” Anthony asked, as he bent to pick up the plate he’d dropped.

“I…” she said. “I thought I was. I’m…I’m a panther, normally.”

“Uh.”

“I haven’t been able to change. I think it’s broken.”

“Uh.”

“But,” she said urgently, “I can feel Tom is in bad trouble. At Riverside Amusement Park. And I must go help him!” The last was almost a wail.

Anthony looked confused. “Well…do you need to shift for that? Why don’t you take a car and go? Seems to me a car would be faster than—”

Kyrie was already running towards the parking lot, but before she went out the door it occurred to her that either way at the end of this, there would be a lot of reverted-to-human-form shifters in need of clothes.

She went back to the storeroom. Once Anthony realized what she was doing—since he only had one customer left to mind—he helped her take the four bins full of used clothes they kept in there for emergencies and put them in the back of the remaining supply van.

She drove out from the parking lot carefully, because she had to avoid a couple of crashes. Fortunately there wasn’t much traffic at this time of night, so there had been only one head-on collision on Pride Street, drivers stunned by the grotesquerie of animal bodies rushing out of the diner.

She drove carefully till she reached the highway to avoid the occasional latecomer—bear, badger, raccoon, rat and a very large and glossy bat flying low—crossing the street in front of her.

* * *

Tom was trying to pray the rosary, something that would have been much easier had he spent more time in his long-ago Catholic education days paying attention, and less time figuring out how to scam more treats from the elderly nun who ran the class.

The dragon portion of Tom was so panicked that his human mind couldn’t get a fix on anything. The dragon was just flaming in every possible direction, trying to keep the dragons at bay. They wouldn’t dare land, he figured.