Old Dark (The Last Dragon Lord Book 1) (11 page)

XIII

They drove two hours to the bog, past the outskirts of Magic Hope City—a huge bowl of skyscrapers and billboards. The highways took them around the city, and Earl drove in the magic lane that gave them speed but forced them to stop at several tolls. The terminals swam with pink magic, and a transponder on the windshield clicked, triggering the gates to open and let them into the magic lane again, flowing faster than before.
 

On their way out of town they passed the Hall of Governance, the severe building where the governor lived and where politics were conducted; it imposed itself on the skyline with its gray countenance lined with thousands of immaculate windows and its spires like needles in the air.
 

The city sprouted up around them and then fell away as they cleared the city limits and drove into the surrounding towns, and then into the great western wetlands, traveling on a single gray road that threaded endlessly like a snake through wild fields of cranberries and dikes.
 

With the flat lands ahead and galaxies of stars above them, Earl relaxed a little and put the car into autopilot.
 

Lucan loosened his tie and lay down across his seat, resting his eyes. He was so tired they burned. He’d been up since four in the morning, and it was now almost one in the morning. Nearly a full day. He didn’t know how much more of it he could stand. But he had called his contracting guy, and a crew was en route to the bog with excavation equipment. Now that he had the professor in his pocket, he could rest.
 

“Long day?” Miri asked. She had ridden the whole way in silence, gazing out the window and twirling her long black hair. That she was talkative now, when he was trying to sleep, irritated him.
 

“Yah.”

“Fall asleep now and you may not want to wake up.”

Lucan waved her away. “I’m a night owl. Not waking up at the bottom of the night is the least of my problems, Professor Charmwell.”

“Miri.”

“I’m so tired I don’t care what your name is right now. No offense.”
 

His phone vibrated and a text message crawled across the screen.

I’M FINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Celesse. He wondered how she was holding up.

Lucan sighed as he thumbed a response.
 

OWE YOU BIG FOR THIS ONE. GOT THE PROFESSOR BTW. ON MY WAY.

He closed his eyes and drifted into immediate sleep.

XIV

Night had fallen on the bog quickly, faster than Celesse Cullis had hoped. She buttoned the suit jacket Lucan had left her and hugged her arms together. The temperature had dropped drastically and she wasn’t prepared for it. She’d picked the wrong day to wear a skirt.
 

She walked back and forth across the mud trying to stay warm. The thick, peaty smell was making her head swirl, and several times she had to sit down to get her bearings.
 

The white claw lay in the distance, not too far away, and the magical force field pulsed every now and again to make its existence known.

The magic must have been the reason she couldn’t get cell service. That and the fact that she was in the middle of a godforsaken bog, with no cell towers anywhere near. She’d had to walk a mile to the road just to get one bar. And because her phone’s battery had only twenty percent left, she could only text Lucan to ask where he was. She had to disable the rest of her apps to save power.

Lucan owed her.

In any other situation, he would have called another employee to come wait. But doing that here would have meant they would have lost the tomb.
 

She thought about the campaign and how the media was likely reporting on Lucan’s absence.
 

The talking heads would call him flaky and uncommitted. They would claim that Governor Grimoire was gaining “momentum” (always a lie when they said it like that), and that Lucan’s campaign might be in trouble.
 

That’s what they did. Extrapolated lies from nothing.
 

She’d have to work double overtime to repair his image, book more events, and position Lucan in districts where his numbers suffered the most from the fallout. He’d have to begin rebuilding the confidence she’d toiled so hard to garner.
 

All while rebuilding their own relationship. Oh yes, there was a fight coming. A big one.
 

Earlier in the day, she’d had to call several delegates to apologize profusely on his behalf. Some expected it. Others had nothing but curse words for her. She’d contacted everyone but the dragons. They didn’t use telephones, and they were going to be pissed.

Lucan would have to visit them. She wasn’t doing it. No way, not after begging them for help.

She jumped onto a tree stump and moved around to generate warmth.
 

Tony sat in the mud, resting his head against a broken birch. Even though he was tired, he had that classic elven, blank facial expression. “Any updates?” he asked.

“He’s on his way,” Celesse said.
 

“What does that mean, exactly?”
 

“It means what it means.”

“Is he on the way or is he getting ready to be on his way, which is just another way of saying ‘thanks for your patience’?”

She couldn’t imagine dealing with kids like him every day. College interns were enough. There was a reason she worked in politics and not as a teacher.
 

“Get some rest,” Celesse said. “I’ll keep watch.”

“I’ve
been
resting!” Tony cried. “You think I expected to spend all night here?”

“A little longer,” Celesse said.
 

“I’ve been patient. I showed him the tomb. I’m not even asking to be paid. I didn’t plan on this.”

“Neither did I,” Celesse said. “I’m sick of this place, too, but your attitude isn’t helping.”

Tony stood and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Celesse asked.
 

“Tell him I stayed as long as I could,” Tony said. “But this is stupid now.”

A tree rustled nearby.
 

Tony stopped. “Did you hear that?”

Celesse shrugged. Then she heard the sound of leaves crunching.
 

Were they footsteps?
 

Leaves crunched again.
Crunch-crunch. Crunch-crunch
.
 

The hair on the nape of her neck stood up. Something told her the footsteps weren’t human. It sounded as if something were slithering through the thicket.
 

Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a white card.

Celesse grabbed the wooden stake, clutching it as hard as she could without giving herself splinters.
 

“What do you think it is?” she asked.
 

An ear-shattering scream ripped through the woods, and Celesse screamed in response.
 

Tony jumped back and yelled, “Oh, crap!”

Green eyes blinked in the dark and a shadow leapt out of the woods at them.

XV

“How long until we arrive?” Miri asked.
 

Earl, until now, had been staring ahead dutifully, his hands on the wheel even though the car was on autopilot.
 

He glanced in the rearview mirror. Lucan was snoring. Then he turned to the professor and grinned. “About twenty minutes now, Miss.”

Miri couldn’t sleep. She’d tried to rest her head against the window, but it was cold. Besides, she couldn’t stop thinking about Old Dark. About her thesis and whether all the things she wrote were true. She kept playing the same facts in her head over and over, until she decided that she had thought about the matter enough for now.
 

“What part of town are you from, Earl?” Miri asked.
 

“The North Side.”

“Any elven blood?” With his broad stature he looked more human than elf, but one always had to ask so you knew what to say when discussing magic—or, in the case of a human, sometimes it was wise not to discuss magic at all for fear of making them feel ashamed.
 

“I’ve got a little in me,” Earl said. “About one sixty-fourth.”

“Can you use grimoires?”

“They don’t take to me, Miss. Can’t ever get them to work on account of my blood. Doctor said if I was one thirty-second then I’d be able to use a modicum of magic. Painful to think about.”

Only elves could use magic. Humans reaped the benefits from the magical society, but their strengths often lay elsewhere. She felt bad for Earl. Everyone deserved to cast a spell every now and again.
 

“Lucan said you have kids?”

“Seven.”

Earl handed a smartphone to her. Its screen glowed with a picture of Earl in a t-shirt and shorts, a kind-looking blonde woman with graying hair, and seven boys who seemed to be ages five through eighteen. They all sat on a couch, smiling.
 

“My!” Miri gasped. “Then this is an especially late night for you.”

Earl laughed. “They take care of each other while I’m gone.”

“I can’t imagine having a child, let alone seven. And boys at that.”

“Boys are national treasures. If only the university would help with tuition…”

“Call me when we get back. There might be a few things I can do.”

Earl tipped his cap to her. “You’re too kind. You married, Professor?”

“Ha! To my work, sure.”

“So am I.”

“I don’t think I could work all day and not see my family, though.”

“Comes with the occupation. I’m used to—”

A shadow darted across the road and the car struck it. Miri’s seatbelt snapped and pulled her back.
 

Earl flew forward and hit his head on the dashboard.
 

Lucan rolled onto the floor and woke up, bleary eyed. “Earl, what the hell?”

The car slowed to a stop and chimed. Earl took manual control, but it wouldn’t accelerate. The wheels revved and threw up gravel. Then the car jumped forward and started rolling, the front wheel sending up orange sparks.
 

Outside, the wetlands were pitch black.
 

Lucan pulled out his pistol. “What do you think, Earl?”

“Something tells me we better get ready for a fight, sir.”

Lucan handed a white card to Miri. It had a pentagram on it. “You handy with magic? We might have a monster on our hands.”

Miri nodded, even though she had never encountered a monster out in the open like this. She had taught a monster self-defense class a few years ago. But she struggled to remember what she had even taught.
 

Her hands trembled on the card, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
 

They climbed out. The night sky bore down on them and steam rose from the hood of the car.
 

A flat tire.
 

“Not good,” Lucan said.
 

“We’ve a spare,” Earl said.
 

A beastly, high-pitched shriek made Miri jump.
 

On the side of the road, a creature with ten tentacle-like legs slithered across the asphalt. It had a conch shell and two green, sickly eyes on both sides of its head. The shell was rounded at the back with a whorled pattern, and in front it extended over the creature’s face like a horn. The shell was cracked, and several of the creature’s tentacles were flattened from where the tires had run over them.
 

Earl reached into the driver side and pulled out a pump-action shotgun. He pumped, then fired, cracking the shell further.
 

Earl fired four times before the beast fell onto the road, screamed again and stopped moving.
 

Only then did Miri stop holding her breath. Her ears rung from the shots, and the monster’s wraith-like scream had made her feel light, as if the wind could blow her away.
 

“It’s dead,” Earl said, shouldering the shotgun. “You both okay?”

Miri knelt in front of the creature. Blood oozed from its lips and the road was covered in gray slime.
 

“This is a Magic Eater,” Miri said.
 

“Monsters are monsters,” Lucan said.
 

“I’ve seen them in books, but ... never in the wild. They are drawn to magic. They feast on it, and it gives them magical properties. If they eat enough of it, they can be lethal.”

“So?”

“They only come out in the presence of magic. The question is why it’s here now.”

“There must be something magical around here,” Lucan said. “Luckily, we’re just passing through. Earl, let’s get that tire changed.”

Miri clucked her tongue. No point arguing with Lucan, but she couldn’t stop thinking of questions.
 

Earl was already at the trunk. He lugged out a tire and a jack and started replacing the flat tire.
 

Miri kept studying the dead monster. She circled the body, cocking her head at the cracked shell.
 

“Why the hell are you so fascinated with that thing?” Lucan asked.
 

“It’s just unusual, that’s all.”

“We’ve had a Magic Eater problem for decades, long before you and I were born.”

“They normally live underground,” Miri said, thinking out loud. “They have claws at the bottom of their tentacles that they use to burrow into the dirt. They eat vegetables and are generally herbivorous, but have been known to be aggressive and will eat dead carcasses if there’s nothing left. But their favorite food is magic. In a shortage, they can live for two years without food. The magic they eat calcifies into their shells.”

“Thanks for the history lesson,” Lucan said, rolling his eyes.
 

“This one’s shell isn’t very developed,” Miri said. “It cracked easily, which means it must have just emerged from underground, where the dirt and moisture softened it.”

Miri traced a path through the grass. Lucan followed her to a burrow that looked as if it had been ripped into the dirt by several claws.