The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (21 page)

Gollygosh by now had broken free of its spell but was gaping open-mouthed at the incredible floating object. His eyes were like the atmospheres of alien planets, swirling gas clouds of violet and

green.

“Get away, both of you,” David whispered.

G’reth, recognising this order was really aimed at him, hobbled forward,

grabbed the startled healer by the tail and yanked him off the bench to hide amid the debris on the floor. Groyne, meanwhile, had   instinctively   dematerialised   the moment the hammer had struck. On a

telepathic order from David he remained invisible on the windowsill, guarding Grace’s fire tear.

The dark fire pulsed and seemed towrinkle the air around it, distorting thevisual dimensions of the room as if it was

gathering up a sheet by its middle. Suddenly it moved, re-centring over Gwillan.

“Don’t let that thing go near him!” cried Liz, stumbling forward through broken clay.

David, who’d assumed she’d left the

room with Zanna, took his eye off the tear for a moment. And in that moment, Bonnington lunged. His plan was simple: swallow his prey whole. Let the Fain entity commingled with his brain do battle with the darkness, even if it tore his mind

apart.

But even Bonnington wasn’t quick enough on this occasion. The dark fire evaded his leap and closed in on the one being it sensed a remarkable empathy with, even though that being could not be

seen.

It struck Liz on the strip of bare skinbetween the top of her jeans and thebottom of her T-shirt, melding through thebutton of scaly flesh that was all thatremained of her body’s primordial choice

to develop into human not dragon. It flashed along the strange anatomical structure that hospital scanners would have labelled impossible and Gwilanna would have called the oovicle tree: the

twisting, tubular cord of flesh which rooted a humanoid daughter of Gawain to the potential  dragon egg inside her. At the end of the tube it dissipated into the oovicle fluid, letting its energy soak into the still-green blood of the thirteen-weekold foetus that lay there, waiting to be born. In the child’s blood it found traces

of obsidian. In the child’s heart it found a

purpose.

The child’s mother, Elizabeth, clutched

at her swollen midriff and screamed.

The boy inside her, which she and

Arthur Merriman had recently chosen toname Joseph Henry, opened his eyes.

They were black.

The birth of darkness

“Liz!” David was by her side in an instant, his hand pressed flat across her tummy as she crashed against the wall and slid down it to the floor. Her head rolled as

though her neck had been severed. She began to blow a series of short, shallow breaths.

“Can you speak?” David urged her. “Did it go to the baby?”

She managed a nod. Her eyelids closed with a heavy flutter and her head thumped back against the wall.

At that moment, Zanna burst back in. “Oh my God, what happened?” She dropped to her knees and gripped Liz’s hand.

“The dark fire has gone into her.”

“
Into her?
 
”

“To the baby. Find Gwilanna. We’re going to need her.”

“Are you crazy? No way. I’ll deal with this.”

“Zanna, I think she’s going to go into labour! You have no experience of this mode of birth. And we don’t know how

the child will be changed.”

Zanna pushed him aside. She opened

Liz’s collar and cleared her mouth and

face of hair. “Gwilanna told us  the boy would be a natural born and believe me, I know
 
plenty
 
about that. Besides, I had a masterclass in the sibyl arts from Agatha Bacon before she left. Now get out of my way and get Gretel in here. If you want to

make yourself useful, clear this mess—”

Liz clutched at her middle and wailed

for Arthur.

“Oh, and someone should inform the

father. Go!”

“OK, but let’s get her to her room,” David said. He picked Liz up and carried her to the landing.

There he was met by a frantic Lucy. Zanna immediately took the girl’s hand and whipped it hard to gain her attention. “Come with me,” she said plainly. “Your mum’s had an accident. She needs you. So do I. But you have to be calm, OK? I’ll explain everything when David’s got her settled.”

Lucy closed her gibbering mouth andnodded. Together they turned towards

Liz’s room, passing Alexa on the way. The child was in the doorway of Lucy’sroom, looking like something from ahorror movie. Still, ghostly, totally silent. One of Lucy’s old soft toys was danglingfrom her small white hand. But it was her

eyes that Zanna found most disturbing. They were angled upwards, like a doll’s, towards the mysterious power that was

now   a   growing  part   of  Elizabeth

Pennykettle.

Although David had become a father once,this   was   his   first   experience   ofexpectancy. Knowing that any intrusionwould only irritate Zanna, he busiedhimself doing as she’d suggested andtelephoned the university to inform Arthur

of what had happened. He kept the details sparse, adopting the approach that Zanna had taken when calming Lucy. Arthur arrived in a taxi shortly afterwards and went straight to the bedroom. Meanwhile, David took Alexa to the Dragons’ Den and together they made the room tidy. When all was done, David called the little girl across to the workbench and ordered

Groyne to show himself again. This time, David allowed Alexa to hold Grace’s fire

tear, encouraging her to feel the power of its natural creativity and love. Then, taking up the last of the icefire, which despite the commotion still remained unmelted in its box, he touched it onto Grace’s snout and used the auma of

Gawain inside him to help it soften the

membranes of her nose. When Grace was

ready, he invited Alexa to reintroduce the tear to her. The spark was engulfed as if a light had blinked off. Grace spluttered and shivered and almost fell over. A worried

Gollygosh put down his tool box. Theflaps opened and the usual asterisk of lightturned itself into a small blanket which he

draped around Grace’s slender shoulders. David looked at Liz’s dragon Guinevere and sent her a message  in dragonthought. Alexa gasped as Guinevere opened her eyes and two violet rays of life-giving energy poured out and wrapped another kind of blanket around the ailing listener.

“Time to go,” David whispered. He took Alexa’s hand and led her from the

room. Outside the Den they paused for a

moment, listening for any indication of birth pains from the master bedroom along the landing. There were none.

“What do you feel?” he asked.

“Gwillan is going to get better,” said Alexa.

He squeezed her hand until she lookedup at him. “Do you dream it? That Gwillan will live?”

But Alexa just shrugged and led him

downstairs.

By now she was her happy self again,content to play with the clay on the kitchentable. As David watched her building ‘something’ (as yet undescribed) he madehis second telephone call. “It’s time,” wasall he said and placed the phone back onits stand.

A short while later, Tam Farrell was in

the house.

Leaving Alexa at work on her creation,

David drew Tam outside to talk.

“OK, what’s wrong?” the young Scot asked. “Usually when I come here the house is overflowing with good-looking women. Where are they all?”

“Upstairs. We had an accident,” David said. “It hasn’t been a great day.” He explained what had happened in Africa and the Den.

Tam’s breath whistled through the airat pace. He looked down the garden,absently nodding. “Pretty place, this. Lovely plum tree. My grandma used tohave one just like it.” He slid his handsinto the pockets of his jacket. “Who’d

have thought that a quaint little garden in suburban Scrubbley might be the setting for an interdimensional war?”

“There’s   no   reason   that   should

happen,” David said. “We can contain this. You, me – Zanna.”

Tam’s expression failed to match that view. “Come on, David. You messed up, big time. You should have taken the fire north when you had the chance. Isn’t that what the dragon clan wanted?”

David’s eyes slipped into their scalene profile. “If I’d gone north, they would have cast whatever was left of Gwillan

into the Fire Eternal. I couldn’t let that

happen. I owe a great debt to Liz and Lucy. They taught me what it’s like to feel human, Tam.” His eye line fell upon the

rockery and its alpines, the scene of so much domestic adventure: the squirrels, Caractacus the crow, Henry Bacon. But even as the happy times flooded back, the sadness overwhelmed him again. For all of those  memories only led one way: back to Sophie Prentice. David closed his eyes and re-centred himself. “The Wayward Crescent dragons are practically my kin. How could I not try to save Gwillan’s life? The attempt to commingle the dark fire with Grace’s tear was valid. If

nothing else, it would have proved that the Ix can be easily transmuted.”

“If it had worked,” Tam pointed out. “Surely all it’s shown you is a greater danger? It might be more than Gwillan you have to sacrifice now. What’s the situation

with Liz?”

Before David could answer, the backdoor opened and Arthur’s voice called outto him.

“Coming!” David replied. Then in a quieter voice to Tam, “Do you have everything you need from Steiner?”

Tam nodded. “
 
The Chronicles of the

Last Twelve Dragons
 
comes bursting offthe pages on Friday morning. Pretty mind-blowing stuff. Got a draft in my bag if youwant to see it?”

David shook his head. “I want you totake   Lucy   to   Scuffenbury   beforepublication, before the crowds descend. Iwant her well away from here, in case wehave problems.”

“Lucy’s not going to leave if her

mother’s in labour.”

“Then we’ll have to persuade her

somehow. Come on.”

“One more thing.” Tam caught his arm. “Gadzooks has been sighted again. He turned up in India and left another message.”

“A new location?”

“Yeah.   Steiner’s   translated   it.

Somewhere on Svalbard this time. I’ve

got a team of reporters and two film crews heading up there, and to Fujiyama to record whatever happens there. But something’s puzzling me about all this. Why did Gadzooks choose Scuffenbury as the main focus of awareness for Steiner? I

mean, it’s an interesting place, but compared to a dormant Japanese volcano

or some remote Norwegian archipelago it’s a modest little hill for a dragon to pop out of – by newsreel standards. If you’re going to make a splash, make a big one, is what I’m saying.”

David glanced towards the kitchen. Arthur  was  standing  there,  cradling Bonnington. Gretel had just buzzed by, snatching the heads off several flowers. “Gadzooks has always been a step ahead of time. If he chose Scuffenbury, he chose it for a reason. Keep your camera handy.
 
The National Endeavour
 
might be on the brink of another big scoop.”

With that, David led Tam back to the kitchen and introduced him, in brief, to Arthur. “How’s Liz?” they both asked.

Arthur felt for the worktop and leaned

back against it. Still cradling Bonnington, he said, “She appears to be stable, but in some kind of semiconscious state. The

contractions have ceased. Zanna doesn’t

think the child will come yet. She also believes it’s healthy.”

“That’s a relief,” said David.

A moment passed then Arthur said, “Is it?” His strokes over Bonnington’s head became shaky. “Would I not be right in thinking that because of Liz’s ancestry my son has the potential to be dragon under the right – or maybe the wrong – conditions? And if a dragon could develop, then given the nature of the ‘spark’ that entered him, surely a darkling could too? In some ways, I might have been less concerned if Elizabeth had

aborted. Who knows what you’ve brought down on us, David.”

Alexa ran in then as chirpy as ever. “Daddy?”

David trapped her absently against his hip. “Not now, sweetie.” His gaze was on Arthur. The professor, his ‘father’, was looking pale and disorientated.

“But I made something.” She pointed to a figure beside the mound of clay.

Arthur   angled   Bonnington’s   head

towards it.

“A horse?” said Tam.

Not just any old horse. It had a ribbon-like body and  tapering neck. Its legs wereso thin it was a wonder how Alexa had

ever made it stand.

A bedraggled-looking Lucy came in