Vixen (21 page)

His words speak to my heart with such intensity, I close my eyes.

Okay, to be honest, I expect him to kiss me again. He’s so close and warm and strong, and it just feels right being close to him.

But then he’s suddenly gone. I don’t even think he walked away, probably because he knew I would follow him. An instant later I hear his murmured voice echoing back from the kitchen, asking my dad if he’s ready to leave.

That’s it?

One quick kiss, and then he’s off on a suicide mission from which I might expect him never to return alive?

I’m stunned. I give the salmon and eggs a longing look, but there’s no time to finish them. I grab my coffee cup and head for the kitchen.

Has the hallway always been this long? If I ever get my dragon powers back, I’m going to make Ion teach me how to teleport.

Speaking of Ion, I can hear his voice more clearly now. I’m nearly to the kitchen when he says, “We need to leave immediately if we want to get away without Zilpha trying to join us.”

I enter the kitchen just as everyone else goes out the back door. Dad’s armed to the teeth with his usual weapons—swords, daggers, and an enormous beard that serves as both disguise and feinting lure.

By the time I get outside, Ion has changed into a dragon, and Eudora hops on his back. Dad gives Mom a quick kiss, and then he changes, too.

Felix grabs my arm. “Don’t try to go with them. I don’t want to have to fight you.”

It would seem Felix does not know of my inability to change into a dragon.

It’s a tiny consolation.

“Are they really leaving?”

“Yes.”

“For Switzerland?”

“The clouds are favorable for daytime flight. Dad wanted to go an hour ago, but Ion insisted on waiting to tell you goodbye. It wasn’t an easy wait—Eudora kept trying to convince them to let you come along.”

Ion’s silvery green form is the first to disappear into the clouds, followed quickly by Dad’s true blue.

Mom turns to face us. “Thank you for staying. I’m not in favor of this mission, but since it’s only reconnaissance, and your father promised not to go inside…”

“Only reconnaissance.” I purse my lips together. “Right. Where’s Rilla?”

“She wanted to study and said we were being too noisy. She might be in the library.” Mom offers.

“I was just there—it was dark.”

“You might try the den.” Mom heads back inside.

I follow, but leave Mom in the kitchen while I grab my coffee and eggs from the library, and dart to the den. My sister was eager to join the mission when we discussed it at dinner last night. I can only hope she hasn’t changed her mind.

Rilla’s got a huge book open on her lap.

“Rilla? I need your help.”

“With what?”

“Dad and Ion just left with Eudora. For their safety, I think we need to follow them, but I need someone to go with me.”

“How long is this going to take?” Rilla marks the page and closes her book. “I’ve got a summer school course starting in two weeks, and I want to be back in Montana in time to get a jump start on the required reading.”

“If all goes well, this should only take a few days. Less than a week. Please?”

“I’m in. What’s the plan?”

“I’ll explain while we pack.”

To say Rilla is concerned for my safety would be an understatement. However, when I reveal that the yagi stole my ability to change into a dragon, she starts to feel sincerely bad for me, and even gets a little choked up. There is a bond between us sisters that is stronger even than the bond between the rest of our family, and with Wren married and off to Scotland, Rilla feels a little bereft and therefore more supportive of me.

Under the circumstances, I’m not above using that to my advantage.

And then I might have sort of implied that if we destroy the yagi, that will help me get my skills back.

Hey, for all I know, it might work.

Anyway, against her better judgment or not, Rilla agrees to fly me on her back to Switzerland. Since I’m not able to turn into a dragon, I dress in warm, protective clothes, mostly leather, including a pair of boots and a snug-fitting cap with flaps that cover my ears and buckle under my chin.

I load up my swords on my back, hips and thighs, plus knives at my ankles—all weapons I wish I would have had when the yagi attacked me two weeks ago. And we slip quietly through the house. No one follows us. The dogs look up as we walk past, but they’re snoozing on sunbeams and don’t even bark.

I can hear Mom, still busy in the kitchen, so we make a break for my parents’ bedroom, and take off from their balcony.

With any luck, no one will even realize we’ve left until several hours have passed. Rilla left a note saying we just needed to get away for a few days, and not to worry about us. I’m not saying my mom won’t be suspicious, but what’s she going to do?

The clouds are thick. Hardly has Rilla taken off than we are enveloped inside their misty veil. We can’t see much of anything, save for the distant yellow glow of the sun, which guides our journey.

Fortunately, the cloud cover holds, breaking up a bit over the Black Sea. I half expect to see Dad and Ion ahead of us when the clouds give way to blue sky, but they got a huge head start and there are more clouds far ahead. They’re probably in the clouds.

Besides, even though I don’t know where we’re going, beyond that it’s in Switzerland, I don’t want to follow them too closely—not yet. If they see me, they’ll surely try to stop me or abort the mission, or both. I don’t want that to happen.

By the time we reach the Romanian coast, it’s getting dark out—which is a good thing, because the cloud cover is pretty patchy. Fortunately, there’s an abandoned castle in Romania, a safe place we’ve stayed in countless times over the years. It’s in a remote spot with no roads leading to it, but Rilla loves the place and finds it easily in the dark.

We land quietly in the courtyard.

“Do you think Dad and Ion are staying here?” I whisper as Rilla turns back into a human.

“I should think Dad would want to keep this place a secret from Ion and Eudora. You might trust Ion, but Dad still doesn’t. And I don’t think anyone should trust Eudora.”

Though I’m sure Rilla is right, I’m still quiet as we drink from the well and head to one of our favorite bedrooms to sleep.

I awake just before dawn. Poor Rilla is zonked out after carrying me all through the day and into the night yesterday. Once she wakes up, she’ll surely be hungry.

There’s a secret door that leads out of the castle. I strap my swords back on and head outside. I’m not used to hunting as a human. That’s not to say I’ve never done it—in fact, back in Montana, my mom taught us to hunt with bows and arrows. But I don’t have any archery equipment with me today.

I’ll have to use my swords…which makes things tricky.

Animals are roaming the woods in the pre-dawn cool of the day. With my extra good dragon vision, I can see them even from far away. It’s getting close enough to kill them with a sword that’s difficult. They spook at the slightest motion, so I carry my swords, already drawn, one in each hand.

Finally, as the sun is rising and I’m starting to fear Rilla will wake up hungry and have to catch breakfast for both of us (which seems so unfair after all she’s done for me already) I see a good sized deer ambling toward a small stream.

I’m ready. I already spotted deer tracks in this area, and figured animals would be drawn to the stream, so I’m in position, half-hidden by a large tree.

The deer seems wary. Can it smell me? There’s not much of a breeze, so even though I’m technically downwind, my scent might be lingering in the air enough for the deer to catch a whiff.

Or there might be something else bothering the deer. I hear a sound, not too far away behind me, but I don’t dare turn my head to look, not with the deer finally coming closer. If she spooks and runs, I’ll have to return to the castle empty-handed.

Call it post-traumatic stress, but I’m aware of the possibility that yagi might be in the area. We’ve never had trouble with them near this castle, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t show up at any time. And I do so deeply regret getting caught off-guard by them two weeks ago.

I sniff the air. Yagi have a distinct scent, mildly reminiscent of skunk or burning rubber. My mom says it smells like bugs roasting on a halogen lamp. That’s as close a description as any I can think of. They smell evil.

But I don’t smell skunk or bugs or evil or anything other than damp woods on a late spring morning.

As I’m sniffing the air and starting to wonder if maybe I should turn my head after all, since I can hear something moving again behind me, the deer bolts away.

There goes breakfast.

But now whatever was moving behind me is crashing toward me.

I spin, swords poised at ready.

It’s a bear.

I’ve never been afraid of bears before. Not really. Because, just as rock crushes scissors, paper covers rock, and scissors cut paper, dragons eat bears.

But I’m not a dragon now. I’m human.

Bears eat humans.

The animal is huge and fast and has enormously long paws with talons that rival even mine back when I was capable of sprouting talons. Unlike the deer, which I wanted to come within the reach of my swords, I don’t want the bear to get too close to me, because he can probably reach as far with his talons as I can with my swords, and even if he can’t quite, I don’t want to test to find out the real boundary.

Maybe I could try to outrun the bear, but having lived in Montana, where bear attacks, while not common, sometimes happen, I was always told bears are faster than humans.

Like, way faster.

In fact, a friend of mine who’s an Eagle Scout says you can’t even outrun them with a zig-zag pattern, or anything.

In retrospect, hunting for breakfast was a stupid idea.

Gripping my right hand sword tightly, I pull back, duck low enough that my blade is roughly aligned with the bear’s heart, and let loose, throwing the sword like a javelin with all my strength.

The blade heads toward the creature’s furry chest like a silver arrow. At the last instant, the bear bats it away.

Great. Now it’s angry. Like, angrier than it was when the deer got away and it decided to come after me like some kind of consolation prize.

What was it my mother said about turning into a dragon? That she wasn’t able to do it until she really needed to? I need to now.

I try.

I mean, I really, really try.

Now the bear is less than ten feet from me, and I’m still a human.

I raise the other sword above my head with both hands, scream, and run at the bear.

The screaming, of all things, seems to catch the bear off guard. It falters.

That’s all I need.

I slash my sword through its neck, just as I should have slashed those yagi heads two weeks ago.

The bear falls into a bloody pile.

For a few long, trembly minutes, I watch the bear to see if it’s really dead. All I can think is, this is what it means to be human. I mean, I don’t know if I’m technically human or just unmanifestable dragon, but I’m not nearly as invincible as I used to be.

It’s terrifying.

I need to learn to respect my limitations. All the risks I’ve always taken because I knew I could change into a dragon at the last second and fly away—I can’t take those risks anymore. Not if I hope to survive.

I clean and sheathe my swords, then drag the carcass back to the castle (I may be unable to take the form of a dragon, but I still have dragon strength. And dragon eyesight. And dragon eyes—which is why I have yet to give up hope that I might someday be a real dragon again). By the time I’ve splashed well water on my bloody arms and face, and stacked wood for a fire to roast the meat, Rilla’s awake. She breathes flames onto the dry wood, and by the time she’s done splashing water on her face, I’m carving off roasted strips of bear meat.

As we eat, we discuss how we’re going to find Wexler’s place.

“It’s in the Swiss Alps.” I relate what I know. “That’s not that huge of an area—like maybe the size of Vermont?”

“Eudora was talking about it in the kitchen yesterday morning. She said Hans Wexler’s castle is among the highest peaks of the Swiss Alps, with no roads leading to the castle. If the peaks are all white with snow, then we just have to look for a castle among the peaks. With our vision, we should be able to spot it while we’re still too far away for them to notice me. Or we might see Dad and Ion first, and then lie low and follow them there.”

I’m relieved that Rilla sounds confident.

The bear makes a delicious breakfast, but I can’t enjoy it, because the sky is clear and the sun is out…which means we can’t go anywhere.

I wouldn’t be worried, except that, if Dad and the others stayed somewhere with cloud cover, or maybe even (it wouldn’t surprise me) tried to fly through the night to their destination, then Ion might reach Hans Wexler before I catch up to him.

And if that happens, well…Ion said he’d destroy the yagi operation, or die trying.

And considering that he’s lost his yagi immunity, and Eudora insisted only a female could get through, and if it was easy surely someone would have done it decades ago, well, I don’t want to doubt his skills…

But it seems he’s more likely to die trying than succeed.

Rilla’s hungrier than I am (she’s the one who flew all day yesterday), so I leave her with the bulk of the carcass while I climb one of the castle towers in an attempt to get a good look at the sky. We checked the weather report on Rilla’s phone while we were eating, but the radar only shows the clouds if they’re registering rain.

In this case, the radar was clear, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any clouds—just no rain clouds. The only way to know for sure is to look.

I climb the tallest castle tower, the one on the southwest corner, closest to Switzerland. As kids, my siblings and I explored this castle on our various visits. If my memory serves me correctly, at the top of the tower stairs there’s a door that was always locked.

But I never really wanted through until today. As before, the doorknob doesn’t move when I try to turn it. Instead of giving up and going back down, I push a little harder, and tug and wiggle. We’ve got a door that sticks at our place in Montana. Every winter it freezes up, and the only way to get the lock to engage or disengage, is to lift up on the knob.

I try that trick with the tower door.

Nothing.

“Fine,” I mutter. “The other towers will serve the purpose more or less as well.”

I head to another tower, and try not to let my morning’s misadventures get me down. Just because I couldn’t open the door and nearly got killed by a bear, that doesn’t mean the rest of the day will go poorly.

The northwest tower isn’t quite so tall, but it’s got an open doorway at the top of the stairs, and wide open-air windows.

There are clouds to the southwest. They’re not particularly thick clouds, and they don’t start for a ways, but they’re clouds.

And Rilla is a pale blue dragon. Her color isn’t much different from that of the sky.

It’s enough.

I run down the stairs and report on the clouds. If I elaborate a bit on their volume, who’s to blame me? I might also hint that they could dissipate at any time so we need to hurry up and get going—which is also all more or less true.

We put out the cooking fire and gather our things. While Rilla peels off most of her clothes and tucks them safely into my backpack, I buckle my jacket and scabbard straps and leather cap, and Rilla changes into a dragon.

She picks up what’s left of the bear carcass and drops it some distance from the castle for the wolves to finish off. No sense leaving it to stink up the courtyard.

And we fly toward Switzerland.

Though our cloud cover gets a little thin in places, Rilla’s used to using her coloring to her advantage. She flies higher to avoid detection, and we spot the snowy peaks of the Alps in the afternoon.

Approaching from the east, as we are, the first Alps we encounter aren’t even Swiss. They’re Austrian. And while Eudora implied Wexler and his mercenaries have profited off their neighbors over the centuries, nonetheless, she was consistent in describing his current location as being within Switzerland.