The Dragon Heir
Page 13

“What are you doing here?” Madison demanded, her own frustration sharpening her tongue. She was not so much surprised by the hour of his appearance as by the fact that he was there at all. These were the hours Seph liked to keep. He was a city boy who came alive at night. “Who's minding the boundary?”
“Nick's in charge tonight. Get dressed. Let's go out.”
“It's three o'clock in the morning,” she protested. “I have an exam tomor…today.”
“It's only for a little while. Jason's back.”
Madison stopped fussing with her hair and stared at Seph. “What's he doing back? I thought he was gone for good. I mean, he dropped out of school and all.”
“He brought some things back from Britain for safekeeping. We're supposed to meet him to look the stuff over. Please come.” Seph looked into her eyes, as if searching for hopeful signs.
Madison wavered. It wasn't like she'd be any use when it came to magic. But it seemed safe enough, and it was hard to say no to Seph for reasons that had nothing to do with wizardry. Plus she couldn't help wondering what had brought Jason home.
“All right. But I can't stay long.” Grabbing up her clothes from the chair beside her bed, she carried them into the tiny lavatory and locked the door. Shedding her nightgown, she pulled her jeans on, following with a sweatshirt, heavy socks, and her red boots. Armoring herself for the personal battle ahead.
When she came out, the phone rang, jarringly loud in the quiet inn. Madison ignored it, shrugging on her barn coat and tying a handwoven scarf around her neck.
“Aren't you going to get that?” Seph asked, nodding toward the phone.
“The machine'll pick up. It's Mama. She's the only one besides you who calls me in the middle of the night.”
The answering machine clicked on. “You've reached Maddie Moss. Leave a message.” There was a beep and then her mother's voice, all husky from cigarettes. “Baby girl, I know you're there. I need to talk to you. It's about Grace and John Robert. Pick up the phone!” There was a long pause, and then, “Fine! Go to hell!” And the phone banged down.
Madison jammed her brimmed hat down on her head. “Let's go.”
“Why won't you talk to her?” Seph asked, as they passed through the dark hall-way and descended the stairs.
Madison put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. I do talk to her. Just not every time she calls.”
They slipped out the front door, crossed the porch, and turned down Lakeside. It was very cold, despite the proximity of the lake. The snow crunched under their feet like shards of glass.
“What does she want?” Seph asked. “Your mother, I mean.”
“She wants me to come home and watch my brother and sister. She needs a babysitter, and—guess what?—she can't find anyone else who'll work for free and keep her hours and is available at a moment's notice.”
Seph looked at her quizzically. “But you're in school. She knows that, right?”
This was so far off Seph's experience, he couldn't possibly understand. “She knows that, but she doesn't specially care. She'd understand if I were studying dental hygiene or computers. But I could do that at the community college at home. As far as she's concerned, I already know how to paint pretty pictures. I always take the ribbon at the county fair.” Madison shrugged. “She also might need money.”
“But you don't make that much,” Seph replied, the understatement of the year. He steered her south on Church Street with a hand on her elbow. She relaxed fractionally. It seemed okay. She couldn't feel the wizard heat of him through three layers of wool.
“Mama knows I'm living with Rachel for free. She doesn't understand that my books cost a hundred and fifty dollars apiece.”
Madison wanted to change the subject. She wasn't like Carlene, who was always just about to move to Las Vegas or Paris, France, or join up with a country band, and somehow believed every story she told. Madison wouldn't pretend she had a different kind of family. She couldn't pretend that things could ever work out between her and Seph. But that didn't mean she wanted to talk about it.
“Where're we meeting Jason?” Madison asked, knowing nothing was open in Trinity, Ohio, at three in the morning on a Tuesday.
“St. Catherine's.”
Madison missed her step and Seph deftly caught her about the waist. She pulled free quickly, feeling his hot fingers through her coat, feeling the wicked power inside her respond. “We're meeting him in church in the middle of the night? Who picked that?”
“Jason did.” Seph shrugged. “I don't know why, but I guess we'll find out.” Seph attended Mass at St. Catherine's regularly. He wore a Celtic cross on a chain around his neck, alongside the dyrne sefa. His Catholic faith was the rock he'd stood upon through a lonely lifetime.
I wish I believed in something, Madison thought. I wish I belonged somewhere.
The church stood amid tall trees on a campus that included the Catholic grade school and high school, along with a small cemetery. Seph had keys to the side door of the church.
The sanctuary was chilly and dark, lit only by the sconces along the walls. The light that usually poured through the great windows was hours away. Madison flinched when something moved in the shadows up by the altar. Two tall figures materialized and came toward them. Jack and Ellen.
“Jason here yet?” Seph asked.
They shook their heads. “I hope he gets here soon,” Ellen said. She yawned and sat down in one of the pews, drawing her knees up and pillowing her head on her arms. Unlike most girls her age, Ellen always seemed totally at home in her body. Madison stared down at her own traitorous hands.
A slice of light spilled into the nave as the side door opened and closed. A ripple of power washed over Madison before the intruder spoke.
“Friend or foe?” someone whispered. “Weir or Anaweir?”
It was Jason.
He came forward into the light, wearing only a leather jacket against the bitter cold. He carried a duffle, and a backpack was slung over one shoulder, a golf bag over the other. He was grinning, that grin that always had an edge to it, as if he didn't trust the world or himself.
Power fountained off him with an intensity Madison had never seen in Jason before, contrasting with his travel-beaten, haggard appearance. There were dark circles under his blue eyes, and his face was unevenly stubbled over.
“How are things in the UK?” Jack asked. “Did you look up any of our old friends from Raven's Ghyll?”
Jason's head snapped up, but then he settled back and sort of smiled. “Nah. Maybe next time.”
“How's my father?” Seph asked.
“Your old man's all right,” Jason replied, fussing with the buckle on the back pack. “I saw him in London two days ago.”
“What's in the bag?” Jack asked, gazing curiously at the golf bag.
“You've got us all intrigued,” Madison drawled.
“Me most of all.” Nick Snowbeard appeared from behind the altar, leaning heavily on his staff. “Which should be obvious from the fact that I'm here. Old men aren't used to gadding about in the middle of the night.”
Madison squinted at Nick, surprised. Seph had said that Snowbeard was maintaining the boundary, yet the old wizard was still able to function. Seph was always visibly distracted, almost impaired, when he was on duty.
Jason laid the golf bag on the floor and knelt next to it. “First. A present for Ellen.” He unzipped the bag and lifted out a sword in a scabbard, presenting it to her with both hands, reverently, like a courtier to his queen.
Ellen blinked at him, stunned speechless, as if no one had ever given her a present before. Then she took the sword from Jason and drew it slowly from its scabbard. The blade illuminated the entire nave of the church with blue light. The cross on the hilt blazed brightest of all.
“Maybe you won't be able to tell what it can do inside a church, but…”Jason's voice trailed off as Ellen went through a series of stances, her face fierce and focused. The blade hummed as it cut the air, and the candles on the altar guttered and flamed higher than before. Jack stood watching, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, body tilted forward, eyes following the arc of the sword like a child on the playground who longs to join in the game.
Finally, Ellen completed the sequence, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. She grinned, allowing the tip of the blade to drift to the floor. Then looked around at the circle of faces, fastening on Jason's. “Whoa! Really? This is for me?” as if she couldn't quite believe it. “This is so … cool,” she finished lamely.
“May I see the blade, my dear?” Nick extended his weathered hand. Reluctantly, Ellen passed him the sword. Nick turned it over in his hands, studying the crosspiece, the layered metal blade, the cross emblazoned on the hilt. The old wizard blinked slowly, like a blindsided owl.
“Where did you get this?” he asked Jason, an unusual edge to his voice.
“At Raven's Ghyll. In a cave in Ravenshead, under the Dragon's Tooth. You know. The Weirstone.”
Nick frowned. “In a cave under the Weirstone? I'm quite familiar with the place, and there is no cave there these days.”
“It opened in an earthquake,” Jason explained. “I guess D'Orsay and the others didn't know it was there, either.”
“I daresay.” Nick eyed him keenly for a moment. “The cave is open, is it?”
“Well. Maybe not. It kind of caved in when I left.”
Nick took a quick breath, as if he wanted to ask more questions, but instead turned to Ellen. “Has your weapon told you her name?”
She nodded. “Waymaker,” she whispered, glaring around at the others, as if they might argue.
“Ah. I thought so.” The old man nodded. “Waymaker, wrought by sorcerers in Dragon's Ghyll under the rule of the Dragon Aidan Ladhra. One of the seven great blades.” Snowbeard closed his eyes for a long moment, then sighed and opened them and handed the blade back to Ellen. “It's fitting that Waymaker fight next to Shadowslayer in the hands of the last heirs of the Warrior Guild.”