Chapter 18 #2
“A good familiar usually knows what their practitioner needs before they do,” Aggie said, depositing a small bowl of pasta on the floor for the cat. Myx trotted over and started stuffing his face.
Felix scoffed. “Trust me, he’s not, and that can’t be good for him.”
“Psh.” Aggie waved a hand. “Lasagna’s good for everybody, and if you want any, I’d suggest you hop to it. Chase is already having seconds.”
“Sorry, I’m starving,” he said around a bite as he came into the room with another slab of lasagna, and settled beside Jena. She shook her head at the rate it was disappearing, and Felix had to agree, it was freakish how quickly he could pack food away.
“Anyway,” Jena said, “when we asked Mr. Brock about the map, he said the wall was there because Havers didn’t like Fayet back then, either.
Then, like a hundred and fifty years ago, there was a minor earthquake.
An entire portion of the peninsula broke off up there, and the land that was left sank, turning some poor farmer’s pasture into a swamp. ”
“And you used the latest survey the town had done?” Felix asked. “I love that for us.”
Chase snorted. “You should see the town’s schematics. Cross street doesn’t even exist on them. That’s why Gorman won’t give me a permit to put in those lights. He’s got no idea what’s under these streets. No one does.”
“Luckily for us,” Jena said, ignoring them, “the water’s fresh, not brackish, so it shouldn’t interfere with putting up a ward.
We snowmobiled along the remains of the original wall this morning, and it’s in the same condition as the ones I used around the node.
It should work to tether the ward between the big granite outcroppings on the northern shore and the cliffs in the south. ”
Well, a bit of good news then, but it wasn’t like they could do anything with a big, pissed off lizard camping out next to it.
“Then where were you when you saw the dragon?” Felix asked.
“Trying to cut across pack territory,” Chase said.
“The woods out there are a shit show, and you wouldn’t believe the detours I had to make.
We’d just hit the trail, headed out there to it, when the dragon exploded into the sky.
Thought for sure it was after us. Jena and I abandoned ship and dove into the rough. ”
“That’s when I rolled my stupid ankle,” she muttered.
“As soon as we were sure we weren’t its target, I grabbed her and floored the snowmobile back to the compound. We sheltered in the root cellar with everyone else at the compound until we got your text. It really took Liam and Axle?”
Felix nodded, still oddly detached. Aggie’s quaalude must be kicking in. Myx jumped up beside him and started licking his rear. How delightful, dinner and a show.
“There’s something else you should probably know,” Jena said. “We were listening to the police scanner on the drive back—
“You have a police scanner?” Felix asked, frowning as the cat lapped at its pucker.
“After Samhain? You better fucking believe I do,” Chase muttered around a mouthful.
“Anyway, like I was saying,” Jena said, jumping back in, “there was some kind of standoff going on between the sheriff’s department and Pete when the dragon showed up.
It sounds like Liam’s house is a pile of rubble, and it took off with Pete after destroying half of the town’s emergency vehicles.
They found what was left of him a couple of blocks away. ”
“H-he’s dead?”
They all looked at Sarah standing in the doorway to the kitchen with Cruze and Sway behind her. Shit.
“Oh my God! I am so sorry,” Jena said, her hand flying to her mouth.
“What about my mom?” the girl asked, less upset than Felix would have banked on.
“Uh, I don’t know,” Jena stammered. “No one does. They put out an APB on her and the kids…Felix, they think Sarah is with them.”
“No, Jenny left at the beginning of pageant rehearsal to deal with some emergency and never came back. We were going to drop Sarah off on our way home, but dragon.”
“You think she left because she knew about the standoff?” Chase asked, sitting back with his empty plate on his knee.
“I don’t think so,” Felix said, his eyes going back to Myx. The cat shot him an evil glare and kept licking. “I heard sirens as we were leaving, but she’d been gone for over an hour at that point.”
“What I’d like to know is why the cops were there to begin with,” Jena said.
Felix chewed his lip, a sneaking suspicion taking root. “I called CPS yesterday. If they showed up to take the kids—”
“Then Pete definitely would have lost his shit over that,” Jena muttered, then winced, glancing at Sarah. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re right, and he was a jerk. I’m glad he’s dead,” she muttered, settling into one of the big, overstuffed chairs with Cruze. Sway climbed into Felix’s lap, eyeing Myx as he curled up with his back to them on the other cushion.
Felix barely registered the little girl’s weight, blinking at Sarah along with the rest of the room. Okay then.
“Do you have any idea where your mom might have taken the other kids?” Jena asked.
Sarah chewed her lip, and Cruze murmured something in her ear and tilted her head in Felix’s direction with a pointed look at her friend. Sarah shook her head, staring at her lap, and Cruze said something else to her. Sarah’s gaze swept over the adults in the room, and she took a deep breath.
“Yeah, I know where they are, and my dad and Axle are probably there, too.”
Liam rolled over, the ground shifting and chiming beneath him. Fuck. He fell onto his back and put a hand to his head as he tried to open his eyes. Wherever he was, the light was weird, and it reeked of brimstone with an odd metallic tang riding beneath it.
Slowly, a rough stone ceiling came into focus, light flickering across it and casting long, wavering shadows. He slowly sat up, and ran a hand over his eyes, not believing what he was seeing.
He was in a cave, sitting on a pile of gold coins.
Others spilled across the floor, torchlight playing over the uneven glittering mounds and sparking random flashes of color from gems scattered throughout the cavernous space.
It contrasted sharply with the stark white protrusion of bones.
His stomach clenched and sweat broke out across his brow. The dragon. This had to be its horde.
Axle. Liam’s pulse spiked as he spun around, coins skittering beneath him—oh, thank God. The boy was just behind him, still unconscious, his chest rising and falling, and the backpack beside him. Liam grabbed it and ripped it open, searching for his phone.
No service.
He sighed, but at least he had his clothes. Until he got a handle on the situation, shifting probably wasn’t the best idea, and he really didn’t have any desire to hang around there naked. He got dressed and pocketed his cell. Maybe he could pick up a bar or two of signal somewhere else.
Liam turned, taking in the rest of the cave, coins shifting beneath his sneakers.
It wasn’t huge, maybe the size of his parents’ great room, but he didn’t see any way in or out.
He glanced at the ceiling. The light from the torch sputtering against the far wall made it tough to tell if there was a hole up there.
He pulled out his phone and shined the flashlight at it.
It was higher than he’d thought, easily three times his height, and completely solid.
Liam sniffed, searching for a thread of fresh air, a subtle current…
nothing but dank brimstone. Okay, there weren’t any holes or tunnels, maybe a hidden door?
He made his way over to the torch, slipping on coins and tripping over a femur.
He picked it up and took it with him, feeling better about having some kind of a weapon, no matter how crude.
The wall was roughly hewn, claw marks clearly visible where they’d gouged out chunks of stone.
He ran a hand over it. No seams, no cracks.
The torch was just a bunch of rushes bound together and stuck through an iron ring in the wall.
It was also past the halfway mark, and he had a bad feeling they’d be stuck in here longer than that would take to burn down.
Liam ran a hand over his face and made his way back to Axle. The boy didn’t stir. Liam sat beside him, abruptly dying for some water. He turned the femur over in his hands, toothmarks scoring its ivory length.
Positive thirst wasn’t going to be what killed them.