City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (12 page)

As Bayang steered the carpet away from the street, she was already scanning for her enemy, but there was no sign of him.

Behind her, Scirye said in a small voice, “I never killed anything before.”

“Really?” she asked, keeping her eyes overhead. “You could have fooled me. You kept your head during the battle—just like a veteran warrior.” But the praise didn’t produce the smile the way it would have with a hatchling of Bayang’s people. Instead, it upset the girl to the point of tears. Bayang had no experience comforting human hatchlings so she tried to change the conversation’s course. “I mean,” she said lamely, “I thought every Kushan hunted. Half the objects in the exhibit were decorated with hunting scenes.”

“We left the empire when I was little,” Scirye said. “Most of my life, I’ve lived in foreign cities like this where hunting isn’t allowed.” She lowered her arm to her lap, where it stained her costume. “I wanted to be a Pippal so I used to read all the epics. Somehow in the novels and poems, fighting is always so glorious. My mother warned me that it was easy to want to be a hero, but it was difficult to actually be one.”

Dimly, Bayang recalled her first kill. She had been just as disillusioned as the girl. Even now, after so many battles, Bayang felt no thrill, only a vague unease and distaste for what she was doing.

It was almost as if the girl were a younger version of herself, despite belonging to a different species. Bayang found the notion puzzling and mildly annoying, for humans belonged to one of the more troublesome lower orders.

However, the girl had fought as bravely as any of her people, so Bayang felt she should acknowledge that. “Well,” she concluded clumsily, “your sister would have been proud.”

“Thank you,” Scirye said in a small voice. Her griffin had draped his lithe body about her neck and shoulders and was crooning to her as if she were his chick.

Curious, Bayang glanced at Leech. He seemed as shaken as the girl. Suddenly he seemed to notice the axe in his hand and a look of revulsion passed over his face. His hand jerked up to throw it away as if it were on fire, but he caught himself and lowered it again.
“We’re fighting for your sister and for Primo,” he said as if trying to convince himself that the pursuit was the right thing to do.

No, he was taking no pleasure in the death of an enemy—even though that monster had been trying to kill him. The lap griffin was more bloodthirsty than Leech. Bayang wished the elders could see the boy at this moment. They might change their minds, too.

That thought exploded her orderly world like a bombshell. She had been taught that the elders were older and far wiser than she was. For centuries, she had never judged the rightness or wrong-ness of her missions—only carried them out with ruthless efficiency. She was not supposed to question, only obey.

And yet she could not deny her own experiences with her prey— she corrected herself. No, he was a person. And his name was Leech. Could the elders be wrong?

Bayang had dedicated herself to building an orderly world in which she was always in control. Now she felt her carefully constructed world beginning to crumble into a confused heap.

When they were about sixty feet over the street, Bayang banked in the direction that she had last seen Badik taking.

“The fighting will only get worse,” Bayang warned them, “so if any of you are having second thoughts, I’ll set you down.”

It would mean losing track of Leech for a while, but she owed him that much for saving her life.

Koko cleared his throat. “Maybe that’s the smart thing to do.”

Scirye wiped the back of a hand across her eyes. “I can’t forget what happened to my mother and sister, but even if I could, I can’t ignore the promise I made to Nanaia. I told her I would take her revenge if she would just help me. And so far she has.”

“Ah,” Bayang said. When she had been young herself, she had wanted to punish Badik just as much—no, wanted was too pale a word. The need for vengeance had burned white-hot in her. However, she had never faced such a heavy fate as Scirye’s. “When a goddess
grants your wish, it’s hard to tell her that you’ve changed your mind. But perhaps you could make it up to her in some other way.”

“And I have to get even for Primo,” Leech insisted. “If I run away, it would be like saying he meant nothing to me. It would bother me the rest of my life.”

“Then we hunt,” Kles said, sounding pleased.

Bayang weighed what was the right thing to do. She knew what tradition would demand of her people’s own hatchlings. They would be expected to take revenge on those who had killed their kin.

These were human children who lacked the talons, fangs, and muscles of her people, and yet, as fragile as they were, they had boldly faced danger. Their vulnerability made their resolve all the more admirable—even if one of them was her intended prey. Through all the centuries, she had paid no more attention to humans than she would have to short-lived but pesky mosquitoes. But she found herself liking Scirye—and even Leech as well.

Reluctantly, Bayang decided that she had to treat their wishes with the same respect that she would give to those of her people.

And so, still despite strong misgivings, Bayang took them higher in search of her new prey, Badik.

Leech

Her short gray hair whipping behind her, the tiny woman named Bayang took them high above the skyscrapers, away from the honking cars and police sirens, until they circled slowly over the building tops. At this height, it was an all new San Francisco inhabited by pigeons and air sprites, tiny creatures that floated in the winds like dandelion fluff, in and out among the flagstaffs and water tanks. Here and there was an occasional windblown rooftop garden with bent shrubs.

Leech searched the skies for any sign of the dragon, eyes skipping over the gleaming nozzle-shaped column of the newly built Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and the houses clinging to the hill’s side like rectangular beads on a cloak.

“He’s gone,” Leech said in frustration.

“No, he changed direction,” Scirye said, pointing eastward.

Leech had missed the green dot skimming over the hangar roof on a pier.

“Hold on,” Bayang said. Leaning forward until she was almost double, she banked the carpet.

As they plummeted downward at a steep angle, Leech crouched over, feeling the carpet’s straps cut into his ankles. His hands grasped what he could of the carpet just as the others were doing. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the pesky little griffin had slipped down from the girl’s shoulder so he could dig his talons into the rug, as well.

Hunched over, he noticed the holes that had appeared in the carpet, some big enough to watch the city passing beneath them.
How long will this thing hold together?
he wondered. But then he told himself to focus as Primo had constantly told him to do.

But as they whizzed over the long, dirty warehouses that squatted right by the edge of San Francisco Bay, Leech felt the exhilaration rush through him like a wind blowing away all his fears.

There’s nothing like flying, he thought to himself. The funny thing, though, is that this pleasure is so familiar—like I’ve flown a lot of times before and yet I know I never have
.

He couldn’t wait to tell Primo about his first flight, and the memory stabbed him like a knife. He couldn’t. His friend was gone. Once more, anger overcame sadness. He’d make the thief pay.

They soared toward piers and wharves jutting out from the sides of San Francisco like teeth; boats of all sizes were tethered to them by thick cables.

The area was buzzing with activity, as usual. Troll stevedores hefted huge stacks of crates down the gangplank of a tramp steamer while, sparks flying from his wand, a third-class wizard repaired a hull plate. The water frothed around a moored tugboat as water elementals cleaned off the rust and barnacles.

Farther out on the harbor, a merman shouted instructions to a
slick, broad-backed leviathan, nudging a red and black merchant ship toward a wharf while ferries churned back and forth, leaving huge white wakes behind them. A Navy destroyer glided underneath the recently opened Bay Bridge that connected San Francisco to Oakland. The cars and trolleys on its two decks looked like toys. Sailboats slid through the white caps, their triangular sails gleaming in the sunlight, accompanied by flocks of hired air sprites.

Against the greenish water, though, it was hard to see Badik until he made the mistake of going too low. When the water heaved up, his passage left a telltale white streak on the surface.

“He’s making a beeline for that boat,” Koko guessed.

About a hundred yards ahead of Badik was a large yacht with an immaculately white, angled hull and polished mahogany cabin and decks.

“What would a dragon need with a boat?” Leech wondered.

“Why indeed?” Bayang asked. “But he’s definitely aiming for it so let’s find out, shall we?”

She sent the tattered carpet into another steep dive, leveling off as low as she dared as she tried to avoid being seen by the yacht’s crew. Near the surface, the air was misty with spray and tangy with salt, and she just hoped there would be no sudden high billows that could knock them from the air.

As they watched, Badik plunged into the water, white foam splashing from the spot. Then a blurred form continued beneath the water underneath the yacht.

Koko scratched his head. “What’s he up to now?”

Bayang saw two sailors in crisp white uniforms standing on the deck. “There’s a ladder on the other side. I bet that’s where he’s going.”

Even as she said it, the pink form of a man appeared on the deck, and the sailors quickly covered him with a blanket.

“He’s disguised himself as a human,” Bayang said.

Immediately, the water churned at the boat’s stern. The anchor slid up, water dripping from its flukes. The yacht began to move straight ahead toward Treasure Island and the International Seaplane Terminal that the artificial island housed.

“I’ve heard some collectors pay thieves to steal art treasures for them,” Leech said.

“They’d never be able to show it,” Scirye objected.

Leech had heard rumors about that on the street. “They don’t care,” he said, trying to sound worldly-wise, “as long as they get to enjoy it in private.”

“But why the ring?” Koko wondered.

Scirye touched the axe in her belt. “We’ll ask him when we catch him,” she said grimly.

As they sped after the yacht, a water sprite turned from his chore of cleaning the rust from a buoy to watch them pass. Leech waved in greeting but twisted around and looked up excitedly when he heard a roar of great propellers. A plane was sliding slowly out of the sky like some lovely silver bird. Its wings stuck out from the plane’s top with four propellers spinning so fast that they looked more like flashing disks. Smaller wings extended from its belly and its body tapered gracefully into three tails.

“It’s a Pan American Clipper!” he said, pointing. “I was hoping we’d see one. They say the Germans have a bigger one now, but they don’t crisscross the world like the Clippers do.”

Koko rolled his eyes. “Why do you have to be so bonkers about planes?”

Leech was capable of talking about planes for an hour, but his friend had made him feel self-conscious so he shut up, watching instead with gleaming eyes as the Clipper landed. Its elegantly curved hull skipped across the surface like a stone, leaving white splashes in its wake, the distances shortening between the touchdowns until the seaplane finally stayed on the surface. The bottom pair of wings
steadied it as it glided forward, once again a thing of grace. The pilot killed the engines on the left wing so that it turned in a circle, aiming toward the pier ahead.

The whole world seemed to be arriving at or leaving Treasure Island, which had taken six years for engineers to create out of the bay. Seaplanes of all sizes bobbed up and down at the other piers, for this was a hub. Here passengers could transfer to smaller seaplanes to fly on to other destinations or use the bridge to go into San Francisco to the west or Oakland to the east. Trucks loaded with crates and luggage trundled back and forth among the streams of people bustling to and from the large terminal.