Dragon Gate (29 page)

He saw me and smiled but didn’t come at me. Instead, he reached down and helped archer boy onto the roof. This just wasn’t my day.

Archer boy pulled an arrow from his quiver.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. As he nocked the arrow, I threw the coins at him. They didn’t do any damage, but at least they threw off his aim. The arrow flew harmlessly past, and I charged at the two men, screaming at the top of my lungs.

Ax man raised his weapon, but I was on him before he could bring it down. I slammed into him as hard as I could, and he flew backward against archer boy. The archer couldn’t keep his balance and fell off the roof. I jumped back and did a quick snap kick to ax man’s chest, and he followed his brother off the roof.

I heard them land, and it didn’t sound good.

A glance over the side told me they weren’t going to be doing anything for a while. The archer landed badly and clutched his broken leg. Ax man landed worse and with his head at an unnatural angle; it was safe to say he was no longer among the living.

I lowered myself over the side of the roof, dropped to the stack of pallets, then jumped to the ground. I grabbed the ax and the bow. The archer tried to fight me when I took his quiver of arrows, but a solid punch to his face smacked his head against the ground, and he was too dazed to fight anymore.

Should I kill him? That was the real question.

Before I could decide, a man pushed through the exit of the business next door to The Steam Room. “What’s all the noise?”

“These guys fell off the roof,” I said. “Call an ambulance.”

If he thought anything about me holding a battle ax in one hand and a bow and arrows in the other, he didn’t say. “I’m on it,” he said and went back inside.

I knelt beside the archer. “Don’t make me regret not killing you.”

He was in too much pain to give me any grief.

I strapped the quiver to my back and jogged down the alley. When I reached the end, I peeked around the building: all clear. I moved to the other side and peered into the parking lot.

Swordsman stood near the door to The Steam Room. He looked this way and that but didn’t spot me. I set the ax down, grabbed an arrow from the quiver, and stepped out into the open. I wasn’t much of an archer. I’d never had any training; I’d just messed around with a bow and arrow a few times. Who was I kidding? The guy was fifty yards away. I couldn’t make that shot.

“You!” he shouted when he spotted me. He drew his sword and strode toward me, an intense look on his face.

I nocked an arrow and let it fly. It hit the building ten yards away and dropped to the ground with a soft
thwack
. Clearly I wasn’t Robin Hood material.

The swordsman laughed.

“You think that’s funny?” I tossed the bow aside, let the quiver drop to the ground, and lifted the battle ax.

The swordsman stopped when he saw the ax. His smile twisted into a frown.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Where’s Henry?” he asked.

“There are too many of you clowns running around, man. Which one was Henry?”

“You have his ax.”

“That should tell you something.”

“Did you kill Matthew as well?”

“Not yet. He’s not feeling too well, though. You can back off now, and I’ll let you go.”

“My name is Peter,” he said.

“Somehow I don’t think introductions are necessary.”

“I just wanted you to know who killed you.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Peter.”

He raised his sword to a fighting position. I kept the ax ready, but the damn thing was heavy. After what felt like an eternity, he attacked.

I managed to parry the first blow with the ax. He whipped around to come at me again, but I jumped back. I hit the edge of the curb, lost my balance, and fell into the parking lot. When I rolled over to my feet, I no longer had the ax.

He rushed me. I jumped to the side, did a shoulder roll to my feet, then circled around. I needed him to commit to another attack. Then I could try to move inside his attack, disarm him, and maybe break his neck.

It wasn’t a good plan, but it was all I had.

We circled a bit. “I’m unarmed,” I said. “I should be an easy kill for you.”

He smiled. “You’re not afraid. You’re still alive and you’ve taken down several of my brothers. I suspect you’re dangerous whether or not you’re armed.”

“We could call it a draw and go grab a beer.”

“What’s a beer?”

“You’ve been so busy killing people, you haven’t tried a beer? You haven’t lived, Peter. There’s a tavern across the street,” I said and pointed.

He didn’t fall for that, but I hadn’t expected him to, so that wasn’t a big deal. I stepped up onto the curb and circled around again. I smiled and dropped my guard.

He looked confused. “This must be a trick.”

I held my arms out to my side. “Run me through.”

He hesitated, as I knew he would. He couldn’t chance that this wasn’t a ploy to get him to commit so I could kill him, especially since he’d seen this move before when Kelly performed it. Of course, I didn’t have any hopes of killing him at this point, but he didn’t know that.

“Drop the sword!” Detective Kramer said as she got out of the car behind Peter, gun drawn and ready.

He spun toward her, and she shot him in the shoulder. He dropped the sword and grabbed his wound. A moment later, he sat down and blinked several times. He glanced over at me.

I shrugged. “You should have obeyed her,” I said.

Detective Kramer and her partner, Detective Fredericks, moved in to cuff Peter.

“You all right, Mr. Shade?” Kramer asked.

“I am now, thanks to you. There’s one more inside the spa. Thomas Marshall himself. And unless I’m way off my game, he’s the one who killed Graham.”

Fredericks pulled Peter to his feet and shoved him into the back of the car. “I suppose I should call an ambulance.”

“There should already be one on the way. Injured guy in the back alley.”

Fredericks nodded. “Cool.”

“You stay out here,” Kramer said to me.

“No worries. I’ll keep an eye on Peter here.”

Fredericks closed the door. “Anything else you can tell us?”

“Thomas Marshall is armed with a sword.”

Kramer nodded. Then she and Fredericks entered The Steam Room. I sat on the warm hood of their car and waited.

RAYNA NOBLE

Rayna held tight to the dragon. She didn’t know where to go. Should she circle back for Jonathan? That could be dangerous with the Marshalls right there. But he could be killed. Still, she knew he’d be angry because he sent her away to be safe.

She didn’t feel safe going back to the unfinished castle because Lucas and his sons were probably engaged with the other Marshall sons. She couldn’t go home. It also didn’t make sense to fly all the way to Denver. A dragon in Denver wouldn’t exactly be keeping a low profile.

She knew Brand and Esther were on their way to The Steam Room, but she wasn’t sure which route they would take. Ultimately she didn’t want to be too far from Jonathan, so she had the dragon take her down to the roof of a nearby strip mall. She climbed down and stroked Clara’s neck. Rayna didn’t care if people saw her with the dragon. After all, what could they do about it?

Standing there with her dragon in the middle of Boulder, she found herself thinking about her brother. He had been a fixture in her life, and now he was gone. Her immediate family was dead. She was the last. Her future was uncertain at best. With a little luck, Lucas and his sons would take care of some of the Marshalls. Maybe Jonathan could handle the rest. But when the danger was over, what would she do?

She had The Steam Room, of course. As long as she had Clara, she could keep the business going. If her uncle survived, he would have the hospice. One thing she hated was for the big things in life to be up in the air. She’d never had to consider such things when Graham was alive.

Shouldn’t she feel something? Shouldn’t his death have some sort of impact on her? She felt bad because she didn’t seem to feel anything one way or the other at that moment. She knew it could just be shock. She’d certainly been through a lot in the past few days. Her vision clouded and she went to rub her eyes. Her fingers came away wet. Once she felt the tears, the emotions welled up in her and she had to sit down to cry.

Life would never be the same.

An emptiness opened within her, and she couldn’t fill it because it was a space abandoned by her family. She realized how alone she truly was. She had nowhere to go. No one could help her.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and wished she had a tissue so she could blow her nose. The dragon nudged her gently and she turned.

“I’m okay, Clara. At least I have you.”

She rose and wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck. But it wasn’t the same. She needed a human touch. She wanted someone to hold her.

That brought her thoughts back to Jonathan.

Was he all right?

What if the Marshalls killed him?

She couldn’t let that happen.

“Clara,” she said, “we need to save Jonathan.”

She climbed onto the dragon, and they launched into the sky, heading back toward The Steam Room.

JONATHAN SHADE

Kramer and Fredericks came out of The Steam Room empty-handed. “There’s nobody in there,” Fredericks said.

“I locked the back door from the outside,” I said. “Unless there’s another exit, he has to be in there.”

“Maybe his son knows something,” Fredericks said, nodding toward Peter in the backseat.

“You can ask.”

“What the hell is that?” Kramer asked, pointing into the sky.

I turned and saw Rayna riding the dragon. The dragon did a slow circle then came in for a landing in the parking lot.

“That,” I said, “is a dragon. Didn’t you see
The Hobbit?
”

Kramer and Fredericks stood with mouths open. Kramer shook her head.

Rayna climbed off the dragon and hurried over to me. “You’re alive!” she said and threw herself into my arms. She held me tightly.

She felt wonderful in my embrace. Holding her, I felt like life was once again worth living. That might be overstating things a bit, but the past several months, I’d worked hard at not feeling anything, so my perspective may have been skewed.

“That is a real dragon,” Fredericks said, pointing.

“Breathes fire and everything,” I said.

“He’s amazing.”

“She,” I said.

“She? She’s beautiful. I think I should wake up any second now.”

Detective Kramer stared at the dragon for a time then looked at me. “What about Thomas Marshall?”

I shrugged. “Rayna,” I asked, pulling away from her a bit, but taking her hands in mine, “how many exits are there from The Steam Room?”

“Four if you count the entrance.”

I turned to Kramer but didn’t let go of Rayna’s left hand. It felt good to hold her hand. I half expected a Beatles song to play in the background. “I don’t want her going in there,” I said. “Marshall wants to kill her.”

“Ms. Noble, where are the exits?”

“The entrance right here, of course. There’s the back rollup door where we take deliveries. There are also emergency exits in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms. That doesn’t count the windows in the Upper Echelon.”

“I didn’t see an exit in the men’s locker room,” Fredericks said.

“At the end of the row of lockers. If you don’t go down the row, it’s easy to miss. Same thing in the women’s locker room.” As she spoke, Rayna gently squeezed my hand.

“He probably got out through one of those exits before we cleared the building, but I’ll call for backup, just in case,” Fredericks said and moved to the car door, never taking his eyes off the dragon.

“Is it wise to keep a dragon in the parking lot?” Kramer asked.

“People driving by will think it’s a gimmick. They won’t think it’s real,” I said. “Anyone coming out of the bagel shop will think it’s animatronic. Right?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell you what, if anyone asks, I’ll tell them it’s for a movie and I’ll give them my best Sean Connery voice. A sequel to that dragon movie he did. The title escapes me.”

“Dragonheart,”
Rayna said.

“That’s it. So we’re gearing up to film
Dragonheart 2: Invasion of Boulder.
”

“They already filmed a sequel to
Dragonheart,
” Rayna said.

“With Sean Connery?”

“Robby Benson.”

“I’m glad I missed that. So we’re doing
Dragonheart 3.
”

“You think that will work?” Kramer asked.

“Well, it worked with zombies,” I said.

“I don’t think I want to know.”