The Dragon Heir (7 page)

“Who's Jason Haley?”
Leesha interrupted. “I never heard of him.”

D'Orsay stood and crossed to
the desk, choosing a folder from a pile. He pulled out a color print, returned,
and handed it to Leesha. “Dev didn't have any trouble identifying him from
our database of rebels and troublemakers.”

To Leesha's surprise, Jason
Haley looked to be a boy about her age, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with
brilliant blue eyes and a sardonic grin.

“He shouldn't present any
difficulty for someone like Barber. From what we gather, he's a minor operative
and sneak thief. …”

“Who managed to sneak in
here and steal something out from under your nose.”

D'Orsay nodded. “True.
And he's also the boy who teamed up with McCauley in the attack at Second
Sister. He's aligned with the riffraff in Trinity.”

“Riffraff   like…Leander…Hastings…and  
Nicodemus Snowbeard? Them, I've heard of. I'd rather not cross paths with
them again.” Oh, God, no. Her former partners were still buried
under the Trinity High School parking lot.

“That's the field we're
playing on, my dear.”

Leesha sighed. “Do you
think he's gone to Trinity?”

“I suspect so.”

Too many people knew her in
Trinity. “What did Haley take?”

Devereaux opened his mouth as
if to speak, but D'Orsay cut in. “We believe it's a sefa stone of
some kind, small enough to hold in your hands, with a flaming center. Useless
on its own, we believe, but, somehow, here in the ghyll…” D'Orsay
shrugged.

That wouldn't be easy to find,
even in Trinity, Leesha thought glumly.

“So,” D'Orsay said
cheerfully. “Send Barber after Jason Haley. Perhaps they'll kill each
other and you can collect the stone. Meanwhile, do keep in touch about Barber's
whereabouts and we'll look for an opportunity to eliminate him. Do we have a
bargain?” D'Orsay asked.

“That depends. Are you
going to sign this or not?” Leesha said crossly. “I have to take
something back to Barber.” She was tired of being everyone's servant.

D'Orsay crossed to his desk,
found a pen in the drawer, and signed the paperwork with a flourish, scribbling
an addendum in the margins. He handed it to Leesha. “I'll have your driver
bring the car round for you, then. I look forward to a long and prosperous
relationship. Assuming you or Barber bring back Jason Haley and the Covenant,
we'll be seeing more of each other.”

 After the girl had gone, Dev crossed to the shelf next
to the fireplace and lifted down the book Haley had dropped in the snow,
struggling a little with the weight of it. Dev sat down on the hearth and began
leafing through. They'd both read it two or three times, debating its meaning.

Dev began to read aloud, his
blond head still bent over the book. “I
will bury the Dragonheart stone in the mountain with such protections as I can
lend it, in the hope that chance will put it into the possession of one with
the heart and desire to release its full power. That person will seize control
of the gifts that have been given. That person will once again reign over the
guilds. Or destroy them, as they deserve.”

He looked up at D'Orsay.
“So you think Haley took the Dragonheart.”

“I think he must have,
Dev.” D'Orsay felt positively betrayed. If Haley found this thing called
the Dragonheart in the ghyll, where did he find it? And how did he find
it so fast? These were D'Orsay's ancestral lands, after all. They'd been in his
family since—well—since the property had
been called Dragon's Ghyll. If there were magical artifacts in the valley, they
belonged to him and his heirs.

Dev set the heavy book aside,
stood, and paced restlessly back and forth. “I should have stopped him. I
let him get away.”

“Dev. He's a vicious
street hoodlum. Just look what he did to your face.”

It was true. Jason Haley was
little more than an underpowered punk with a talent for illusion, but he and
Hastings and McCauley had already brought down a conspiracy that had been years
in the making.

The scene at Second Sister
played over in D'Orsay's head, like the ever-repeating trailer of a bad film. He
blocked the scenes, picked over and tallied the players on screen.

He and Leicester had
engineered a meeting of all the magical guilds and the Wizard Council on the
island of Second Sister. Leicester's slave wizards immobilized everyone in the
room. They'd forced the guilds and the council to sign D'Orsay's Covenant,
naming them rulers over the guilds. That much had gone according to plan.

Haley and McCauley must have
been hiding in the room all along. Haley's fake dragon appeared, a
thirty-foot-tall glamour that dazzled and distracted all the wizards in the
hall while McCauley opened fire against Leicester. Leicester lured McCauley
into the open. And then, something happened.

A girl had appeared out of
nowhere, a girl with the singular name of Madison Moss. How she'd come to be at
Second Sister, D'Orsay had no idea. When Leicester flamed McCauley, the girl
stepped in front and took the hit. Leicester went down, his wizard slaves with
him. And Haley and McCauley had killed him.

Who was this girl? She was not
from any of the major families, or he'd have recognized her. He'd searched the
online genealogies, his agents had inquired. As far as they could tell, she was
a nobody.

Pausing at the hearth, D'Orsay
gripped the poker with its emblems of roses and thrust it into the flames. The
log dissolved to ash and sparks flew upward.

Devereaux spoke, startling him
out of his reverie. “I don't understand why you're dealing with them,
Father. Barber sounds like a common thief. And we don't want him to get hold of
the Dragonheart.”

“There is a saying, Dev.
It takes a thief to catch one. Besides, what I said was true. It would be difficult
for me to leave the ghyll to go after Haley, and I don't want to involve anyone
else.”

“I could go. It's my
fault Haley got away.”

D'Orsay patted Dev's shoulder
affectionately. “My enemies would be just as happy to get hold of you, as
leverage.”

Dev glowered and clenched his
fists, a stance familiar from childhood. “I can protect myself.”

“You are a
prodigy, Devereaux, but I think you're a little young to go up against the
Roses.” D'Orsay chose not to mention Jason Haley, who'd already given Dev
a beating. Dev was just beginning to recover his self-confidence.

“That girl, that Alicia
Middleton, is very pretty.”

“Don't go falling for
her. Alicia Middleton is the kind of girl who'll eat you alive.”

“But you're partners with
her.”

“For now, Dev. For now.
Let's hope she betrays Warren Barber and gets us the Dragonheart. I suspect she'll
be easier to handle than him.” D'Orsay smiled and ruffled Dev's hair. Dev
flinched away, a familiar sulky look on his face.

D'Orsay sighed. “You've
got to get out more, Dev. Make some friends. I'm afraid that's my fault. I just
don't want anything to happen to you.”

“Do you really think
Haley is a small-time thief?”

D'Orsay paused to think before
answering. “I'm not sure if Haley is very clever or very lucky. He's
gotten in my way too many times to be ordinary. If we're lucky, young Miss
Middleton and Barber will take care of him. Or he'll rid us of them, which
wouldn't be all bad. Except that leaves us without the Covenant, and without a
functioning Weirstone.”

“You don't know there's
anything really wrong with it. I mean, just because it's dark, that doesn't…”

“Can't you feel it?”
D'Orsay had grown up with the stone, situated as it was on his ancestral lands.
All his life, it had been like a magnet that pulled at the poles of his heart.
The call of the Weirstone meant home to him, and, just now, the call was very
faint.

The sound intruded into
Madison's mind, a faint and persistent tapping, like something pecking on the
outside of her skull. This was followed by the sense that she was suffocating.

She opened her eyes, squinting
against the overhead light. The giant Arts
of the Eastern Civilizations textbook lay open on her chest, which explained why she couldn't
breathe. She'd fallen asleep studying again.

She pushed the heavy book
aside and sat up. The clock on the bedside table said 2:48. So the test was
less than ten hours away.

She heard tapping again.
Throwing back the comforter, she slid from the high Victorian bed, her bare
feet thudding on the wood floor. She shivered in her cotton nightgown. The
Legends Inn was beautiful, but, like most Victorian buildings, it was not
well-insulated, especially up on the third floor.

She crossed to the door, undid
the chain, pulled it open. And was ambushed.

It was Seph McCauley, snow
powdering his jacket and sparkling in his curls, smelling of fresh air and
magic. Her heart floundered frantically in her chest, as if it meant to escape.

“Oh!” she said.

“Hey, Maddie,” he
said softly, stepping inside and pulling the door shut behind him. “Oh,
I'm sorry. Were you asleep?” he added, grinning, looking her up and down.

“Do you know what time it
is?” she mumbled, forcing her fingers through her tangled hair. She hadn't
seen him for three days (not that she was counting), and now when he did come,
she was all baggy-eyed and cranky. “Rachel will skin you alive if she
finds you here at this hour.”

“Oh, I don't think she'll
notice,” he said, touching the amulet that hung around his neck.
“You're shivering.” He grabbed up her shawl from the foot of the bed
and draped it around her shoulders, reeling her in like a fish in a net. When
there were inches between them, she pulled free, wrapping the shawl around
herself for protection.

He looked away and stuffed his
hands into his pockets, a faint release of breath signaling his frustration. He
wasn't used to being rebuffed. He didn't understand—he would never understand if she could help it. Most
guys gave up after a try or two. But Seph was persistent, and she didn't know
how long she could continue to keep him at arm's length.

“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.”

“Maybe we're not the
last.” Jack looked uncomfortable at the idea of being the last of a dying
breed. “Maybe there are others we don't know about.”

“If there are,”
Ellen said, strapping on the scabbard and cinching it around her hips,
“they can find their own swords.”

“Wait till you see the
rest of this,” Jason said, lifting his backpack onto the front pew and
unzipping it. He dumped the contents onto the weathered wood seat and stood
back, allowing the others to crowd in. Only Ellen stood aside, caressing
Waymaker's hilt, a distant expression on her face.

Madison picked through the
jewelry. She'd always loved shiny things. There were gold and silver medieval
pieces, set with precious and semiprecious stones: brooches and necklaces and
bracelets and hair adornments. Her fingers itched to sketch the designs. She
gathered her mass of hair into a gold net and set a jewel-encrusted tiara on
her head, stuck three rings on each hand, and admired the result. “I
always wanted to be a queen,” she said wistfully.

Queens never had to worry
about finding money for tuition and books.

Her eyes kept straying to the
backpack. Jason had set it aside in one of the pews. Something glittered in the
back of her mind, a light in the darkness, like a painting she'd not yet
splashed onto the canvas.