The Wild Ways (44 page)
“I don’t,” Eineen began.
Paul cut her off. He understood her protest. Thought he understood anyway. She’d gotten away from this kind of hierarchy when she’d left Faerie or whatever they called it when they were home and she didn’t want to go back, but the hierarchy wasn’t the issue here. A woman’s life was. Charlotte Gale’s life. “He’ll be able to move faster with our help.”
“Okay.” Jack nodded. “Great. Get in the . . .”
Eineen raised a hand. “Do not make it a command.” She climbed over and into the cart, then turned, hands up. “Lift her in, Highness. Slowly.”
The best Paul could do was stay out of the way. He watched as Jack, the dragon-boy, and the woman he loved, who just happened to be a seal part of the time, lifted and settled Charlotte Gale, wrapped in re-engineered Troll, up and into a mine cart. His job with Carlson Oil seemed to have happened in another life. Here and now, he couldn’t call to mind why he’d been so proud of it.
With Charlotte Gale settled in the bottom of the cart, he climbed in beside Eineen. He couldn’t lift a body wrapped in rock, but he could help brace it.
“We were meant to have a life as close to normal as I could make it,” Eineen murmured as Jack pushed the cart into the tunnels.
“We were meant to have a life together,” Paul told her, taking her hand and placing a kiss in her palm. “As long as I have you, I don’t care about the rest.”
“Trolls and Goblins and Boggarts and Dragon Princes . . .”
“And Amelia Carlson and Carlson Oil and thousand-dollar suits.” Another kiss. “They don’t matter. We do.” He was almost surprised to find he meant it. Something had changed over the last few hours—or maybe it was him who’d changed on a deep and basic level. He was done with the job and what he was expected to do in order to keep it. Monday morning, he’d walk into the office and say . . . “This isn’t the tunnel we went down before!”
The only light came from the headlamps he and Eineen were still wearing. There were no magical lights on the tunnel walls.
“This is the tunnel the Boggarts went down,” Jack told him, his breathing level and unlabored as he pushed the cart at a full run. “Little cowards were heading straight for the gate.”
“The Goblins?”
Jack snorted out a cloud of smoke. “They won’t come near when I’m around. I’ll fry their asses.”
It sounded like teenage bragging. In a way, Paul supposed it was, but that didn’t make it any less true.
It seemed the Goblins knew that because there was no sign of them as they moved farther and farther into the mine. As near as Paul could determine without the schematics, the tunnel they were in followed the line of the bay to the southwest. He watched Charlotte Gale breathe because it was less disconcerting than watching the tunnel walls speed by.
“We’re close,” Eineen said as Jack dug in his heels and slowed the cart.
Braced against the rusting steel, Paul checked his watch. It was 2:37 AM.
“It’s that side tunnel,” Jack grunted. “The next one.”
As far as Paul was concerned, the next side tunnel looked no different than any of the others they’d passed. And they were going to pass this one, too. Bare feet and a teenage boy, no matter what else he was, couldn’t stop the forward momentum of steel and rock and two adults, no, three adults and . . .
The cart stopped with the front edge about six centimeters beyond the tunnel in question, the rear edge buckled under Jack’s grip, the steel hot to the touch.
Jack and Eineen reversed positions to get Charlotte Gale out of the cart. Nostrils streaming smoke, Jack lifted her over the edge, and with Eineen steadying her, tipped her carefully onto feet—or the rock over her feet. Eineen kept her upright until Jack jumped out and took possession.
“You can carry her like that?” Paul asked. “As a person?”
“I’m always a person, dude!” Jack glared over a stone shoulder, his eyes flashing gold. “But yeah, for a little ways. Long enough to carry her through . . .” He shuffled forward three steps and vanished. Not into the darkness.
Not there.
Paul shone his headlamp down the tunnel. It looked like a tunnel, no different than any other they’d passed. He stepped forward and a grip on his belt jerked him back, Eineen suddenly between him and the tunnel.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head on his shoulder. “It’s dark and bloody on the other side.”
“It’s where you come from . . .” Her hair smelled like the wind coming down the eastern passage carrying the scent of the sea and the knowledge that the world was wide and wonderful. And a little like fish. “. . . so it can’t be all bad.”
He felt her smile. “We were the best, and we left centuries ago.”
“Jack . . .”
“Isn’t like the other Dragon Lords.”
“I gathered. He’s . . .”
Claws skittered against rock. The sound was between them and the way out.
“
They won’t come near when I’m around
. . .”
They won’t come near when I’m around
. . .”
Jack flew low, following the contours of the land. It was harder work, but he hoped that by staying close to the ground his uncles would miss his return. The last thing he needed—the last thing Charlie needed—was for him to have to play their stupid power games. Actually, the last thing he
really
needed was for his mother to notice he was back in the UnderRealm.
really
needed was for his mother to notice he was back in the UnderRealm.
It smelled wrong.
He’d gotten used to the smell of people and engines and industry.
Wings spread, he bent his head and sniffed at Charlie, cradled safely in the claws of his right foot. He’d gotten used to the smell of family.
She was still alive.
He’d get her home and Allie would keep her alive.
If he could find the other gate.
He couldn’t feel a blood link to his father anywhere.
I’m so stupid!
He should’ve known there wouldn’t be a blood link to the gate in Fort Calgary, or his mother would’ve gone through it and not followed
his
blood over the weirdly twisty path he’d had to take to get to the MidRealm.
I’m so stupid!
He should’ve known there wouldn’t be a blood link to the gate in Fort Calgary, or his mother would’ve gone through it and not followed
his
blood over the weirdly twisty path he’d had to take to get to the MidRealm.
He could take that path again; at least he thought he could. He’d done it once and then his mother had done it and Allie had sent his mother and his uncles back along it and that many dragons marked a route. If they hadn’t destroyed the path completely.
Didn’t matter. Charlie didn’t have time for him to go that way.
Charlie needed him to get her home.
Hit with a sudden wave of homesickness, his stroke wavered and he ended up a lot closer to the ground than he’d intended. He knocked something over with his tail, heard it crash, and struggled to gain altitude without looking back.
He wanted Allie to tell him everything would be all right.
He wanted Graham to explain how.
He wanted Joe to translate the explanation.
He wanted Auntie Gwen to roll her eyes and then fix things.
He wanted Charlie to . . . to do anything. Open her eyes. Sit up. Survive.
He was too old to cry.
He missed his room. He missed his stuff. He missed pie. He missed . . .
The landscape in front of him had shifted.
If he flew straight and true, he’d make it home. The gate in Fort Calgary had left a weak spot in the border within the territory the Gales claimed, and he could feel home through it.
Easy.
He flew a little higher. A little faster.
“Home again, home again, jiggedy jog.” The red Dragon Lord came out of the sun and matched Jack’s pace. Uncle Viktor was the only one of his uncles who could still keep up to him at his full speed. He couldn’t do it for long, but he made the most of every opportunity. “I can’t remember if it ends with them eating a hog or a dog and don’t care. We missed you around here, Nephew.”
“Piss off.”
“Well, they didn’t teach you manners, your squishy relatives.” His voice faded and Jack thought he’d outflown the older dragon but a sudden sharp pain in his left wing membrane told him where his uncle had gone. Given their difference in size, it was the one place he could do significant damage. He always went for the wing membrane. Jack knew that, but the need to get Charlie home had distracted him.
“Running away again? Running away like you’re just out of the egg and your scales are soft and you’re too scared to fight. What’s that you’re carrying? Is it precious?” Viktor sneered. “Can I make you drop it?”
Jack whipped his neck out to the side and snapped.
Uncle Viktor laughed. He knew how close he could fly to Jack and remain safe.
But Jack had grown while he was gone.
Blood hot in his mouth, Jack spat out the wing. Let it flutter to the ground. They were flying low enough Uncle Viktor might survive both the injury and the impact with the ground. He didn’t care either way.
And he was still too old to cry.
By the time he could sense the weak spot in the border between two trees up ahead, his wing sent ripples of pain up into his back and through his whole body with every downstroke. He’d never flown so fast for so long
When he landed, he had to drop forward and brace himself on his hands. Fortunately, the grass was too damp to burn. His foot had cramped holding Charlie for so long. Breathing heavily, shaking his head to clear the smoke, he forced it open, his claws dragging trenches through the dirt so Charlie could be set directly onto the ground. He had to change in order to fit through the gate, but he didn’t have the energy for clothes no matter what Allie said about clothes inside the city limits.
If anyone other than his Uncle Viktor had noticed he was home and had gotten ahead of him, this was when they’d attack. He wasn’t worried about someone finding Uncle Viktor and coming after him—at the speed he’d been moving, they’d still be eating. Slipping and sliding, he managed to get his arms around Charlie and tip her carefully up onto her feet.
She was still breathing. There was fresh blood on the dried blood covering her lips, so she had to still be breathing. Right?
If it hadn’t been so silent, if everyone and everything that lived near the gate hadn’t hidden at his approach, he’d have never heard the wings.
He ducked behind Charlie and nearly dropped her in the backwash from the black dragon’s dive.
“Knew you’d be heading here, Nephew.” Uncle Adam sounded amused. “But the gate is closed. What do you intend to do now?”
Open it. He intended to open it, but he wasn’t about to tell his Uncle Adam that. Of all his uncles, Adam seemed to want him dead the least, but wanting him dead the least didn’t mean wanting him alive. Dragging Charlie between the trees, Jack put his hand against the weak spot and pushed.
It gave. Not enough. He didn’t break through.
Jack had no idea of how to open a gate. He just knew he had to.
“You’re not your father, Nephew.” The ground shook when Uncle Adam landed. And that was just showing off because Jack was twice his size and the ground hadn’t shook when he’d landed.
He pushed against the weak spot again as Adam furled his wings.
“What have you got there? It smells like blood. Like . . .”
Jack didn’t turn to look but he knew Uncle Adam was frowning.
“Like Gale blood. Familiar . . . Well, if it isn’t the Wild One. What have you done, Nephew?”
“I haven’t done anything. I’m taking her home!”
“Are you?”
He could feel home. So close he should be able to touch it.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Uncle Adam had moved closer and if he got hold of Charlie, Jack didn’t doubt for a moment he’d use her. And she’d die from it.
“Still trying, Jack? I admire that I suppose, but there’s no gate there now. Alysha Gale slammed it out of existence, and you can’t make something from nothing.”
Yeah. He could. He slapped his hand again the space again and screamed, “Be a GATE!”
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