Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T he dragon compound was as I remembered it—a lush stucco and brick house built around a central courtyard that held thick trees and a riot of spring flowers. A tiled corridor ran alongside a row of French windows that led to the garden.

Side passages turned here and there off the main corridor, with niches holding narrow staircases that twisted intriguingly out of sight.

The dragon compound was beautiful and quietly opulent, but I was never easy inside it. The house held too many secrets and too many rooms where a person could be confined. I'd learned both facts the hard way.

There was no sign of the human lackeys who offered a variety of services to guests of dragons as Colby led us through empty halls to a large room in the rear of the house.

This chamber was built right above the cliff, giving a beautiful view of the canyon below and the city of Santa Fe on the other side. Dragons knew how to pick stunning locations.

Equally stunning was the long, polished cedar table, around which the dragons had gathered. The chairs were exquisitely carved, with seats embroidered in colorful geometric designs reminiscent of the art of local Pueblo peoples.

All three of the dragon council occupied the head of the table. Farrell sat in the middle, with Aine, a female dragon with snow-white hair, on his right, and Bancroft, his hair buzzed short, his eyes black-dark, on his left. I could feel Bancroft, who lived in this compound by himself, bristling at being shunted to third place. But Farrell was head of the Council, and Aine outranked Bancroft.

The two men, Farrell with threads of gray in his dark hair, wore impeccably tailored suits, while Aine sported a flowing white garment embroidered with silver curlicued designs. When I'd first seen Aine—at Mick's trial—she'd been naked, with tattoos of the same delicate patterns on her ice-white skin.

Also present were Drake, his face carefully expressionless, and Titus, nattily dressed, as usual.

The five dragons looked up sharply as Mick and I entered, me windblown and exhausted, Mick cool and casual.

Colby gestured at us with a wave of his arm, his intricate tattoos flashing in the sunlight. "They're here," he announced. "Finally."

"Had to avoid a lot of air traffic around Houston," Mick said in apology. "Thank you all for coming."

Farrell opened his mouth, probably to admonish Mick and me for anything he could think of, but Bancroft cut him off.

"We know why you want to consult us," Bancroft announced.

"Well, yeah," Colby said. He plopped into a chair at the foot of the table and stretched out his legs, crossing one motorcycle boot over the other. "Mick called you and told you what happened."

"I meant that we know what caused the phenomenon he encountered," Bancroft said stiffly.

Drake had seated himself near the middle of the table, equidistant from Colby and the Council members. He'd quit working for the Council, but he wasn't quite the rebel Colby was … yet.

Titus, across from Drake, appeared the least concerned of all. He watched us coolly, his eyes, at the moment, a golden-yellow.

"Fill me in." Mick moved easily to a place two up from Drake, scraped out the chair and sat down. He rested his arms on the table and stared at the Council without blinking.

I slid in next to Colby. "Thanks for being here," I whispered.

"Hey, this sort of shit scares the daylights out of me," Colby murmured back. "I need to know how to fight this, too."

Aine eyed him coldly. Dragons had great hearing. "They are referred to as Phantomwalkers," she said in answer to Mick.

"Phantoms like ghosts?" Colby scoffed. "Those aren't real. Right, Janet?" He fixed me with brown eyes that pleaded for me to back him up .

"Not the way humans think of them," I confirmed. "Auras, yes. Actual haunting spirits, no."

"I said they are referred to as that," Aine informed us in her chilly way. "Phantomwalker is shorthand for a complex set of beings who were born at the same time as dragons were created. Their goal for millennia has been the elimination of all dragons."

The room was silent as all those not on the council absorbed this.

"Well, shit," Colby said with feeling. "And here I liked thinking I was invincible."

"I've heard of them," Mick said without surprise. "Stories to scare children. Aren't they supposed to be dragons who were incomplete?"

"Incomplete?" I asked in bewilderment. "Incomplete, how?"

"I have heard rumor of them myself," Drake broke in. "Dragons were created from magma, when volcanoes were active in most parts of the world. According to the tales, our gods formed several different sorts of creatures, but decided dragons were the best of them. But some of these creatures were only half-formed. Either the magma ceased flowing, or cooled too fast, or the beings weren't molded correctly. No one knows for certain."

"They didn't die," Aine said. "They still exist, have for millennia, and they have developed a hatred for dragons. Envious of our power, they decided to band together and end us."

I shivered as I listened, but things didn't add up. If they'd been working together to eradicate dragons, why were we just hearing about this? Why didn't Colby know about them, and why had Mick and Drake only heard children's tales?

"That rock creature that attacked Mick was one of them?" I asked.

"From what Micalerianicum told us on the phone, yes," Aine answered. "It was a weaker example."

Weaker? Shit.

Mick produced his vial of ash. "I brought its remains, if you want to study them. Don't worry," he added as the dragons around the table drew back. "It's quite dead. Janet saw to that."

I saw Bancroft, Aine, and Farrell flinch at Mick's reminder of how powerful my magic could be.

"What good will studying a bunch of ash do?" Colby demanded. His face held a sheen of perspiration.

"Might give us some idea of its composition," Mick said. "Besides magma, I mean. A clue about how to defeat its kind."

"Why are they here now?" Colby asked, echoing my thoughts. "I've never heard of these guys until today, but suddenly they're attacking Micky and following him and Janet around."

"Did they kill Cesnia?" Titus asked before anyone could answer Colby. His voice held a cold and deep rage.

"It's possible," Mick said, his reply gentle.

Drake and Titus exchanged a determined glance, two rivals who could unite in their grief at Cesnia's death. I felt sorry for the Phantomwalker who got in their way.

However, I thought knew exactly why these things had suddenly shown up. I caught Drake's eye. He'd told me Bancroft would want Cesnia's egg. I didn't want to blurt out my theory if the dragon council was still in the dark about that.

Drake gave me a sad nod. "Go ahead and say it, Janet. They know."

The three dragons at the head of the table rested their cold gazes on me, mouths set in dislike. Colby, Drake, and Mick stared at me too. Titus, on the other hand, gazed out the window, as though he didn't want to be here anymore.

"The Phantomwalkers want Cesnia's egg," I said.

The dragon council was silent while I stated the obvious, but Colby regarded me in shock. "Cesnia's egg ? Holeeee shit."

Bancroft gave Colby a slow nod. "Cesnialangus decided to breed," he said with cool disapproval. "Dragon hatchlings are few and far between. The Phantomwalkers must want to stop us from having any more young."

"I think there's more to it than that," I said. "There's also a legend that an orphan dragon will grow up to slay a dragon lord. The only dragon lord I'm aware of is Mick, who doesn't seem worried about it." I paused to shoot a glare at my boyfriend, who regarded me stolidly. "I think they'd more want to control a dragon with that kind of power than kill it. Sounds like Junior will be pretty powerful. Use a dragon to destroy dragons?"

While Bancroft and Farrell watched me in disdain, Aine nodded. "A plausible theory. A Phantomwalker must have killed Cesnialangus to get at the egg, but Draconilingius managed to take it away in time."

The fact that Aine the ice queen agreed with me was an amazing occurrence I'd have to think about later.

Farrell bathed me in a freezing stare. "Draconilingius took the egg to you . He should not have. "

Drake sat in stubborn silence, not leaping to defend himself. His aura showed his anger as white-hot streaks on sable black.

When I'd last seen Farrell, the oldest of the three council members, he'd been sentencing Mick to a nasty punishment for the crime of letting me live. I saw no reason to answer him, either.

"You must bring the egg to us," Bancroft said to me. "We have ways of protecting it."

Sure, I'd hurry to obey that order. Their idea of protecting it would probably be locking it away in some vault in this compound. I imagined an isolated cell, with Bancroft's armed lackeys observing the lone egg through a slit in the door.

I thought of Junior and his vibrant bouncing, reacting to my touch, my voice, the events around him. Locking him in a cell would be incredibly cruel, but then dragons could be.

"Nope," I said.

Bancroft lost his composure. He rocketed to his feet, eyes blazing. "You have no idea how important Cesnialangus's offspring is. She was one of the highest born of us. I'll not leave her get in your clutches."

"I have clutches, do I?" I gazed straight back at Bancroft, no longer intimidated by him. The fact that he called the baby dragon Cesnia's get was infuriating. "The only way Mick survived the attack in Cesnia's lair was because of my Stormwalker and Beneath magics, which you all are so terrified of. You couldn't keep one of these Phantomwalkers away from the egg no matter how deep under this compound you hid it. But I can. I don't know if Drake was aware of all this when he brought Junior to me, but he made a wise decision."

"I did know," Drake said. He was not one to modestly deny his canny perception.

"Where is the egg now?" Farrell demanded.

"Safe," I said. "I certainly wasn't going to bring him here ."

"Good choice," Colby said. "Suck it up, Mighty Three. If Phantomwalkers can't be harmed by dragons but Janet can kick their asses, I say leave Junior with her."

"And cease calling it Junior ," Bancroft said in disgust.

"Better than it ," I countered.

"I did not say Phantomwalkers could not be harmed by dragons," Aine said indignantly. "Only that it is very hard to fight them and that they are determined to kill us. But we can best them if we band together."

Mick had been listening to this exchange with a look of vast amusement. "But can dragons band together?" he asked quietly.

"It has been done before," Aine answered.

I recalled Colby's story of Mick leading a phalanx of dragons against demons, saving Aine's and Farrell's lives, and thus winning him the title of dragon lord. Mick had never given me many details, but then, unlike other dragons in this room, he was self-effacing about his achievements.

"In very dire circumstances, yes," Mick said. "There aren't as many dragons left in the world now. The Phantomwalkers are winning a war of attrition."

"Are there many of them ?" I asked in trepidation.

"No one knows," Aine said.

The expressions of unhappiness on the faces of the dragon council members told me this was true .

I realized the dragon council didn't care much about what harm the Phantomwalkers could cause the rest of the world. Dragons cared about their own power, their individual might. They rarely lived near each other, Mick had told me, because they didn't get along. The fact that Farrell, Aine, and Bancroft sometimes worked together was remarkable. Colby was friendlier than most, but even he gave the other dragons their space.

"How can we find out more about the Phantomwalkers?" I asked. I directed my question at Mick, who knew how to research better than the best human academics, but Aine answered.

" We can find out," she said coldly. "The information about dragon enemies is protected from all but the most?—"

My cell phone rang, the shrill peal of an old-time telephone splitting the air and making every dragon jump. A spurt of fire flared in Bancroft's hand.

I set my ringtones to be loud and obnoxious because I was usually on the other end of the hotel from the phone when someone decided to call, and I never could remember where I put the damn thing. I pulled out the device to silence it but saw the name Gabrielle blazoned across my screen.

"Sorry, I have to take this."

The air in the room froze as the council, Titus, and Drake fixed their aggrieved gazes on me. Mick said nothing, and Colby grinned.

"Tell her, hi, Babe, for me," Colby said.

"Sure thing." I hastily exited the room.

The fact that Gabrielle was calling me and not using the shard of magic mirror I'd persuaded her to keep with her meant it wasn't a dire emergency. She'd have contacted me through the mirror if the egg was in danger, or Grandmother, my dad, or Gina.

I jogged a long way down the hall and around a corner before I answered. I didn't want to be overheard, though I knew the dragons would still catch some of the conversation. I found a niche with a carved wooden bench in it and plopped down to swipe on the phone.

"Gabrielle," I said breathlessly.

"Have you been running, Janet? That's bad for your health, I've heard. Anyway, I'm calling to remind you that the game is in a few hours. You will be there, won't you?"