The man cursed, then growled, “I don’t take orders from dragon mongrels.”
Billy lifted his foot high and thrust his heel into the man’s head, driving his face into the gravel. When his victim’s arms and legs fell limp, he stepped aside. “Then have a nice nap.” He sprang toward the passenger’s side of the car, threw open the door, then sprinted back to the professor. Letting out a low grunt, he lugged his teacher to the vehicle, half-lifting, half-carrying his body.
The professor’s head wobbled. “Do you smell gardenias?” he asked groggily.
“It’s all right, Prof. I’ll get you out of here.” Billy tucked the professor’s legs inside, fished for the keys from his cloak pocket, and quietly closed the door. He dashed around to the driver’s side, unhitched the scabbard from his belt, and tossed both the sword and scabbard into the backseat. He slid behind the steering wheel, hurriedly surveying the controls. Fumbling with the keys, he finally thrust one into the ignition and started the engine. Leaving the headlights off, he shifted into gear. As the car crept down the driveway, he glanced from side to side, watchful for moving shadows.
A cloaked figure jumped down from the mansion’s elevated front deck and sprinted ahead to intercept them.
Billy slammed the gas pedal down. The car lurched forward, fishtailing as it surged past the man, its wheels spinning in the gravel and slinging a hailstorm of pebbles into his face. The tires finally gripped the surface and catapulted toward the estate’s entrance, a closed, metal-framed gate.
Billy ducked his head. The front bumper smashed through the barrier, launching the gate’s frame over the windshield and sending it tumbling behind them. He spun the steering wheel to the right and careened onto a deserted road, tires squealing as he jerked into the lane.
Billy turned on the headlights, then nudged the professor. “Prof! You okay?”
The professor pushed himself upright, slowly shaking his head. “Is it time for tea?”
Billy let up on the accelerator, settling the car into a comfortable cruising speed. “No, not exactly teatime.” He adjusted the rearview mirror, relieved that no headlights glared at him from behind. “How do we get to the meeting place?”
The professor blinked his eyes. “William? You’re driving?”
“Yeah. I got my permit when I turned fifteen. Mom’s been teaching me.” He tapped the steering wheel with his hand. “It feels weird driving on the right side of the car though.”
The professor laid his head back against his seat and exhaled slowly. “I believe an emergency flight from savage murderers will trump the law in this case. As long as you’re comfortable driving, it’s for the best.” He dabbed his scalp wound with the tips of his fingers. “My head is killing me.”
“Well, I hope I don’t meet too many cars on the road.” Billy nodded toward the windshield. “But I see some headlights up ahead.”
The professor’s eyes shot open. “William! You’re not on the right side of the road!”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m on the right side of the road!”
“No!” the professor shouted. “Left is right! Right is wrong!”
Billy shook his head. “Professor that kick must’ve really—”
The professor lunged for the steering wheel and pulled it to the left, sending the car squealing into the opposite lane just as an oncoming truck roared past, its horn blaring. He pushed the wheel back, steadying the car in the left-hand lane. “Keep it . . . here,” the professor gasped. He leaned back again, holding his hand on his chest, still breathing heavily. “In England . . . the left lane is the right . . . ahem . . . the correct lane . . . for driving.”
Billy nodded. “Left is right. . . . I knew that. . . . Just forgot in all the excitement.”
“Now,” the professor continued, “I believe there will be a roundabout coming up. When you get to it, you’ll want to take the road on the right, but first you must go to the left, and circle around until you get to the street that was originally on your right, though it will be on your left when you get to it. Do you understand?”
Billy wobbled his head between a shake and a nod. “I think so.”
“Good.” The professor took a deep breath and ran his hand along his sleeve. “Because of the unexpected attack on your person, we’ll use our travel time to discuss a number of issues—this cloak, for example.” His fingers paused at the cuff. “Strange. Why are there so many lumps in the lining?”
“Lumps?”
“Yes. Rectangular lumps.” With a quick jerk, the professor ripped a hole at the cuff’s lining seam and bent the material back. “I do believe they’re microchips!”
Billy slowed down as he approached a circular intersection. “A computerized cloak? Sounds like a bad secret agent show on television.”
“Perhaps, William.” He pried one of the chips out and held it close to his eyes. “But bad television or not, this discovery could be vital.”
Coming to a full stop at the intersection, Billy reached over and felt the cuff. At least six chips made a circle around the professor’s wrist. “I’ll bet Ashley could figure out how the cloak works.”
“Yes, of course! Miss Stalworth’s talents are perfectly suited for such a task.” The professor lifted the bottom hem of the cloak and reached underneath for his cell phone. “I’ll call and see if she is able to join us. It’s late evening in West Virginia, so she may still be awake. Early morning departures to England are few, but one might be available.”
Billy drove clockwise three-quarters of the way around the traffic circle and onto a new road. “That’ll be great. When Mom gets done helping Sir Barlow, maybe she can drive down from Glasgow, and we’ll all tour London when this mission thing is over.”
“I don’t see why she cannot join us,” the professor replied, punching a number into his phone. “Sir Barlow will be able to handle the museum soon enough, and I’m sure we can find accommodations for your mother.” He held the phone to his ear. “Busy. Apparently Miss Stalworth is awake.” He set the phone down again and brushed some of the rust from his sleeve. “I am not sure, however, how long it will take to complete your mission. Sir Patrick is in charge of that, but he has kept the details to himself. For example, I, myself, was shocked when he delayed our journey here by six months. To this day he hasn’t explained the reason. He also insisted that you have one helper, and only one helper, on your mission.” He set a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “He is a very mysterious fellow, but I trust him without reservation, and you should as well. His deeds have proven him an honorable gentleman.” The professor pointed toward a roundabout up ahead. “Turn left at the next intersection.”
Billy made the turn and proceeded slowly. Tall hedges bordered the narrow road on both sides, leaving no shoulder or even the thinnest strip of grass between the edge of the pavement and the foliage. With the lack of traffic at this early morning hour, he steered the car to the middle of the road. “Do you think the microchip will tell us something about the guy who attacked me?”
“Perhaps, but there is much I have already deduced. His youthfulness indicates that he is only in the second or third level of the New Table order, too young to be a master. He was probably hoping this mission would qualify him for consideration in joining the upper circle of seven.”
“The upper circle?”
The professor pushed his hand into the cloak’s deep pocket. “Yes. I assume with Devin’s departure, there is now a vacancy. You see, there are multiple circles, and the highest level makes up the New Table, a group of seven who—” His jaw clenched. “What’s this?” He drew out a small cylinder that looked like a slender candle, about eight inches long with one melted end. He ran it by his nostrils, then jerked it away again, his nose wrinkling.
Billy sniffed the air. “It’s that smell, that gardenia smell that knocked me out.”
“Yes, William.” He placed the candle in his open palm. “This is a scentser, spelled with ‘scent’ as in the scent that a bloodhound would follow.”
Billy pursed his lips. “Soooo . . . what’s a scentser?”
“It’s a weapon of a New Table warrior,” the professor replied, holding the scentser close to his face again. “I heard of such a device years ago, but I learned much more about it from the books in Devin’s library. This particular scent is obviously designed to put an opponent to sleep, a useful tool for a burglar or some other deceiver who wishes to disable his victim. Other scents are used for other purposes.”
“Well, it worked on me. How did you fight it off?”
The professor returned the scentser to his pocket. “When you recognize an enemy’s weapons, they are easier to resist. If you are caught unaware, however, they are much more effective. I suspect that dragons are more sensitive to the aroma. At least the legends tell us so. You, being a dragon of sorts, are probably more susceptible than I.” He tapped Billy on the arm and pointed toward a gap in the hedge on the left. “Turn in here and park, please.”
Billy guided the car through the gap and into a deserted parking lot, stopping at the closest space. He shut off the engine and gave the keys to his teacher. “Is this the place we’re meeting my dad—I mean, Clefspeare?”
The professor hooked his finger through the key ring. “Yes, at the top of a hill on the other side of the road. It’s called Cadbury Castle, though there is no castle there now. It is believed to be the location of Camelot, and remnants of a fortifying wall still exist on the border of the summit.”
After Billy refastened Excalibur to his belt, he and the professor walked across the road and found a trail leading up the hill. Flanked by tall trees that blocked the moon, they scaled the path slowly, barely able to see their own feet. Billy stumbled on a rock but caught himself before he fell. He unsheathed Excalibur and cast its glow on the path.
The professor fished his cell phone from the cloak’s pocket. “Since we know our secrecy has already been compromised, it may be important to maintain silence at the top, so I will try Miss Stalworth again before we get any closer.”
Billy shifted Excalibur, illuminating the professor as he dialed. “With all those goons running around,” Billy said, “I wish Sir Barlow could travel with her.”
The professor’s face wrinkled with a wide grin.
“What’s so funny, Prof?”
“The thought of Sir Barlow flying in an airplane amused me. After spending over a thousand years inside the candlestone, he’s not likely to keep his thoughts to himself should he peer out the window from thirty thousand feet.”
“You got that right. When Mom flew with him to Glasgow, he fell back in his seat, kicked his food tray in the air, and grabbed a flight attendant, shouting at the top of his lungs, ‘By all that is holy! This iron bird is sure to plummet at any moment!’”
The professor laughed as he punched the buttons on his phone. “Perhaps Walter would be a better companion for Miss Stalworth. He is a trustworthy young man, and they could watch out for each other.”
“Yeah. Walter would never tip over a food tray, at least not one that still has food on it.”
While the professor chatted with Ashley, Billy guided Excalibur’s energy field toward the bordering forest. He thought he had heard twigs popping earlier and assumed any number of small animals could have been scurrying around in the undergrowth, but now his sense of danger pricked his mind. The sword’s glow painted shifting shadows as each tree cast a dark stripe against another, crisscrossing into a patchwork of black phantoms.
Billy pulled on the professor’s sleeve. “Prof, we’d better get moving.”
The professor held up one finger. “Very well, Miss Stalworth. We’ll see you when you arrive. Good-bye.” He slapped the phone closed. “Danger, William?”
“Yeah,” Billy whispered. “And it’s growing.”
The professor waved his hand at Excalibur. “Douse the sword. We’ll have to take our chances without its light.”
Billy slid Excalibur into the scabbard, plunging everything back into darkness.
The professor hiked up the trail, his outline barely visible as he swung his arm forward, whispering hoarsely, “Onward and upward, William!”
Chapter 3
Ashley hung up the phone and propped her chin in her hand, rubbing her index ring against her jaw. With a deep sigh she lowered her hand and caressed the ring’s gem with her thumb, polishing the rubellite’s smooth surface.
I guess a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
She gazed into the gem and caught a glimpse of her warped reflection and whispered, “Or what a dragon’s gotta do.”
She rose from a plush sofa in the family room and walked slowly through a hallway toward her computer laboratory. A gallery of photos lined the freshly painted walls—Jared and Marilyn Bannister, their son, Billy, and Marilyn’s five new foster children: Ashley and her four sisters, Karen, Rebecca, Stacey, and Monique.
The air in the newly rebuilt house was still tinged with the aroma of fresh paint and varnish. The stench of burnt flesh and scorched insulation had been bulldozed months ago, along with the remains of the old house the dragon slayers had burned down.
Ashley’s shoes squeaked across the tile floor, and the noise echoed in the quiet corridor. Once she entered the computer room, however, everything changed. As soon as she swung the door open, a low-pitched hum bathed her ears in the exciting sounds of technology. Computer displays, digital meters, and poster-sized flowcharts covered the walls. A ten-foot-long work table abutted one wall, its top boasting at least five disassembled computers, their innards strewn across every square inch of space.
The drone of power supply cooling fans filled the room, and the refreshing breeze from an air conditioner wafted across Ashley’s face. Karen sat in a glass-enclosed chamber, her bright orange hair bobbing as she pecked at a keyboard while watching a huge video display. The chamber’s transparent walls enveloped the rear half of the computer room and housed Ashley’s greatest creation, a revolutionary supercomputer, a ceiling-high box of metal and plastic covered with notched dials, flashing diodes, and plasma monitors.
“I thought I told you to go to bed,” Ashley called.
Karen replied from behind the glass, her voice muffled. “Can’t. If I don’t finish this software installation, I’ll have to start from scratch tomorrow.” She rose from her chair, her eyes still glued to the screen. “Who was on the phone?”
“Professor Hamilton.” Ashley gestured to her sister. “Come on out.”
Karen’s freckled face beamed as she slid the chamber’s glass door open. “The professor? What’s up?”
Ashley ran her fingers through her thick brown hair and walked slowly toward the chamber wall, staring blankly at one of her flowcharts. “He wants me to meet him in England. Something about analyzing microchips.”
“So what’s got you looking like that?”
Ashley swiveled toward Karen. “Looking like what?” She rubbed her cheek with her fingertips. “Did I get toner on my face again?”
“No. You look like you missed a question on a calculus test or something.”
Ashley smiled and shook her head slowly. “Oh, it’s just an impression. The professor said he’s ‘lost the veil of secrecy’ or something like that. You know how literary he is. Anyway, he told me to be careful, that I should ask Walter to come with me.”
Karen’s green eyes brightened. “You’re going to England with Walter? Lucky dog.”
Ashley put her palm on top of Karen’s red head. “You’re only fourteen. Keep your mind on your studies.” She slid the glass door closed and leaned against it. “I’ll need your brain in gear to operate the board, and this’ll be a great chance to test how far the photo-porter system will transmit.” She walked to a desk and pecked the keys on a laptop computer. The screen responded with a series of Internet pages, and Ashley browsed through an airline travel site. “Let’s see. There’s a morning flight out of D.C. We’d have to leave real early to get there on time.” She rubbed the mousepad and clicked its button. “Look at that! Two seats left!”
“Better snap ’em up.”
Ashley switched to a personal phone directory on the computer. “Not yet. I’d better call the Foleys first and see if Walter can go.”
Karen picked up a stray circuit board from the table and pressed on its memory chips with her thumb. “He’ll go. With the professor in England, there’s no school for a while. I saw him this morning, and he’s so bored without Billy and Bonnie around, he’s bouncing off the walls.”
“This morning? I thought you said you were collecting cans.”
“I was,” Karen replied, raising her eyebrows. “I was just passing by on my bike, and he came out into the yard.”
“Yeah, right. He probably wanted to tell you one of his lame jokes.”
“No. Walter’s cool as cash.” Karen waved the circuit board at Ashley. “You think he’s a clown, but he’s not. Just yesterday I helped him and his dad fix their car, and he didn’t crack a single joke. . . . Well, maybe one, but his jokes are always clean.” She set one hand on her hip and blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Just because he’s not Mr. Sober Sides like you doesn’t mean you should write him off.”
Ashley grabbed a cell phone from her belt clip. “I’m not writing him off. I’m asking him to go to England with me, aren’t I?” She flipped the phone open and glared at it. “I just wish he’d act his age.”
Karen poked a finger into Ashley’s ribs, grinning. “Well, maybe you should act
your
age instead of being an ornery old curmudgeon all the time.”
Ashley’s frown melted into a smile. “Curmudgeon? Where did you pick up that word?”
“From Larry. He called me that today when I complained about his installation protocol.” Karen edged over to the glass wall and peered inside. “He doesn’t like me, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Larry’s out to get you, a computer with a prejudice against redheads.” She punched in a number and put the phone to her ear. “Walter! Glad you’re still up. Sorry to call so late, but it’s important. . . . Yeah. Listen. You want to go to England with me? . . . When? Tomorrow. . . . Yeah, as in, you know, tomorrow. Don’t get all worked up. . . . Do you have a passport? . . . Super! . . . What did your dad just say? . . . A chaperone? . . . Sure. Tell him the professor’s meeting us at London Heathrow. We’ll be in good hands. . . . He said ‘yes’? . . . Great! . . . Yeah. Good idea. I need Karen to man the computer here, but the other girls can stay there. Thanks for asking. . . . Cool! I’ll get the tickets and call you back. We have to leave real early, so start packing. . . . I don’t know how long, so I’m just getting one-way tickets. . . . How should I know how many? Underwear is light. Bring all you have. . . . Later.”
Ashley slapped the phone shut and clipped it on her belt. “I’ll take the laptop, the circuit board equipment, and Apollo.” She glanced around the room, her eyes finally resting on an electronics workbench in one corner. “The professor asked if I have a way of detecting electromagnetic frequencies. Is my old spectral photometer repaired yet?”
“Yeah. It took quite a hit, but it’s as good as new.”
“Good.” Ashley pointed toward a metal briefcase on a tabletop. “Put it in my case, and I’ll get packed.”
“So you’ll be gone tomorrow for Halloween. Do we have anything for the trick-or-treaters?”
Ashley shook her head. “I was going to get something in the morning. Just turn off the porch light and hunker down in the computer room with Larry. Sleep on the sofa if you want.”
“Sure thing.” Karen put her finger on her jaw. “Is the transmitter still embedded okay?”
Ashley bent forward. “Better check it for me.” She opened her mouth wide.
Karen peered in, her eyes darting around. “Looks like it hasn’t moved at all.” She pushed Ashley’s mouth closed. “Better test the alarm.”
Ashley tapped the outside of her jaw with her finger. A low-pitched buzzer sounded, and a light on the main computer panel flashed three times. After a few seconds, the buzzing faded away.
Karen crossed her arms over her chest and grinned. “Works like a charm!”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll give you credit. It was a good idea. But I still think we could’ve come up with a better location than one of my molars.”
“Why? Does it still hurt when you chew?”
Ashley worked her jaw back and forth. “No. I just chew on the other side. The transmitter’s designed to take a beating, but you never know what might get stuck in there.”
“Yeah. When you’re in England I don’t want to hear crumpets and tea swishing around when I put the headphones on.”
A man dressed in black stepped heel-and-toe along a rocky ledge, brushing against the mountainside. Although the ledge was wide enough for two men to walk side by side, he never strayed from a narrow strip of talus that crunched under his boots. Below lay a valley of littered bones, a dry riverbed between two sheer rock faces.
As the ledge narrowed, he ran his palm along the vertical slope and marched on, keeping his gaze riveted on a gaping hole in another mountain face that lay ahead. The ledge curved to the right, leading the man to a mammoth cave.
As he passed under the shadowy arch, the bright sunlight at his back withered and fell into weak streams, crawling past his stocky legs like a hundred wiggling electric eels. After taking three more steps, he halted, allowing his eyes to adjust to the eerie radiance in the vast inner chamber.
A dark shape drifted across the open area like a statuesque ghost. Streaming light bathed the image, highlighting a tall female, graceful and elegant. She stopped at the edge of a circular opening in the floor, a hole about six feet wide. The streams of light poured over the edge as the orifice sucked them into its depths.
A colorful aura floated above the surface of the pit, creating a vertical, egg-shaped corona. It resembled an oval mirror standing on end, with symmetric, rainbow images waltzing through the depths of its ghostly glow. More like a living hologram than a dull, flat screen, it cast shimmering rays of light, illuminating the woman’s face with stripes of red, green, and gold and passing through her semi-transparent body.
She spread out her arms toward the aura and bowed her head. “Samyaza, we have captured the dragon. Clefspeare will soon become a powerful ally. He has entered our realm unprotected.”
A low voice replied from the chasm, echoing as if far away. Every syllable vibrated the hovering oval’s light as though the speaker strummed its rays like a harp. “Can you trust a mere human to take control? Can he really act as one of the Nephilim, as a true child of Samyaza and Morgan?”
“Yes, my beloved. Devin is as devoted as any of our children would have been. He will not let us down.”
The voice weakened. “So be it.” And its echoes drifted away. The colors in the halo faded into pastels, still swirling within the oval.
Morgan turned slowly, her eyes gleaming as she gazed at the man who had just entered the cave. When she nodded, he spoke, his shaky legs belying his steady voice. “Elaine reports that Markus and Hartanna have taken Bonnie Silver to safety. They now have access to the two cloaks, as you requested.”
Morgan’s silky voice replied in a soft melody. “Very good, Palin. Patrick will know what the cloaks are for. All is proceeding exactly as planned.”
Palin took a few steps toward the hole but dared not peer into its depths. Sliding his feet to the side, he edged close to the lady. “Is our master well?”
A dark shadow passed across Morgan’s face, and her lips thinned out. “Samyaza is my husband, not my master. You would do well to remember that.”
Palin bowed his head. “Yes, my lady. Forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” She grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him down to his knees. “Grovel at my feet, you little worm. If not for me, you would have trembled naked at the judgment seat.” She released his hair, and her hand dissolved into a translucent vapor.
Palin’s cheeks burned. “I . . . I had hoped my service would gain your kindness, my lady.”
She straightened her back and squared her shoulders, her eyes ablaze. “If it is kindness you desire, you chose the wrong blood to be your ally.”
Palin bowed his head. “I have more news. The cloaks have been reprogrammed with a simplified encryption, as you requested. Number seventeen fell to Hartanna, so they now have cloaks from him and number thirty-two, but . . .” Palin cringed. “But the old man, the kid’s professor, got away.”
A plume of black smoke erupted from the top of Morgan’s head. “What!” she screamed. “Hamilton escaped?!”
Palin instinctively ducked, but the blow to the head he expected never came. He looked up, thinking Morgan might have ignited into a raging fire and disintegrated, but she stood calmly rubbing her chin.
She placed a hand under Palin’s arm and lifted him gently to his feet. A smile softened her face. “Does Patrick know what happened to Clefspeare yet?”
“He will soon. Markus is not one to keep news from his master for very long.”
“Good.” Morgan nodded slowly and began pacing. “My plan rests on the fragile arms of deception, and it flies into action on the wings of haste. Wise counsel is our enemy, so we must separate Charles Hamilton from Patrick and the boy king.” She pressed two fingers against her cheek. “The mind of Merlin abided too long with Hamilton’s, and since only Merlin knows how to spoil my plans, I cannot take the chance that his silly songs still chant in the old professor’s eccentric head.”
“And how do you propose to separate them?”
“With deception, of course. The sons of light are so naïve, they’ll believe anything they’re told.” She shooed him away with the back of her hand. “Go back to the sixth circle. I’ll send you word when I decide how to remove the old man.”
“Yes, my lady.” Palin turned to leave, but he paused. “Who should be our agent? Devin would have been perfect for this job. No one is more qualified.”
“Put Devin out of your mind. He is unable to serve in that capacity any longer.” She turned again toward the colors in the halo as though reading a message from its swirling bands. After a few seconds she finally spoke again, her voice low but firm. “We must hold back the seven until the king steps into my realm. We’ll call on number eight. It’s time to flex our muscles.”
The professor pulled the cloak off and laid it next to a tree at the edge of the hilltop. He and Billy crouched, allowing the tree’s arching branches to shroud them in darkness. “How long till sunrise, Prof?” Billy asked.