Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Isabel.”
She gazed at the tea leaves’ slush piles, her forehead creased.
“Isabel!”
She glanced up. “What?”
“You need to go,” I said. “Join Sinead and go to the car. We’ll meet you in the offices of HHT.”
“Yes… yes, of course.”
She took one last look at the leaves, and rose to her feet.
“The patrol is back in the security room,” Harutaka said. “Your way up is clear, Isabel.”
“Do you have eyes on the dragon?” I asked.
“He’s watching his guests leaving from the balcony upstairs. Hurry, Lou.”
I pushed open the door. It was heavy and thick, hard to move, a metal door built to withstand crowbars and even explosives. When the crack was wide enough, I slid through it. Kane followed in my wake.
I stopped two steps into the vault, my jaw going slack.
All the valuables upstairs had been only a fraction of the dragon’s possessions. And the rest were here. Piles of glittering coins, jewels, works of art, ancient weapons—all were scattered in the vast hall. It looked like one of Scrooge McDuck’s vaults—enough treasures to swim in. Here, the dragon gave up on the pretense of order altogether. The treasures were littered around as if someone had taken fistfuls of them and just tossed them inside the vault, letting them land where they would.
But as my eyes ran across the room, I began seeing a strange pattern. The piles of treasure were lower in the center, their tops flat. In the corners they grew high, toppling on each other. This created a sort of crater in the center of the vault. And as my perception adjusted, I saw what this really was. It was a bed. The treasure was the bedsheets, crumpled and tossed to the corner, like I would do on a summer night. This was where the dragon slept. And once I understood that, another fact sunk in.
The dragon was huge.
I had been thinking of Ddraig Goch as the man I had seen in the banquet. Scary-looking, powerful, dangerous—sure. But a man. The thing that slept here was not a man. It was an enormous beast, its body spanning ten yards, maybe even more.
“How much treasure does one dragon need?” Kane asked in a hushed voice, and his words echoed in the vast vault.
“All the treasure,” I said.
I tore my eyes from the glittering piles, and stared across the vault. There was a steel door, about two feet high, set into the wall. It was the dragon’s safe. I touched Kane’s arm, pointing. “There it is. Let’s open it before the dragon returns.”
As I crossed the room, I retrieved a small vial from the hidden pocket in my sleeve. I uncorked it and drank the contents, grimacing. It tasted like I imagined dirty socks would taste, if anyone was inclined to try.
I then reduced the volume of my earphone to the bare minimum. The concoction I’d just consumed would make my hearing sharp and sensitive. Harutaka’s voice in my ear would sound like a roar once it kicked in.
Kane was already by the safe, muttering arcane whispers. The safe door was covered in runes. I wouldn’t be able to touch it until he countered them. He rummaged in his pocket and retrieved a yellow parchment, placing it against the safe door. The parchment’s surface had a strange, swirly pattern on it, and as Kane spoke it began to shift and move in a mesmerizing spiral. After a while, the pattern began crawling off the page, intertwining itself between the runes on the safe, like an inky snake. Each rune it coiled around seemed to dim somehow, as if broken.
Kane’s voice rose, almost to a shout. But no—I was just hearing it louder. My ears were a stethoscope now, the sound of the world enhanced. My earphone constantly emitted a faint annoying static crackle that I hadn’t noticed before. From far beyond the room, I heard people speaking—the guests, bidding goodbye to each other. In the vault, there were thumping noises. Our hearts, beating almost in unison.
The chanting had stopped. The ink pattern had crawled through each and every one of the runes now, rendering them inert. Kane moved aside.
“You’re up,” he said, and the words pierced my skull like blades. I winced, and placed a finger on my lips, my eyes pleading for silence. He nodded in understanding.
I crouched by the safe, and gave the dial a few quick turns to reset it. Then I put my right ear to the safe door and began to turn the wheel slowly. The sounds of the rest of the world were distracting—Kane’s breathing, the rustle of his coat as he moved, a lady with a sharp voice summoning her driver somewhere above me. I put my left hand on my left ear, blocking everything as much as I could, and kept turning the dial.
To crack a safe, one must find the contact area—a point between two numbers where there’s a small click. I turned the dial slowly, one number at a time, and suddenly there it was, as loud as someone kicking a metal bucket. Clank. The contact area was between thirty-four and thirty-five. I turned the dial again, just to be sure. There it was. I was right.
Kane cleared his throat, a rumble, like a volcano. I glanced back at him, furious. He raised his palms apologetically.
Now I had to count the wheels. I parked the wheel opposite to the contact area and began turning the dial. Every time it went past the contact area I heard it again. Clank—clank—clank. I counted the clicks, praying for a small number. Three would be a dream come true. Four would be great. Five would mean we’d be here for at least half an hour. Six or more would be… terrible.
The dial went through the contact area without clicking. That was it. Four clicks. I breathed in relief. That meant it was a combination of four numbers.
Now it was time to find the four numbers. I began turning the dial again listening for the clicks, my mind noting the results. It was slow process, and I had to be sure I had it right. If I made a mistake here, we would waste a very long time. Finally, I had them all. Four numbers.
Five, twenty-five, forty-two, eighty-three.
“The dragon is moving,” Harutaka said. Even at the low volume I tensed in pain as his voice tore through my ear canal.
“Just a few more minutes,” I whispered. “Kane, get the circle.”
I had the numbers, but I didn’t know their order. It could be twenty-five, eighty-three, forty-two, five. Or it could be eighty-three, five, twenty-five, forty-two. Or any other combination. Four numbers gave me twenty-four possible combinations, and I would have to try them all. If it was a five-numbers safe, there would be one hundred and twenty combinations. Six numbers would mean seven hundred twenty combinations, and trying them would take all night.
Behind me, I heard loud scratching. Kane, drawing the teleportation circle on the floor.
I began trying the combinations one by one. Kane chanted, his voice loud and pounding, and I gritted my teeth. I was sure he was chanting as quietly as he could. By the eighth combination I was a bundle of nerves. What if I’d gotten it wrong? I wouldn’t have time to start over. Thank god there were only four numbers.
Were there only four numbers? I began to doubt myself. Wasn’t there a fifth click? That would change everything. That would…
Another click, much louder. It was my twelfth attempt. The safe was open. I backed away from it, amazed that it had worked. That it had all worked.
I pulled the safe door open and peered in. There were two items inside: a small, worn-looking leather pouch, and a black box, the size of my palm, its surface smooth. The box had a tiny lock, with an intricate key inserted in it. Kane and I just stared, frozen.
Once we touched either of them, the dragon would know.
“Is the circle ready?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yeah.” He did his best to lower his voice.
“We move on the count of three. One…” I tensed, could hear Kane hold his breath. “Two…” Our heartbeats were racing, a cacophony of beating drums. “Three!”
I snatched the box. Kane took the pouch.
I could almost feel the heaviness of the gaze suddenly upon me. Somewhere above, Ddraig Goch paused, realizing there were intruders in his vault. That they were touching his most valuable possessions.
Almost instantly, the vault door clanged shut. I heard the mechanical clunking as it locked, shutting us inside. Trapped. The dragon must have moved it with his mind.
Something roared above us. I cried in pain, falling to my knees, hands on my ears, trying to mute the sounds. It was impossible. There was nothing beyond that roar. I couldn’t think, couldn’t talk, couldn’t move.
And then the roar slowly dissipated.
Harutaka said something, but it was hard to hear him over the throb of my skull. “Dragon… moving… tore a gate… get out!”
I looked at Kane. He already stood in the circle. The pouch was in his left hand, and one huge, blue, gleaming scale lay atop his right palm. His lips were moving as he muttered incantations, tapping into the power in the dragon scale.
Another roar shook the mansion, and suddenly the world ruptured. A black, pulsing void appeared in the air just a few yards away from us, growing larger. A tear in space. The dragon was ripping apart dimensions to get to us.
The circle of charcoal began to glow with a blue light. It grew brighter as Kane kept chanting.
“Get into that circle!” Harutaka roared into my ear.
I stumbled to the circle, but it seemed small, almost too small. I stared at Kane standing in it, wondering if I was about to be abandoned here, stuck, as the dragon appeared. Was Kane going to leave me behind? Memories hit me full blast as I gazed at him, my head pounding and dizzy. Of a job years ago. Of the man I’d loved, who ran away without me. Of the handcuffs latching onto my wrists…
And then Kane shifted, moving aside slightly. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the circle, hugging me close to him. I could smell the scent of clove and pine. Kane’s scent. Above me, his voice rose to a crescendo that vibrated through me.
Would the spell work? It had to work. In a minute, we would be safe and sound, in the conference room of HHT.
Beyond Kane’s body, the void widened, and in it, the silhouette of the dragon’s head began to materialize. Its jaw opened, emitting an ear-shattering roar. Harutaka yelled something, but it was impossible to hear, and Kane’s voice shouted strange ancient words above the din as his arms pulled me to him, one around my waist, the other on the back of my neck, pressing my head to his chest.
A sharp glimmer, like lightning, and then, suddenly, darkness. We were out of the vault.
My shuddering breath of relief caught in my throat. We weren’t in a conference room at all. We were surrounded by looming, dark shapes.
The shapes of plants.