Slayers: Friends and Traitors (2 page)

He wouldn’t let himself panic about this. She would be fine. Contractions, even when they were real ones, could last several hours. When Bianca lost the last baby at five and a half months, it had still taken six hours to deliver it.

He didn’t like to think about that son, a tiny gray curled figure that didn’t look quite human. This son would be healthy. He had to be. Overdrake needed another dragon lord to help him, and only boys inherited that trait. If this baby died, who knew how long it would take for Bianca to produce another son for him. The wives of dragon lords always had a hard time getting pregnant. It was the one drawback of having ancestors who had mixed their DNA with dragons.

Bianca stopped gripping the armrests, took a deep breath, and let herself go limp in the chair.

“How far apart was that one?” he asked.

She glanced at her watch. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes?” he repeated.

She put her hand over her stomach and her shoulders shook with a silent sob. “You have to land the plane. I’m in labor.”

Rivulets of water coated the windows. The clouds looked as if they had rolled in charcoal. Thunder was rumbling hungrily, looking for something to consume. “We can’t land until the storm stops.”

Bianca’s voice rose. “The storm isn’t going to stop, and neither are these contractions. I need a doctor.” Tears spilled from her eyes, and she put her arms around her stomach, cradling it as though she could cradle the baby that way. “This is too early. Something is wrong.”

Overdrake didn’t tell her it would be all right. He didn’t know if it would be. The memory of the last labor still clung to the edges of his mind. With a sigh, he sat beside her and took her hand in his. “If we land at BWI, the eggs’ signals will reach all the people at the airport, all the people sitting in planes. Some of them are bound to be descendants of the Slayer knights.” Back when those knights had ruled the Middle Ages, they’d spread their genes far and wide. Conquerors always did.

“Yes, but how many of those descendants will be pregnant?” she asked. “There can’t be that many.”

“How many Slayers does it take to kill a dragon?” Overdrake meant to counter her argument, but instead found the sentence comforting. Even if the eggs’ signals did activate genes in a few unborn babies, giving them powers later on—it didn’t mean those children would be able to grow up and kill the dragons.

Over the generations the Slayer knights’ powers splintered apart. Descendants no longer inherited all of the abilities their ancestors had, just a few. And what could a handful of half-equipped Slayers do against his dragons?

Bianca shifted in her seat, gripping the armrests again. Another contraction was coming. “We’ve got to land. We don’t have another choice and waiting will only put our son’s life in danger.” Her eyes seared with pain. “Who are you more concerned about—Slayer babies that might not even exist or your own baby who needs your help right now?”

She was right. Overdrake put his hand over hers, giving her what comfort he could. “I’ll tell the pilot to land at BWI.”

*   *   *

Three hours later, Overdrake sat beside his wife on her hospital bed. The doctor and nurses had finally left, giving the couple some privacy. Smiling and satisfied, Bianca handed Overdrake their son to hold. Even though the baby was four weeks premature, he was still seven and a half pounds. Perfectly healthy and waiting to be admired. He had strong, smooth skin, wisps of fair hair, and knowing eyes. Ones that showed intelligence. It was as if he already understood that he was a dragon lord.

“You can swim through the sky,” Overdrake whispered to him. “You can control the kings of the air.”

Bianca laughed. “You’ll let him learn to walk before you train him to do all that, won’t you?”

Overdrake grinned at her. “Maybe.” He could enjoy these moments without worry, because Divers had already left BWI and landed in Winchester. Overdrake’s staff were now carefully transporting each egg into the dragon enclosure.

Bianca reached over and stroked the baby’s cheek. “How many…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

Overdrake knew what she was thinking. “How many Slayers did our detour here create? I guess we’ll know when the dragons attack and a bunch of teenagers show up to fight them.”

“Teenagers,” Bianca repeated, letting the word drift off. “They’ll still be children when the dragons are full grown…”

Bianca was beautiful and Overdrake loved her, but she was much too soft when it came to thoughts of war. “Those teenagers won’t just be the dragons’ enemies,” he reminded her. “They’ll be our enemies, and our son’s enemies, too.”

Overdrake bent down and kissed his son’s forehead. This was the person who would help him start a new dynasty. Overdrake ran a finger over his son’s small hand and felt a surge of protectiveness and regret. He should have been more careful when he’d transported the eggs here. He’d taken risks and inadvertently created enemies for his son—children who would be born with a destiny already genetically stamped into them.

Overdrake would take care of his mistake, though. He would think of a way to find the Slayers and do whatever he needed in order to eliminate them.

CHAPTER 1

J
UNE, SEVENTEEN AND A HALF YEARS LATER

At six foot four and two hundred pounds, very few things frightened Ryker Davis. Dragons were one of those things, but they hardly counted since dragons weren’t real.

Or at least, they weren’t supposed to be real. They weren’t real yesterday. Today might rearrange that fact. Ryker had just finished building the machine that would prove one way or the other whether he inherited superpowers to fight dragons. Were dragons just myths from the Middle Ages—the work of wild fears turned into legends—or was reality about to make a 90-degree bend?

The dragon heartbeat simulator was a metal box the size of a cedar chest and about as boring looking. According to the specifications, when it was turned on, it sent out energy waves that would fool his body into thinking a dragon was around. His dormant Slayer abilities would be triggered and he’d have extra strength, the ability to see in the dark, and one of the other dragon-fighting skills. Something along the lines of flight, throwing shields up, dousing fire, sending out freezing shocks, sending out fireballs, healing burns, or seeing what the dragon saw.

So far, all the machine did was make a humming-thumping sound, like something was loose inside.

He stared at it, not sure whether to feel discouraged or relieved that nothing amazing was happening to him. It was hard to feel anything but foolish while his cousin, Willow, stood by, making little quips to show that she thought the whole idea of dragon slayers was hilariously funny. “So if you’re a superhero, are you going to start wearing brightly colored tights under your clothes?”

“No, I’ve always thought that jeans were good superhero fashion.”

Ryker hadn’t known that anyone considered dragon Slayer a career option until two years ago when he did an Internet search of his name and found the website RykerDavis.com.

The site proclaimed, “All You Ever Wanted to Know about Ryker Davis.” It had a password to get past the first page. The clue was, What does Ryker dream about?

How could he not try to guess the password? For all he knew, one of the jerk-wad senior guys from the football team had put up the site to harass him. It bugged a few of them that the coach made Ryker starting varsity when he was a freshman. They’d never forgiven him for it. And they’d especially never forgiven him when he quit football a year later and went out for cross-country instead. Guys who could play varsity football weren’t supposed to like cross-country better.

Ryker had typed in a few things he thought the jerk-wads would say he dreamed about, but when none of them worked, he typed in the real answer. Dragons. Although strictly speaking, those weren’t dreams. They were nightmares.

Ryker didn’t find any jokes or stupid pictures of himself. He found something completely different. And in many ways much worse.

Ryker, although you’re unaware of it, you belong to an elite group of teenagers called the Slayers. Dragon eggs are here in the country, lying dormant, and will hatch within a few years. The resulting dragons won’t be humankind’s friends. You’ve inherited powers necessary to fight them. Your subconscious already knows this—which is why you’ve always had an obsession with dragons.

Granted, for as long as Ryker could remember, and he was seventeen, he’d liked weapons. As a child, he constantly stole the vacuum cleaner’s hose attachment to use as a sword. Ditto for his dad’s golf clubs. In kindergarten he turned a coat hanger into a bow and pencils into arrows. He started fencing lessons in third grade and now had a collection of swords that barely fit in his bedroom. And, okay, maybe he had a habit of buying plastic dragon toys, throwing them up in the air, and then seeing how many times he could slice through them before they hit the ground.

But that didn’t mean he had a dragon
obsession
.

If he was obsessed with anything, it was hang gliding.

I need to train you,
the site read,
but it must remain a secret. Tell no one.

As if Ryker would tell anyone about the website. He was constantly worried someone he knew would find it and think he’d created it. Ryker didn’t want to go through high school known as the weird guy who believed in dragons.

The site gave a phone number, an e-mail address, and a name. Or at least part of one: Dr. B. Ryker hadn’t contacted him. The guy was probably some wack job, and besides, Ryker’s parents were ultra-paranoid about identity theft, strangers, and all things that went bump in the night. If it weren’t for the fact that there were two other Ryker Davises who had information all over the Internet, his parents would already be freaked out that a website existed with his name.

Ryker had kept tabs on the website over the last two years. He even started believing it. Or at least believed it enough that he had to know whether it was true.

A couple weeks ago, Dr. B posted schematics on how to construct a dragon heartbeat simulator, and Ryker built it. He stared at the machine now. He didn’t feel extra strong. Nothing changed in his vision. The light in the basement was as dim as it always was.

Ryker picked up a screwdriver, walked over to the simulator, and twisted a screw tighter. It didn’t need tightening. He had picked up the screwdriver to test his strength without being obvious about it. As he stepped away from the simulator, he took the screwdriver in one hand and tried to bend it. It remained straight.

Willow swished her long blonde hair off her shoulders dramatically. She was tall, thin, and graceful—willowy—which was a good thing since it would be hard to live down a name like Willow if you were short and dumpy. “Can I be your sidekick?”

It had been a mistake to let his cousin see the simulator. She had promptly e-mailed Dr. B and asked if a Batmobile came with the Slayer job description.

Immediately after she sent her e-mail, Dr. B contacted her, giving his phone number and asking that Ryker call him.

Yeah. Ryker wasn’t going to do that. He fingered the screwdriver again. It still didn’t bend. He tossed it onto the floor near his dad’s toolbox and decided it served Willow right that she’d e-mailed Dr. B. The guy would probably send her daily spam trying to sell her tinfoil hats and elf repellent.

Willow looked upward, thinking. “For my sidekick costume, I want a cute headband like the one Wonder Woman wears but not the star-spangled bathing suit. I mean, fighting crime shouldn’t require a girl to shave her legs. That’s asking too much.”

“I don’t think you have to worry. I’m not experiencing any superpowers—at least not ones I didn’t already have. I think my innate genius probably qualifies.” Ryker kept his voice light, but there was a sort of numb disappointment filling him. He was normal. Like everybody else. Which meant he had an entire mundane, unimportant life to look forward to.

“Maybe you’re not trying hard enough,” Willow said. “See if you can shoot spiderwebs from your palm.”

“Sorry,” he said. “As much as I’d like to encase you in a web and leave you dangling somewhere, I can’t.” On the other hand, Ryker didn’t have to worry about dragons attacking cities, or about his genetic responsibility to fight them. When he looked at it that way, a mundane, unimportant life wasn’t such a bad thing.

Dragons. Sheesh. When had he become so gullible?

Willow let out a dramatic sigh. “I guess we’d better inform Dr. Alphabet Letters that you’re not as cool as he thought.” She picked up her Kindle. Dr. B’s e-mail to them still sat on the screen.

“Don’t,” Ryker said. With one swift motion he grabbed the Kindle out of Willow’s hands. “Don’t encourage whoever…” He stopped talking when Willow let out a gasp. She stared, openmouthed at his hand.

Ryker looked down. The Kindle had cracked. The screen was nothing but a starburst of lines and colors.

Willow took a step toward him, her hands lifted in frustration. “What did you do that for?”

Ryker peered at the broken Kindle, dumbfounded. “I didn’t grab it that hard. It just shattered.”

Willow yanked what was left of the Kindle from his hand. Pieces of plastic fell onto the floor. “These don’t
just shatter
. You must have…” Her voice trailed off, her anger fading away.

They looked at each other. Then they looked at the simulator. It was still making the same soft thudding sound. They looked back at each other. Neither said anything for a moment.

“Do you feel extra strong?” Willow asked tentatively.

“No,” he said. “I still feel the same.”

Willow scanned the room, saw the screwdriver, and picked it up. “See if you can bend this.” She handed it to him, then took a step back from him as though the screwdriver might not only shatter, but explode, too.