The Dragon Guard (22 page)

“Good to see you, sir. We both put in long weekends, these breaks are nice.”

“Dad's gonna have a lot of long weekends,” Trent interjected. “The company's laying everyone off.”

McIntire frowned. “Are they? That's not good. A man of your experience shouldn't have too much trouble getting placed. Sit with me, and catch up.”

“Well . . .” Frank traded a look with his son.

“I'm sitting with Bailey,” Trent said firmly.

McIntire chuckled. “Jumping up and down cheering, is more like it. It'll be quieter here with us.” He motioned to Callahan to sit, as he settled himself next to his wife. Before his dad could protest, Trent escaped.

 

“You've got the whole fam damly here, looks like,” Trent said, as he sat down on the benches and watched Jason lacing up his shoes tightly. The soccer field rang with the noise of people ascending the aluminum bleachers, and kids shouting as they raced around on the spring grass in the midst of the teams trying to warm up a bit. The midafternoon sun shone down brightly, but there was a crisp spring breeze that would keep it from being too hot. All in all, it looked like a good day. “Joanna, Alicia, and the Dozer.”

“No kidding. Alicia wanted to film it, and then splice some of the shots into this project she's been invited to do.”

“Little Miss Spielberg, huh?”

“Looks like it.” Jason straightened his shin guards. “I kinda like having everyone here to watch, though. I hope we give ‘em a good game.”

“Think you're gonna win it?”

“Hope so, but they're a tough team. They've won before, and we haven't. Depends if we get nervous and if we're good enough and want it enough.”

Trent grinned at him. “Going to work for ESPN later, huh?”

Jason cuffed at him, and missed.

“Good thing you don't use your hands in soccer,” Trent teased. He waved back at the bleachers.

“Brought your dad?”

“Yup. Thought he might talk to your stepdad, maybe do a little networking.”

“Hey.” Jason tucked his shirt in. “You know, that's not a bad idea. McIntire might know of some jobs.”

“That's what I thought. He could do worse than find Frank Callahan a job.” Trent nodded confidently.

“Always thinking.” Jason leaned forward, after gazing up into the stands. He could not help but feel tremendously happy seeing his friends gathering there. Henry sat next to Bailey and her mother, his round face very pale in the afternoon sun. Rich and Stefan sat a few rows down, with Stefan's foreign-born parents looking overly American and proud, and even Rich's parents, his mother with a tissue to her nose and trying not to get too close to people. “Rich's parents are here?”

“How can you miss that red hair?”

“I can't, but I thought his mother never went out.” Mrs. Hawkins was a notorious hypochondriac, dreadfully afraid of catching some exotic disease or other.

“She doesn't, usually. I guess there's a health fair or something at the other end of the park, so they thought they'd come for the game and then go over and get their blood pressure taken.” Trent's eyes sparkled with amusement as he speculated.

The only ones missing were Ting and Gavan. Gavan occasionally sneaked in a soccer game, although professing he knew that even soccer was out of his time, but quite popular now in England and Europe of course. Jason liked to rib Gavan that only golf and jousting had been invented when Gavan grew up, and for all he knew it was nearly true. Maybe croquet. He'd have to look it up on the Internet sometime, just to see. Ting would be in San Francisco now, so he'd catch her up on the news later either through his crystal or computer.

“Tell ‘em, Trent,” Jason said suddenly. “No Magick, no matter what happens to me.”

It was something that never came up. “We wouldn't—”

“I know. Just . . . in case.”

“Right. I'll pass the word.” Trent backed away from the benches as more of the team began to gather, and the coach started barking out drills. “Luck.” He touched his knuckles to Jason's shoulder.

Luck, indeed.

Trent wove his way through the now crowded bleachers, tapping the others on the shoulder and conferring with each of them the same way before sitting down next to Henry and Bailey. To them all, he whispered, “Hero boy says don't do anything, but we all know what to do if Jonnard shows up, right?”

They all gave him a nod and a wolfish grin of agreement.

Trent settled on the aluminum bleacher. Beautiful day for a championship game. He noticed his father sitting down with the McIntires where he and the Dozer seemed to be having a good conversation. Yup, a good day where a lot could go right.

J
ASON bloodied his lip sometime in the second quarter. He couldn't quite remember when. It might have been when he tried to head the ball and missed, or it might have been when he got caught in a rundown or it might have been someone tossing an elbow during a throw-in. He didn't remember getting it, and he didn't mind it at all. It only hurt when he needed to suck down some water and he wouldn't even have noticed it at all except for Rich calling down from the bleachers, “Better get some ice on that, Jason!” Only then had he realized he'd split his lip.

He didn't feel it, any more than he felt the tiredness in his legs or the bruising in his ribs from the fight of the day before. He didn't feel anything but the sheer, fierce joy of running down the field, the ball in his control, the goal net in sight. The rush of other bodies flying with him and the jostling contact with others, all intent on controlling that ball and scoring, filled his mind. Like a sharp-eyed eagle, he watched for the hand and body language signs of his teammates, knowing when and where to wheel about, and weave around, and take the pass or kick it off himself. They played like what they were . . . a team . . . and as the minutes ticked away and sweat darkened his shirt, the goals added up, three for each side.

As it should have been, he thought. They were all fighting hard and playing well, and he hadn't seen any mistakes. Sometimes a team got to the finals accidentally because it won on a freak day, but not these two teams. Both had earned it. His own Chargers against the Wolverines. Their banner held a depiction of the fearsome beast, a soccer ball being torn to shreds in its great jaws, while his team's showed a white charging medieval warhorse on a field of blue. He felt a keen sense of pride just being there, and a sharp jabbing wish to be the one who made his team the winner. They'd been all over him, though; word had gotten out since his last game, and he found himself bottled up regularly with little he could do but play decoy and defense. Everything he did helped, though, like a puzzle piece fitting in for a greater picture, or that was what the coach had told all of them at the break. Teamwork.

Sound broke over him with a roar like that of waves from the ocean. He could only make out a word now and then from the bleachers as the only voice he was really listening to was that of Coach Wayne bellowing as he paced them up and down the sidelines. Bailey would chide him later. She would say, “Didn't you hear me tell you that a Wolverine was on your heels?” Or, “Didn't you hear us yelling, ‘Go, Jason!' for the umpteenth time?” She'd know it if he said he had, she always knew it when he lied, which he rarely did. Maybe that's how she knew it, he hadn't enough practice.

A whistle blew sharply as the Wolverines called a time-out, and Coach Wayne waved at them to come in. He trotted off the field with Sam, his longtime friend, and headed for the big plastic tubs of water. Sam got little play time compared to Jason, but he'd been in for most of the fourth quarter to give other players a break. Coach Wayne pointed a finger at him.

“Good work, Sammee. Bench yourself now, and I want you to watch the defense carefully. See if you spot a chink, and let me know.”

Sam tossed a grin. “Sure thing, Coach!”

Benched but with an important assignment. That was the way to do it, Jason thought. He grabbed one of the stiff white towels lying in a heap on the ground and scrubbed off his head and neck. Now that he was not running, he could feel a thin edge of ache along his shins, and his breathing burned a little in his lungs. He took a proffered cup of sports drink and chugged it down, even as Coach said, “All right, boys, gather round. I have something I want you to take a look at.”

Without further notice, he lifted his clipboard and began to draw on it, his felt tip pen squeaking as he drew diagrams and line defenses on it. Jason grabbed a second, smaller white cup of sports drink and began to sip it slowly, feeling the mildly flavored fruit punch go down his throat.

“This is what they're doing,” explained the coach, “and this is how we're gonna beat ‘em while they do it.”

Behind them, he could hear chanting. Without really listening, the words sounded a bit like, “The Chargers are cool, the team is gonna rule.” He wasn't sure of the wording though, but he could hear Bailey's voice in loud enthusiasm. Jason found himself grinning even as he tried to concentrate on the coach and his assistant as they laid out strategy for this second part of the very last quarter. All too soon, their brief moments of recess were over.

Bradley and Todd bumped fists with him as they trotted back onto the field for the throw-in, Todd dropping back into his place as goalie and Bradley pacing him on the offensive line. The Wolverines joined them, looking appropriately sinister in their black and silver colors and frowning faces, having a much rougher time than they'd figured on. Everyone jogged in place impatiently. Game time was running out.

A dark cloud skittered across the brilliant blue California sky and gusted away as quickly as it had appeared. Its shadow grazed Jason and he looked up briefly. The ref's whistle blew, jerking his attention back just as the throw-in hurtled right at him. He headed it to Bradley and away they went.

 

Bailey sat back down, and glanced overhead. The dark splinter of cloud that pierced the afternoon brightness was gone, yet another followed on its heels, and a third. They gathered and hung low as if the bright sun and brisk spring breeze had no power over them. Trent followed her glance upward.

“Too late to rain the game out,” he said. “Sides, soccer is like rugby. They play in anything, till it's over.”

“No one said anything about rain though,” Bailey muttered. She rubbed her bare arms. Lacey twittered in her shirt pocket, as though aggrieved by the motion or the coolness rapidly descending on them.

“Give her a cookie.”

“She's had one whole one already. My pocket is full of oatmeal crumbs.” Bailey wrinkled her nose. She spotted something on the field and jumped to her feet, yelling, “Go, Jason! Go!”

Rebecca Landau popped up at nearly the same time, the two so alike they might almost be thought twins. The bleachers rumbled with their excitement. A row or two forward, he could hear Alicia tell her mother confidently, “I'm getting great video of Jason. The automatic focus on this thing is following the action just great.”

Dozer's heavy voice followed. “Good thing to have. Jason's in the thick of it now, he'll want to see it later.”

“Got it,” muttered Alicia, somewhat distractedly as she angled her camcorder through the shoulders of other watchers in the stands. “This should go great with my project, too.” Joanna put a hand on her blonde daughter's shoulder, as much to steady her as she filmed, as to encourage her.

Trent frowned, though. He looked back at the sky. A storm front gathered at the edges of the sky with incredible speed, yet the breeze barely ruffled the treetops. Charcoal clouds began to peak, like breakers gathering for high tide. He felt an uncomfortable prickling along his scalp as he often did when Jason or one of the others was working the Magick he didn't have. He shifted as a nervous edginess ran over him. Bailey would have said someone was tripping on his grave.

Trent looked about. The bleachers on this end were packed with families and friends of the Chargers. Parents he rarely saw were here, even . . . Rich's nervous mom and dad, his mother with a handkerchief to her nose as if trying to prevent inhaling any germs. Bailey's mom who often worked on weekends. His dad, who was now out of work indefinitely. Joanna and William McIntire and Jason's stepsister Alicia, her fine blonde hair tucked back from her face as she kept her attention intently on the miniature camcorder in her hands. Stefan's thick, rather dowdy looking parents who were immigrants and looked it, in an odd, 1950s sort of way. Henry Squibb sat on the other side of Rebecca Landau and he seemed to be the only one there without a parent in tow. Still, that didn't answer Trent's curiosity about the Magick he felt adrift. None of his friends had their hands on their crystals, essential for Focusing and using them, just as Jason had asked—for now. Still, just as Shakespeare had written, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

He smelled, in his own unique way, the tainted power of the Dark Hand reaching out toward them all. The others might have Magick, but there were times when he could
see
it and they could not, and now was one of them. As he glanced overhead again, gloom covered the sky and he could see lightning, dark green and blue, lancing above. Henry Squibb's face went white as a sheet. His face twitched toward Bailey. His lips moved as he mumbled something inaudible and then slumped to his side, hands jerking.

Bailey cried out, “Henry!” but no one heard her but her mother and Trent as the Chargers bleachers rose in a roar as someone in white and blue drove in a goal, sending the score to 4 and 3. From the corner of his eye, Trent thought the kicker might have been Jason who punched the air once or twice, but his friend was a team guy and his joy could have been for any one of his teammates who'd done a good job. Trent grabbed Bailey's arm.