The Dragon Guard (3 page)

Bailey turned her attention to Ting, and paused, thoughtfully. The happiness she felt, that the two of them had shared, seemed to have fled Ting quickly. There was a worried look in her almond eyes. Bailey put her hand out. “Ting . . . what's wrong?”

Ting flushed guiltily, and began to make her way down the weathered wooden bleachers. She stopped and looked back to Bailey. “Does it show? I don't want my mom to see.”

Bailey gave a nod. “It shows. To anyone who knows you.”

Ting sighed. “We had a call last night. It's my grandmother. She's out of remission.”

“Oh, no!” Bailey sat down and pulled Ting down beside her. “But I thought the treatments were successful. You told me she should be in remission for years.”

“That's what we all thought.” Something very bright shone in the corner of Ting's eye as she sat. She brushed it away quickly.

“Will you be moving back up to be with her again?” Bailey tried not to look at her, not wanting Ting to see that the idea of losing her across the state once again upset her. After all, what was important here was Ting's grandmother, and her battle against cancer. Besides, what with computers and the Internet and all, San Francisco was not nearly as far away from Southern California as it could have been. She slid her hand over to grasp Ting's and hold on. Her friend's skin felt cold. “It'll be all right.”

Ting made a small muffled sound. “My mom spent half the night talking with my father. I don't think it's going to be all right.” She scrubbed at her face again. “Bailey, she's been working so hard with me on Magick. What if I wore her out? What if it's all
my
fault?”

Bailey squeezed her hand. “Ting! Cancer is not your fault.”

“Nooo.”

“I mean, you know that, right? Really know that?”

“Well, of course I know that.” Ting squeezed her hand back. “But she's been so frail, and the follow-up treatments have been rough, and I just wonder if helping me has kept her too tired. I mean,” she looked at Bailey. “I can't help but wonder.”

“I know. I would think, if anything, you've helped her. Imagine going your whole life having a talent for Magick, and hiding it, and yet knowing it was your family's legacy. She got to share that with you . . . she's no longer one of the Hidden. I would think . . .” and Bailey took a deep breath. “I would think becoming a Magicker the best thing in the world.”

A tiny smile flickered across Ting's face. “And, of course, no trouble at all.”

“Well, not much. Except for the Dark Hand and wolfjackals. Getting lost in your own crystal. Watching Henry set himself on fire trying to focus his crystal. Having to weed FireAnn's herb garden for forgetting homework. Watching Stefan change into his bear shape unexpectedly . . .” Bailey paused, as if thinking of more as she ticked off the obstacles on her fingers.

Ting giggled, and put her hand up to cover it, in a shy gesture that was all too familiar and welcome.

Watching her friend laugh pleased Bailey more than anything. She hugged Ting. “Things,” she promised, “will get better!” She considered. “Of course, my grandmother always used to say they had to get worse first. Let's hope she's wrong.”

Ting stifled another laugh. “Bailey. You and your sayings.” She stood up and dusted herself off tidily. “Let's go home. I'm getting hungry and I bet Lacey is, too.” She tickled a fingertip against the pocket in Bailey's sweatshirt jacket, and was rewarded by a sleepy sounding
Meep.
Seconds later, a little kangaroo rat, more commonly known as a pack rat, poked her face out and sleepily wrinkled her whiskers. Seeing the bright afternoon sunlight, she dove back into Bailey's sweatshirt, leaving her tufted tail hanging out, twitching.

Both girls laughed, and climbed down the rest of the bleachers, aiming for the parking lot, where nearly all the cars and vans for the game had already pulled out. From the corner of her eye, Bailey noticed a lone man sitting in a car parked in the shady corner. He seemed totally uninterested in anything till he saw the girls walk by toward the bus stop.

Did she imagine it, or did his head whip around as if he'd just spotted what he was looking for?

The hair on the back of her neck crawled. She hooked her arm through Ting's elbow. “Let's jog to the stop, I'm getting a little chilly.”

Always slimmer and colder, Ting broke into a loping step with her, and their speed carried them through the parking lot and out onto the main street. Something flashed in the corner of her eye, but she dared not look back to see what it was. Instead, Bailey searched the busy street and saw, to her joy, the bus going their way. “Just in time!” she cried out thankfully.

Ting brought their bus passes out of her backpack and they climbed on as soon as the bus door wheezed open. Bailey sat down on the other side, drawing Ting with her, far away from the windows facing the park. She didn't want to know if whoever it was watched them. And she didn't breathe a word to Ting about the thoughts running through her mind. After all, she didn't want Ting thinking she'd gone nuts. She ought to know, but she didn't want to. Anyway, it was probably just her imagination. If there was one thing she had plenty of, it was imagination.

Wasn't it?

 

Jason got out of the shower, dressed hurriedly, and ran downstairs for something to eat, knowing he wouldn't be able to bear it until dinnertime. His stepmother Joanna sat at the nook table, her reading glasses nearly at the end of her nose, as she worked on some note cards and a stack of lists, pen in one hand and paper in the other. Tiny fake sapphires sparkled all over the plastic frame of the glasses, as if they could make having to wear them much nicer and more fashionable.

“Hi, Mom. Anything to eat?”

“I left chicken salad sandwiches in there for you. And there are some Terra chips in the bread box. Just don't eat more than two sandwiches this close to dinner.”

Jason yanked the refrigerator door open happily. Someone, somewhen, had had the good sense to sit Joanna down and explain teen appetites to her. A woman who could rarely be seen eating, and didn't particularly seem to enjoy it even when she did so, at least Joanna didn't make him go by the same rules. He retrieved the two allotted sandwiches, found a plate, poured a small mound of the colorful, all vegetable “potato”-like chips next to them, and trotted over.

She made a note on one of her cards. Jason looked at everything curiously and decided she was working on organizing yet another charity function. She pushed her glasses partway up her nose. “How did you do?”

“We won!”

She looked up. “You did? That's great! What happens now?”

“We go to the finals, but I don't know yet which team we're playing. Their game is scheduled tomorrow.”

She tapped her pencil thoughtfully. “Would you mind if we came to see the finals?”

“Mind? I'd love it!” Jason wolfed down half a sandwich and paused, chewing, while trying to think of the details she'd need to know. Where, when, how long, and so forth. He told her what little he knew, which was mainly that it would be one day next weekend, depending on when the park let them play.

Her mouth curved. “William will be so pleased, and I think he'll be able to get the day off.”

“How's the new development going?”

She shook her head. “Some sort of trouble with the permits, and you know how he hates paperwork. But he'll get it smoothed out soon, I'm sure.” She watched Jason polish off the first sandwich. “You have homework for tonight?”

He crunched down on a bright orange-red Terra Chip. Sweet potato, one of his favorites. His stepmother had this illusion that this variety was healthier than the old-fashioned potato chip, and she was probably right, but at least he didn't have to eat tofu. Too often. “Yup, and I have to finish the packet you gave me for next year.”

“Can you finish that for me tonight?”

He didn't want to. It was thick, and dull. She saw him hesitate.

“You really need to get that done, Jason. You've passed the tests, but your high school is a magnet school—it will be attracting students from all over for its programs. You need to sit down, make some decisions, and finish filling out your paperwork. This is a serious time. You have to decide what to study, for what you want to be for the rest of your life.”

Jason stopped in mid swallow. There was no way he could tell her he'd already decided what he wanted to be the rest of his life: a Magicker. There was no way she'd believe him, even if he could break the Vow of Silence and get the words out. Finally, he finished swallowing and said contritely, “I know. I'll get it done, I promise.”

Joanne smiled brightly. “Good, good. I'm here, and William is here, if you want to ask us anything later. He has lots of good advice he wants to give you, but . . . well, he's waiting until you ask for it.”

He gave a crooked smile. His stepfather, big, outdoorsman-looking William McIntire, often known as “the Dozer,” had worked in construction all his life. He was a good man, and Jason couldn't ask for more, he supposed, unless it was the advice of his own mother and father, both dead. He dusted bread crumbs off his hand. “What do you think
my
dad would have said?”

Pain shot through Joanna's face. She looked down at her note cards as her right hand twitched slightly. Then she looked back up. “Jason,” she said quietly. “I didn't know him long enough to be able to answer that. I wish I could have.”

His throat tightened, and he suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. “Me, too,” he got out, standing up and taking his plate to the sink where he rinsed it once or twice. When he thought he could talk again, he set the sandwich plate down on the counter and said, “I better go get that stuff done,” and headed upstairs without meeting her gaze.

His was the highest room in the house, the attic made into a large, sprawling bedroom reached only by a trapdoor ladder. He liked it . . . no, he loved it. It was his and his alone, private and unique. As if sensing his need for absolute solitude now and then, McIntire had had this room made for him and drawing the trapdoor ladder up after him and securing it had a medieval sense to it, like pulling up the draw-bridge over a castle moat. He retreated into it now, picking up his clothes to be washed later, and stowing them in the laundry bag in the corner before dropping onto his bed.

He took a close look at his left hand. The crescent-shaped scar just under the knuckles along the back of it appeared as a thin white line and well healed. But he knew it could and would flare an angry red and ache beyond reason if anything evil approached him. It had before, and it would again. What he didn't know was
why.
Why had the wolfish beast marked him, and why did it never seem to really heal, and why did it hurt whenever they or the rogue sorcerers of the Dark Hand came near? Surely it hadn't meant it to be a warning to him, but it worked that way. Or did it? Sometimes it hurt so badly it made him cry out sharply, betraying his presence if he had been hidden. Did that make it a beacon to those evil things that searched for him? Had the wolfjackal bitten and chewed on him with a purpose, or just to savage him? He had no real answer. From what he'd seen of Magick, it could take a lifetime of study to answer this and other questions.

Jason dropped his hand down and nudged at a file folder of papers, neatly labeled by his stepmother, JASON'S HIGH SCHOOL FILE. He didn't know what studying to be a Magicker would make him. Gavan and the others said he was a Gatekeeper, but he really didn't know much about that either. Obviously, he found gateways to other realms of existence, but even that was a hit-and-miss occupation . . . and he had no idea what he did to find them. They were just sort of there when a moment came that he needed them. He knew there had to be more to it, and there was no one alive anymore among the elder Magickers who could train him. Their own lives had been torn apart in the war between Gregory and Brennard, and much had been lost.

He couldn't tell any of this to Joanna and William, of course. First, because he'd taken a Vow of Silence not to, but more importantly, it was because they wouldn't want to understand it. McIntire built real cities on solid ground, as he'd no doubt put it, and Joanna would be worried about the social and cultural implications. But is it wise, she'd say, to be involved in something like
that?
And her nose would wrinkle in disapproval. It was the wisdom of things that bothered her. Left with a son by a man she'd been married to all too briefly, she was worried about appearances. What if she neglected him or misguided him in any way? What would people think?

Jason sighed heavily. Actually, he'd never doubted Joanna's desire to make sure he was presentable. He just wished he had his dad, and his mom, back. That's all. Dirty floors and dishes would be fine with him, if he just had his
family
back. Love made up for the lack of many things, but things could never make up for the lack of love.

He nudged his folder again, halfheartedly. It fell open. There were pamphlets of core courses and pamphlets of electives. His core schedule had been arranged so completely that he had room for maybe one elective a semester, if that. And, that was if he got up and went to school early, taking the ever popular Zero Period for honor students, a whole hour before the rest of the school day started. Add after-school athletics to that . . . he'd be gone from six to six nearly every day. When would he have time to do what he really wanted to do . . . to become what he really wanted to be?

Jason flipped the folder shut, unable to look at the paperwork for the moment. Instead, he reached for his crystal, pulling it loose from its wire jewelry cage, and cradling it in his hands. Light flared through his room, cast from the clear part of the stone, its gold and dark streaks fracturing the pattern as if black lightning had struck. After long moments spent just meditating over its inner patterns, Jason reopened the jewelry cage and replaced it.