Firestorm Forever: A Dragonfire Novel (54 page)

Jac looked between them. In running from Marco, she’d made a terrible mistake.

She only hoped she had the opportunity to fix it.

* * *

Brandon was impatient to begin. He and Thorolf were hidden in the bush at the park surrounding Uluru, along with Chandra and Liz. They’d lingered in the park after closing, hiding from the rangers, in order to be sure they were close when the action began. Their sons were all with Brandon’s parents, far away from the Uluru, which they believed would be the location of the next phase of Jorge’s plan.

Chandra had been trying to learn more from Myth, but she couldn’t control her visions and couldn’t journey there any longer. Still, she’d hoped that Snow might appear to her in a vision again to tell them more. Liz had felt the quickening in the dragon’s eggs on Easter Island, so they hoped she would feel a similar sensation during the eclipse here.

The plan was for them to locate the hatchlings and capture one for Sloane.

He wished it didn’t feel like such a long shot.

Chandra and Sara’s vision of Snow had been discussed and dissected. Brandon couldn’t see any more reasonable conclusion than that it was warning that the missing replica of Boris Vassily, the one who was missing an arm, would be here, as well. They hadn’t been able to find him, but Brandon had to think he’d show up when the eggs hatched.

He’d been missing an arm, after all. Whether it had healed or was still regenerating, he’d need more Elixir. The hatchlings would be easy prey in their first moments out of their eggs.

Brandon was pumped and agitated, a combination of factors coming together to put him on the cusp of change. The eclipse was imminent. If all went as they expected, there would be an unknown number of
Slayers
appearing suddenly in their immediate vicinity. Liz was with him, and he knew he had to defend her. He couldn’t have left her behind in safety, though, because her sense would direct them to the hatching stones. He paced, restless, wanting it to start and wanting it over.

“Too many questions,” Thorolf muttered, his gaze on the sky. His fingers were tapping with similar agitation. “I wish we knew more.”

“Too many rocks,” Brandon agreed.

“You’re going to wear a valley in the desert, the two of you,” Liz teased, but her comment didn’t make either of them relax.

“And there it goes,” Chandra murmured, pointing to the moon. “The eclipse begins.” They all looked up in unison, and Brandon saw the shadow appear on one side of the full moon. It looked as if someone had taken a bite out of it. He stared as the shadow grew larger and turned reddish brown. It was easy to remember his firestorm with Liz, and how incredible the sensation had been.

He felt the spark of a firestorm, not very far away. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering which of the
Pyr
was nearby, and caught Thorolf’s frown.

He’d felt it, too.

“Who?” he asked but Thorolf’s frown deepened.

Liz pivoted suddenly and looked up at Uluru. “There it is,” she whispered, then shuddered from head to toe. She turned to a being of flame, all brilliant orange and red. Even though Brandon had suspected she would change form to increase her sensitivity, he was awed again by her powers as a Firedaughter.

Liz lifted a burning hand and pointed. She didn’t need to say more. Brandon and Thorolf shifted shape immediately, seized their mates and launched into the air. Brandon took the lead, Liz securely in his grasp. She was like a beacon and even though the heat of her figure burned his talons, he knew he had to endure it until they identified the stones.

“Two,” she whispered, even her voice crackling like a bonfire.

“Perfect,” Thorolf murmured, then switched to old-speak to confer with Brandon.
“Remember that we have to take one alive.”

And that, Brandon couldn’t help but think, would be the real challenge.

* * *

Darkfire crackled around the world, enclosing the planet in a flash of its blue-green light. Sloane felt it as well as saw it and rushed to check on Rafferty. The darkfire was flaring beneath the
Pyr
’s scales, and he groaned as if in pain. It was the first sound he’d uttered in months, and Sloane wished he could have known whether it was a good sign or a bad one.

“What’s happening?” Melissa demanded, her fear clear. She’d been sitting beside Rafferty, taking her turn watching him.

“I don’t know,” Sloane admitted, watching the rhythm of the strange light, which rolled over Rafferty in waves. It was throwing blue-green sparks into the air, and it seemed to Sloane that it was getting brighter. The atmosphere in his house seemed to be crackling with energy and the shadows filled with strange shapes.

What was happening?

He looked into one corner and thought he could discern his father, sitting before the fireplace here as he had in that house in Ireland. Tynan lifted his head and smiled slightly at Sloane.

“It is the role of the Apothecary to heal, no matter the price to himself,”
Tynan said in old-speak, and Sloane remembered the day his father had first given him this warning.
“It is the role of the Apothecary to give, to choose where to give, to sometimes decide who will live and who will die. It is the task of the Apothecary to guide the dying to their release and summon the injured back to life. The task is not easy, but it must be done. You will be the Apothecary in dire times and you will be tested. Do not forget your abilities, my son.”

Tynan nodded once. The darkfire illuminated his figure with a blue-green aura, then leapt to Sloane’s tattoo. It slid over the lines of the caduceus, making the tattoo burn all over again, then winked out.

In the meantime, the room had filled with Sloane’s guests. Rafferty seemed to be on fire, that blue-green light radiant beneath his scales. Which way should Sloane escort him? To death or to life? Eileen took one look and sent the girls back to bed. Erik was fully recovered and he, too, came directly to Rafferty. Drake was sealed into the isolation zone they’d created for Veronica, though Sloane could feel his attention.

Rafferty moaned again, a sound of pain that came from deep within him. Melissa fell to her knees beside him and put her hand upon him. “Is it burning hotter?” she demanded. “Is it hurting him?”

“He’s fading,” Erik said and shifted shape in a sudden flash. He breathed a stream of dragonsmoke and drove it beneath Rafferty’s scales.

Sloane understood his tactic immediately. The
Slayers
used a conduit of dragonsmoke to steal energy from the
Pyr
in battle. Erik planned to use the same tactic to give strength to Rafferty.

Erik’s dragonsmoke slid beneath Rafferty’s scales and it glittered as Erik gave vitality to his old friend. The darkfire sparked more brightly and Rafferty twitched in agony.

It was only half of the solution.

“He’s making it worse!” Melissa cried.

“No, the darkfire is stealing the power and using it,” Sloane said. “We need to siphon it off and secure it.” He needed to repeat Pwyll’s feat of snaring the darkfire in the stone.

Even though he didn’t know how to do it. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, urging him on.

He had to try.

Sloane shifted shape in a brilliant shimmer of blue and seized the darkened crystal that had once held the darkfire. He had a terrible sense that Rafferty’s fate would be decided during this eclipse.

He breathed another river of dragonsmoke, hoping he could save his comrade. It was difficult to breathe slowly and steadily, especially when he feared time was of the essence. The darkfire had crackled at the moment the eclipse had become total, and he knew this one would be of short duration. He suspected he had only about ten minutes to make a difference to Rafferty.

Rafferty’s forebear Pwyll had been the Cantor of the
Pyr
, and the one to trap darkfire within the quartz crystals. Had he done it during a firestorm? Sloane didn’t know. When his smoke finally touched Rafferty and swirled around that
Pyr
, Sloane tried to beckon to the darkfire with what he remembered of the Cantor’s song.

He wasn’t making much progress, but then there was a sudden crackle, as if electricity had swept through the room. The lights flickered and Sloane felt a shiver pass over his skin.

It was followed by a flush of distant heat. He inhaled sharply, knowing he was feeling the spark of a firestorm. It was far away, but tinged by darkfire.

Marco.

So, he hadn’t turned to the
Slayer
side. Sloane’s gaze flew to Erik, who was breathing steadily and slowly. The pressure of his father’s hand on his shoulder increased and Sloane turned to look toward the kitchen.

He could discern a shady figure there, an older man he didn’t know.

“This,”
the apparition whispered in old-speak. He began to chant a song that Sloane found both familiar and unpredictable. It was Pwyll’s ghost!

Sloane echoed the chant, learning the tune and the sound of the words. He didn’t understand the words themselves and guessed they were Welsh. He didn’t know why Pwyll had appeared to him and not to Erik, but he didn’t care.

He sang and Erik followed his lead.

The darkfire recognized the chant. From the first note, the blue-green light leapt and snapped, apparently in response to the summons. Erik closed his claw over Sloane’s, making his own link to the crystal, and sang with vigor. Sloane and Erik continued together, compelled to keep the slow rhythm of the Cantor’s chant. The darkfire glittered like a river of ice crystals, and it flowed toward the crystal, albeit at the speed of a glacier. Finally, Sloane saw its icy swirl inside the crystal itself.

The Cantor’s chant was deep and low, as relentless as the movement of the earth’s crust. Sloane and Erik sang together, holding the notes longer than Sloane could have believed possible, summoning the darkfire as best they were able. Sloane heard Drake add his voice to theirs and the walls of the house rumbled with their song. Quinn and Lee lent their voices to the chorus, too. The floor vibrated beneath them, as if the earth itself resonated, and the darkfire moved steadily into the stone.

The chant was filled with ancient power. The darkfire’s hue brightened where Sloane’s dragonsmoke touched Rafferty, creating a glow at those points. The chant seemed to be congealing the darkfire into a brilliant glowing orb of blue-green. Sloane could see the same effect in Erik’s dragonsmoke. The darkfire had dimmed beneath Rafferty’s scales at the most distant points from the dragonsmoke, as if extinguished there.

Encouraged, Sloane sang with greater vigor, well aware that the eclipse had passed its zenith. The shadow seemed to slide off the moon more quickly, or maybe he was just too aware of how much darkfire still lingered beneath Rafferty’s scales.

Suddenly the shadowy outline of Pwyll disappeared.

The lights went out.

Before Sloane’s eyes, the river of darkfire glowed as if it were phosphorescent. It danced and glimmered, and dragonsmoke conduit sparkled along its length with the distinctive hue of darkfire. Sloane sang and the darkfire snapped, racing down the dragonsmoke to embed itself in the crystal.

The eclipse was over.

Rafferty’s body was darker, now, touched only by stray glimmers of darkfire, like heat lightning after a storm.

Sloane broke the link between his dragonsmoke and Rafferty’s body, creating a closed conduit with Erik’s dragonsmoke instead. They both retreated, drawing the dragonsmoke with its snared darkfire away from Rafferty.

The quartz crystal flashed blue-green, as brilliant as a strobe light. The darkfire vanished from beneath Rafferty’s scales and shone brilliantly within the crystal.

Rafferty gave a heartfelt sigh, a shudder rolling over his body.

His eyelids fluttered, then he began to hum the Cantor’s song. Sloane and Erik exchanged a glance and sang with Rafferty. They sang until the eclipse was completed, then all three changed to their human forms in a brilliant flash of blue.

The darkfire burned in the stone, secured there.

The power came back on, the fridge humming to life in the kitchen.

Sloane heaved a sigh of relief and confided the news to Drake in old-speak. He was exhausted, but he didn’t care. He’d given of himself to help Rafferty, and he would do it again, without hesitation. He felt his father squeeze his shoulder, then that precious weight was gone.

Rafferty rolled over and sighed. Melissa kissed his forehead and he smiled, enfolding her in his arms without opening his eyes. Even from across the room, Sloane knew it was a healing sleep, and that the older
Pyr
would awaken much recovered. He nodded to Erik, then returned to the lab.

One patient was recovering, but he had another yet to heal.

Even with his task incomplete, he was making progress and that lightened Sloane’s step.

He was the Apothecary, and his role was to heal.

Chapter Nineteen

Jorge reached out with a claw to snatch Jac from the vehicle, but she wasn’t going to be captured as easily as that. She kicked at him and ducked lower. She felt his talons slide through her hair, but managed to crawl to the driver’s side.

Her first dragon fight had her adrenaline pumping.