The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (14 page)

on your arm has extraordinary power and you have a grave responsibility to use it wisely. It will destroy you if you don’t. What use would you be to your exquisite daughter then?”

Zanna felt the spell loosen. Rubbing the back of her neck she said, “I think I do a pretty good job with Alexa. I’m bringing

her up as a normal child, as far away

from… ”

“People like me?” Agatha took a sip of

tea.

“… magicks as I can reasonably get. I don’t want her playing with… ”

“Her powers? What exactly can she do?”

Zanna glanced at the fish, weaving their

own   spells   around   the   aquarium architecture. “She seems to be able to

draw the future. And we think she’s

telepathic.”

“With you?”

“No, her father. She usually knows his whereabouts, unless he blocks her.”

“Fascinating,” said Agatha, looking into a distant corner of the room. The fish,

Zanna noticed, all turned and swam in thedirection of her gaze. “What else can youtell me about the girl?”

Zanna lifted her shoulders. “Nothing. She’s just a happy, carefree little girl.”

“Living in a house of flying clay.”

Zanna sighed and said, “So you knowthat some of them have a spark of whitefire?”

Agatha Bacon gave her nostrils someexercise. She slanted her eyes as if thenaivety of this statement was quite beyondbelief. “In the graveyard, you arguedbitterly with her father after the sibyl Gwyneth had told you something.”

“Gwilanna,” said Zanna, grating herteeth. “Her real name’s Gwilanna. She

only calls herself Gwyneth in ‘lowly

human company’. She seems to have been around since the dawn of time; she’s certainly got the skin tone for it. She was screaming that evil forces would come for Alexa once they knew what she was. But that’s Gwilanna for you, always talking out of her antique butt.”

Agatha Bacon pressed her hands together, making her green veins pulse. “That woman is a poor role model, I grant you, but she is by no means a fool. She is not to be underestimated. Like me, she detects something in your daughter’s auma that sets the girl apart from sibyls, shamans and other ‘weird’ folk as my brother might have said. Yet you cannot see it and neither can I. Perhaps Gwilanna can. The child’s father must certainly

know.”

Zanna started to chew her lip. Sheabandoned the action when she realised

her anger might result in the need for a couple of stitches. She thought back to what David had said in the kitchen.
 
This

world is ready to accept a new species
 
. “I ought to get back to her.”

“Wait.” Agatha beckoned her close. “I want to give you something before you leave.”

Zanna looped her hair and came across

the room.

“Your arm. Show me the scar.”

Though wary, Zanna drew back her

sleeve.

“How advanced are you in the healing

arts?”

“Some,” said Zanna. “I have a potions dragon, and a shop that deals in natural remedies. We’ve been closed for several

days, because of Henry. That’s something else I ought to get back to.”

Agatha raised one hand and placed it carefully over the scar. Her fingers were as strong and as able as a chimp’s. “Don’t flinch,” she said. “Let me assess the power. Call upon your inner strength if it pains you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Improving your education, girl. I don’t have the time to spend teaching you my skills, but I can transfer some of them through this. Was it Gwilanna who marked you?”

“Who else?”

Agatha raised her gaze. Another
 
don
 
’
 
ttalk disrespectfully
 
look. “Believe it ornot, in a perverse kind of way, she wantsyou to progress to the highest levels.”

Zanna raised a doubtful eyebrow. Then, despite Agatha’s instructions, shecouldn’t help but gasp again as a pulse ofenergy raced up her arm and round herneck to the spinal cord. The effect waslike a firecracker shooting colour andwisdom into her brain. When it stopped, Zanna was aware that sections of her mind

she’d never thought present had suddenly opened, and all were ripe with healing knowledge.

“Do not delve now,” Agatha advised her. “You will only make yourself faint. Let the learning come when you need it.

I’d like to leave you my card.” Sheflourished a hand and the card was there.

“If I can ever be of assistance, please

contact me.”

The card was blank. But when Zanna

ran her thumb across it, a picture of Agatha appeared.

“Let me tell you something about Henry,” said the sibyl. “He once confided to me that if he could have sired a

daughter, you would be her. I approve of his choice. Wild you may be, but there is a beautiful integrity in your auma. Take care of this house and it will take care of you. Go carefully, girl. I sense danger ahead. You will meet the sibyl Gwilanna again. Do not seek her  out. She will come to you – probably in a guise you trust. Stay

within the company of dragons, Suzanna –” she paused and squeezed the young woman’s hand, “and make your peace with David.”

The birds

David aside, making peace with Liz wasthe first thing on Zanna’s mind when shereturned to number 42. But that had never

been a problem in the past, and neither did it prove to be on this occasion. As soon as the two women saw each other there were

smiles   and   a   hug   of   common

understanding.

“I’m sorry,” Liz whispered, swinging Zanna lightly as though she were a pendulum of her own dismay. “You’d think Lucy would have grown more sensible over the years, but there’s still a huge slice of brat inside her.”

“Where is she?” said Zanna, putting down her bag.

“Grounded. In her room. Probably plotting our mutual destruction.”

Zanna laughed. “I’ll go and talk to her.”

“No.” Liz held her arm. “I appreciate the thought, but she needs to learn a lesson.”

Zanna gave a nod of understanding. “Inthat case, I think I’ll go and open the shopfor a couple of hours. My poor customersmust be wondering where I’ve got to.”

“Good idea,” said Liz. “Take Lexiewith you. She’d appreciate a change ofscenery, I think.”

Zanna  turned  towards   her  room,

hesitated and looked  back. “On the subject of me and Lexie, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the past few days. I’ve decided that I’d like us to live in Henry’s house.

You’ve been so kind, but we can’t go onbeing your lodgers for ever. If it’s OKwith   you   we’ll   move   out   almostimmediately. It’s not like we’ve very farto go, is it? Thank you for everythingyou’ve done for us, Liz.”

Liz opened her arms and they huggedagain. “Everyone in this house has beenshocked by Henry’s death, but to have youas a neighbour in his place is a blessing. Any time you need me, just… ”

“Knock on the wall?”

“Exactly.” They separated, smiling again. But then Liz’s face grew slowly more pensive until Zanna was eventually forced to ask her, “What?”

“I know this is difficult, considering the will, but what
 
are
 
your thoughts about

David?”

Zanna sighed quietly and gathered onehalf of her hair into her fist. “Well, everycloud… as they say. When I’ve transferredmy things next door, he can have his oldroom back, can’t he?”

Some ten minutes later, Zanna ushered Alexa into the hall, buttoned her into acoat and told her they were going intotown. Gretel decided she was bored and

wanted to go too. Zanna zipped the dragon into her bag. Then with a wave at Liz, who was cuddling a rather sleepy-looking Bonnington, the party of three went out.

Zanna usually drove the mile-long journey to
 
The Healing Touch
 
, a shop she had bought just a couple of years before,

but on this occasion she took Alexa by the hand and headed for the pedestrian route they called North Walk. This was a wide asphalt   path   that   cut   through   the professional heart of Scrubbley. The Georgian town houses that ran along one side were mostly occupied by solicitors

or   accountants.   Zanna   adored   the

architecture of them and liked to imagine herself sipping morning coffee on the neat, railed balconies or holding dinner parties in the high-curtained stately rooms.

Alexa preferred the other side of North Walk. There were houses and offices

along here, too, and a fine museum of art. But dotted between the buildings were squares and rectangles of urban grassland, shaded by vast horse chestnuts and oaks.

Lucy had once written a story for schoolabout two squirrels that lived on the edgeof such a square. The name of the story

was
 
Bodger and Fuffle from 23 along
 
. The number 23 referred to the broken

glass lantern, on the twenty-third lamppost from  the top end of the Walk, where the squirrels had built their drey. One of Alexa’s favourite games was to count the lampposts aloud, even though she knew exactly which one (by the double-mouthed red postbox just beyond the museum) was home to the legendary squirrels.

So Zanna was happy to let her bowl ahead, zigzagging wildly across the path, slapping each post in turn. Fortunately, there were few other people about, so no one was in danger of sustaining an injury

from a collision with the enviable zest of

youth. As they reached eighteen along and turned the slight bend that would bring them to within distant sight of the High Road and the town, they had the path to themselves. This was Zanna’s favourite

stretch. The path narrowed here and the branches of the trees came together in an arch. On a sunlit afternoon, the ground was always covered in dappled shadows. And for a moment or two, that was just how it was idyllic. Then the leaves rustled and four things happened at once.

In   the   distance   Alexa   said,

“Mummy… ?”

The zip on Zanna’s bag began to

urgently rattle.

A spill of unnatural darkness blotted

out the chequerboard of light and foliage.

A raven’s cark rent the air.

Zanna whipped around to see a largebird descending. It was coming for her,claws out, angled like a bat. She duckedand it swept by, spitting venom. Then asecond bird came in the slipstream of thefirst. This time Zanna swung her bag at it,caught the bird’s breast and sent itspinning. It crashed into a bench andlooked defeated for a second, its wingjammed between two slats, dislocated. But then, to her horror, it withdrew thewing as though it was a knife in butter. Itreset the joint with an ugly-sounding
 
snap
and turned to face the girl again.

It was hideous. Black-eyed. Awkward. Cruel. It appeared to have
 
teeth
 
. Hard

fragments of bony material, nestling around a squirming tongue. Yes, it was a bird. But not a raven. More like a mutant

of avian evolution. Gargoyle was the closest name Zanna could give to it. Evil was the generalisation she preferred.

“Alexa!” She was already running towards the girl when another bird sank its claws into her shoulder, forcing her to drop her bag and sink to her knees. She threw back her head in pain and the thorny protuberances on the bird’s body became grossly entangled in her hair. The bird thrashed about among the long black strands, trying to deliver a blow with its beak. Zanna was not to know, but one stab deep into her ear canal would have caused an incurable infection and  rotted her

cerebellum in seconds. This was how

close she came to death that day.

“Lexie, RUN!” She drew back her

sleeve.

High in the trees, a third creature, thealpha male bird, changed the focal lengthof its optical cortex and zoomed in on themark of Oomara. Without making a sound,it dropped through the chinks of light andclamped itself to Zanna’s right handbefore she could fasten her fingers to herarm. She screamed in agony and rolledover with it, her cheekbone grazingagainst the path. The bird tore a strip offlesh between the tendons of her hand and

even took one finger into its mouth. Deep at its base, she felt the prickling teeth gnaw through to her bone. It was all she

could do to stop from passing out.

And all this time she was aware of a

terrible scrabbling beside her. Three birds, maybe four, were scratting at her bag, trying to tear through the lining to get inside. Suddenly it broke and Gretel was loose.

“Fly… ” Zanna mouthed, through a blur of hair and saliva and pain.

Instead, Gretel froze. She had flowers in the quiver she carried across her back. A knockout potion would have been easy to administer, if she’d had time to make it up. But she was surrounded and wholly outnumbered.  She’d be dead, she knew, if she touched a stem.