Caden's Comet Read online

  Merlin’s hand twitched.

  “Don’t even bother, my old friend,” Shull said, his voice almost bored. “You don’t think I’d be stupid enough to allow magic in my office, do you? The whole room has been enchanted, and not even the great Merlin can cast a spell here.”

  For the first time, Merlin seemed nervous. He returned his hand to his lap, where the fingers tapped on the palm of his other hand.

  “I know the Council could not have approved such a blatant breach in our peace agreement, so I’m guessing no one knows you’re here. Once I find out your motives, I could dump your bodies in the polluted Hudson and no one would ever be the wiser. Which reminds me—who, my mysterious young wizard friend, are you?”

  His eyes focused on me and then, as though adjusting like a camera lens, drilled into my mind. Perhaps he knew some method of hypnotism, or just the right ways to send fear into any enemy, but I found myself wanting to confess.

  “He’s the son of one of our ambassadors,” Merlin said, drawing the eyes back to him. “He was assigned to the task of being my protégé, though of course, the Council had no idea what I had in mind for the lad. He shows great magical promise—I would show you, but it seems your spell would not allow it.”

  “Indeed.” Shull turned back to Merlin. “Now, tell me what you’re doing here, or I’ll have my pack of dragon guards standing by the door come in here and persuade you.”

  “Well, it’s an interesting story,” Merlin began, and I knew the old man well enough by then to know he was about to spin a tall tale. “It began with a half-dragon, half-wizard death a few months ago. The Council assigned me to get to the bottom of things, but all my leads have been dead ends. I suspected the EDPS may have been behind the disappearance. I know how much you hate half-breeds.”

  “Quite the tale.” Shull applauded slowly. “It’s a shame your story won’t hold up under investigation.” He smiled sweetly, then pounded his fists on the desk. “Tell me why you’re here, or I’ll kill you both myself.”

  “Shull?” a voice on the intercom suddenly interrupted. “Mr. Siegel is here to see you, and he says it’s an emergency.”

  I recognized the voice on the other end as Blair’s, and by the sudden stiffness of his face, I suspected Merlin did as well.

  Shull growled but stood and exited the room without another word. Ten seconds later, the door to his office mysteriously clicked open about an inch—just wide enough for us to know it was open, but not the guards outside.

  “Whatever happens,” Merlin whispered, “do not transition unless I tell you to. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.”

  Once he reached the door, Merlin peered out and stuck just his lips into the non-enchanted hallway. He whispered a spell, and two bodies thumped to the ground. Once the walkway was safe, Merlin opened the door all the way.

  No more than three feet down the hall, we froze when more footsteps came from the path behind us. As soon as the guards came into view, Merlin put them all to sleep too, their muscular bodies no match for his magic. We would have continued that way, taking a few steps and putting guards to sleep, if Shull hadn’t reappeared.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked. Trapped in the crook of his arm, Blair’s neck looked ready to snap. “You’d leave your little spy here all alone?”

  “She’s not our spy,” I said. “If anything, she’s been spying for you.”

  “Let her go,” Merlin said. His voice was filled with a calm he could not possibly have felt. “Take me instead.”

  “Merlin, no!” Blair called, but Shull increased the pressure on her throat and her words petered out into a moan.

  “I’ll be fine,” Merlin assured her. “Trust me.”

  “Very well. Surrender, Merlin, and I’ll let them both go.”

  Merlin walked over to Shull, who grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Released, Blair ran down the hallway to me, and I wrapped my arm around her distractedly, trying to think of a way out.

  Shull took some kind of charm off his neck and secured it around Merlin’s, also revealing the second chain that probably held his locket. When the wizard tried to cast a spell, the charm glowed and somehow negated his powers.

  “Run along, children,” Shull sneered. “I’m a man of my word, but in ten minutes, I’m going to send my guards after you. You’ll want as much of a head start as you can get.”

  “He’s right,” Merlin said. Then he looked right at me. “Remember what I told you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Because now is that time.”

  It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. Now. Time. Transition.

  “Stand back,” I whispered in Blair’s ear as I pretended to turn and walk down the hallway. “Then follow my lead.”

  The transition went faster than ever before, every cell urged by my brain to hurry up and change. My heart struggled to keep up, and my mind strained to keep most of the changes small until the last second possible. Finally, I let my limbs grow.

  “What the…?” Shull said. “That can’t be—”

  With all of my might, I spread my wings so that they broke through the walls on either side. Pushing off from the concrete beneath with my talons, I flew like a bullet through the air and into Shull, who had no choice but to let Merlin go. Behind me, Blair growled, her transition complete too.

  To Shull’s office, I ordered, taking Merlin’s robe in my mouth and carrying him with me. My head, too tall for the hallway, cut a line through the drywall. Blair slipped through the doorway toward the glass, and I barreled through the wood frame. Then, without a second thought, I broke through the glass.

  Gunfire from the roof whizzed by. Though I could have continued to carry Merlin, his human form was more susceptible to injury. Using my claws, I tore the charm from around his neck. As soon as his blue wings emerged, I snapped my neck and released him into the air.

  For a moment, he plummeted. Then Merlin’s blue dragon form completed, and his wings beat against his fall. His wingspan was larger than a Bone Dragon and even an Earth Dragon, but all were smaller than mine.

  I took the lead, wind blowing against my snout like water beating against sand, and directed Blair and Merlin out of the city. Beneath us New York became just a patch of gray, with only the frame of cloudy water to distinguish the metropolis from the mainland’s cityscape. Suddenly I yearned for Draman, for the simplicity of the sand, farmland, and castles that made up the geography of our planet.

  It’s beautiful, Blair said.

  New York?

  No, Draman.

  I whipped my head toward her. How do you know that?

  I thought you sent me the image. I wasn’t prying, I promise.

  Telepathy was standard for dragons, but sharing images unintentionally was not. Merlin might have written my connection to Blair off as entertainment, but something strange existed between us unlike anything I had ever felt with another being, human or dragon, in my life. The bond was unexplainable—and strong. It had to be, for Blair to risk her entire future with the EDPS to save us.

  About what you did back there—

  Don’t mention it. We can add it to the list of things we don’t discuss—like the fact that you’re from Draman, but you’re a Sun Dragon.

  She was mad at me, and I didn’t blame her. Not only had we tried to break into the EDPS, but I had surprised her with a Sun Dragon transformation. Plus, we’d almost gotten her killed. Then again, we hadn’t expected her to show up in the middle of our operation.

  You two need to get as far from here as possible, Merlin said once we were sure we hadn’t been followed. Who knows how many dragons Shull will send after us, and the first place he’ll look is the Council. I need to return to inform them of the situation, so you must find somewhere safe to hide until I can return to you. Don’t even tell me where it is—when it’s time, I’ll call for you.

  He can do that? Blair asked as Merlin veered away fr
om us, and if I’d been in human form, I would have shrugged. At this point, I had no idea what Merlin was capable of. I also didn’t know why he was leaving me with Blair even though we had just run into her at Shull’s office—apparently, he had decided to trust her anyway.

  So where should we go? she asked.

  I know very little about your planet. The only places I’ve heard of are those from the stories of my mothers, and they spent most of their time… I trailed off, recalling the stories Skelly had recounted when I was a child. Do you happen to know how to get to New Mexico?

  EVEN AT the speed dragons are capable of achieving, it took most of the day to find New Mexico and even longer to find Allanah and Dena’s home. The time stretched even longer because we spent it in silence. From the tales, I knew the general area where my mothers had landed, but finding an invisible house was much harder than just walking around hoping to run into something. We landed in a small town nearby to buy clothes, then walked to where we thought the house would be.

  “How do you even know the house is still here?” Blair finally asked as she felt around in the sand for the edge of the house. “What if it was destroyed when they passed away?”

  I couldn’t explain it, but I just knew.

  Eventually, we took a break for dinner. Allanah and Dena had lived thirty miles from the center of Silver City, so we flew most of the way there and then walked the last few miles. Our mouths were so parched from a lack of water that they opened and closed, opened and closed, as our tongues ran against the roofs of our fuzzy mouths.

  “I hate this place,” Blair said as she trudged in the sand.

  “Of course you do. You’re a city girl, and this desert is about as far from New York as you can get.”

  “Do you like it here?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yeah.” I bent down and picked up a handful of the reddish dirt. “It reminds me of home.”

  While the rest of the country had boomed, Silver City had shrunk to a pit stop for road travelers on their way to Southern California or Texas. Now the city consisted of a gas station, diner, and sheriff’s office, with all of the other buildings still standing but empty. The three Open signs flickered among the darkness, and Blair and I headed to the diner without another word.

  The bell announced our entrance. Behind the counter, a man slept with his chin propped up on his hand, the head slipping every few seconds and then righting itself. He was a small, wide man whose stomach rolled over the apron he wore tightly, and when he woke, he adjusted this belly before uttering a greeting.

  “Welcome to Bill’s Diner,” he said. “Please, take a seat anywhere.”

  All the tables were empty, so we picked a booth in the far back corner. The décor, with bright red plastic seats and checkered linoleum, looked outdated compared to the EDPS.

  Bill brought us menus that proclaimed in equally bright red letters that this was Maude’s Diner instead.

  “What happened to Maude?” Blair asked.

  “How do you know that name?” Bill asked, startled.

  Blair tapped the menu heading.

  “Oh, right. Maude was my wife, and this was her diner. Now she’s gone, and it’s just me, the occasional customer, and the montes.”

  Mountains, Blair mouthed to me. Apparently, New Mexicans needed a translator.

  “We’re so sorry for your loss,” I said.

  “I put it that it wasn’t a loss. That woman ran out of here faster than you can say Los Angeles, taking our whole savings account with her in the process.”

  Blair and I shared an awkward stare.

  “Anyway, look at me going on about Maude when I swore I wouldn’t. What can I get you kids? We don’t keep all the menu options available, but we’ve got sangwiches, haymburgers—”

  “A hamburger would be wonderful,” I said. We didn’t have hamburgers on Draman, but I’d heard of their greatness.

  “And I’ll have a tuna melt and a coffee.”

  “Want malk in that?” he asked.

  “I take it black, but thanks.”

  Bill disappeared into the kitchen, where apparently he served as both manager and cook.

  “Poor guy,” Blair whispered. “He’s still here caring for Maude’s Diner, even after his wife abandoned him.”

  “He’s loyal,” I agreed. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I could say the same thing about Blair. Then again, Shull had almost killed her back in New York when he figured out she knew us. Could it all have been an act?

  “Speaking of which…,” she started, “I know I said we shouldn’t talk about it, but now that I’ve calmed down, can you at least tell me how you were born a Sun Dragon and why you’re here?”

  Instantly, I was on the defensive. Why did she want to know so much? Luckily, Bill came with a coffee for Blair and another, on the house, for me. As soon as he was out of earshot, I asked her the question that had been on my mind since I’d seen her in Shull’s office.

  “You’re not a spy, are you?”

  “Not for Shull, if that’s what you’re asking. I work for the good guys, the Earth Dragons who want to keep an eye on his organization.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, if I did work for Shull, would I tell you?” she asked, her voice getting confrontational.

  “No.”

  “Exactly. So I guess you’re just going to have to decide to trust me.”

  For a few seconds, I held her gaze. Then, after taking a deep breath and realizing I needed her help, I told her everything I knew. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it later.

  “According to my godparent, Skelly, I’m a reincarnated version of some old prince Sun Dragon named Grian.”

  “I don’t get it. What was so important about the old prince?”

  “Apparently the true reincarnation of Prince Grian is supposed to find his soulmate in an Earth Dragon named Caden and reunite the dragon clans once and for all.”

  Blair spilled her coffee all over the diner table. The liquid ran all the way across the plastic to the wall, where it moved in a steady stream to the floor.

  “I am so sorry,” Blair apologized to Bill when he rushed over with a rag.

  “No worries,” he said as he sopped up the coffee. “Happens all the time. You’re probably just dehydrated from running around in the desert all day.”

  As soon as Bill walked away, I rushed into a million questions.

  “Do you know anyone with the name of Caden? Where is he? How can I find him? Why didn’t he show up in the Earth Dragon database?”

  “Of course I know someone with the name Caden,” Blair said. “It’s me.”

  Chapter Eight

  AFTER I found out that Blair’s last name was Caden, everything clicked into place. Now I knew why I had instantly liked her that day on the beach, and why I had been so obsessed with her ever since. Something deep inside of me, something historic, was calling to her.

  There was only one problem: I didn’t like girls.

  Naturally, I kept this little detail to myself as Blair went on about her family history and how the name Caden had been passed down through her father’s line of only men for a hundred generations. She was the first girl, she said, and everyone treated her like a princess because of it.

  I listened halfheartedly. None of this made any sense—I enjoyed kissing Blair, but I shouldn’t have. I thought about her all the time, but girls had been the last thing on my mind for as long as I could remember. Was this what everyone called “destiny”—the helplessness of having to follow a path you did not choose because it was written that way? And if Blair really was my destiny, would the surreal feeling of being with her ever fade?

  “Grian? Are you okay?”

  “What? Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.”

  After we scarfed down our food, Blair paid for our meals—I had no Earth money—and tipped Bill generously.

  “It’s been nice having you here,” Bill said regretfully as he handed over two Styrofoam boxes. “I ca
n’t tell you how lonely it’s been since Maude left me.”

  We walked back to the edge of the lights, where sparsely occupied Silver City met the ghost town of the suburbs, then flew the rest of the way with our boxes and clothes clutched carefully in our claws. If we had been skilled Bone Dragons, our clothes would have come with us, but unfortunately, Sun Dragons and Earth Dragons did not have such skills.

  From high up, I could finally see what I’d missed on foot earlier.

  Look there.

  What am I looking for?

  See that square of pale desert amidst those rocks and cacti? I bet that’s the house.

  After we landed and transformed, I found the invisible door and swung it open. The house appeared at once—or what was left of it after being abandoned for so many years. Whole chunks of the roof had fallen in, leaving gaping holes to the sky like missing teeth. Luckily the weather in New Mexico was so dry that the air had sucked up all of the water like a sponge, but parts of the floor were permanently warped. The house smelled like the desert, both bloom and decay.

  “Be careful,” I whispered as I took Blair’s hand and guided her through the house.

  “Why are we whispering?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. It feels like we’re intruding on sacred ground.”

  Because Allanah and Dena had been such an instrumental part in bringing my mothers together, and because the women had served as such role models to Nimue and Sara Lee, I knew more about Allanah and Dena than almost anyone else. Every night Skelly or one of my mothers would tell me a story of their kindness, their bravery, or their love—the last one being the most important of all.

  I picked up an overturned frame from the fireplace and looked at it: a young Merlin, dark haired and beautiful, amidst two smiling mothers.

  “Is that Merlin?” Blair asked, peering over my shoulder. “How did he get so old?”

  “Time. He was the one to cast all of the spells that brought people back and forth across history and space, and those years stuck to him like a wet shirt. Everyone else became young again, while Merlin wrinkled and hunched.”