A Crown of Dragons

  He spread his hands. “The scale, of course. I assumed that would be obvious. Once you’ve tasted the power of a dragon, it’s very hard not to want more. Who knew how much we humans were capable of, with a little assistance from beyond the stars?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  He reeled back, looking offended. “Michael, Michael, I’m an academic. We’re never ‘crazy,’ just obsessively curious. Whatever you’ve been told about me is false.”

  “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Please,” he said, shaking his head. “You may not have recognized me until now, but you do know plenty about me. You’re part of the same organization that got your father out of New Mexico. You’ve been briefed about his mission there. You certainly know that he escaped with the scale. Strangely, you’re not absolutely sure what’s happened to him, but you know it has to do with reality shifts, the multiverse, and dragons. And you know that Rodriguez cut me with the scale and left me for dead. What are you doing?”

  All the time he’d been talking, I’d been feeling for a rock I could throw at him. But as at home, nothing here was solid. Everything around me was just an illusion, conjured out of Harvey’s mind. Yet, if I concentrated hard enough, I felt I could create some detail of my own. I looked at the stone by my feet and a simple, star-shaped petroglyph appeared. I was pretty sure that meant that Harvey didn’t have full control of his construct, though the star disappeared the moment I spoke. “How can you know any of this?”

  He tapped his temple. “It’s in your head; that makes it freely available.”

  “You’ve read my mind?”

  He pursed his lips. “Poked around in a few dusty corners when your guard was down would be a better description. A word of warning, Michael: Be careful what you bring to the forefront of your mind when a telepath is near. The most immediate thoughts have the strongest echoes. They prick like spikes, demanding to be noticed. Est-ce que tu veux un chocolat chaud ce soir? Remember that?”

  “You made the GPS say it.”

  “No, I made you think the GPS said it. It was enough to shake you up and make you open up to me a fraction more. We need to talk, you and I. There’s a lot going on in that lively, jumbled-up mind, isn’t there? I’m intrigued about the origin of your powers, for instance. You don’t know how you got them, do you? How you went from ordinary boy to a force that could alter the universe. Indeed, most of your ‘history’ is still quite … vague. Your peculiar resentment of androids, for instance. And this irresistible fascination for crows you seem to have. I confess I haven’t fathomed their significance yet or how you’ve persuaded them to spy on me, but I applaud your skills of command. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of spying, it was silly, sending your bodyguard to follow me. It wasn’t hard to detect a fellow Talen. Mulrooney, yes? I read his mind when we stopped to fill up with gas. He’s fortunate to be alive, Michael. Still, a warning to your masters won’t go amiss.”

  “They’ll kill you if you harm me or my family.”

  He smiled broadly, tilting his head the way Klimt often did. “I doubt it. Why would they want me dead? I’m the most creative subject they’ve ever encountered.” He blinked his eyes and a small fire ignited among the rocks. He made warming motions with his hands. That gave me an idea of how I might fight him. I looked at the rock in front of me again and tried to imagine a petroglyph of the fire snake Dad had seen attacking Rodriguez. Harvey knew this place well, so the vibrational energy he’d used to make the construct was going to be accurate. If I could tap into it and conjure up a snake … ?

  “Michael,” he said, snapping his fingers. “It’s polite to pay attention when someone is speaking to you.”

  I looked up, fearful that he knew what was in my mind. But his preoccupation with telling me his story had overridden his telepathic function. So I let him yak away while I split off a portion of my mind and tried to recall the details of the fire snake from Dad’s transcript.

  “It’s important that you know what happened to me,” Harvey said, “because it’s already happening to you. I read the newspaper article about the dog you rescued on the cliff just recently. You’re a talented boy. But you’re young, raw, still learning to hone your powers. Three years, Michael. Three years it took my body to adjust once the dragon DNA had fused with my own. It would have been considerably less if those fools at Zone 16 hadn’t tried to hinder the changes. After the incident by the cairn, no one could explain the burn marks on Enrico’s chest or the radiation levels in his body. So we were put into quarantine: me, Lynton, and Marie. They let Marie and Lynton go soon after, but ‘quarantine’ for me was an ongoing catalogue of stressful experiments. I was caged. Tested. Explored. Probed like a being from outer space. They took pieces out of me, shined lasers into my brain, dosed me with X-rays that almost left me blind, ran so many drugs through my veins that I almost had no circulatory system left. Please, there’s really no need to wince; I made sure they paid for it when I broke free. After that, it was simply a question of following the trail of evidence that would lead me to the scale. I tracked down Lynton and discovered he’d been silenced about any link to Stephen Dexter, the bogus archaeologist I’d never met. There was also a trace in Lynton’s mind about an interesting man called Thomas Malone, who had apparently gone missing at about the same time Dexter visited New Mexico. After a little research, it soon became clear that Stephen Dexter and Thomas Malone were the same person, and that he was probably working for a covert organization. So I came to Holton Byford in search of him — and found his son instead. I’ve lain low since then and bided my time. I’ve been observing you with great interest, Michael. And look at me now, almost part of the family.”

  “You think I’d let you be with Mom, now that I know who you are?”

  “Why not?” he said, and he was perfectly serious. “For one thing, I genuinely like your mother. And who better to nurture you? You and I, we’re two of a kind. Quite possibly the only two people on this planet invested with the spiritual auma of dragons. Look at us. Look at where we are: floating beyond the realms of human consciousness. I’m the best father figure you could possibly have. I come to you armed with a range of skills the gods themselves would envy. I can peer into minds, alter my reality, skip through time, engineer constructs like this directly out of my imagination, and very soon, with the scale in my possession, I’ll be able to physically transform. I will become a humanoid dragon — a giant among men — and you can be my adopted son.” He stretched a hand as if plucking an apple from a tree. When I looked again, the crown was in it. “This was one of the most prominent images in your mind. It’s a symbol of your father and everything you ever held dear about him. You want this, Michael. I know you do. Stay with me and it’s yours for all eternity. For some reason, still unknown to you, you’ve been exposed to the auma of dragons. Trust me, their presence will never leave you. As surely as a vampire craves fresh blood, your needs will grow at a frightening rate. Unless you satisfy that hunger and learn to control it, it will lead you into darkness.”

  “Yeah, and you won’t?”

  He ran his fingers over the crown. “You think the people who manipulate you are any better than the scientists who tried to break me? We’re on the same side, you and I. We’re standing on the threshold of the greatest leap in human evolution since our ancestors emerged from the swamp. Let me teach you something. Around ninety-eight percent of our DNA is supposedly useless. Your school textbooks will tell you it’s junk, redundant material left over from our evolutionary past. They’re wrong. Humans are simply a work in progress. These minds, these bodies. We’re incomplete. That raw DNA is ready to be coded. All we’re waiting for is the right stimulus to take us onto a higher plane of being. You and I have both encountered that stimulus, and look what it’s done for us. Doesn’t that excite you? The thought of being more than human? Don’t kid yourself that your father didn’t want it. He knew what it meant to put this on his head.” He held up the crown. “We need that scale,
Michael. Whatever your people have promised you, I can promise more.”

  “I don’t want your promises,” I growled. And I closed my eyes and pictured the fire snake as hard as I could. In my mind, I sent it after him, fire spitting from its gaping mouth, hot enough to melt his smug “academic” face off his head.

  I heard a clatter and a scream, but it was me who felt the heat. I jumped in pain and opened my eyes.

  And there I was, back at the table at home, with my chicken broth spilled on the tablecloth and hot fluid dripping into my lap.

  “Oh, MICHAEL!” Mom was yelling.

  And Josie’s mouth was even wider than before.

  And Harvey was saying calmly, “Oh, dear …”

  And there was something alive for a moment in my bowl. It wriggled and fizzled out in front of my eyes. My dying construct.

  A tiny snake.

  Mom stood up and came around the table, yanking my chair askew so she could see the extent of the spill. “Oh, HOW have you managed that?” There was a pale yellow stain spreading over my jeans, complete with two strands of dried-out chicken, an orange dash of carrot, and a splash of something green, maybe a leek. On a better day, it could have won a prize at the school art exhibition.

  “I’m so sorry about this,” Mom twittered to Harvey.

  “Please don’t apologize,” he said. “It was a complete accident. If I hadn’t been filling his head with dragons, it probably wouldn’t have happened.”

  “It probably would,” muttered Josie, “knowing him.”

  “Stand up,” said Mom. “Go into the kitchen and take off those jeans. They’ll need to be washed.”

  “But … ?”

  “I’ll get you a new pair. Kitchen. Go on.”

  I stood up glumly and looked at Harvey. He made a sympathetic face, but behind his eyes was an unmistakable glint of triumph. He’d seen my move and swatted me aside. For now, he was the one who wore the crown.

  Mom put me back together and we started again. Somehow, I got through the rest of the meal without any more embarrassing blunders. Harvey chatted amiably throughout, keeping Josie amused with his anecdotes, all the while drawing admiration from Mom. No one seemed to mind how quiet I was.

  There was no more talk about dragons.

  When we finished eating, I offered to wash the dishes.

  Mom covered my hand and squeezed it gently. “I’ll do it later, but thank you for asking.”

  Act of forgiveness, or careful assessment of damage limitation?

  It was hard to tell.

  Harvey stayed for an hour or so. Although I could have gone to Dad’s study to mope, I wanted to be with Mom and Josie, just in case Harvey tried anything. He didn’t. He was the perfect guest. He showed Josie some tricks with matchsticks. She, in turn, played the flute for him. Together, we all played Clue. Bizarrely, I won, though I was pretty sure Harvey swung it my way. Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe. In every respect, a better outcome than Michael Malone, in the desert, with the fire snake.

  We had coffee, then gathered on the front step to say good-bye, Mom with a carefully considered hug, Josie with a gale-force wave, me with a grunt from the low end of my register.

  Harvey backed away, one hand in his pocket, soaking up verbal invitations to return. The wind had dropped and he could afford to amble to the BMW. As he opened the door, he looked back at me, and I knew what I had to do.

  “Mom, I want to say sorry to him — properly.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Well, you’d better be quick.”

  I ran to the car.

  He opened his window, the engine running. “Michael. How was your broth? Not too hot, I hope?”

  I took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll help you get the scale, as long as you promise to help me find Dad — and you stay away from Mom.”

  His fingers drummed the steering wheel. “Harsh bargain. Very well. I agree.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We need to talk, but not here. Do you like soccer?”

  “Not much.”

  “Me neither. In fact, I hate the game. Tell your mother you’ve accepted an invitation to go and see a match with me on Tuesday evening. I’ll make the arrangements to pick you up.”

  “But if you don’t like soccer —?”

  “We’re not going to watch a game, Michael. We’re going to test your powers. Now shake hands. Let your mother see we’ve bonded.”

  I clamped his hand and immediately felt his power surging into me. “Look at me,” he said. His eyes were glowing purple at their centers. “The people you work for do not have your family’s best interests at heart. Remember that when they contact you next.”

  With that, he let me go and drove away.

  “All right?” said Mom as I came back to the house. She crossed her arms, shivering as a night breeze ruffled her top. Josie had already gone inside.

  “I said I’d go to a soccer match with him.”

  “Soccer?” Her hoot could have startled an owl; she knew I wasn’t a fan.

  I lifted my shoulders and looked away.

  “That’s quite a big step,” she said. “I think I should talk to Harvey about that. I’m glad you’re making an attempt to be friendly, but I’ll be the one who decides when you’re ready for that sort of commitment.”

  “Mom, I want to go, okay?” And I pushed on past her before she could argue.

  She didn’t understand, but then, why should she? Meeting Harvey had nothing to do with being friendly or watching soccer — it was all about what Agent Mulrooney had said: I wanted to keep my enemy close.

  My biggest worry was, should I tell Klimt? Or should I take Mulrooney’s advice and keep this under wraps for now? I didn’t trust Harvey, not for a second, but what he’d said about UNICORNE bothered me. The people you work for do not have your family’s best interests at heart. He could be right. How many times had UNICORNE misled me? How many times had I found myself waking up confused in one of their labs or clinics? They claimed they wanted to bring Dad back, yet one of their most dependable agents had been concerned enough to chance his loyalty and warn me of the dangers of The Mexico Phenomenon. Now he was lying in a hospital bed. And still there was nothing on my phone from his boss.

  I ground some enamel. Paced back and forth. Twanged a rubber band until it broke. After fifteen minutes, I could stand it no more; I caved in and texted Chantelle. I sent a neutral message, hoping she’d say something about Mulrooney. She didn’t respond. That just made me angry and almost tipped me in favor of siding with Harvey. But just as I was getting ready for bed, the phone did ring — and it was Klimt.

  “Hello, Michael.”

  I’d almost missed that German accent, though my tetchy response made sure I didn’t show it. “Where have you been? I’ve been texting for a week — and zip! I thought we were doing this Mexico thing? I’ve read the file. I’m ready. What’s happening?”

  He merely said, “Agent Mulrooney has been involved in an accident. We found messages from you on his phone. You have something to tell me, I think?”

  I sank down on the air bed, a hand across my eyes. The voice mails. Drat. I should have realized they’d find them if Mulrooney was hurt. Now I’d have to tell Klimt what I knew. What was the point of holding back? I took a deep breath. “Hartland is here. Hartland, the archaeologist who was cut with the dragon scale. He’s here, in Holton Byford. He works at the college with Mom.”

  There was a pause. And then Klimt said, “I know.”

  “What? WHAT?!” I jackknifed into a sitting position.

  “Please, Michael, my aural receptors are really quite delicate.”

  “Screw your aural … whatevers! What do you mean you know about Harvey?”

  “You are still quite loud. I assume it is … safe to talk?”

  I twisted away from the door. “Just tell me what you know, you freak.”

  “Yet again, you disrespect me, Michael. Remember, the director warned you about that.?
??

  “If the Bulldog ever told me the truth, maybe I wouldn’t be mouthing off now! Why didn’t you tell me Hartland was around?”

  “If you cast your mind back, you will remember I tried. I was prepared to brief you when I showed you the footage from New Mexico. I told you Hartland had survived his attack. You cut me off, anxious to speak about your father instead.”

  “That’s no excuse! You could have told me anytime.”

  “Yes, but in the end, it was safer to keep you unaware, until we knew how Hartland would proceed.”

  “Safer? What about Mul —?”

  “Indeed, what about Mulrooney? Why did you take him into your confidence?”

  I glanced across the room at the stack of albums where I’d hidden the file and the DVD. If I told Klimt the truth about the film, Mulrooney and Nolan were in serious trouble — Dennis, too, if they pressed that connection. Nolan I didn’t care about, but I couldn’t bring myself to snitch on Mulrooney. “He came to me on the headland while I was riding my bike. He said it was his job to look after me. He wanted to know if everything was okay. I told him weird things had been happening around Harvey. He said he’d check it out. I thought he’d go straight to you. Why didn’t you warn him Harvey was around?”

  “Hartland is a powerful telepath. Close contact with an agent carrying knowledge about him could have resulted in bloodshed. Your tip-off demonstrated that.”

  “Is he okay? Mulrooney, I mean.”

  “He is being cared for in the facility. When he wakes, he will be debriefed.”

  When he wakes. That made me feel weak.

  “So let us recap the situation. The man who presents himself as Professor Harvey Delraye is, as you say, Jacob Hartland. We were warned by our contacts at Zone 16 that he left their facility some months ago. We suspected he might come looking for Thomas.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s found my family instead. He was here tonight, having chicken broth. Playing board games. Chatting up Mom.”

  “That is all?”