Blazing the Trail: The Dragon Diaries

  “Well, doesn’t it make sense to find out?” He leaned closer. “I mean, maybe I’m blowing a chance to find out for sure. She finishes her year here and goes back to England in two months, you know.”

  “It’s not another planet. You could go there sometime.”

  Nick sat back and drummed his fingers on the table with impatience. “But I’ve got this feeling, Z, that I’m screwing up an opportunity. It just keeps getting stronger, like—I don’t know. This sounds stupid.”

  “Tell me.”

  He looked right at me. “Like someone or something is trying to kick my ass before it’s too late. I thought maybe it was you, since you’re the Wyvern.”

  “Not me. Not yet.” I smiled at him. “Maybe it’s the Great Wyvern.”

  He rolled his eyes at that.

  Maybe it was the last Wyvern. Sophie. Hmm.

  “So, maybe you should find out. Go and talk to her.” I nodded at the pocket where he’d shoved that jewelry box. “But I’d keep that in my pocket until I knew for sure.”

  He was cocky then, maybe because I’d convinced him that his instincts were right. “I’ve got two weeks to figure it out.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you cutting school for this?”

  “You’d better believe it.” He leaned across the table to whisper, mischief in his eyes. “But I told my dad I had to come and defend you while your folks are away.”

  “I am not your cover story!”

  “Sure! It turned out to be true before I even got here. You’ve got to tell me all about this morning and those ShadowEaters.” Nick cocked a finger at me. “But first, promise to cover for me.” And he smiled at me, his auburn hair tousled, his amber eyes gleaming, and even though I didn’t have a crush on him anymore, I still couldn’t say no to him.

  “All right, I’ll cover for you.” I shook a finger at him when his grin widened. “But you owe me big-time.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll get you another slice of pizza.”

  “More than that!”

  He looked at me in mock horror. “You want two more? Z, you’re not going to have a skinny butt for long if you eat like that.”

  I threw the wadded-up paper plate at him, and he laughed all the way back to the line.

  Then I smiled to myself. I knew this was going to work. Maybe not this month or even this year, but this would lay the groundwork for their future together.

  Nick and Isabelle, together at last. It would be perfect.

  The thing was that now I knew exactly what I’d give to Isabelle for her birthday. I’d wanted to give her the drawing I’d done of her and Nick at the lake the previous spring, but with Nick AWOL, it had seemed inappropriate.

  I’d better get the final touches on that drawing before her birthday.

  NICK INSISTED ON GOING TO check out the vacant lot after I finished school. Visit the scene of the crime, as it were, and see the evidence. He was adamant that everyone had to gather and hear my story right where it happened, as well as look for clues about the ShadowEaters. I was afraid Trevor and the ShadowEaters might still be there, but Nick was ready to kick their butts immediately if they were.

  He was acting like a protective older brother, and I couldn’t argue with him very easily, especially after he got Liam and Garrett on his side. They wouldn’t be here, but they agreed with Nick. Nick thought Isabelle’s instincts would be helpful and I thought her presence would suit him well, so I pinged her and asked if Nick could pick her up. She agreed quickly, which I had to think was a good thing. My job was to tell Meagan and Derek and find Jessica before the end of the school day.

  Overall, I was less than thrilled about this plan but could see the logic of it. At least we’d all be together. I was deeply afraid that we’d find a welcome committee there, one that wasn’t very welcoming, but they couldn’t take us all down at once.

  Could they?

  We’d beaten them before.

  But I was afraid the rules might have changed.

  Or was I just being chicken because I’d made one mistake already?

  We’d go in with the full alliance, and see if we could save the day.

  I took a deep breath when Nick took my car keys and went to get Isabelle, his heart obviously in his throat. We bumped fists before he headed out, and I was well aware of Trish watching from her locker on the other side of Meagan’s.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught a glimmer of golden spell light. When I turned to look, Trish was whispering to Yvonne and sashaying down the hall and there was no spell light at all.

  Great. I was so exhausted that I was hallucinating.

  Belatedly, I tried to remember what homework I should have done at lunch. Being hunted was messing with my academic performance, that was for sure.

  “Hey,” Derek said, appearing silently beside me as he always did.

  I ignored him.

  “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  I was still mad about his crack that I’d deserved to get in trouble.

  I straightened and looked him in the eye. “How could I tell?” I asked, then bent to get my books.

  But not before I saw him flinch.

  “She’s already upgraded,” Trish shouted, taunting him from down the hall, and Yvonne giggled.

  “If you change your mind, freak, you can toss the new boy to me,” she said, rolling her eyes as she sighed. “What’s his name?”

  “Where does he live?” Trish added.

  “What’s he see in the freak?” they asked together, then collapsed in laughter and left.

  “Their work here is done,” I muttered, and dug for my books again.

  “I’m trying to apologize,” Derek said, sounding a bit hesitant.

  “Try harder,” I suggested, but my own tone had softened. “I made a mistake and I know it. I won’t do it again. Don’t you think tasting death was enough negative reinforcement?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the lockers, watching me intently. “What happened?”

  I glanced up and down the hall. “It was a lot like my dream. Adrian conjured the ShadowEaters and they were trapped in an orb, like in my dream.”

  Derek didn’t say anything.

  “But the difference was that Kohana was there with the NightBlade, and they intended to sacrifice me. Kohana pretended to play along, but cut me free instead.”

  Derek’s eyes brightened but he was still listening.

  “We ran, but the NightBlade—this is going to sound weird—struggled free and went to the ShadowEaters. It flew into the air and cut the orb and they swarmed out. They ate the shadow of a Mage recruit, then dispersed over the city.” I grimaced, remembering the sight. “Hey, have you seen Jessica yet today?”

  He shook his head, and I could tell he wasn’t that interested in Jessica.

  “So, you were saying thanks to Kohana?”

  I met his gaze. “I didn’t kiss Kohana. He kissed me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Why does he do anything?”

  Derek exhaled shakily. He looked up and down the hall, and I could almost hear him thinking. “Okay,” he said, and I wondered who he was trying to convince. “Okay. Sorry I came down so hard.” He fell silent as Meagan arrived at her locker beside mine.

  “Hey, Derek,” she said, then turned to me. “Have you seen Jessica? She’s still not answering her messenger and I’m getting worried, since you said the ShadowEaters are free.”

  “How do you know that?” Derek asked Meagan.

  “Zoë sent me a message.”

  “Really?” he said, giving me a hard look. I had a sense of a barrier solidifying between Derek and me. “When?”

  “Before lunch.” Meagan smiled and opened her locker, while Derek seethed.

  I tried to make it better. “I couldn’t send you one,” I said to Derek. “I was waiting on Muriel, and after I told the guys, my messenger went crazy with incoming messages.”

  “The guys?” he echoed,
clearly incredulous. “So you told Liam, Garrett, Nick, and Meagan, but not me?”

  It did sound bad when he said it that way. “I told you in person.…”

  “An hour later and only because I asked.” He folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. “Is this about getting even?”

  I felt as if I were trying to hold on to something slippery, something that was wiggling out of my grasp despite my efforts.

  “No! I just couldn’t do it right then.…”

  Meagan looked between us, watching my total failure to win Derek’s understanding. “Don’t argue about details. We need to find Jessica and stick together.” She turned to me. “I don’t understand how they could free them without the NightBlade.”

  “Kohana was there with the NightBlade.” I hesitated, knowing she wouldn’t like this bit. “He was supposed to make the sacrifice, but he bailed on them at the last minute.”

  “At least he lies to everyone,” Derek muttered. “Points for consistency.”

  “But the NightBlade flung itself back at the apprentice Mages. It freed the ShadowEaters, like it had a will of its own.”

  Meagan’s eyes widened in horror at that, and she pushed her glasses up her nose to peer at me. “Really?”

  “The NightBlade was doing what the ShadowEaters wanted.”

  “Or Kohana threw it,” Derek muttered. “Whose side is this guy on?”

  “No,” I said. “They summoned it.”

  Derek shook his head, apparently believing that I was covering for Kohana.

  “We wildcards have to stick together—” I started, but Derek interrupted me.

  “Convince Kohana of that first.” He glared at me, and the air was charged between us.

  Meagan cleared her throat, obviously trying to help me hold things together. “I don’t understand why Kohana would even be here.”

  “He thought it was turning his elders against each other, so he exiled himself until he destroyed it.”

  “I’d say he failed,” Derek commented.

  I ignored him because I was having no luck changing his mind. “He said that he needed to know more about how it worked to find a weakness, because he couldn’t even scratch it himself. He figured the apprentice Mages were the only ones who would know, so he tricked them.”

  “You don’t actually believe this garbage, do you?” Derek asked.

  Meagan was watching me closely and I knew she knew there was something more I wasn’t saying. I thought about telling her, but didn’t think it would help anything for Derek to know that Kohana would have happily sacrificed him in my stead if it had meant learning more about the NightBlade.

  I was thinking, actually, that the NightBlade itself might have been twisting Kohana’s thoughts in that arena, too.

  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Meagan asked.

  “I do.” I shrugged. “Even though he’s been known to be less than straight with me.”

  “There’s an understatement,” Derek said.

  I turned on him. “Look, it’s not to Kohana’s advantage for the ShadowEaters to be on the prowl, either. I don’t think he expected that to happen. And I think he’s in as much trouble as we all are.…”

  I saw that Derek wasn’t really listening to me, but I kept talking all the same. I guess I was hoping that I’d say something he’d find persuasive.

  But I realized suddenly that Derek was very still. It was more than not listening. He was looking at someone behind me, and I swear his nostrils flared.

  I turned, wondering who he disliked that much, and found a girl I didn’t know standing behind me. No consolation that she, too, had appeared silently, without my hearing her.

  Was I losing my dragon mojo completely?

  Or just going crazy, as Sigmund had suggested?

  MEAGAN STARTED AT THE SIGHT of her. “Hi,” she said, scanning the girl, who ignored her.

  This girl was beautiful, maybe in her early twenties, with that kind of long silky hair you see in shampoo commercials. It flowed over her shoulders like a dark river, so black that it looked like it had blue highlights in it. Her eyes, if anything, were even darker, like black velvet. She seemed mysterious and powerful all at once, sexy right to her bones, and I could guess why Derek was staring. My heart nearly broke with yearning to be so confident in my own skin.

  And that was before she said anything.

  “Jessica said you’re looking for her,” she said, and her voice was exactly as low and sultry as I would have expected.

  Wait a minute. Had Jessica heard my plea? Or just finally turned on her messenger?

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” Derek demanded. He took a step forward, as if to protect me.

  She didn’t even look at him. “Are you coming?” she asked me.

  “Where is she?” Meagan asked, since the girl hadn’t answered me.

  The girl just started to turn away, glancing back over her shoulder at me with a question in those dark eyes.

  Again, I was supposed to accept an invitation on trust.

  It would have been smart to decline, but I really wanted to know that Jessica was safe.

  As long as Meagan and I would be safe with this girl.

  I took a deep breath and sensed feline. The girl met my gaze and smiled ever so slightly. There was something in that expression that reminded me of the way Jessica smiled—a secretive feminine allure, maybe—and I decided to follow my instinct.

  It couldn’t steer me wrong twice in one day, right?

  “Okay, we’ll come,” I said. Meagan and I stepped forward, Derek right behind us, but the girl gave Derek a hostile glance.

  “Not you,” she said, the words low and hot.

  Oh, this was not good.

  Derek glared at her. “Why not?”

  The girl smiled, then took Meagan and me by the hand, leading us out of the school. I glanced back, but Derek had already disappeared.

  Was he following us?

  I didn’t think that would be a good idea.

  On the other hand, after what I’d already faced today, additional backup was probably a good idea.

  There wasn’t much I could do about his choice, anyway. The girl had a strong grip on my wrist and was practically dragging me behind her. Meagan and I exchanged a glance, and Meagan shrugged. We were going to see Jessica, wherever she was.

  Black Velvet was on a mission.

  BLACK VELVET TOOK US TO a fancy apartment building downtown. I was kind of surprised. I knew that Jessica lived close to us—after all, she went to our school—but I’d thought her parents were tight for cash. Meagan had told me that they’d come from Argentina to improve Jessica’s chances of getting into an Ivy League school, but that her dad wasn’t able to use his license as a doctor here. He was driving a cab, which didn’t lead me to believe that they were living in such fancy real estate.

  Was Jessica sick?

  Or in some kind of trouble? You know I was worried about her shadow.

  Black Velvet wasn’t answering any questions, so we stopped asking after a while.

  The lobby of the building was magnificent. All Art Deco brass and dark marble, with a doorman in livery guarding the entry. His expression was stern, as if his face were carved of stone. I was a bit daunted by him, but he clearly knew Black Velvet. He just gave her a nod and summoned the elevator. He even knew where she was going, apparently.

  Was she the one who lived here? She certainly looked like she belonged.

  Yes, I did feel scruffy.

  Just in case you were wondering.

  The inside of the elevator was all mirrored, a bit of a dizzying effect, as there were hundreds of us extending to infinity in every direction. No missing the frayed hems of my jeans or the fact that my fave black boots could have used a buff.

  Come to think of it, I needed a haircut.

  Fortunately, my eyeliner was perfect.

  A girl needs some constants.

  Given that I’d nearly bee
n a sacrificial victim today, I thought I was holding it together reasonably well.

  Meagan flashed her killer smile at the doorman when we were on the elevator, just before the doors shut, and to my astonishment, he smiled back.

  But Meagan is really pretty. I couldn’t help noticing that she seemed more at ease than I felt, maybe because she’d been to this kind of apartment before. With her dad being a concert pianist, the Jamesons did dip their toes into some different social circles than my family did.

  Meanwhile, Black Velvet had hit the very top button.

  The doors closed and we zoomed straight for the penthouse.

  I know. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Black Velvet was luxe all the way. She hadn’t said a dozen words to me yet, but I had all these ideas about her. She must be a model. An heiress. A princess in exile.

  There certainly was a feeling of security in this place. I felt safe, and more confident that Jessica was okay, which made no sense at all.

  The elevator door opened, as smooth as butter and just about as quiet, and there was only one apartment door facing us. My eyes widened. The whole top floor of the building was a single suite? It would be like living in the clouds, with a full surround view. Meagan and I exchanged a glance, and now she looked a bit more impressed.

  The foyer wasn’t a whole lot bigger than the elevator, and there was only that one door opposite us. It was a nice door, painted a very shiny black, but a bit odd in that it had no knocker, doorbell, or keyhole. The knob was one of those you just push, but I didn’t believe for a minute that the door was unsecured.

  To the right, framed in heavy silver, was a square black pad, about five inches on a side. It had to be a scanner of some kind, but one I’d never seen before. On the other hand, this wasn’t the kind of area where I usually hung out. The black square was too big for a fingerprint pad and really big for a doorbell, and I couldn’t see the kind of light in it that iris scanners tended to have. There was no peephole in the door, either.

  Black Velvet stepped forward and reached for the pad by the door as if she did it all the time.

  So she wasn’t going to knock.

  She must live here.

  I thought I had used up my daily allotment of surprise, but Black Velvet had one more for me.

  Just before her hand touched the keypad, she shifted shape.