Riding My Dragons (The Dragons Of Tellus #1)

CHAPTER 17

Elliot

“We told her she was safe with us,” I said bitterly, scared down to my bones.“Damn it all, we promised Jenna she was safe with us!”

”Elliot, we’ve got to stay calm,” Byron said.

The two of us had gone back to human, there on the lawn of the University commons, with shirts still tucked in our trousers.

“Byron, this doesn’t make me feel calm,” I said.“She trusted us—totally trusted us.Jenna gave herself up to me.She went from being a virgin right to letting all of us be with her, and we told her—we told her, Byron, she was safe.And she believed us.”

”Jenna had every reason to believe us,” Byron argued.“All we were ever going to do was make her happy, the way she made us.”

”You think she’s happy now, wherever she is?”

Byron had no answer for that.We didn’t know a damn thing about where Jenna was and how she was feeling, except that where she might be, she was probably scared.And she was probably wondering where we were, and if she’d ever see us or anyone that she cared about again.

”We should have kept her with us,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.“We told her she’d be better off coming back here by herself, Byron.By herself, without us.How could we be so stupid?”

Putting a hand on my shoulder, Byron said, “We were sure we were doing the right thing for her.We were sure we were keeping her safe.Elliot, we couldn’t have predicted this.We had no way to expect this.Sending her back here was meant to keep her out of trouble; that’s what we wanted, remember?”

My emotions churning inside me, I said, “Well, we got the exact opposite of what we wanted, didn’t we?”I looked at Jenna’s mirror in my hand, this piece of glass that was all that we had of her now.I looked up and around at the empty University campus, so quiet, so tranquil, which was the opposite of the way I felt at this moment.Inside me, my dragon self was screeching.

“Look,” said Byron, “I’m scared for her too.But right now, we’re going to need all our wits…”

That was when Byron’s mirror sounded.He took the call and said to me, “It’s Cade.”

Byron listened to Cade while I stood by, wondering what new fire was being lit under us.Byron looked over at me, alarmed at what he was hearing.“We’re on the spot where that must have been right now.That must have happened right at the place we’re standing.Okay, yes, send me the scan.”

”What?” I whispered urgently at Byron.He held up his hand to tell me to hold on, and watched his mirror.A second later, he jerked back his head at what he saw.Feeling as alarmed as Byron looked, I said more strongly, “What?”

“Stay there, Cade,” Byron said, and held up the mirror to show me what Cade sent him.It made me stagger back in my tracks.

It was a scan of Jenna, lying in the grass, unconscious.

Scales broke out on my back and shoulders.The human part of my skin turned red.“Damnit!What did they do to her?Did Cade’s family do this?If they did that to her and think no one can touch them…”

”No,” said Byron, shaking his head and taking back his mirror, gazing into it with fire in his eyes.“It wasn’t the Taisce’s.It was whoever they’re working for.Cade says they drugged her with a tranquilizer claw.Right here, out in the open, someone just came and…”

The sound of Cade’s muffled voice coming through the mirror cut him off.Byron put the mirror back to his ear to talk to Cade again.While he did, I stood there clenching and unclenching fists that were turning to dragon claws.

“Okay,” said Byron finally.“You go on to where Ross told you to go.We’ll leave now and meet you there.And whatever you do, Cade, try to keep a grip on yourself.We’re all going to have to keep our wits now.Right.Yes, we’ll think on our feet, but we need clear heads now, whatever shape we’re in.All right, Elliot and I’ll see you there.”

As Byron ended the call, I asked, “Where are we going?”

”The client moved up the deadline on the Taisce’s,” Byron explained.“They want the box now, and sent directions for where they want Cade to bring it.So, he’s going there and so are we.”

My heart felt as if it were a prisoner, pounding on my ribs like the bars of a cage.“Where is it?Where is Cade going?”

”It’s this place where…,” Elliot began.And right in the middle of his sentence, another sound cut him off.It was the sound of another incoming mirror call—but this time not on Elliot’s mirror or on mine.

The call was on the mirror in my hand.Jenna’s mirror.We looked at Jenna’s mirror and our jaws dropped open.

“Do you think it’s them?” I wondered aloud.

“Answer it!” Byron said.

Shaking, I took Jenna’s call.From the other end came an unfamiliar voice, a man’s voice.“Jenna?”

For a second, Byron and I stared mutely, shaking our heads at each other.Then I answered Jenna’s caller.“Who is this?”

On the other end, the man sounded as baffled as I was.“What do you mean?Who is this?Who are you?Where is Jenna Callaway?”

I felt the spines breaking out along my neck as my anger at Jenna’s abductors flared up.“What do you mean, where’s Jenna?Don’t you know where she is?”

The man said, “I wouldn’t ask if I knew.And who are you, answering Jenna’s mirror?”

”My name is Elliot Ladon.Now are you going to tell me who you are or not?”

”I’m Neal Callaway,” the man said, sounding as impatient as I was.“Now for the last time, tell me where Jenna is right now.”

We blinked, startled.Byron and I both recognized that name.Byron said in a hush, “Neal Callaway?Remember back at my place?Didn’t she say that was the name of…?”

I finished for Byron, talking into the mirror.“Jenna’s uncle?Is that who you are, Jenna’s Uncle Neal?”

”Yes, young man,” said the voice on the other end.“I am Jenna Callaway’s uncle.We call each other regularly to stay in touch.Her call is overdue.What are you doing with my niece’s mirror?”

Feeling just slightly calmer, knowing I wasn’t necessarily talking to an enemy, I explained, “Mr. Callaway, I’m a…friend of your niece.”That was the best way I could put it, not prepared to tell him exactly how “friendly” with his niece I actually was.“Sir, I don’t want to upset you, but I think something might have happened.My other friends and I are trying to find her too.”

”Good Lord,” said Neal Callaway.“Where was Jenna the last time you saw her?”

”She was on a transit, heading back to campus.That’s where we are now.We came looking for her and…Sir, we only found her mirror.”

”No…no, no, no,” Callaway said, and I could just picture the look on his face.The best word that I knew for the way he probably looked was “stricken”.He went on, “And this is right after that break-in at the University warehouse last night.I don’t think this is a coincidence.These two things happening so close together, no, it’s no coincidence at all.”

”We don’t think so, either, Sir,” I said.Then I had the presence of mind to ask, “Mr. Callaway, do you have any idea what it was that someone took from that warehouse?”I was careful not to mention who took it.That might have given him the wrong idea, make him suspect something was out of joint.

Callaway said, “It’s something from the Old Wars between Scalers and humans.Some information that no one was supposed to have—top secret.We suspect a soldier on the Scalers’ side was trying to get it into the hands of whoever was meant to use it, but he didn’t live long enough to fulfill his mission.People collecting artifacts after the wars were over must have picked it up and not realized what they had, and it went into the University’s collection of war relics.Someone must have hacked the warehouse inventory and tracked it down.”

“But what is it?” I asked intently.“Do you know?”

The human replied, “If this is what I and some people I’m working with think it is…it’s something not to be talked about here and now.We’re going to have to meet in person, in a protected location.”

”I understand,” I said.“A friend of mine and I have to go and meet our other friend who’s trying to get Jenna back.Maybe we can all get together at the place where we’re headed.”

And I told him the location where Cade had been sent.Callaway listened.Then he said, “That’s near where I had in mind to meet.Yes, we’ll all meet up there, and see what we can do about helping my niece.And maybe keeping someone from using the contents of that data box.”

”It’s really that dangerous?” I asked.

”This,” said Callaway, “could be the most dangerous thing in the world right now.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.And Byron, standing nearby and listening, likewise didn’t care for how I looked, reacting to it.

Jenna’s uncle and I ended the call.I pocketed Jenna’s phone.Then I told Byron what I learned from Mr. Callaway.

The next natural question hung in the air for a moment.Byron put the words to it.He said, “You’re wondering if we can trust this human, aren’t you?”

“We’re going to have to trust him,” I replied.“Time’s running out for Cade and Jenna.Meeting up with Neal Callaway may be the only way to get her back.And Jenna said her uncle is in the Intercross.We don’t have any way to help her if she’s really in trouble, but they might.”

”There’s nothing else to do, is there?” Byron said solemnly.

”Damn,” I said.“You know, I started out just wanting to show Jenna a good time.There she was, this young human girl, pretty but shy.All I wanted to do was have her enjoy me, and maybe help her open up her life a little. That’s all I was trying to do at first.And somewhere in there, I don’t know when, something happened.I didn’t see it until it happened, but there it was.She got under my scales, Byron.”

“She has that effect,” he agreed.“I think she’s done that to all three of us.We weren’t looking for it and she wasn’t trying, but…she got us.We got her and she got us right back.Effortlessly.”

“Now we’ve got to get her out of this,” I said.“We’ve just got to.”

“We will,” said Byron with a hand on my shoulder.“We couldn’t live with anything else.”