Heart of the Dragon King Read online

  “You don’t mind if he stays for a little…”

  “Kylie,” she says. “It’s your place. I’m your tenant. You do what you want.”

  I’ve never thought of myself as a landlord. The building was my uncle Uriah’s. He raised me after my parents died in a freak car accident. When Michael and I broke up, and I abandoned our attempt at the perfect hashtag vanlife, I came back to find no uncle, just a note.

  He wrote that he was leaving me the building, the restaurant, and a key.

  Make sure you don’t lose the key, Kylie, he wrote. Do this one thing right for me. Keep it a secret. Keep it safe.

  It’s a weird, ornate little key. Pewter? Silver? I wear it around my neck. Sometimes I’ve noticed it gets warm for no reason.

  My uncle said nothing about where he was going, or why he was going, or if he’d ever be back.

  Uriah is not what you’d call an open book.

  The espresso is burning hot and phenomenal, of course. I sip it carefully. “But I like you, Zara,” I say. “I want you to stay.”

  “I like you too, Kylie. Even if you are an evil kidnapper. How much are you going to ransom him for?”

  “Millions,” I say. “He’s extremely valuable.”

  “He looks it,” she says, grinning.

  Sam is sprawled on his back under a quilt, with his hands up near his head. His hair’s a mess, and a thin line of drool stretches from his open mouth to the fuzzy pillow. “He’s going to be a heartbreaker some day.”

  “Right?”

  “I saw the news,” she says, suddenly serious. “About Burning Man?” She sits down next to me at the table with her own espresso. “They reported no survivors. I thought you might be dead.”

  “I’m hard to kill,” I say.

  “Are you ok?” Her eyes are large and full of sympathy.

  “No,” I say. “Not really. I had a lot of good friends there.”

  “Was it really an incursion?”

  I nod. When the smaug open a way to earth, it’s called an incursion. It looks like a rip in the world. No one knows how they do it. I guess if we opened a way to the Elhyra, we’d call it the same thing.

  It’s also where my fire comes from, though Zara doesn’t know anything about that yet. I don’t want to scare her off.

  “And they took people,” she says.

  I swallow hard and feel my eyes start to tear up again.

  “It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it,” she says quickly, putting her hand on my arm. I can tell she’s used to dealing with people who have gone through all kinds of shit.

  I shake my head. “It’s all right. It was a big explosion. And then soldiers came through.”

  “Smaug soldiers,” she says. It’s not a question.

  I nod. “They took everyone.”

  “But not you.”

  “I rolled under the tent, I guess. When everything blew, I got partially covered. After that, I hid. I don’t know how they missed Sam. They took his parents, I think. And all of my friends.”

  “How is Sam?”

  “Not good,” I say. “He hasn’t spoken at all, the last three...three? The last four days of driving. Stares out the window. Cries in his sleep.”

  She nods. I feel this great wave of sympathy coming off of her. Zara has this way of saying nothing at all and saying everything that’s right at the very same time. She reaches over and brushes her finger across my forehead. It comes away covered in black, sandy grime.

  “I have this new invention to share with you that can wipe away a lot of your bad feelings, Kylie. It’s called a ‘shower.’”

  I snort espresso. “Thanks,” I say. “I guess I’ve been… I’m not sure I’ve slept more than an hour in a few days.”

  “It’s ok,” she says. “With the war going on over there, I’ve seen worse. You’re going to be ok, but let me know what I can do. I’ll make you lahma bil basal tonight. My grandmother’s recipe.”

  “Thanks,” I say again. “That’d be great.”

  Zara’s cooking could save the soul of the world. She stands up and walks over to the window. It’s not a huge apartment, but the light is great. The windows look out onto the street. “We should try and find his family,” she says. “They’ll need to know—they’re probably freaking out. I can do some research at work. And people might come asking questions eventually.” She tosses back the last of her espresso. “Speaking of which, are you expecting anyone?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not sure I know anyone in Richmond now.”

  “There’s a scruffy guy looking in the windows downstairs.”

  “Is he cute?”

  She looks down at the street again and smirks. “Kinda.”

  I look at Sam, who’s starting to stir.

  “Go,” Zara says. “I got this. I don’t need to be at work for another hour or so.”

  4

  I go downstairs and out to the front through the closed restaurant. The guy is cupping his hands around his face and looking in through the front window. POE’S is painted in black on the glass, though it’s a little scratched up now; he’s looking in through the middle of the O.

  I open the front door, and he jumps back a little. A big shaggy dog woofs twice from the sidecar of the old motorcycle that’s parked on the street.

  “You’re a little late,” I say. “We closed about a year ago, I think.”

  He is scruffy, but not in a bad way. Mid-late twenties, about my age. Thick dark hair that’s all sweaty on top and windblown down below his ears from the helmet he holds in his hand. A beard that cups his face close. Nice, dark eyes. His nose might have been broken once, a long time ago.

  The hipster aviator goggles he was wearing have left marks around his eyes—he looks a little like an owl.

  “Um,” he blinks. “Sorry. I was looking for Uriah Walker?”

  “Welcome to the club,” I say. “You are?”

  “Max Bennett,” he says. “Just, uh, Max.”

  “Uh-Max, if he owed you money, I have bad news for you.”

  “No,” he shakes his head. “I think he and my dad used to work together.”

  “In the restaurant?”

  He shakes his head. “I think they were researchers?”

  Despite my Uncle Uriah raising me, I really don’t know a lot about what he did. Typical Uriah—he never really talked about much of anything serious. So I’m very curious about my past or anything to do with my family.

  But I feel fried, exhausted. “It’s not the best time—”

  “I’ve got a picture,” he says. He pulls it out of his jacket pocket.

  It’s a little crumpled, and the colors are faded in a way that an Instagram filter could replicate easily. Several people in a laboratory setting. Wires are running in different directions, a lot of dials and meters and switches. There’s a glass observation window that looks into somewhere else that’s all blurry.

  In the front, there are three people. One of them is a slightly older guy I don’t recognize.

  The second is definitely my uncle—he’s wearing a REM t-shirt under his lab coat.

  The third of them is Sarah, my mother.

  She’s beautiful. Crazy red hair just like mine, shockingly pale blue eyes, same build as me.

  Holy crap.

  Max points. “She kind of looks like you.”

  I nod, speechless. I think my mouth is hanging open. I have exactly one other photo of my mother. I was five or maybe six when she died, and my uncle brought me to Richmond. About Sam’s age.

  “Coffee?” I say. Joe’s Inn is just across the street. It’s a grogan place, but a nice one.

  He nods. “Moose,” he says. “Stay.” The dog woofs once and curls up in the sidecar.

  We sit in the booth by the window. Mr. Morris sees that it’s me and slowly shuffles over with coffee and two of the really big mugs without us asking. “We missed you, K,” he says hoarsely. “Welcome back.” He has thick tusks and bristly fur that covers his cheeks and foreh
ead and spirals in stripes down his neck. He blinks behind his large glasses, ones that make his eyes look like two large fried eggs.

  Many people don’t like grogans, because of the noise and the hair, mostly, but they can also be pretty aggressive. But I love Mr. Morris, and all of his family too. They’re incredibly sweet and thoughtful and great cooks, too. They watched me a lot for my uncle when I was a kid.

  Mr. Morris leaves the pot and a ton of creamers because he knows me well. “Tell me everything you know,” I say to Max.

  He looks thoughtful and runs his fingers through his beard. “The earth is mostly round. Gravity is probably not negotiable. Student loans suck ass and make me want to die.”

  He thinks he’s being funny. “Focus,” I say. “Tell me about the picture.”

  He turns it around towards me and points. “My father was Erik Bennett. He was a physicist, I know that much. Graduated from MIT. He was working on something secret.”

  “But my uncle just ran a restaurant,” I say. I look out the window.

  Across the street, Poe’s looks a little sad, not at all like it did when I was younger. The awning over the door is torn, the windows are dirty. Leaves are blown up into the doorway. “At least he did while he was taking care of me.”

  “Do you know what he did before that?”

  I shake my head. “I think they were up in New York?”

  He nods. “My father ran a large lab outside of Poughkeepsie. They contracted with the power companies. Maybe the government too.”

  “My uncle never said anything about any of this.”

  Max pulls out his beat-up phone and shows me a news article. “In July 1998, in Poughkeepsie, there was a terrible accident. A massive explosion and fire. Lots of people died. It burned for weeks.”

  “Lots of people died except…my uncle?” I say.

  “Sounds like it. Is that your mother?”

  I nod. “They were twins. My uncle always said she died in a car accident…”

  “Sometime around July of 1998?”

  I nod my head. “Yes, actually.” I lean forward and study the picture. “My uncle never wanted to talk about it. This must have been taken before that happened?”

  Max nods.

  They all look happy. They’re celebrating something, I realize. There are bottles of champagne, glasses in everyone’s hands.

  “What did your mother do?”

  “I…” I pause. I’m embarrassed to admit it. “I don’t really know, actually.”

  Looking in my mom’s face is like looking in a mirror, except she’s actually happy and, ok, my eyes are green. I’ve never seen her like this. Relaxed. Smiling. The only other picture I have of her is of the three of us: her, my uncle, and me as a baby, sitting on a step somewhere. In that one, she looks happy, but tired—like any young mom might. In this one she seems smart, focused. Like they’ve all just done something incredible.

  “This picture was the late eighties, maybe,” Max says. “Eighty-nine, I think.”

  “That’s before everything. Before the Internet, really. Cell phones. Before the Elhyra opened.”

  He nods. “Yep.”

  We drink coffee, considering. I notice through the creeping fog of exhaustion that’s starting to surround me that he’s got a tattoo on his left inner arm. A tangled squid that wraps around his wrist that looks kind of cool. “Nice cephalopod,” I say.

  “Thanks. Great birds. Did you get them done in town?”

  People always think my markings are tattoos, which is convenient. “Around,” I say, vaguely. Focus, Kylie, I tell myself. “What do you think they were working on?”

  “That’s what I was hoping to find out. Will your uncle be back anytime soon?

  “No idea,” I say. “I’ve been traveling for two years or so and just got back a few months ago. He left me a note that said he might be away for awhile but didn’t say much else. Can I take a picture of this?” I point at the picture.

  “Sure.”

  I use my phone. It’s pretty beat up, but the camera’s ok. When I reach out to take the shot, my sleeve slides up and you can see my markings running all the way up my arm. They stretch up my neck, too, and go a lot of places he can’t see.”

  “You really like birds?” he says.

  “Birds ruled this planet way before we did, for far longer. If it wasn’t for a random meteor, they still might. Right?”

  “All hail the old gods,” he nods, pretending to be serious. “That one’s incredibly scary,” he points to a small Tweety Bird from the old Warner Brothers cartoon on my clavicle.

  “Do not underestimate the power of the Tweety.” That one is actually a real tattoo. My fire does not have a sense of humor.

  We pay Mr. Morris on the way out, who blushes underneath his fur when I lean down to hug him. “When are you coming back to work, K?” he says around his tusks. “You know there is always a place for you here.”

  “How’s tomorrow?” I could definitely use the money.

  He gets a big grin that shows all of his large yellow teeth. “Can’t wait,” he nods. “Can’t wait.”

  “I have a personal question to ask you,” Max says as we walk back across the street. “Is that ok?”

  I tilt my head and look at him. “You can try,” I say, cautiously. I always get worried when guys ask me that.

  “What’s your name?”

  I laugh and offer him my hand. “Kylie Walker. Nice to meet you.”

  He shakes. “Max,” he says, pointing to his chest. “Moose,” he says, pointing to the dog. The dog sits up and wags.

  “Chocolate? As in the dessert? Or like the wild animal?”

  “He’s a little of both.”

  I offer Moose my hand, which he sniffs. He’s enormous—part Great Dane maybe, and what? Something shaggy and goofy, a sheepdog maybe. He licks my palm and then lets me hug him too.

  “Cool necklace,” Max says.

  Shit. It’s my uncle’s key—it’s fallen out of the neck of my black t-shirt.

  “It’s the key to my heart?” I say.

  “Looks old.”

  “I’m a very old soul.”

  He looks at me thoughtfully. “Can I maybe show an old soul around the city sometime?”

  I study him for a minute: the plastered hair, the off-center nose. He probably works out, from the looks of it. “I’m just out of a thing…” I say.

  “Me too,” he says. “No worries. Just a tour. Richmond got a lot cooler while you were away. Bring a friend too, if you want. Moose likes the company.”

  I get my hands in behind the dog’s ears and scratch him, and he pushes his head into me and groans.

  “I can’t say no to Moose,” I say.

  “No one ever can,” Max says. “He gets all the love.”

  Back upstairs, Sam is at the table with Zara, shoveling the scrambled eggs she’s cooked him into his mouth with his hands. When I open the door, he freezes and looks at me with a wide-eyed, guilty expression. Some scrambled eggs tumble out of his mouth and hit the plate.

  “What,” I say. “We live here. You can eat, Sam. You can always eat.”

  He looks relieved. He picks up eggs with both hands and shoves them in his face.

  “What did I tell you?” Zara says.

  “Gusto?” I say.

  “Gusto,” she says. “You know it.”

  5

  It has been a long time since Richmond has seen a wolf, much less a wolf quite like this.

  Dark night, the fat, full moon riding low. The sound of the freight trains passing through the city throbs and lingers. A rare warm fog off the river fills up Shockoe Bottom and wanders up past the financial district, up through the university, out across the Victorian rowhouses in the Fan.

  In the shadows, the great wolf creeps.

  Silent. Stealthy.

  Hungry.

  It fed on rats last month. The city rats are stupid and abundant, but their blood is thin and dirty.

  Unsatisfactory. Hardly a meal.


  Tonight the wolf will feast.

  Friday night, early Saturday morning. Restaurants with a few stragglers still at outdoor tables start to turn off some lights. The bars begin to close, and students from the downtown university spill out into the street in packs, calling loudly to each other.

  This wolf hasn’t known a pack for a very long time. Still, it recognizes the behavior: loud barks and boastful calls, belching and shoulder pounding to establish dominance, laughing and yeah-yeahs and head-wagging showing submission, alignment, compliance. Human, grogan—even a few fae. It’s all the same.

  The thick smell of marijuana smoke, cloying and sweet.

  The wolf follows.

  The packs head west, away from the towers and into the Fan, where old Victorian row houses have been taken over by the young. They begin to break up. Larger groups head into high stone towers in the center of town. Smaller groups peel off up the individual streets and one by one, or two by two, they stumble into doorways, lock the doors, turn off their lights.

  Until at last, there are two.

  A human male and a human female.

  The wolf knows that the dynamics of humans are simple, really, and not nearly as complex as a wolf pack’s. They’re also less precise. Less thoughtful.

  The dynamics of these two are not complicated.

  The male wants to mate.

  The female does not.

  The sharp stink of significant alcohol makes the wolf’s nose wrinkle.

  The wolf knows what is coming. The male does too: the scent of confidence, of dominance, of excitement.

  The female, stumbling, doesn’t.

  Not yet.

  You got to see this, says the male. It is a large, hulking one, and it steers the female with its meaty hand on the small of her back. They turn down an alley.

  The noise of the trains is quieter here. The light is darker.

  But the wolf has no trouble seeing.

  Warm fog hovers, expectantly.

  I think I should… says the female.

  It’s ok, it’s just right in here says the male, opening up a rickety wooden garage door.

  Inside is an old car, some rusting automobile tools, and a stained mattress.