Draw One In The Dark(131)

If she thought for a minute she could go over the fence, she would have done it. She couldn't pull Tom, though, and he seemed dazed, staying behind, staring at the flames.



"Tom, run," she yelled, but there were sheets of flames where they'd been, and she couldn't stop, but ran. Ran all the way out the gate. Where she collapsed in a heap on the beaten-dirt of the alley, a few steps from Rafiel's car.



Rafiel was facedown in the alley, but he was clearly alive, taking deep breaths that shook his whole body.



Kyrie heard Keith ask, "Are you all right, man?"



And realized Rafiel was on all fours, throwing up.



Tom ran out of the gate, fell, then scrambled up, holding on to the eight-foot-tall metal fence of the castle to pull himself upright.



And Kyrie couldn't help smiling when she realized he was wearing a jacket and a pair of leather boots. And nothing else. So, that was why he had delayed? Tom and his jacket and boots.



He dropped something at her feet. "I tripped on these."



Her clothes. As she shook them out, even her earring dropped out.



But he had his back to her, and was still clutching the fence posts, while he stared at the roaring inferno growing inside the garden.



"We have to go," Kyrie said. "We have to get out of here. The fire department will be here in no time."



"But . . ." Tom said. "The babies."



"You mean the grubs? Tom, those weren't human. They tried to eat Rafiel."



Tom made a sound half growl. "We don't know if they were babies. Do we know what we were during gestation? Perhaps they would have shifted when they were fully grown, and only a few of them would ever shift again and not for years."



"Tom," Rafiel said. His voice sounded shaky. "I understand the feelings, but we had to kill them. We couldn't afford for the corpses to be found with those larvae. They would be taken to labs. Do you want them to figure out shape-shifting? They might very well come after us and kill us all, if faced with a dangerous example like that."



"So, you killed them to save your life? Is that right? Do you have the right to kill things just because there's a remote chance it would eventually lead to your death?"



"Hell, yes," Rafiel said.



"It's not moral," Tom protested.



"If I'm dead, morality doesn't matter to me anymore. Tom. Look, they bit me." He showed round bite marks, as if from a hundred little mouths equipped with sharp teeth. "They were dangerous. They would have bit other people. Killed other people. Besides," Rafiel shrugged. "Technically we killed them. You flamed them."



"Only because I was trying to prevent you from killing them," Tom said, and realized how stupid that sounded.



"Tom," Kyrie said. "It was self-defense. The heat of battle. And they were probably dangerous. Please calm down. We need to get out of here before those fire trucks get here. Hear them?"



Tom heard them, the wailing in the distance, getting near.



"We can go to my house," Kyrie said. "Take showers. I'll make something for us."



Just then, Tom's phone rang in his jacket pocket. "What now?" he said, grabbing the phone and taking it to his ear.



"Mr. Ormson," a cool voice on the other side said.



"Yes."



"We have your father," the voice said.



Oh, shit. The dragons. "But you have the Pearl of Heaven too," Tom said.



"Yes. But . . . There is someone who wishes for more than the return of the Pearl." The voice on the other side was slick and uncaring an inhuman. "He says there must be punishment."



"What punishment?" Tom said, feeling like he'd been punished enough this last hour.



"Severe punishment," the voice said. "One of you will be punished. Either you or your father. We're at Three Luck Dragon, on Ore Road on the other side of town. If you're not here in half an hour, we'll punish your father. The Great Sky Dragon is tired of waiting."



The phone line went dead and Tom thought, So, let them punish my father. He deserves it. He's the one who got involved with the triad.



But Tom was the one who had stolen the Pearl of Heaven. Worse, Tom was the one who had asked his father to return it. And his father had gone, without complaint. Even though, knowing even more about the triad than Tom did, he must have realized this was the kiss of death.



Tom didn't realize he had made a decision until he was running down the alley.

* * *



"Where is he going?" Rafiel asked Kyrie, as Tom started running.



Kyrie shrugged, but Keith said, "Something must have gone wrong with his father taking the Pearl out to the triad."