"What?" Rafiel said.
"Whatever happened to we'll leave the Pearl somewhere?" Kyrie said. "And let them find it?"
"I guess that wasn't practical," Keith said. "Since Tom was heading out of town."
"He was? Why?"
"I don't know," Keith said. "But he'd seen the two of you kissing and he said he couldn't stand to stay around."
"Oh no," Kyrie said.
"He's not going to get very far dressed like that, before someone arrests him for indecent exposure," Rafiel said, as Tom hit the end of the garden, and turned onto Fairfax Avenue. And then he jumped, and opened the door of his car. Getting into the driver's seat, he yelled, "Get in now."
Kyrie had barely the time to scramble in, beside Keith on the backseat, before Rafiel tore out of the parking lot in a squeal of tires and a smell of burning rubber.
He pulled onto the curb just ahead of the running Tom, leaned sideways and opened the passenger door. Then before Tom could swerve to avoid it, he yelled out the door, "Get in now, Tom. Get in."
* * *
"I don't want to get in," Tom said, stopping.
"That you might not, but you're naked. Someone will arrest you long before you get where you're supposed to go," Rafiel said, way too reasonably.
Tom looked down. Yeah. He supposed a leather jacket and a pair of leather boots didn't constitute decent clothing. And he had to get to the restaurant without being arrested.
He flung into the passenger seat of the car. "I need to go to Three Luck Dragon on Ore Road on the south side."
"I know where it is," Rafiel said, starting the car up. "Wonderful Peking duck." Then, as though realizing that Tom's driving motive wasn't a wish for food. "Your father?"
"Yes," Tom said, and covered his face with his hands. "I should never have sent him to them. Hell, I can't do anything right. Damn."
He felt a hand on his shoulder, from the back, and heard Kyrie's voice. "If you were planning to go out of town, you did the only thing you could do," she said. "And your father, did he protest?"
"No," Keith said. "He knew there was a danger. He wouldn't let me go with him. But he, himself, went willingly. Tom. Your father is an adult. He made his own decision."
"Doesn't mean we'll leave him to die," Tom said.
"Right," Rafiel said. "Which is why I'll get us there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, there are clothes under the front seat, Kyrie, if you could get them. There should be at least two changes of clothes. And there should be a pair of pants and a T-shirt Tom could use. They'll be large as hell, but they should make him decent."
Before Tom could protest, he found Kyrie handing him a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Removing his jacket and boots and putting clothes on was difficult in the tight confines of the car. And Tom wasn't absolutely sure if the dragons cared if he had any clothes on.
But he understood there would be a psychological advantage to being fully dressed when he got there and tried to negotiate his father's release with the dragons. If he were naked, he'd be embarrassed, and that would put him at a strong disadvantage. No. He had to be dressed. And he had to get his dad out of this.
He should never have involved his dad in this.
* * *
Before they got to the restaurant Kyrie could smell the shifter scent in the air. She wondered how many of them were there.
Speeding down the—at this time—deserted Ore Road, lined by warehouses and dilapidated motels, then made one last turn . . . And then she saw it. At least she imagined that was it. She couldn't imagine any other reason why the parking lot in front of a low-slung building ornamented with an unlikely fluorescent green dragon on the roof would be crammed—literally crammed with men.
No, she thought, as she got closer. Men and dragons.
And at the head of it all, golden and brilliant in the morning light, was a huge dragon. Ten times bigger than Tom in his dragon form. And even bigger than that in presence. He felt a hundred times larger than his already immense size.
In his front paw, raised high above the assembly, he held Edward Ormson.
Kyrie wasn't close enough to see Edward's expression. But she could see his arms moving. He was alive.
Rafiel stopped the car in front of the parking lot. Impossible to turn into it. And besides, Tom was already struggling with the latch, trying to jump out.
Kyrie opened the door, too, as soon as the car stopped. And was hit by the silence of the hundreds of beings in the parking lot.
It was the silence of suspended breath.
* * *
Tom had never been so scared. Not even when he'd been sixteen and his father had thrown him out of the house at gunpoint. Not even in the wild days and terrifying nights afterward, while he tried to learn to live on the street while not dying of sheer stupidity.