What a horrible outlook on life, Wendy thought, and the old habits from her film industry days took over as she noted little things: K’thrynne’s Louboutins were five or six years out of fashion, and the luxury car’s leather seats showed faint cracking from the blaring sunlight through the windshield, which meant that wherever K’thrynne lived, she didn’t have a garage for this fancy car. Little signs that she wanted to convey the impression of a wealth that she probably didn’t have, signs that Wendy herself had used during her single days, because you had to look successful to catch the interest of successful people.
Wendy shook off those thoughts, staring straight ahead. She’d been counting left and right turns as K’thrynne crossed town. Then the woman took an abrupt turn off the main road, and headed inland to the foothills. The street was barely that, so full of twists and turns that Wendy was very soon lost.
They charged up a narrow road to the top of a hill, spewing yellow dust, then K’thrynne said, “Here we are.” She turned up an even more narrow path, barely wide enough for her car. It was utterly unmarked, but very well kept, which meant someone had enough wherewithal to send workers out to tend the road. Wendy thought sourly, am I supposed to be impressed. But she had to admit she was impressed.
Up a very narrow, winding hill, then the road opened out onto the hilltop. No one would ever know this place was here, Wendy realized, unless you flew a plane over it. With that dirt road below, completely unmarked, she wondered if it was even legal.
A U-shaped series of red-tiled roofs were built around a central garden full of shady California black oak and other native plants, with a fountain in the center. The bungalows at either side were one story. The house at the end, directly across from the fountain, was clearly the important one. K’thrynne parked, and Wendy got out slowly, looking around for the ice cream van. It was nowhere to be seen. Her heartbeat thumped wildly, and she slowed her breathing. On stage, she told herself. Sparkle.
K’thrynne opened the door, and gave Wendy a sardonic look. “Out you go.”
Wendy sighed, realizing that she was wearing her house slippers still, she had run out so fast. She was also wearing her laundry-day scrub-clothes. She smacked the door open, got out—and K’thrynne barely waited for the passenger door to shut before she drove off.
Okay, that was…odd.
The door to the large house opened, and a bald white man came out. He appeared to be about Wendy’s age. He had a short, clipped beard. Above that his eyes were so flat in affect as they took her in from her messy hair to the house slippers, that they reminded her of a lizard. Perfectly acceptable for a lizard, but really creepy on a human.
“I want that land,” the man said. His English revealed an accent, though she couldn’t determine the language of origin. “On the hill.”
Oooo-kay, then. No beating around the bush here. “It’s not my land,” Wendy said. “I have no legal claims whatsoever. I’m merely the caretaker when the owner is away.”
The man wore a long leather coat. In this heat? What kind of leather had overlapping scales? Thoroughly creeped out, Wendy gripped her elbows tight as the man said, “What a shame.” His tone of mock regret made her grit her teeth.
A confusion of shouts interrupted from somewhere off to the side. Wendy and the bald man in the sinister coat looked off to the side as a small figure barreled around the corner of the big house, and shot toward them. “Mom!” Sam shrilled—she noticed that he was covered with dust, and one lens of his glasses had cracked.
“Sam,” Wendy cried, as Sam’s small body impacted hers. “I got away!”
Wendy pulled him tight against her as two men, one tall and thin, and another short and broad, lumbered around the corner in Sam’s wake, then hauled up short. Both turning fearful gazes toward the man in the scaled coat.
“Don’t touch him,” Wendy warned, her heartbeat thumping frantically.
“As long as I get what I want,” the man retorted. “Either you or the boy can take me on a tour of that fine garden up there on that hill.”
Wendy said, “You will have to arrange with the owner for your tour. She will be back in a few weeks. But I can absolutely guarantee that if she finds out about these bully tactics of yours, there will be a visit from the authorities toyou. She likes her garden, but I can predict she’d burn it all down rather than permit someone to bully their way into her private space.”
“Brave words,” the man said. “I almost believe you. But I think we’ll need to test their veracity—” He gestured toward the pair of men, who looked at each other. The man in the scaled coat sighed with exaggerated patience. “One of you grab the kid. The other, the woman!”
The pair shuffled, one wiping his hands down his jeans, then the short one took an uncertain step toward Wendy.
At that moment a shower of sparks drifted down, like an iridescent rain. These felt cool, like a burst of fresh mint. The hench-minions stumbled back so fast they almost fell over, then both stopped, turning up their hands. The tall one blinked, looking confused, as if he had forgotten what he was doing. The shorter one looked over at the fountain, entranced.
Their boss scowled—clearly the sparkles had no effect on him—as a gorgeous blue bird with long, trailing tailfeathers flew into view.Oriane?Wendy said her name voicelessly.
Oriane shook her glowing feathers, and more sparkles rained down. The hench-minions blinked upward, apparently not hearing their boss, who snapped, “Grab that boy!” When the two men didn’t move, he cursed under his breath, and advanced on Wendy himself.
He didn’t get two steps before a golden streak dropped right out of the sky, then formed into Alejo’s serpent. Sam bounced on his toes, whispering to Wendy, “I knew he’d come, I knew he’d come!”
The man smiled, his teeth unexpectedly long. Still smiling as he stared right at them, his form blurred, and lengthened, and lengthened still, his face reforming. The strange coat also blurred, then resolved into the shining scales of a bronze dragon, bat wings giving a sharp crack like a gunshot. He stood poised for attack on thick legs, ending in three-toed claws.
Alejo stretched out his wings protectively to either side.
The big bronze dragon stilled, reptilian eyes flickering over Alejo as if assessing how to attack. Alejo also stood poised, clearly ready to launch into the air.
And then a great shadow blocked the sun. Everyone looked up, the bronze dragon showing its teeth. Wendy gaped as a two-hundred-foot long silver dragon undulated slowly and deliberately down in a gentle spiral, whisker-tendrils around its mighty face waving in a breeze that seemed to come from beyond the world. His legs ended in five-toed claws.
The bronze dragon bared its teeth again, and then in a flicker, resumed his human shape. No more slow and sinister transformations.
The magnificent silver dragon and Alejo both shifted to their human forms. That was Mikhail Long. With a bow that called up the formal etiquette of long-ago China, he said, “I am the Guardian of the West. The portal you seek is no more. It was buried in a cave collapse at the other end of town. Godiva Hidalgo’s garden is full of native wildlife, which she has been feeding for the past twenty-five years. As is her right on her own land. If I discover that she or her guests have been disturbed again, the Guardians will be summoned—”
