Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

He watched as the intern led Doc away, and made no move to intercede.

Half an hour later, Doc returned and took him aside, out of earshot of Melissa Wade. The young woman continued to read her magazine, seemingly unconcerned with them.

“I needed to verify a suspicion, Calvin,” Doc said. He held up Colleen’s amulet, the one Papa Sky had given her in Chicago, the one that had saved them from Primal. Then he showed Cal the ragged piece of hide he had sawed off the dead dragon outside of town. “This and this, the same. At least, the same species, but not the same individual. They’re dragon scales.”

Incredible. To date, Cal had seen only two dragons up close, Ely Stern and the one he had killed today. It was hard to imagine that Papa Sky, aging and blind, had had a run-in with a dragon and lived to tell about it. He’d said the scale had been given to him by some unseen “friend.” Supposing Papa Sky’s mystery man really existed, how had he come into possession of something like this? And how had he known what powers it possessed-how vital it would be to their survival?

Perhaps an even bigger question was why.

Every answer only raised more questions….

Cal took the scale Doc had cut off the dragon carcass. “Do you think this might have the same properties as the other one?”

“I don’t know,” Doc answered. “But I think it would certainly be advisable to find out.”

The door to the MRI room opened and Theo Siegel emerged on crutches, his leg securely taped at the ankle with a surgical bandage, followed by the night nurse and the emergency room MD who had first examined him. Cal handed the scale back to Doc, who quickly stowed both in his pocket.

Cal stepped forward concernedly, Doc beside him, while Melissa Wade rose and followed them. Cal saw that Doc still held the gem-worked rifle loosely at his side. Cal himself kept a close hand on the hilt of his sword.

Cal positioned himself with his back to the wall, the entrance to the room in his line of vision. He saw Doc casually do the same.

“Nothing broken,” the doctor, whose name was Asher Waxman, assured them. “Just a bad sprain.”

“It’s a good thing you’re sturdier than you look,” Melissa admonished Theo, leavening it with a smile. Cal could readily see the fondness there-and read a good deal more in Theo’s shy glance back at her.

There was a knock at the waiting-room door, which seemed a curious formality to Cal. Through its small window, he could see a young man with blazing blue eyes and a broad forehead crowned by wavy black hair. He wore the faintest hint of a smile-not mockery; Cal had the impression it reflected a permanent air of ironic bemusement.

“That’s, um, Jeff. Jeff Arcott,” said Theo, ducking his head with reflexive subservience.

Cal saw Melissa’s eyes light up at the sight of Arcott, saw her draw in a quick breath, could almost hear her heart pick up its pace.

The doctor opened the door and Arcott sauntered in, hands hooked lightly in the pockets of his faded bomber jacket. Two uniformed sheriff’s deputies entered behind him and took flanking positions opposite Cal and Doc. Cal noted that each had a hand on a holstered nine-millimeter pistol-guns that, like the rifle, had gemstones worked into them.

Arcott gave Melissa the barest nod then appraised Theo dourly, neither acknowledging nor overtly ignoring Cal and Doc. “My my, Theodore…”

The way he said “Theodore” made Cal think of the condescending, smart-ass way that guy on Leave it to Beaver referred to the little kid who starred in the show. I’m smarter than you, it said. Way smarter.

“I got a call you’d had a bit of a party tonight,” Arcott continued, “complete with pinata…only it seems you were the pinata.” Now at last his eyes came to rest on Cal and Doc. “Brought home a few new friends, too.”

Melissa stepped between Arcott and Siegel. “They helped him back to town, Jeff. Drove the car back, too.” Her tone was ameliorating, her voice, as ever, musical. Cal sensed she was trying to protect Theo, to intercede for him.

Siegel worked the crutches laboriously, drew up to Arcott. “They’re okay, Jeff, really. They saved my ass.”

“Said ass shouldn’t have ventured outside the town limits, Theodore.” That strange formality again, that presentational style with its feigned lightness, its considered air of playfulness a thin coating over dead seriousness.

And through it all, the easy air of authority-and implication of threat.

“The coffee here is appalling.” Arcott addressed Cal now, and Doc. “There’s a boulangerie around the corner that should be open awhile and serves up something considerably more serviceable. Let’s talk…and see what we will be to each other.”

Doc glanced at Cal, who nodded agreement. Letting Arcott lead the way-and never allowing his security goons to position themselves behind them-they emerged out into the night, Theo Siegel struggling alongside on his crutches and Melissa Wade bringing up the rear.

The vapor lamps of the town hissed and blazed from on high, as they prepared to learn just precisely what Jeff Arcott had in mind for them.

Underground, in the dark, untenanted and unrecalled, the cavernous space held the smell of the earth, of only the soil now, no air handlers processing it, sanitizing it to nullity. To one of the intruders, the dead controls and silent alarms, the corridors snaking off to infinity, presented themselves as clearly lit as if by a camera flash. To the other, the darkness beyond the periphery of the musty blue light was total.

But it still felt like home.

After all, Herman Goldman reflected, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of difference between the tunnels under New York and a missile silo beneath the Iowa sod, other than that one tended to the horizontal, the other to the vertical-once the subway trains and nuclear missiles were rendered a historical footnote.

Inigo stood staring quizzically at him in the pale light of the roiling sphere, and Goldie knew the inhuman little Caliban would just as soon sprint off into the blackness as give him the time of day-but that fear and curiosity held him rooted there.

“Why’d you do that?” Inigo asked, with a quaver of uncertainty, like his voice was about to crack. “Up there. I thought she was your friend.” He meant Colleen, whom Goldie had left rolling on the ground as if trying to dig a hole to China, temporarily blinded and helpless when (to mangle unapologetically “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) he had loosed the terrible swift sword of his lightning against her.

“Hey, I’m from New York, we don’t have friends.”

Which got exactly the look from the pint-size gnome it deserved. Goldie grew serious. “Colleen Brooks is altogether too formidable for me to give her half a chance to work up a good head of steam. She’d wipe the floor with me, not to mention the windows and baseboards.”

He knew that didn’t answer the question, not at all, not really. It was merely the what, not the why of the act. But how could he answer that, even to himself, measure out the dimensions of ambush and betrayal, when he had no clear notion, no answer other than that he had acted wholly upon impulse?

And that it was only the beginning….

“So how ’bout you riddle me a thing or two, eh, little buddy?” Goldie went on. “Like why you were making such a beeline for this retro artifact of what was once laughingly referred to as the Balance of Terror? Not for its piquant charm, certainly. And don’t say you were intent on homesteading.”