Page 26 of The Dragon Shifters’ Enemy (Dragon’s Reign #7)

Stick Together

“ W all. Death. It’s accurate, if nothing else!” Kaila stated as she looked at the wall in the cavern.

Large klieg lights had been brought in. Caden could hear the thrum of the gasoline generators that powered them. The interior of the cavern was now brighter than the daylight outside that was slowly dying and the temperature was dropping. He drew the robe tighter around himself.

All of the Dragon Shifters were there. They’d come on helicopters rather than shifting and drawing attention to the Gray Mountains. But they had all needed to see this. Perhaps the answer to taking down the Behemoth was here.

Tez, Jahara and Anwar were down at the other end of the wall from him and Kaila.

All three were crouched down and looking at some of the other people caught in the wall and talking softly to one another.

Mei was hunched over one of the laptops left behind with Illarion looking over her shoulder.

She kept shooing him away, but Illarion kept coming back.

Finally, she rolled her eyes and ignored him.

Esme and Valerius were going through the tents to see if there was anything of any value left behind.

Chione was working with the Claw, including Simi and Ngoye to catalogue everything to be sent to the crime lab.

Fingerprints and DNA might help them identify the people whose faces could not be seen or recognized.

Caden and Kaila were standing by Landry.

Caden found he couldn’t leave her. Or her statue.

Or whatever this was of hers. Iolaire rustled its wings.

Caden saw that it and Raziel were tucked together at the far end of their “lair” as if they wanted to be as far away from the wall as possible.

Caden did not blame them. Even if there weren’t the grasping hands, the broken wings, the faces with mouths gaping with terror, the wall had an unnerving quality all of its own.

Kaila reached up to touch Landry’s extended hand. Caden caught her wrist.

“Don’t,” Caden warned

“Why?” Kaila asked.

“You could… uhm, break something off. And if Landry can be turned back then she’d bleed to death and have lost fingers!” Caden found himself babbling.

“Oh, you think she can be turned back from stone?” Kaila asked, looking genuinely curious. Unlike everyone else who was dodging asking--let alone answering this question--Kaila, of course, just went there.

Caden was glad of it. Because not talking about it just let his fears simmer inside of him. He forced himself to look at the wall where Landry’s final scream was memorialized in stone.

“She--she was turned to stone so why couldn’t she come back?” Caden asked.

“I suppose that’s logical.” Kaila frowned. “If anything about this is.”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean Valerius thinks that these walls--like the one in Anwar’s territory--are entries into the Spirit Realm,” Caden said. “And that the Behemoth comes through them or… something like that.”

“Why would the Spirit Realm need a physical entry though?” Kaila’s forehead was really scrunched now.

“Because this is the material realm? Maybe in the Spirit Realm, this wall is represented by a different energy or something. I don’t know.

Maybe the Spirits have always come through these--these doors.

Maybe these are some kind of…” Caden pressed the flat of his right hand against the wall.

It was perfectly smooth. It felt faintly warm under his palm.

“Some kind of bridge that connects both realms.”

“The wall in my territory was human-made,” Anwar said as he and Jahara came over to them.

It was strange to see him dressed basically in a Patagonia fleece and chinos with boots.

Anytime Caden had seen pictures of him he was in silks.

Anwar looked just as handsome as always but more approachable.

He went on, “An ancient wall, to be sure, but definitely human-made.”

“It could have been Shifters who made the walls. Making walls isn’t hard!” Tez said, but with a grimace. “Though why anyone would do that, I don’t know. This is an awful thing.”

“I suppose that is true about who could have made it.” Anwar frowned and stroked his chin. “But they can’t possibly be normal walls. I mean the evidence is clear that they aren’t.”

Anwar gestured to the limbs protruding from the wall. In a sick way, Caden was reminded of ancient Greek statues.

“Even if humans or Shifters made the walls perhaps they were guided to do so by forces they didn’t understand, by the Spirits themselves,” Jahara mused. Her eyes flitted over the surface. “There’s something sacred about this wall.”

“Sacred?!” Caden burst out.

She turned towards him, her expression immediately regretful. “Not sacred as in good, Caden. It’s just… there’s a feeling of--”

“It’s like a temple,” Anwar filled in for her.

“I cannot explain it either. The wall is smooth and level… There is nothing unique about it. But it feels like the wall of a place of worship and yet we know that this place never could have been that because Valerius raised it from the earth thirty-years ago.”

“And no one would be daft enough to come to his mountains,” Tez agreed as he fussed with the collar of his shirt.

Caden looked at the figures that were submerged in the stone as if it had become liquid and they were drowning in it.

“A temple to what ? Death? Destruction? The Behemoth?” Caden spat then he grimaced as he saw the other Dragon Shifters flinch. “I’m sorry, you guys. That wasn’t… I know what you meant and I just…”

Jahara cupped his cheek. “Landry is your friend. And we’re acting as if this is some kind of intellectual exercise. While you are dealing with… her loss. I’m sorry, Caden.”

Her loss… everyone thinks this can’t be undone. Are they right?

“She was my friend.” Caden was surprised at how his throat closed up on those words and tears suddenly burned behind his eyes. “I don’t know if she continued to be in the end. Or was she really working with Humans First or… Now I may never know.”

Jahara nodded and embraced him. He was stiff at first, but then leaned into her. She stroked his back. He squeezed his eyes tight for a moment. Tears leaked out and his chest seized. He didn’t want to cry. If he did that would mean that Landry was never coming back. That he had given up hope.

She rocked him and slowly the tension eased out of him. Finally, he could draw in a breath and he pulled back. She gazed at him with such tenderness that he couldn’t help but give her a smile back. Iolaire twittered softly at Jahara.

“I heard that, Iolaire. I love you, too,” Jahara said, dabbing at her eyes.

Kaila was openly weeping while Anwar’s eyes, too, were a little brighter than normal. Tez was a burbling mess which had Caden giving the Golden Dragon King a hug.

“Eldoron is grief-stricken for you,” Tez said.

“I wouldn’t want Eldoron doing anything but smiling, Tez,” Caden told him. “Landry didn’t end up in this terrible place accidentally. Whether she was here as a hero or… or one of enemies, I’m not quite sure. But I won’t forget her either way.”

“She is not the only one that was taken by the wall,” Jahara stated. “I wonder if Jasper Hawes is here.”

Only Landry’s face was visible on the wall. The others were half covered, only a nose, a cheek, a chin, an open mouth stuck out. Any one of them could have been Jasper, but Caden didn’t think he was there.

“He always seems to be somewhere else when the really bad stuff goes down,” Caden said. “But Landry’s brothers could be in there with her. Oh, man, if that’s true… her whole family…”

He bit his lower lip. He had no love for Landry’s brothers and her parents had always struck him as not terribly nice people. But to lose all their children was too cruel for him to wish upon anyone.

“Sorry again, guys, for freaking out there. I’m more of a mess than I thought about this,” he told them and scrubbed his face. He felt slightly better. He avoided looking at Landry though.

“All of this is not right. Who could not be a mess? The natural world is out of balance,” Kaila said and patted his shoulder.

He nodded. “That about sums it up, Kaila.”

“How did Humans First come to find this place and why were they here?” Jahara asked, hands on hips as she surveyed the wall again. “From the television interviews of Jasper Hawes I have seen, I find it difficult to imagine him figuring out all of this.”

“Yeah, he’s cunning, but not this kind of smart,” Caden agreed. “I just can’t see how Humans First and the Faith are related to the Behemoth?”

“I think I may have some insight into that,” Mei called.

The four of them went over to where she sat at one of the camp tables. Illarion was still looking over her shoulder. Mei’s delicate features were illuminated by the laptop’s screen.

“Not very security minded of them not to password protect that machine,” Jahara tsked.

Mei tipped her head back and let out a girlish laugh that was somehow unnerving. “As if a password could keep me out.”

“Are you like a--a hacker, Mei?” Caden asked.

“Like a hacker? Yes, I am.” Mei smiled at him.

“You’ve been alive so long yet all of you have adapted. I mean more than adapted. Jahara, your territory resembles a scifi novel. Mei, you have Iron Men. That’s pretty amazing,” Caden said as he ran a hand through the back of his hair.

“Are you saying we’re the olds and should be using chisels and stone tablets?” Jahara’s lips twitched.

“Y-yeah,” Caden let out a laugh. “Maybe a little. I mean the world moves so much faster than it did when you guys were born. It’s even faster now than when I was a kid. Things must seem unrecognizable to you now.”

“One has to adapt to survive,” Mei said without looking up from the computer.

“Do you ever just feel like you want to retreat from the world?” Caden asked.