her pocket, withdrew the remaining dime and penny, and displayed them in her other palm. “I feel like I’m supposed to keep the wound in the light, but I’m not sure why.”
Sapphira rolled Ashley’s fingers over the coins. “Jehovah reveals mysteries only at the proper time and in the proper place. For now, we should go and see if Walter and Gabriel need help.”
Ashley gazed at the petite hands that clasped her fingers, then let her eyes connect with Sapphira’s sparkling blue orbs. Something deep within this amazing woman poured forth—compassionate honesty, uncompromising virtue, steadfast purpose. Nearly as old as the Earth itself, yet somehow brimming with tender youthfulness, she could be trusted without reservation.
Ashley sighed. So what did she mean when she said she saw a dragon inside me?
“Is something wrong?” Sapphira asked, laying a tender hand on Ashley’s brow. “Your mind seems so far away.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Ashley shook her head and pulled back. “I need to contact Larry and see where the guys are.” She tapped her jaw and looked up at the gray sky above the top of the pit. “Larry, can you hear me?”
Only a buzz of static responded.
“Larry?”
Again, only static.
Ashley probed for the tooth transmitter with her tongue. “Either that blast from Excalibur fried my transmitter, or Larry’s run out of power.”
“Maybe we can get a better signal up top,” Karen said.
“Possibly.” Ashley scanned the area. “It looks like we’re back in the mobility room. Let’s get some of the gravity bricks, at least one of each color besides the one I already picked up. I have an idea.”
“There should be a manual override switch on the end of the bricks,” Sapphira said. “That will turn on the light.”
After finding Ashley’s shoulder bag, Sapphira and Karen rummaged through the scattered debris until they located the remaining six types of bricks and piled them in the bag.
Ashley set a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “Help me climb on Roxil, please.”
Roxil lowered her head to the ground, making her neck a stairway to her back. “I have never flown with human passengers, and our ascent will have to be almost vertical, so be prepared for a rough ride.”
Sapphira, carrying the bag of bricks, leaned down and kissed Roxil’s cheek. “I trust you completely.”
A plume of sparks flew from the dragon’s nostrils. “Neither your trust nor your kiss will make me fly any better.”
Sapphira smiled, and her voice lilted like a song. “On the contrary, I think they will.”
Roxil huffed another stream of sparks. “You humans are such a mystery.”
With Ashley holding onto Sapphira’s shoulders and Karen supporting Ashley from behind, the three walked up Roxil’s neck and seated themselves on her back, Karen at the front and Sapphira at the rear holding the bag in her lap.
As Roxil rose to her haunches, Ashley leaned back toward Sapphira. “Ever flown before?”
“Not on a dragon. I flew pretty high over a snake-infested swamp one time, but I’ll have to tell you that story later.”
Ashley looped her arms over the spine in front of her and held on tightly. “Then hang on to me. Dragon riding is pretty rough even without a vertical climb.”
Roxil beat her wings and lifted off the ground, pointing almost straight up to avoid the mobility room walls. Flying in an upward spiral, she rose faster and faster, as if scaling the old stairway.
Ashley’s stomach churned, and Sapphira’s tight grip on her abdomen made it worse. If this vertical climb didn’t end soon, she would heave her guts for sure.
After almost three minutes, Roxil leveled off and skidded to the grass on the mountaintop.
Karen began to rise, but Ashley pushed down on her shoulders. “No use getting off. We’ll have to leave in a minute anyway.” She tapped her jaw once again. “Larry, can you hear me now?”
This time a voice seemed to break through the static, but the words were too garbled to understand.
“Larry,” she said, raising her voice, “go ahead and boost your signal even if power is low. We have to find Walter. If you’ve been in touch with him, let us know where to look.”
The static reply seemed more garbled than ever.
“Voice transmission takes too much power.” She twisted around, reached into the bag in Sapphira’s lap, and pulled out her handheld computer. She spoke again into the air as she turned it on. “Don’t bother with voice digitization. Just send ASCII characters to my handheld.”
She stared at the computer screen. At first, the LCD just stared back at her, but after a