Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,85

of a police car causing less concern than this, and because I was out of my head with fear both those times, I was now recalling them fondly.

This wasn’t good, but . . . it was familiar. If I hadn’t gotten into trouble as a kid, I wouldn’t know what I know about getting into trouble. Meaning, yes, there might be bad things about to go down, but at least I knew from experience that the anticipation wouldn’t kill me. My fear was unpleasant but manageable.

Still didn’t mean I wanted to be here. The outer office was a hubbub of assistants trying to clean up and repair the damage that had been done by the dragons. Several of them were limping, and I saw black eyes and broken arms.

In the inner sanctum, the Administrator was not pleased. “The incident with the elder beings,” the Administrator said. “The ones you call dragons. Most regrettable.”

“Yes.” I decided I wasn’t going to say anything more than politeness dictated.

“A great deal of damage done, resources expended, and, well, general unpleasantness.”

“Yes.”

“It’s shown me several things, however.”

“Yes?”

“Clearly, those dragons were acting on their own. They were not part of any . . . plan of yours.”

Like I was incapable of a plan, I thought. I was planning the same thing; it was just that the dragons were far more direct. But now, anything that might have stuck to me, artifact-wise, would be blamed on them.

He turned, distracted, and hit a few keys on a computer keyboard. “You also got them under control, if in a rather . . . self-interested manner.”

“Yes. They won’t be any more trouble. You have my word.”

“So it is also apparent that while you were not in control of them, you are now.”

“I suppose so.”

“Then you’ll be held responsible for them from now on.”

“I understand. But I must ask you . . . The way you called me? It has a terrible effect on my kind. My kin. Some have been killed or injured when you . . . possess their minds so.”

“But it got you here?” The Administrator was annoyed; the dragons’ rampage had caused an upset and he craved order. “It reinforces the idea that they must look to you and obey you. It is a lesson to you as well, not to be distracted by their petty business. You answer to us.”

“Yes, but perhaps you could—”

“We shall do what is necessary. That’s all.”

Back in my here and now, the sidewalk outside the Boston safe house was a mirror image of the outer office at the meta-Castle: It looked like moving day gone wrong. Boxes were scattered where they’d been dropped, causing a snarl in the traffic and a mess on the sidewalk. Family members were dazed, a few sitting down on the ground, trying to figure out what had just happened. This time it was everyone: oracles, vampires, werewolves.

The Normals going about their business in that part of the city had no idea what was going on. Adam, Danny, and Will had been the only ones in our crew left unaffected, wondering what the hell had just happened to the Fangborn around them.

As they recovered, I yanked Gerry aside and told him what had happened. He told Claudia, and she organized the vampires to tell any onlookers that they’d felt a tremor in the ground, a minor earthquake that had caused the mess. When I asked Jason what he’d picked up from the other oracles, he said there had been casualties. More had been hurt or killed, distracted or dismayed by the Makers’ call.

That did it. I headed to Flock Island with the latest shipment. My team said they’d join me later, but for now, I needed to be alone to think the unthinkable.

Whatever else happened, I had to make sure that disruption didn’t happen again, especially with I-Day around the corner. We couldn’t have anything that would make that worse than it was going to be already. I can’t have the Makers yanking the leash of the Family.

Flock Island had been my first choice. It was off the coast of Massachusetts, just beyond sight of the Graves Light. Its use by Europeans had started in the seventeenth century; through the centuries its use had changed. It had been a fishing station, a fort, a whale-processing station, a prison. In the twentieth century, it housed a lighthouse, a fort in both World Wars, and a boy’s work camp. Then it was abandoned and avoided because it was also rumored