Fight and Flight (Magic 2.0 Book 4) Read online

  Phillip said, “We came to assist you. I’m sure once Martin has recovered, we can help.”

  Martin laid back in the grass, breathing heavily, and occasionally giggling. “Yeah,” he gasped. “Help.”

  “What seems to be the problem?” Phillip asked.

  Tyler said, “The dragon’s made friends with a little girl, and she won’t let us . . . uh . . . I’m gonna wait until Martin stops laughing.”

  Martin looked like he might take quite a while to stop, so Tyler and Gary led Phillip through the small stand of trees they’d been using as camouflage, to where he could see the little girl and her dragon, still playing by the pond.

  Phillip whispered, “She looks darling.”

  Gary, speaking in hushed, covert tones said, “She’s tough, man.”

  Phillip said, “She’s a child.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said, “but she’s clever.”

  “A clever child.”

  Martin walked up beside them, looked at the little girl and the dragon, and at full speaking volume asked, “That her?”

  “Yes,” Gary said. “Be quiet. She’ll hear you.”

  “So what if she does? She’s a little girl.”

  “Don’t underestimate her,” Tyler said, quietly. “She’s beaten us so far.”

  “Does she have super hearing or something?” Martin asked.

  Phillip asked, “What have you tried so far?”

  Gary said, “Everything.”

  “Fair enough,” Phillip said. “What did her parents say when you talked to them?”

  Gary and Tyler looked at each other and said nothing.

  “You didn’t talk to her parents?”

  “Should we have?” Gary asked.

  Phillip said, “When you have a problem with someone else’s children, the first thing you should always do is talk to the parents. That’s the first rule of dealing with kids.”

  Martin said, “It’s the first rule of not being a creep.”

  Gary said, “Her parents aren’t around.”

  “So find them,” Phillip scolded. “I’m sure they’re probably at the nearest farmhouse. If not, the people there’ll probably know her and be able to direct you to them.”

  “But who knows how far away the nearest farmhouse is?”

  “It can’t be farther than a little girl can easily walk, and besides, even if it is miles away, you’re a wizard! You can fly! Have you forgotten that, Gary?”

  Gary chose not to respond.

  Martin said, “Okay, I’ll get some altitude, find the nearest farmhouse, and ask around. Phillip, I think since our friends here have been harassing her all day, it might be good if you went and tried to keep her calm and get her to stay put until I get back with the parents. I’d do it myself, but you look . . . I dunno, kindly.”

  Phillip stood up and dusted off his robe. “Yes, Martin, thank you. Lord knows what kind of trauma these two have put the poor dear through.”

  Gary started to say something, but Tyler stopped him. “No, you know what, I think this is a good plan. Let’s let them handle it, Gary. We can watch them and see how well they do.”

  Martin flew straight up through a hole in the tree cover. Phillip walked out of the woods at a casual pace and approached the girl. Moving quickly, hoping to be in position before she noticed Phillip, Tyler and Gary scurried like poorly coordinated commandos, hiding behind and then peeking out around a large tree trunk.

  The girl and the dragon both saw Phillip coming. They watched silently as he approached, then sat down, cross-legged on the ground.

  Tyler and Gary were behind Phillip. They couldn’t see his face, but they could hear the smile in his voice. “Hello, young lady. My name is Phillip. I’m here to apologize. I understand these two have been bothering you.” Much to Gary and Tyler’s chagrin, Phillip pointed back at the tree they were hiding behind as he said it.

  “Yes. They have. It was awful.”

  “I’m sorry about that. They will be talked to about how to treat a young lady who’s out with her pet, minding her own business.”

  “Thanks. They’re dumb.”

  “They can be, yes.”

  “Are they friends of yours?”

  Behind the tree, Gary said, “Here it comes.”

  Phillip said, “More colleagues, really. People I’m forced to put up with.”

  The girl smiled.

  Tyler said, “Yup. There it is,” and sat down behind the tree. He no longer had the stomach to watch or actively listen to the conversation between Phillip and the girl. He tried very hard to think of something else, but occasionally Phillip said things that got his attention.

  “Yes, quite silly.”

  “Butt Brain! No, I suppose he didn’t like being called that.”

  “He fell off of the hill, then part of the hill fell on him? I’m sure that was very funny.”

  “He stepped backwards into the water all on his own, you say. I do wish I could have seen that.”

  The conversation felt endless to Tyler, but in truth, it only took five minutes, then a portal materialized about fifty feet away from where the girl and her dragon stood. Through the portal, Tyler could see Martin standing in front of a small but very tidy farmhouse, with a man and a woman who looked confused at first, then alarmed when they saw their little girl standing next to a dragon. The woman shouted, “Chelsea!” Martin put a calming hand on her shoulder.

  The girl smiled and waved, and shouted, “Momma! Poppa!”

  Phillip twisted his neck and back around to look at Chelsea’s parents. He smiled, reassuringly, and said, “Hello. Delightful young lady you have here. I’ve just been talking to her, making sure nothing bad happened while my friend found you.”

  Chelsea’s father said, “Thank you,” looking meaningfully at both Martin and Phillip. He glanced over and saw Tyler and Gary hiding behind a tree. Gary waved. Chelsea’s father did not wave back. He said, “All right, Chelsea girl. It’s time for you to come home now.”

  “Yes, Poppa. Can I bring Kelly with me? Please?”

  Chelsea’s parents were terrified at the sight of their little girl that close to the vicious-looking dragon, but they both put on a brave face and fought through it. Chelsea’s mother said, “No dear. That thi—Kelly has to stay, and I think you know it.”

  “Aw, but he’s very nice, and I love him an awful lot.”

  “The answer’s no, Chelsea. Now come here.”

  “But I want to bring Kelly. You’re not being fair.”

  Chelsea’s father said, “Don’t argue with your mother. Do you think she likes not letting you have things you want?”

  The girl looked at the ground and said, “No.”

  “That’s right. She’d like nothing more than to be able to say yes. We both would. But we can’t, because Kelly is a wild animal. He needs to be free. He wouldn’t be happy on our farm, would he?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Right. So tomorrow, when you come out to play, if Kelly’s still here, then the two of you can have a good time. But if he isn’t, you can’t be sad, because it means he’s off being happy, doing what dragons do. Understand?”

  “Yes, Poppa. I understand.”

  Her mother said, “Good girl. That all depends on if you’re allowed to come out and play tomorrow, and you won’t be if you don’t do as you’re told and come home now.”

  “Of course, Momma. I’m sorry.” Chelsea looked up at Kelly, then hugged him which, given their size discrepancy, meant putting her arms around Kelly’s wrist. The dragon looked down at her, but made no move to show whether it liked, disliked, or even understood the gesture.

  Chelsea walked away from Kelly. As she passed close to Phillip, she stopped and hugged him, too. When she finally reach
ed her parents, standing next to Martin and his portal back to their home, she asked, “Did you mean it, Poppa? If Kelly’s still here tomorrow, I can play with him again?”

  Her father hoisted her up in his arms and said, “Of course. He’s your friend. Now let’s get you inside.” He carried Chelsea off through the portal and toward the farmhouse.

  Chelsea’s mother lingered behind a moment, and as soon as Chelsea was out of earshot, she turned to Martin and said, “But it won’t be here tomorrow, will it?”

  Martin smiled, shaking his head, and said, “Definitely not.”

  “Good. Thank you for protecting our girl, and for coming to get us.” She hugged Martin, gave Phillip a look of deep gratitude, glared at Tyler and Gary still hiding behind the tree, and walked through the portal herself.

  Martin collapsed the portal, clapped his hands, and said, “Okay. Phillip and I did the hard part, apparently. Now get to work.”

  “What?” Tyler asked. “You two call her parents to do all the work, take all of the glory for yourselves, and now you want us to destroy the dragon?”

  “Yeah,” Martin said. “This is your area. That’s your dragon. We’re happy to help, but we aren’t going to do everything for you.”

  Phillip said, “I agree. It’s time for you two to do your part. But, I know it’s been a hard day for you, so if it makes you feel better, feel free to give the dragon a makeover first.”

  36.

  Martin, Phillip, Gary, and a still-sulking Tyler appeared in the sky above and just outside Camelot.

  When Martin and Phillip had eradicated their dragons, they looked at the map, at first planning to go help Brit and Gwen, because they had the most dragons to deal with. When they saw that Tyler and Gary only had one left, they decided to go help them knock that one out, then the four of them could go help the women. When Gary and Tyler’s final remaining dragon was gone, and Tyler gave up trying in vain to explain their embarrassment away, they checked the map again and found that Gwen and Brit had defeated all of the Scottish dragons. The logical move was to make for Camelot, where Jeff and Roy still had five, then they could tend to the three remaining strays which, according to the map, were still loitering harmlessly in the woods outside Leadchurch.

  Phillip consulted the map and pointed in the supposed direction of Camelot’s dragons, but it wasn’t necessary. They didn’t see any fire, or hear any screaming, but the black tendrils of smoke drifting up into the sky seemed like a good indication of the dragons’ location. Once the smoke told them where to look, the wizards could also see two human figures floating just above the rooftops, looking down.

  The wizards flew to the figures, who turned out to be Brit and Gwen. They all said their hellos, then Phillip looked down at the scene below and asked, “What happened here?”

  Brit the Younger smiled, and said, “Gwen and I got done with our dragons, came here, found what you see below, had about enough time to wonder what happened, then you showed up.”

  “Ah. Thank you for that most comprehensive report.”

  Below them, they saw a scene of utter chaos, made all the more chaotic by the fact that it wasn’t the sort of chaos they’d expected.

  The dragons, which they’d feared would be in the middle of some sort of rampage, seemed perfectly sedate and happy. All five of them stood around, peacefully munching on a surprising abundance of produce, strewn through a seemingly random pile of debris and old wheeled conveyances.

  Jeff and Roy, who they’d expected to find either locked in combat with the dragons or hunkered to the side planning their next move, seemed instead to be engaged in some sort of heated negotiation.

  The citizens, who they’d have thought would be taking cover or hiding from the dragons, instead filled most of the square, forming the other side of whatever argument Roy and Jeff were in. The citizens seemed to be winning, primarily by all yelling at once so that nobody but the people right at the center of the action could hear anything Roy and Jeff said. The wizards watched as a citizen wheeled a large wheelbarrow full of cabbages right up to the dragons, dumped the cabbages where the dragons were sure to be able to eat them, then parked his wheelbarrow and joined the crowd shouting at the two wizards.

  The local constabulary, whom they might have hoped would be fighting to keep the peace, seemed to have given up on peace as a concept and were instead trying to keep the conflict orderly. They escorted pedestrians around the disturbance, and made sure that the angry citizens formed something resembling a line while they waited for their chance to accost Jeff and Roy.

  The smoke seemed to be coming from a single medium-sized building on the outskirts of the market square, which looked almost entirely intact except for one charred corner on the back of the building, away from the dragons.

  Phillip activated the battle comm so that Jeff and Roy would hear him. Unfortunately, the communication went both ways. When Jeff answered, they heard the roaring crowd, Jeff pleading with people to calm down and speak one at a time, and Roy refusing to pay someone for their pumpkins. Jeff took a moment to say, “Hello?”

  Phillip cleared his throat and said, “What’s all this then?”

  Martin muttered, “He’s always wanted to say that.”

  Gwen countered, “If you had an English accent, wouldn’t you?”

  They all saw Jeff look up to see them hovering high above the city. He leaned over and shouted something in Roy’s ear, but Roy was still too busy yelling about produce to respond. Jeff took flight and approached the rest of the wizards. He looked simultaneously tired and full of restless stress energy. He also looked several years older than he had when the groups split up.

  Phillip asked him, “What’s going on?”

  “Disaster,” Jeff moaned. “It’s a total disaster.”

  Brit asked, “Why haven’t you destroyed any of the dragons?”

  “Because they’re the least of our problems.”

  Jeff explained how, while following Roy’s advice, he had accidentally led the dragons directly to one of Camelot’s largest produce markets, and how they had made the mistake of publicly reimbursing the first merchant whose stock got destroyed. A second merchant claimed that the dragons bankrupted him, then a third. Soon, word spread, and merchants who weren’t located in the square the dragons had staked out, and who didn’t sell food, turned up.

  Jeff and Roy stopped giving anyone money pretty quickly, but by then the snowball was already headed down the hill. While they were tied up with trying to talk sense into the merchants they already had on their hands, a steady stream of more kept arriving. Soon the two wizards found themselves completely swamped, and had spent the time since just fighting to be heard.

  While Jeff explained, the wizards watched a man with a wheelbarrow full of what appeared to be beaded necklaces and bracelets run into the square and dump his whole load, then join the mob of people crowding around Roy, demanding to be compensated for their losses.

  “He didn’t even ask to see if Roy was still paying out,” Brit said.

  “He knows he’s up to no good,” Gary said. “When you’re gonna do some shoplifting, you don’t ask the cashier if they still aren’t looking.”

  “Yeah,” Brit said. “I suppose him walking up to Roy before dumping his stuff and asking, Are you still falling for it? would be a dead giveaway.”

  “Why didn’t you just fly away?” Gary asked.

  “After what happened in Leadchurch, we wizards look bad enough. That’s why I paraded the dragons around in the first place. Just leaving Camelot with five dragons and a bunch of loud, angry, liars in our wake didn’t seem like a great PR move either.”

  Brit said, “You could have called for help.”

  “We did. Not to any of you guys. You had your hands full with all the other dragons. We called Eddie.”

  Eddie was the wizards’
liaison to the royal family, and he lived in Camelot. He came from New Jersey originally, but because his family was Asian, the locals knew him as Wing Po, the mysterious wizard from the East. He had been Jimmy’s right-hand man back when Jimmy called himself Merlin. Jimmy fed both Eddie and the royals a steady diet of lies and manipulation right up until the moment the whole Camelot thing hit the fan. In the aftermath, Eddie could relate to the king far better than any of the other wizards, and already knew the ins and outs of the kingdom’s workings. In the time since Jimmy’s banishment, he had grown into the position quite nicely, and Phillip thought he was starting to show the keen instincts and pragmatic attitude of a born politician.

  Phillip asked, “What did Eddie do?”

  “He listened to our problem, said, My name’s Paul, and this is between y’all, and left.”

  “Yeah,” Phillip said. “That sounds like him.”

  Gary looked down at the crowd surrounding the still-shouting Roy and said, “I think he had the right idea.”

  Martin said, “No, don’t say that. We can help. Look, I live in this town. I know these people, and they know me. I’m sure I can talk to them.”

  Martin ascended silently to a position about ten yards directly above Roy. Normally, the sight of a flying man in a silver sequined robe would have drawn some attention, but everyone in the market was focused like a laser on Roy, who shouted at the top of his lungs, but his voice couldn’t be heard over the hundreds of people shouting so that he could hear them. Martin hovered there for a few seconds, tapping at the screen of his smartphone, still concealed in its silver box, setting up a string of spells, effects, and macros too complex to be triggered by speaking Esperanto.

  He activated the program, took advantage of the five-second delay he’d included to put his phone away, stretch, and wink at Gwen, who smiled and rolled her eyes. Then the five seconds were up.

  Martin exploded with a deafening boom that people a half mile away could feel in their chests. It overpowered the sound of the combined shouting, rendering the crowd silent with shock. A visible shockwave also radiated out from Martin, moving at well below the speed of sound. He had spent a lot of time on it, modeling it on the expanding ring of fire George Lucas had added to the Death Star explosion for the Star Wars Special Edition, and he didn’t want all of his work to go unnoticed because it moved too fast.