Escape and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 6) Page 3

  But she didn’t want to wait until ten a.m. to start gathering supplies, either. She wanted to get back to Owen as quickly as possible so that they could start planning their next steps. Not to mention, if Owen was half as hungry as she was, he was probably anxiously waiting for some food.

  Raven looked around at the deserted streets. What choice did she have, though, other than to wait? There was no one out and about now, but breaking into a store was bound to draw attention. She squinted in each direction, but the only signs of life were a few cars parked in front of a diner down the road, and one car at the gas station she’d walked past. With a resigned grunt, Raven turned to start walking toward the diner. Perhaps she could sneak some food while she waited. At least she would not be hungry, then. There wasn’t much she could do about Owen.

  As she started walking, though, she was suddenly startled by the sound of a man’s voice. Looking to her left, she saw that he was walking down the narrow alley between the outdoor goods store and the bookstore next door. He was on his cell phone and not paying much attention to his surroundings, although Raven knew he could not see her, anyway. She watched him with curiosity, wondering where he was heading. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a black polo shirt, which looked sort of like a work uniform to her. Was he going to open one of these stores? Perhaps it would be a store with something useful for her. She flattened herself against the front window of the outdoor store to let him pass and see where he would go. A few moments later, he stopped in front of the door of the outdoor store and started fishing in his pockets. Raven’s heart skipped a beat. She could hardly believe her luck when he pulled out a set of keys and started fumbling to open the front door. This was her chance. She could sneak in behind him and “shop” in relative ease with no customers or other employees in the store. She slowly tiptoed until she was right behind him, hardly able to contain her excitement as he turned the key in the door.

  “Yeah, man, well, I’ll have to catch you later,” the man was saying. “I’m at work now. Ralph wanted me to straighten up the stock room before we open today. He suspects that our district manager is coming through in the next day or two for a surprise inspection.”

  There was a pause as whoever was on the other end of the phone conversation said something. During this pause, the man managed to find the correct key and open the door. He moved immediately to an electronic alarm box behind the front door and started entering a deactivation code, letting the door swing slowly shut behind him. While he was distracted by the code box, Raven quickly slipped in beside him, giving the door just a slight nudge to keep it open an extra second so she could enter the store. She held her breath and watched the man, hoping he hadn’t noticed anything odd. The man paid her no mind, though. He was too distracted by his phone conversation and by entering a code into the code box. After a few more comments to the person on the other line, the man hung up and started walking toward the back room, grumbling under his breath about how he was always the one who had to come in early.

  Raven waited several minutes to make sure the man had really gone, and then she started walking around the store. The place was small, but well stocked. The shelves overflowed with every sort of camping gear you could hope for. Near the front of the store, a display of brochures tempted tourists with “exciting expeditions” and “thrilling tours.” Raven grabbed a few of the brochures and flipped through them, trying to get a better sense of what kind of place Owen and she had landed in. Although they were in some sort of barren desert right now, it seemed that this town was not too far from a national park that offered all sorts of hiking, camping, and various other outdoor activities. It was the end of May, and Raven suspected that the town was probably just gearing up for the busy summer ahead. Perhaps that’s why the shelves here were so well stocked.

  Whatever the reason, Raven wasn’t complaining. She put back the brochure she’d been holding and started to get to work. The first thing she needed was some sort of backpack in which to hold all of the items she gathered. She quickly found the largest hiking backpack the store carried, and pulled it off the shelf. Its absence left a gaping hole in the display, and she winced at the sight as a fresh wave of guilt washed over her.

  “It’s for the greater good, remember,” she told herself. “And besides, you’re going to pay them for it as soon as you can.”

  The words did little to ease her guilty conscience, but she had no choice other than to continue. Now was not the time to hesitate. For all she knew, Saul’s men might be tracking them down while she stood here in this store, seemingly safe in the middle of nowhere. This thought made Raven work quicker. She silently gathered up a large sleeping bag, flashlights, batteries, water bottles, water purification tablets, granola bars, shoes and clothes for both her and Owen, a GPS unit, and other various supplies. By the time she was done, the bag was bursting at the seams. She had a feeling that if anyone watched the security camera of the time she’d been in the store, it would look pretty funny. She kept an invisibility shield over the backpack itself, but there would be several instances of items seeming to suddenly disappear off of shelves of their own accord. With another sigh and a whispered apology to whoever owned this store, Raven swung the heavy backpack onto her back and made her way toward the front door. The man had not reset the alarm, although he had dead bolted the door. Raven looked down the street in either direction to make sure no one was close enough to notice the door opening by itself. The street was growing slowly busier, but the area near the store was clear. She quickly unlocked the deadbolt and slipped out. Then she started walking away from the store as quickly as her aching muscles would allow.

  She still hadn’t eaten, and her stomach growled loudly in protest. Walking was truly torture now, as her exhausted body buckled under the weight of the bag she’d stolen. She forced herself to keep moving, heading back toward the edge of town, back toward Owen. More restaurants were opening now, and a cute little café next to the bank was bustling. Raven quickly decided to risk going in and stealing some food. It would be a little tricky to grab a meal with so many people around, but Owen’s words about wanting real food echoed in her mind. She wouldn’t mind some real food, either.

  She set the backpack down in a spot as out of the way of the sidewalk as she could find, making sure that an invisibility spell still covered it. Then, she slipped into the café doors behind the next couple that entered. She had a hard time not running into anyone, and a few times someone bumped into her and turned around to apologize, only to stare in confusion at empty space. Raven just kept moving. She made her way to the kitchen, where the cooks were whipping up omelets, bacon, breakfast potatoes, pancakes, and other goodies. Raven grabbed a large paper bag that she supposed was meant to house to-go boxes, but she didn’t even bother with the boxes. She just started going down the line in the kitchen, quickly putting plate after plate into her bag, one on top of the other. The bag soon became heavy under the weight of all the plates and food, and Raven whispered “Magicae corroboro” under her breath to reinforce it with a strengthening spell. For a moment, no one noticed that plates were suddenly disappearing off the line into thin air. Since the bag was so close to Raven, it was covered by her invisibility spell and no one could see it. But when Raven reached for a full thermos of coffee, she pressed her luck too hard. One of the servers saw the thermos move and disappear.

  “What the…” the server said. The cooks looked up then, and quickly noticed the impossibly empty serving line.

  “Hey, where’d all the food go?” one of them asked.

  Raven didn’t stick around to see what they did next. She ran straight back into the crowded dining room, quickly pushing her way through the startled customers who were crowding around the door as they waited for a table.

  “Hey!” they yelled, turning to give each other accusing looks as they tried to see who had jostled them. Then, several of them saw the front door open by itself. Raven slipped outside as quickly as she could, but stopped to turn around
and watch the scene in the restaurant unfolding. The server she’d seen, as well as one of the cooks, were at the front of the restaurant now, talking to the hostess and gesturing wildly toward the kitchen. The hostess and several of the customers were pointing toward the front door, miming it opening and closing. The server and hostess quickly came to the front door and stepped outside, looking around wildly as though the perpetrator of this strange phenomenon might suddenly come into view. Raven, who stood several feet away from them unseen, held her breath and waited.

  “It was the weirdest thing,” the server said. “The coffee thermos just disappeared. And the food, too, it seems. And then you’re sure the door opened by itself?”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” the hostess said. “Do you think…”

  “No,” the server said emphatically. “Those are just stories. There aren’t really any ghosts out in the desert here.”

  “But then how do you explain what just happened,” the hostess said.

  The server looked confused for a moment, but then shook her head and shrugged. “Probably some kids, trying to scare everyone into thinking the ghost stories are real. “Come on. Let’s not give them the satisfaction of a show.”

  With that, the server turned around and walked back into the café. The hostess followed, but not before looking warily over her shoulder. Raven let out the breath she’d been holding, and walked to where her backpack was hidden. She swung it onto her shoulders and groaned at the weight. Pointing her ring back toward it, she whispered, “Magicae pluma.” Instantly, the bag became as light as a feather. Raven usually avoided spells which made things weightless. She felt it was better to always build up her muscles by bearing the weight of whatever load she was carrying. She was in the military, after all. She had to stay in shape. But right now, her pride and military ideals were taking a backseat to the exhaustion flooding through her body.

  “Magicae pluma,” she said again, pointing her ring at the bag of food, which instantly grew lighter as well. With a happy grunt, she started walking. Cheating and using the spells just this once was no big deal. She knew the feather spells also made invisibility spells less effective, but she wasn’t worried about that at the moment. She still hadn’t seen any sign of Saul’s army, and her invisibility shield would still work well enough against the oblivious humans in this town.

  Feeling somewhat better, she picked up her pace. The sooner she got back to Owen, the sooner they could both eat. Her stomach had grown so empty that she felt nauseous at this point. She walked back by the gas station she’d passed on the way in, thankful that she already had everything she needed and didn’t have to stop. She did notice, though, that someone had left the newspaper stand open. She glanced left and right, but saw no one. So she grabbed a newspaper and quickly continued on her way. It would be interesting to see what the local town considered news. Perhaps reading the Sandview Scribe, as it was called, would give her a better understanding of where Owen and she had landed.

  She stuffed the newspaper into the bag with the food, and kept walking. It only took her about ten minutes to get back. Her pace had quickened at the promise of sitting down to rest and eat, and she used her last burst of energy to walk quickly back to Owen.

  She found him asleep underneath the rock. Already, the sun was beating down mercilessly on the desert landscape, but beneath the shade of the rock it was still relatively cool. Raven sat down and began unpacking the food, careful not to make too much noise. He needed rest, and she had no intentions of waking him just to eat. If he got hungry enough, he would wake up and have some food. In the meantime, she would eat on her own.

  She pulled the dishes of food out of the bag, and attempted to rearrange them so that the food, which had become quite mixed up during the walk back, looked at least somewhat organized. She made one giant, heaping plate for herself, then put the rest back into the bag to await Owen.

  “Magicae therma,” she said softly, pointing her magic ring at the food. Heat emanated from her ring and warmed the food, until it was just as piping hot as it had been when she pulled it off the line in the café’s kitchen. For the next several minutes, Raven munched on bacon, eggs, breakfast potatoes, and pancakes. She wished she had some syrup, but even without it the pancakes were delicious. That café deserved its popularity. All of the food was excellent. She drank one of the disposable water bottles she’d taken from the outdoor goods store, then she found a thermos she’d grabbed and used its top as a mug to pour coffee into. The dark black liquid was strong and smooth, and between the caffeine and the food, Raven felt decently revived even though she hadn’t slept all night.

  Owen still slept, seemingly dead to the world. Raven watched his chest rising and falling, and, for a few moments, she allowed herself to enjoy just watching him. He looked so peaceful in his sleep, with all the worried creases that normally accompanied his waking expression smoothed away. Raven chewed her lower lip sadly, thinking about how much she would like to spend time with him just for fun, and not because they were running around trying to defeat Saul. Then again, she shouldn’t complain too much. After all, she probably would have never met him if it hadn’t been for this war. War, which tore so many things apart, had brought them together. Raven smiled at this thought. She supposed that, even in the midst of the worst of times, there was always good to be found.

  Owen showed no signs of waking any time soon, and Raven did not feel particularly tired at the moment, so she decided to read the newspaper she had taken. Besides, it was probably best if one of them was awake and on guard, just in case. Just because she hadn’t seen any signs of Saul’s men didn’t mean there was no danger of being found. Raven had learned during this war to never underestimate your enemy.

  Raven took another sip of her coffee, then flipped open the newspaper, ready for some light reading. But the headline she saw made her blood run cold.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. But she knew this was no joke. It was all there in black and white—plain as day, if you knew what to look for.

  Chapter Three

  Owen blinked his eyes open, and, for a moment, felt completely disoriented. He was staring at the top of a large rock, and he felt beads of sweat all over his body despite the fact that he was fully naked. He turned his head to the right and saw a vast stretch of desert in front of him, interrupted only by a small town that looked to be about a half mile away. That’s when it all came rushing back to him. The battle, the retreat, escaping with Raven and the dragon amethyst.

  Raven! Where was Raven? She had gone into town to get supplies, and he had fallen asleep like an idiot, with no one standing guard over him.

  He sat up quickly, nearly banging his head on a low portion of the rock he was sitting under. He saw with relief that Raven had returned. She was sitting several feet away from him, leaning against the opposite side of the small rocky wall and reading a newspaper. Her face looked pale, as though she had just seen a ghost. Next to her, he saw a large hiking backpack, and a brown paper bag that smelled suspiciously like breakfast food. His stomach growled loudly, and Raven looked up.

  “Hungry?” she asked. She was smiling, but her voice sounded tired, not teasing like it normally did.

  “I could definitely eat,” Owen replied. “What time is it?”

  “Not even nine yet,” Raven said. “I haven’t been back that long, actually.”

  “Not even nine?” Owen said. “Wow, it’s really hot for being so early in the morning.”

  Raven nodded. “Yeah, well, you were right. We’re in Nevada. In a town called Sandview, which is apparently the one oasis in a large stretch of desert. But tourists come here for the nature, which keeps the town running. And, it would seem, tourists aren’t the only ones who come here. Look at this.”

  Raven shoved the newspaper in his direction, and he took it from her wearily. He would much rather eat than read a newspaper right now, but whatever she’d seen here she clearly thought was important. It only took him a moment to u
nderstand why. At the top of the Sandview Scribe, a large, bold headline read “Ghosts in Sandview: Has Dark Magic Returned?”

  “What the heck?” Owen said, looking up at Raven.

  “Keep reading,” she said. “It’s really weird, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.”

  Owen’s eyes returned to the page, and he read aloud slowly. “The rumors of ghosts in Sandview persist, as once again on Friday evening, the town lost power with no explanation. Not only that, but after the power was restored, several items were missing from local stores. Additionally, items continue to disappear from store shelves without explanation. Readers of the Sandview Scribe will remember that several ‘robberies’ recently have left police baffled. Items are stolen from stores, but security cameras do not show anyone taking the items. Instead, the items seem to move out of the stores by themselves. This strange phenomenon has led many to believe that ghosts are involved. Although some laugh at such an absurd suggestion, others in Sandview remember that this town has a history of paranormal activity.”

  Owen paused his reading and looked up at Raven with wide eyes. “Items disappearing from shelves by themselves? That sounds like someone stealing under the cover of an invisibility spell.”

  “I know,” Raven said, gesturing toward the large backpack sitting next to her. “It sounds a lot like what I did today to get this stuff. Which makes me think…”