Page 35 of Dragon's Golden Mate
“That’s not far from the cathedral. Let’s meet there. I think we should bring some backup.” Kendrick’s gaze lifted to Beck, who gave him a single nod before leaving the room, letting him know he’d be there for him.
“I can do that,” Maeve affirmed.
Kendrick stood, all thoughts of the old school building completely forgotten. “Maeve?”
“Yes?”
“I know you don’t want to hear me say this, but?—”
“Don’t do anything until you get there?” she filled in for him. “It might be dangerous?”
One corner of his mouth curled up. He might be the dragon, but she was the fiery one. “Right. Exactly.” More words queued up on his tongue, wanting to tell her that he cared about her, that he wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything happened to her, but he held them back. More urgent matters were at hand.
She laughed. “Danger hasn’t exactly stopped me yet, but don’t worry. This time, I have a feeling we’ll need more than just the two of us.”
Beck came back into the room as Kendrick was hanging up. “Chelsea will stay here with Corbin. Griffin, Ewan, Lilith, and I are ready to go.”
“Then we’d better.”
A short time later, Kendrick and his clan got to the church just as Maeve arrived with Lucille, Kristy, Tina, and Amanda in tow. No longer concerned about whether or not anyone saw them hanging around near the building, they met at the front in the shadow of the steeple.
“This is amazing,” Griffin said as they approached. He swiveled his head one direction and then another, almost tripping over Ewan in the process. “You said a lot of ley lines connected here,but damn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many all in one spot.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll get a chance to come back and talk about that more,” Kendrick told him. “Right now, we’ve got to deal with Cassandra.”
“The concert is just a few blocks from here,” Maeve told him. “I’ve noticed that I can hear Cassandra’s wails when I’m in my wolf, but not as a human.”
Kendrick listened, easily picking up on the steady cadence of the distant music but nothing else. “Interesting.”
“We could go backstage and confront her,” Beck suggested, “but we’d have to do it in human form. It’d be too risky to do anything else with a guaranteed audience.”
Lucille nodded. “Is there some way we can lure her away from the concert? Something that would guarantee she’d come running?”
“Possibly, but—ow! Damn!” Kendrick rubbed the top of his head where something hard and solid had just impacted it. The chunk of stone tumbled to the ground at his feet and made him look up.
The gargoyle with the dog’s face and the feathered wings stared down at him, its tongue once again hanging over the parapet. It disappeared for amoment and then came back, this time with another piece of stone in its mouth.
“Okay, okay!” Kendrick put his hands up. “If you want my attention, you’ve got it. You don’t have to give me a concussion.”
“Holy shit,” Lilith whispered, clapping her hands quietly in front of her. “That is the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Cute?” Kristy questioned. “I think it’s kind of ugly.”
Lilith shrugged. “I like it.”
“Cute or not, I think it wants us to come inside.” Kendrick had continued to watch the gargoyle, who kept pacing away from the edge of the wall and then back again. To him, it looked like a dog that was trying to get him to come along with it.
“Some of us could split off and go take care of Cassandra,” Ewan suggested.
“No.” Kendrick didn’t know how or why, but his gut feeling told him that the church and Cassandra were ultimately tied together. “We’ll take a moment to see what he wants, and we’ll go from there. If that’s all right with you,” he added, directing the last comment toward Maeve.
She had her head tipped back and was also watching the gargoyle. “I think we have to. Theyseemed to know we were on their side the last time we were here, so at least we should be safe.”
Kendrick led the way to the back door. They easily gained access, but something was off from the moment he stepped inside. He hurried down the hall and flung open the door to the sanctuary. Vivid, shifting light was shimmering up through the floorboards.
“The portal,” Maeve breathed. “It must be open right now. But why?”
The hawk swooped down from the gallery, making several members of their party duck. Even Kendrick stepped back, but he noticed it was continually divebombing the same space between two of the pews. He stepped forward, and his heart sank.
