Chapter 36

The afternoon sun was warm and a gentle breeze pushed past the penthouse balcony, making Carmody slightly sweaty but cooling her at the same time. She sat on a swinging chair, kicking her legs back and forth as she sipped on the iced tea that Mrs Truong had made. It was sweet and sharp, a perfect drink after the rather large lunch the girl had consumed with the Brackenridge family Her best friend Angelina was in the main living room, talking earnestly with her mother, presumably about Pacts and witchy stuff. Angelina’s father, the tall and imposing man who insisted she call him ‘Frank’ was seated on the balcony on a simple wooden chair after being ejected from the living room.

He was drinking beer from a can, one of the Australian brands she didn’t recognise, idly watching the helijets and VTOLs float across the sky. Carmody strongly suspected he had been relieved when his wife and daughter had ordered him outside.

“Thanks again, Carmody” he said, breaking the long silence that had fallen between them. “You saved my daughter once more. It is becoming a habit it seems”

“Well, she does seem to attract a lot of trouble” Carmody replied with a smile in her voice. She was about to make a flippant comment about being her bodyguard when the thought reminded her of Hammers. A strangled sob escaped her lips and she turned herself away from Frank, hiding her sudden distress.

“It’s Okay to grieve for him, Carmody” Frank said gently. “Hammers had been a good man in his own way and part of that remained even when he was overcome by the Master”

Carmody could feel his watchful gaze on her and tried to quell her shaking shoulders.

“I barely knew him, Frank. What was he like before the Pact?”

Frank sighed and she heard him take a deep drink from his beer, then crush the empty can.

“Best fighter I ever saw” the man began. “He was good with a knife or his fists and could shoot the eye out of a crow at two hundred meters”

“That wasn’t what I meant” she said, a little impressed anyway.

“I know” Frank apologised. “For all the talent he had at killing and maiming, he had a gentle side too. I never saw him hit a woman or child, ever, and in the places we fought that was a rarity. He was real old school and it showed. I caught him once sharing our rations with some kids who had lost their parents. We were deep behind enemy lines and short on food for ourselves, yet he gave those kids all he could”

“What happened to the kids?” Carmody asked, intrigued by this side of the forbidding butler she had known so briefly.

Frank paused to open another can of beer and drank half in one long gulp.

“Local rebel forces accused them of being collaborators. They did some awful things to them, stuff you don’t need to hear about. When we got word of it we were a half days march away. Our orders wouldn’t let us go back, but old Hammers took off in the middle of the night on a motorbike he found. It was just him, his rifle and this big fighting knife he carried everywhere”

“Did you find out what he did?” she asked.

“Nope. He came back the following morning, all his ammunition used up and that big knife covered in blood. Other people’s blood, because he didn’t have a scratch on him. Then he parks the bike, walks up to me and says ‘Sergeant Hammerton reporting in for duty, Sir!’. So I look him up and down and told him he was being docked one day’s pay for losing his ammo and he just nods his head and tells me ‘Thank you, Sir’.”

Carmody faced Frank and the two of them swapped a look.

“That is a horrible story to tell a young woman!” she chastised him. “Why couldn’t you tell me a story about how he saved a litter of puppies, or adopted an orphan cat?”

“Because Hammers wasn’t like that” Frank smiled to himself. “He was a force of nature that couldn’t be stopped when he thought he was doing the right thing” The man met her eyes and he raised his beer to her in a salute. “Just like you, Carmody”

“Thanks, I suppose” she replied uncertainly. She regarded the big man steadily. “Do you miss him?”

“I miss the man he was, the one who gave himself up so my daughter could live. It’s been thirteen years, but now I can give him a final place to rest”

“Will you let me come to the funeral?” Carmody asked.

“Of course, Carmody” Frank agreed. “He’d like all of his friends to be there”

Sarah tip-toed to the door of the family apartment, a carry bag full of Christmas lunch leftovers in her hands. Around her came the contented snores of her family, sleeping off their hearty breakfast and enormous midday meal. At some point they would begin to stir, ready for the final rounds of the traditional Christmas dinner.

Her stomach groaned at the thought of it and she decided she might just have some tap water instead. At the rate she was going, by the time they finished the Boxing Day leftovers her Steam Dragon might not be able to carry her!

She escaped the apartment without alerting her family and swiftly summoned a lift to the roof-top garden. When she arrived, there were a number of other families enjoying the late afternoon breeze, working off their own Christmas indulgence with a stroll around the gardens.

Even her little vegetable plot had the odd resident wandering past, so she clambered to the top of the air-conditioning tower and settled herself. Up here she was mostly hidden from the rest of the residents and she stretched out, waiting for Stanley.

The combination of warm sunlight, gentle breeze and a full stomach saw her drift off to sleep, her head pillowed on the bag of wrapped leftovers. She was dreaming about Eric, his strangely flower scented cologne filling her nostrils as he gently licked her face.

With a jarring thump, the back of her head hit the concrete roof of the air-conditioning tower and she awoke with a start. Stanley’s huge head was next to hers, his snout buried in the carry bag he had pulled out from under her.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Stanley said into her mind, his mouth busy slurping up the plastic wrapped chunk of ham and mustard he had discovered.

Sarah smacked him on the snout with one hand as she rubbed her sore head with the other.

“Bad dragon!” she admonished him and sat upright, crossing her legs underneath. “Why did you take the bag without waking me up first?”

“Sorry, but it looked like you were having a nice dream” Stanley answered, sniffing at the bag with renewed interest. “I thought I would help myself and let you sleep”

Sarah had to smile at her friend and opened the bag wider for him.

“There is some of mom’s stuffed Turkey roll in there too” she said and pointed to a plastic container. “Let me open it first!” she added and snatched it out his reach before he swallowed it, container and all.

“Mom is going crazy about all the new storage containers she keeps having to buy” Sarah warned the dragon. “Can’t you at least learn how to open them and only eat the contents?”

Stanley looked embarrassed and twiddled his long finger claws together.

“It’s not that easy” he admitted. “These plastic containers slice open with the gentlest of touches” He illustrated his point by lightly running one razor sharp claw along the concrete roof, the tough material gouged like it was butter.

“Alright” Sarah conceded and took out all the remaining food and emptied it into a small pile on the concrete. “How’s that?”

“I would have preferred you put it on a plate” Stanley grumbled, but not too loudly. He tucked in with gusto and Sarah leaned back, her arms braced behind her as she watched him eat.

The Steam Dragon finished and burped appreciatively. He curled himself around in a comfortable way like a giant cat and Sarah shifted position so she could lie against his warm scaly side. This close she could hear the sounds of his gut boiler churning and two thin streams of vapour drifted from his nostrils, filling the air with more flowery scent.

Sarah looked up at the cloudy sky, filled with scattered white wisps that promised no rain, at least for today. Beyond them the heavens were a brilliant blue, criss-crossed by the odd contrail of a high flying jet.

“Do your Clan celebrate anything like Christmas back in Avalon?” she asked her companion.

“In a way. The Dracoris don’t have anything like the organised religions of this world, but we do revere Mother Urthe and Father Soloris. Once every world cycle on Avalon the Clan Verdana hold a great feast in their honour, telling the story of the Creation with a dramatised poem. All the youngest Dracoris play the parts of Urthe and Soloris, plus the children such as Avalon, Atlantis, Xanadu and the others”

“Sound like fun” Sarah said drowsily, the warmth of her friend making her sleepy again. “Who gets to play Abyss?”

“One of the older younglings. It is a difficult role but the elders insist that all the great Realms are represented. They encourage the performers to treat all of them with respect, even the Night Realms”

“Avalon sounds like a great place” Sarah mumbled, her eyes already closed.

“It is Sarah Evermore, it is” Stanley agreed and lowered his own head to the concrete floor. Soon they were both asleep and dreaming of far off places, worlds that could not be reached by a car or jet.

The night was late, Christmas Day winding down for another year. Carmody was glad to be home again as the afternoon at Angelina’s place had been fun but tiring.

Frank and Yolanda Brackenridge had insisted on seeing the new cricket bat that Hammers had gifted to her and examined it closely. After some minutes the Witch had declared the bat quite ordinary but certainly well made.

Neither of them had been aware that the butler had arranged the gift, as surprised as Carmody had been by its arrival. Frank had been amused, as he knew Hammerton had been a big cricket fan in the old days. The man had played in the Army Cricket team and was a superb batsman, while Frank confessed he had been a mediocre spin bowler.

At least her best friend had reconciled with her parents and agreed to continue living with them. In one way it seemed a good thing to Carmody, as Angelina and her parents seemed much closer now than before. Carmody could only shake her head at the strange family and wonder what the next three years would bring for the trio.

Alone in her bedroom, Carmody leaned the new Excalibur Mark Two against her bedside table. The original handle from the first Excalibur was on the table too and she picked it up and caressed the worn leather grip.

“You were a good bat, Excalibur” she whispered to the fragment. “Thanks for all your help” She laid it gently down once more and climbed into her bed. For a moment she considered laying the new bat alongside her, like she used to do with the old one. Yet as much as she appreciated the gift, it didn’t feel as comfortable in her hands.

She turned off her bedside lamp and settled herself to sleep.

“Goodnight” she said softly, smiling a little to herself as how silly it sounded. It wasn’t like the bats, new or old, could understand her.

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In the middle of the night, while Carmody was in the deep slumber only the young can achieve, the worn handle of Excalibur wobbled slightly on the bedside table. It aligned itself to true North then fell still once more.

A faint blue glow emanated from the handle, brushing the girl’s face with its faint light. She mumbled in her sleep and rolled over, away from the glow that played over her features.

The glow drew itself into a single pinpoint of brilliant intensity, then like a fat blue spark leaped into the nearby handle of Excalibur Mark Two. It fell dark in the room again, the only evidence of the strange scene a whiff of Ozone in the air that soon faded away.