The Last Dragon Chronicles #5: Dark Fire by Chris D'Lacey

Author:Chris D'Lacey [D'Lacey, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0545102723
Amazon: B005ES4626
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

25 THE OLD GRAY DRAGON

What now?” Lucy asked, as a few drops of light drizzle began to spot the windshield.

Tam reached into his jacket and pulled out a business card. He flipped it toward her like a folded banknote. “I’ve booked us in here.”

“The Old Gray Dragon?”

“It’s a guesthouse,” he said. “Bed-and-breakfast. Right on the side of the Tor. It says in their blurb that on a still night you can hear the dragon snoring. I thought it might make you feel at home.” He paused, waiting for her to dip into her usual bag of cynicisms. Her fingers were stroking the picture of the dragon. “You OK, Lucy?”

She put the magazine back into the bag. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Beeping the GPS, Tam took the Range Rover on. They swept along a twisting country lane, farther and farther into the hills. By now the odd cottage was beginning to appear. A mailbox fixed to a drystone wall. Tractors, off-road. Cows. A bicycle. The suggestion of life, albeit minimal. Then, as they crested a ragged stone bridge over a deeply bouldered stream, Glissington Tor was huge in front of them, just like a strange green bubble in the Earth.

Tam dropped through the gears and powered the car up and around the bottom of the Tor. The steepness of the ascent was making Lucy dizzy and she was grateful when, after a couple of bends, Tam swung off onto an access road where a large Victorian redbrick house, half-hidden by its sloping garden and the retinal branches of a cadaverous tree, awaited them.

“This is it,” he said, pulling up. He turned up his collar and quickly got out. Through her rain-spattered window Lucy could see a flight of rough, weed-ridden steps, climbing through what looked like the sort of garden where people grew their own vegetables or herbs. She spotted a cloche and that settled it for her: They had come to a hippie house. Its deep-set austere windows were just visible beyond the slope, the glass crisscrossed with strips of lead. Nothing about the place appealed to Lucy, until she caught sight of a smoky gray cat tucked up in a furry bundle on the steps. It turned its head and stared lazily at her, more concerned with soaking up the pillars of sunshine that the tree and the rain had not been able to block.

Behind her, the rear door opened and Tam started pulling out their bags. “Lovely rainbow over the vale. You going to sit there all day or what?”

He slammed the door shut before she could answer.

By way of reply she got out, marched around to the back of the vehicle, hoisted her travel bag onto her shoulder, stuck out her tongue at him, ignored the rainbow, and mounted the steps. As she reached the cat, she crouched down to stroke its dewy fur. It stared fixedly ahead, unfazed by the contact, as if it had known her all its life. But when Tam approached, the cat got up

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.