The Last Pendragon

Chapter 3

Present day; three years later...

Lyza threw her bag down in the cheap hotel, ignoring the smell of cigarette smoke and the thick layer of dust caked on the bed and desk. Checking her temporary phone, she opened a new email. Using a runic keyboard on her smartphone, she typed a quick email to an old friend. Kharro, I’m in trouble. It only took seconds before her phone buzzed in a quick reply. Likewise, his response was written in runic, but she immediately mentally translated it.

You know where to find me.

Lyza sighed and didn’t bother to type a reply. She grabbed her bag—she never left anywhere without it—and left the hotel behind almost as soon as she had arrived.

*****

Matthew Saitou slipped off his shoes at the engawa and then bowed as he peered into his father’s home. It was made in the style of a traditional Japanese house, including a dojo where they practiced kenjitsu—Japanese sword fighting—and taught others the same.

He was more than happy to be home. The session with his therapist hadn’t gone well; it usually never did. Today had been like any other day; a battle of wills to see who was more stubborn, Matthew or the therapist. No matter what the man did, Matthew refused to talk to him. Or anyone for that matter.

Anyone, that is, except his father.

General Haruto, Matthew’s hero, was a decorated five-star general in the United States Army. Matthew eyed him as he shifted his legs into a tight stance, wielding a bokuto—a wooden Japanese katana. Even though Matthew was well on his way to becoming as good as his father, he couldn’t help but sometimes feel as if his father’s style—so smooth, so efficient—was way out of his league. “Father,” Matthew addressed as he stepped inside.

“How did it go?” Haruto shifted his feet once again, jabbing the bokuto forward.

“It didn’t.” Matthew sighed as he crossed his arms, watching Haruto closely.

Haruto paused in a wide stance, bokuto facing forward and he glanced at Matthew. “What do you mean, Son?”

“I don’t need it.”

Haruto relaxed and walked over to stand face-to-face with Matthew. “Matthew, it has only been seven weeks. No one expects you to recover that quickly. Not even me.”

Gritting his teeth, Matt fought to keep his face impassive, where his father couldn’t read him. “I have.”

“Physically, perhaps,” Haruto started, shaking his head, “but I still do not believe you are at your fullest. I may be on leave, but I can still influence the decisions concerning your station.”

Brief irritation surged through Matthew. He had never minded being beneath his father’s command before. Most of the time, they thought alike. Except now. Matt wanted nothing more than to stop staying home and doing nothing. Seven weeks on medical leave was quite a long time—for him at least. “You want me to stay here?” Matthew asked, unsure how he felt about staying in Japan.

“You want to be out in combat?”

Glancing at the floor, Matthew didn’t reply. He couldn’t. Gunfire popped in the back of his mind and he literally could feel the Iraquian heat burning his skin.

“Your mother called.” Haruto’s voice snapped Matt out of his thoughts. “She asked for you. You haven’t spoken to her since before the attack, Matthew. She doesn’t even know that you were injured. Neither does Kenji.”

Better that they don’t, Matthew thought with a bitter ache in his chest. The last time he and Kenji spoke through Skype, it had not been good. All they did was argue, just like their parents had before the divorce. Matt didn’t want Kenji reuniting with him out of pity. No, it was far better than neither Kenji nor Matthew’s mother knew about the attack or anything that had happened over the past seven weeks. “And I don’t want them to,” Matt answered his father. “What happened doesn’t change anything in this family.”

“Your mother still loves you. Kenji does as well. The divorce doesn’t change that.” Haruto reached a hand out for Matthew’s shoulder.

Yes it does, Matt thought, but he said, “I know, but Kenji and I aren’t talking.”

Haruto dropped his hand with a growl in frustration. “The divorce put an ocean between your mother and I, but it doesn’t have to put an ocean between you boys. You are still brothers. Even though I never visit her or Kenji in L.A. you still can.”

“Father, you know how he is. I’m surprised you’re pushing me to call him given that you don’t…” Matthew ran his fingers through his hair, which had grown out far passed what it was supposed to had he not been on medical leave.

“What?” Haruto’s lips pulled into a deep frown. “That I’m disappointed that he’s a lazy man who doesn’t have what it takes to be a soldier? I am. But I do think that talking to him might help you.”

“It won’t. Nothing will,” Matthew blurted before he could stop himself. The bitter ache in his chest grew until it hurt to breathe. Back in Iraq, he could feel the sand stirred up around him and his squad, burning his nose and eyes as they searched the village. Distant gunfire echoed through the village walls.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and Matthew’s hands tightened around a rifle—

“... back to me. It is over,” Haruto was saying.

Blinking, Matthew sucked in a deep breath. Haruto had placed a firm hand on Matt’s tense shoulder and when Matt glanced at his hand, it had clutched his father’s wrist in a hold tight enough to break it.

Releasing Haruto’s wrist, Matthew stepped back with another sharp inhale. “I’m going outside for a while.”

*****

It didn’t take Lyza’s little Suzuki Reno long to reach the small bar located between two high rises. The city was quite crowded and she had to park around the block, but she locked her red car and walked back to the bar on foot.

Since it was the middle of the day, the bar—Dragon’s Tooth—was mostly empty except for a group of men gathered around a circular table. They were all tattooed and to humans, the markings would only appear as random swirls and whirls. To Lyza’s trained Mage eyes, however, the tattoos formed scales on their arms.

Dragons.

Sure, they were in human form, and it was unlikely they would transform into their dragon forms in the middle of the city, but they were still extremely dangerous and unpredictable. These dragons had been the same ones to live in medieval times and they were the ones that had survived extinction by hiding in plain sight. Maybe the Mages should have taken a page from the dragons’ book, Lyza thought to herself.

The man on the end of the table, with short black hair, slanted eyes and tanned skin, glanced up as she approached. The cigarette in his mouth stayed in the corner, even as he took a drink from a glass that held crimson liquid in it. Lyza was fairly certain it was blood. In their human forms, Dragons needed human blood to sustain them, but it was more of a type of alcohol to them. After all, the legends of vampires came from somewhere. “Lyza,” the man on the end said.

“Kharro.” Lyza didn’t bother to try to say his whole name. Speaking runic was fine, but she completely butchered the dragon language.

Kharro smirked, placing his cards down on the table. The man on his right, with skin as dark as a starless sky, growled and shoved the coins, gems, and what looked to be fairy dust toward the other man. Picking up the entire pile, Kharro nodded toward a shelf full of liquor behind the bar. Lyza politely looked away as he punched in the keypad beneath the bar and then the liquor shelf opened. Lyza followed behind Kharro, his steps twice the length of hers. When she stepped through, the liquor cabinet closed.

The hidden room was spacious, filled with trinkets and odd objects, some that Lyza had no true words for. She had no doubt everything here was magical in some way or another, but pieces were scattered in every direction, all except for the floor. Contrary to the rest of the place, the floor was completely spotless.

“What do you need, Lyza?” Kharro asked, placing the gems and fairy dust inside a safe. He closed it and whirled around to face her, leaning up against a display case. Inside, a hammer glowed brightly, outlined in runic. From what she could read, it spoke of power and lightning. Part of her wanted to study it, the part of her that had been buried beneath tense years on the run.

Lyza swallowed. “Look, I need another favor. You gotta get me out of the country.”

Kharro laughed, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth. He exhaled, throwing smoke in her face. “I gave you all the favors I owed. You don’t have any left to call in.”

Frowning, Lyza coughed and backed up. “The Mages are right on my tail, Kharro, if you don’t—“

“—you’ll die and that’s my problem, how?” Kharro frowned, pressing the cigarette against the display case counter with his hands until it extinguished. “I’ve got my own problems to worry about.”

“With that little rebellion of yours?”

Kharro’s piercing inverted eyes glared at her. “I wouldn’t call dragons taking back our rightful place as rulers of the earth a ‘little rebellion.’”

Lyza opened her mouth to speak. Before she could find the words, the liquor cabinet opened up.

Inside, the man from the Gamestop store, the one who had the Mage son, rushed into the room. Beside him was the store clerk.

Lyza glanced around the room, her eyes tracing every inch of the place, desperate for an escape. She opened her palms, preparing for a spell to teleport away.

The man walked right up to Kharro, completely ignoring her. “You owe me a favor, Kharro, and I’m calling it in. Train him.” With that, the man turned around and headed back toward the exit.

The store clerk looked from the man and back to Kharro. His eyes briefly landed on Lyza, who lowered her hands.

“Samuel,” Kharro started, “I am a dragon! What makes you think I can train this—this…” He gestured to the store clerk, eyes glaring at the man, Samuel, as he walked out. “Why can’t you? You’re the Mage!”

Lyza prepared the teleportation spell while the men were all distracted.

Samuel, glanced at Kharro over his shoulder. “I’ve got Sam Junior to look out for. He’s my son, Kharro. He comes first.” With that, Samuel left the room, closing the liquor cabinet behind him.

Kharro sighed, looking from the store clerk to Lyza and her outstretched hands. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

Lyza smacked her thighs. “He’s a Mage. I’m getting out of here. I can’t believe I trusted you!”

“Wait! You want me to get you out of the country? Fine. Train this guy.” Kharro pointed to the store clerk.

The store clerk looked at both of them in turn. “What’s going on? Samuel told me that I had magic and then he did a spell, but—but this crap can’t be real.”

Kharro nodded, rubbing his eyes. “Oh, it’s real alright. Ever since Arthur Pendragon cast a curse on Mages, they’ve had to use magic in hiding. If any human sees them using it, the human will turn on them. It could end in an all out war. Personally, I don’t see why they didn’t just m******e them years ago, but that’s just me.”

The store clerk’s eyes widened and he blanched at this, but Kharro continued as if the clerk had never noticed. “Ever since then, the Mages have been hunting down anyone related to the Pendragon family bloodline and now there are only a few left. Samuel is one of them. He doesn’t have the time to train you and he definitely won’t be taking you to Nithal so you can learn.”

“Nithal?” the clerk inquired.

“Wait, Samuel is a Pendragon?” Lyza asked, staring at Kharro with wide eyes.

Kharro looked at Lyza and nodded. “Yes. Are you gonna train him, or not?” He gestured to the store clerk.

Lyza gestured outward with her hands exasperatingly. “If I wanna get out of the country alive, I really don’t have another choice.”

Nodding, Kharro grinned. “Excellent. Well, I have business to attend to. So you two… Have at it.” With that, he disappeared through the doors of the liquor cabinet.

“I’m Kenji. What’s your name?” the store clerk asked.

“Lyza.” She crossed her arms.

“What is Nithal?”

Lyza sighed. “Look, Nithal is the place where only Mages live. It’s a hidden island between Japan and Australia. The non-mages don’t know about it. Since you’re originally a non-mage, then you probably wouldn’t be accepted because of the curse.”

Kenji slowly nodded. “Right. Hidden island. Mages. Curse. Got it.”