Nellie Fuller was racing down the stairs as we returned to the hallway, nearly tripping over her tripod in her haste. “I heard a noise,” she said. “Have I already missed all of the excitement?”
“Nothing of consequence,” answered Jackaby. “Stay indoors, however, unless you’re enthusiastic about the prospect of being eviscerated. Now then, Miss Rook, Mr. Barker, we need to get to Hudson’s.”
“What?” I said.
“You want me to stay put?” Nellie asked, cocking an eyebrow at my employer. “Darling, have you met me?”
“You’re both mad!” I said. “You really think it’s safe to go out in the open right now? Remember the bit about being eviscerated?”
Jackaby shook his head. “Miss Fowler . . .”
“Fuller.”
“Miss Fuller, the first eyewitness to this beast who hasn’t been cut to ribbons is currently unconscious in the drawing room. You can go wherever you like, but your story lies with him.” He turned to me. “As for us, we have two options at present. We can seek out the help of the one man we know who has experience hunting in these hills, pursuing big game, and containing dangerous supernatural creatures, or we can leave Mr. Hudson out of it and fend off a dragon on our own. It isn’t that I don’t think we’re capable—I’m rather scrappy in a pinch—but I don’t want to explain to the trapper that we went dragon hunting without him, do you? That just sounds like a poor choice. Come on, then.”
We reached Hank Hudson’s hut by midmorning, and my heart sank. The building didn’t look like it had been especially robust to begin with, but now the western wall had been reduced to scrap, heavy oaken beams torn in half and bricks scattered into the yard. A thin trail of smoke crept from the crumbled remains of a fireplace, and the floor was dark with blood.
“Hudson?” Jackaby crossed the threshold carefully. The roof sagged as he did, and half a dozen wooden shingles slid off it, clattering into the rubble. He knelt and inspected the pool. “It’s human,” he said somberly.
Charlie nudged a brick aside with his foot and stooped to retrieve a blue-green disc from underneath. It was a match in tone to the one in Jackaby’s pocket, but as wide as his entire outstretched hand.
“There’s another in here,” said Jackaby, moving deeper into the crumbling house. “And another. Varying sizes. And what’s this?” He had reached a tight corner of the wreckage, where an upended table was the only thing keeping a heavy section of wall from collapsing farther into the room.
“Do be careful, sir,” I called. He braced himself on the table leg and reached in to pluck something from the crevice beyond. As he straightened, the table slid and the wall groaned angrily. He was half a step ahead of the structure as the room folded in on itself like a house of cards. The back end of the roof slammed into the floor where he had just been standing, sending a cascade of tiles down into the blood and bricks. From somewhere deeper inside the cabin came a panicked screech.
“That wasn’t the trapper,” Charlie said.
“Rosie,” I said. “That’s his bird. She’s still inside. Maybe Hudson is with her?”
Charlie did not meet my eyes. He was looking at the blood on the ground. There was an awful lot of it.
I swallowed hard. “Well, we can’t just leave her. She’s dangerous, but she doesn’t deserve to be crushed and buried alive—and there’s no telling when the dragons might return. By the look of all the scales around here, there may be more than three. Sir? Sir?”