With no sign of effort, Xi Yong absorbed all that Cang could send, until it shimmered in ruby light all around him. Then he sent it out again in warm, harmless light.
In a wink of angry, blood-red, the big red dragon vanished, and Cang stood facing them, in a rage.
Joey took a step toward him, his head slightly cocked. “All right! I admit it!”
Cang seemed taken aback, then suspicious. “Admit what?”
“That I called the police on your minions.” Joey smiled. “That I told the police where they’d come from. That I informed them that I’d overheard them talking about an international drug-smuggling ring operating out of your lair.”
“What?!” Cang’s voice rose into a roar. “You dare to send human police into my lair?! My lair, which is full of shifters? The one rule all shifters must obey, to keep humans out of our affairs—you would break it solely to drive me from my home?”
Joey’s smile broadened. “Well, you know foxes are tricksy things. We never have cared much about rules and regulations.”
“How DARE you?!” Cang looked ready to explode with fury.
Joey didn’t flinch. “Your hideout’s no good to you anymore, your shifters have all run away or gotten arrested, and—”
r /> Cang sprang aloft, a dragon once more. His murderous eyes blazed down at Joey as his sword-sharp claws extended. Xi Yong could absorb his fire, but could do nothing about the deadly might of his dragon body, so much bigger and stronger than a fox or a qilin.
But Joey stood his ground. For he saw, as Cang did not, that a streak of silver was arcing down from the sky, a great silver dragon dropping down in a spectacular hunting dive.
But though Cang didn’t seem to see the silver dragon, something must have warned him. In the blink of an eye, he vanished.
The silver dragon hovered for a moment, then landed. He shifted in a flash of light, and before them stood tall, austere Mikhail, Knight of the Imperial Court.
“Took you long enough,” Joey said archly. “Couldn’t have showed up one second sooner, could you?”
Mikhail did not quite smile, but humor glinted in his eyes. “It takes how long it takes. Do you know where he went?”
“No idea. Someone must have warned him.” Joey gave Mikhail a thoughtful look. “Glad you got my SOS. You could’ve let me know you were coming.”
“I didn’t want to tip him off.”
“Well, someone did anyway.”
“I know,” Mikhail said. “But we’ve learned something valuable. It’s not just Cang; there’s another mythic shifter involved.”
Joey sighed. “I’m just sorry we didn’t nail him. Well, we were about to investigate the lair up the hill behind this house, but I expect now there’s no need. He won’t come back now that he thinks the cops are all over it.”
“And why does he believe that?” the dragon knight said.
Joey smiled. “Foxes are tricksy things.”
“He will find out the truth eventually. But one of the rangers up there now, on guard, is a phoenix shifter. I was just talking to him before I sensed Cang targeting you. This ranger is going to station one of us up there to watch, ostensibly as a fire marshal. I expect this area is now safe from Cang.”
“Well, that’s good,” Doris said as she moved to stand with Joey, holding tightly to his hand.
“We will catch up with him—and through him, with whoever is behind him,” the dragon knight promised. Then he turned his austere face toward Doris, and smiled a little. “You seem rather unsurprised to see me shift. I assume many changes have happened between you two.” His gaze dropped to their joined hands. “Many changes.”
“You could say that,” Doris said, tightening her grip on Joey’s hand.
“We’ll be on our way home soon,” Joey said. “We can talk then.”
“I’ll tell Bird.” The dragon knight said, and in a flash of light he was gone.
“Not a talker, is he?” Isidor commented, putting an arm around Xi Yong.
“That was very gabby for Mikhail,” Joey said with a laugh. “I guess we are done now!”