O.K. Next little part. Any help or suggestions welcome!

Shannon
(insane@overyonder.com)

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	"They went into the Wind, Matsuri-chan." Jasmine got out around the 
hard lump that constricted her throat at the memory of her beautiful 
Dragon dissipating into nothing but sparks, sparks that the wind carried 
to sting against her face and mingle with her tears. "They went into the 
Wind."

	Elenora was suddenly pushing her way past Matsuri's knees, wiggled in 
to sit between them, put her head on Jasmine's shoulder.

	"I hate dreams like that." She muttered, her voice still slow with 
sleep.

	"Dreams like what, Elenora?" Jasmine asked her sister as she shifted so 
she could wrap both arms around Elenora in a loose reassuring hug.

	"Dragon dreams. You and Matsuri were pregnant. And two of the Kings 
fell and two died."

	Matsuri saw Jasmine frown and start to worry at her lower lip with her 
teeth. "I had it too, Jasmine. I couldn't remember it until you started 
to describe it, but I had it too! What does it mean?" She asked the 
question that was filling all of her thoughts. "Are Tsuzuku and Hajime 
going to die?"

	"No!" Jasmine all but snapped, frightened that Matsuri might be right 
and refusing to accept that fact, thanked God when the nosy stewardess 
came with the Coke and ice filled glasses and gave her a moment to 
think. A shared dream. Why and how? What was it trying to tell them, if 
anything? She had an overwhelming desire to talk to Great Aunt Tita. 
Great Aunt would know. Well, it was a proverbial can of worms that none 
of them needed to be worrying about right now.

	"They are not going to die, Matsuri." Jasmine stated firmly as soon as 
the stewardess had wandered on. "I don't know why we had the same dream, 
but it was a dream, nothing more." 

	Elenora looked up sharply but didn't challenge her. Good. Elenora 
understood. She gave her sister a squeeze in thanks.

	"Well, it's strange." Matsuri answered, her face still troubled. "Why 
should we all dream the same thing?"

	"Nerves. Anxiety. The Dragon in our blood reaching out to link us 
together because we are all worrying about the same thing, probably." 
Jasmine answered with a shrug. She held her mental breath, waiting for 
Matsuri to challenge her explanation. It was so full of holes.

	"Really? Can our blood do that?" Matsuri asked in wonder, accepting 
Jasmine's rational without a second thought. She had seen her cousins do 
enough strange things that this was easy enough to believe.
 
	"Seems so." Jasmine smiled even as she winced internally. She hated to 
mislead Matsuri, but it was for the best. She would talk to Great Aunt 
Tita and if it was anything more, then she would share her worries with 
Matsuri. But not before. *It isn't anything more!* she told herself over 
and over as she steered their conversations to lighter and more amusing 
subjects. Owaru slept behind them, his little snores and mumbles giving 
them all giggles, untroubled by dreams of dragons as the middle States 
rushed past under them as they chased the sunrise.

	It was just past 4 am PST when they pulled into the parking lot of a 
restaurant called Denny's on the outskirts of Ellis, Maine. So far it 
had been an strange breakfast, the mood around the booth tense and 
quiet. Matsuri boggled a little at the amount of food that Elenora and 
Jasmine were putting away. Even Owaru seemed impressed.

	"It takes a lot of fuel to do Dragon work." Jasmine explained to her 
questioning look as she attacked the stack of pancakes after polishing 
off a plate of bacon, eggs and potato's.

	"You should have seen Tsuzuku raid the pantry after he woke up from his 
Change." Owaru winked at his cousin.

	*Dragon work.* She frowned at the map that Jasmine had gotten from the 
rental car desk, committing to memory the way to and away from the X of 
their destination. Forty minutes. That's what Jasmine said it would take 
to get there. She wished that Jasmine had been a little more detailed in 
her rescue plan. 

	"I'll create a distraction and Elenora and Owaru will slip in and get 
them." Was just a tad bit to vague for her ease of mind. Elenora had 
just winked at her astounded look.

	"We'll be winging it, Matsuri. Don't worry about it, we do it all the 
time." But worry was all she was doing. 

	*Dragon work.* Something from which she was going to be once again 
excluded. She was to wait with the van, keep track of all of them 
through the mikes. She sighed softly. Well, at least Jasmine had 
promised a fast driving lesson, just in case. She sat and brooded, 
sipping at the hot tea in her cup as her companions finished their third 
full breakfasts. She caught sight of the waitress staring and smiled and 
shrugged. The woman had the good grace to blush and drop her eyes. Then 
Jasmine was scooting her out.

	She and Owaru helped Elenora get the gear out of the duffle while 
Jasmine talked to whoever she talked to on her mobile phone, leaning 
against the grill and out of earshot. Owaru grumbled again at having to 
don the protecting vest, swatted at a tickling poke between the side 
seams from Elenora as she snapped the fastenings closed and responded to 
his complaints with teasing yet serious examples of how her's had saved 
her life on a number of occasions. By the time Elenora was done, he was 
silent and wide eyed. So was she. She hoped that at least half of those 
tales where made up. That this little girl had done such things, seen 
such things made her skin crawl. Jasmine came around the front of the 
van, flipping her phone shut with a look of hard determination set on 
her face, handed it to Matsuri as she took the offered vest from her 
sister.

	"You are now the official guardian of the phone, Matsuri-chan. If 
something goes really wrong, you remember what to do?" She asked as she 
snapped the closures with the ease of many repetitions.

	"Hit the number key twice, ask for Catherine." Matsuri replied.

	Jasmine nodded. "O.K. Owaru, Elenora, back seat. Matsuri, we'll swap 
places as soon as we get out of town." She smiled at Matsuri's uneasy 
look. "It's a piece of cake, Matsuri-chan. Really."

**********************************************************

	Catherine sat with her knees drawn up on one of the lounge chairs that 
dotted the back patio of the Chapter House. She focused on the scent of 
the night blooming Jasmine that clung to the trellises, vines that 
formed a black-green wall, the little flowers glowing like pale yellow 
stars in the moonlight, her phone clutched in a white fingered grip. 
Unease had kept her from sleep as she had cuddled with Logan in her 
antique and gauze curtained bed, sent her slipping from his side once he 
had fallen into the slow even breaths of deep sleep to stare for a while 
at the mesmerizing blink of the cursor on her computer's screen. She had 
shut it down with a sigh, unable to focus on the unending flow of 
snippets and reports. That unease had just taken on a tangible form.

	She had taken her phone with her as she padded to the kitchen and a cup 
of camomile tea. The scent of the garden had called to her as she stood 
waiting for it to steep. She had been sipping at that tea, trying to 
relax as she sat in the chair and listened to the night when her phone 
rang. Jasmine calling to check in. Calling to tell her where they were, 
where they were heading. Forty minutes away from the place where those 
Ryudo dragons where. Forty minutes. She could have a team and a chopper 
in the air and almost there in forty minutes. Yet she wouldn't. This was 
personal business. And she cursed the fact it was. Her daughters were in 
terrible danger. She just knew it with a certainly that verged on 
precognition. The soft pad of feet brought her head up with a snap.

	"Tita?" She squinted at the slender back lit shape that was hurrying 
towards her, the moonlight taking the age from her face and making the 
long gray braid sparkle silver.

	"You must go get them, Catherine." Tita said a little breathlessly as 
she sank down beside her to balance on the edge of the lounge chair.

	"I can't!" Catherine bit out in a harsh whisper. "It's private 
business. You know that."

	"Not anymore. You must go get those Dragons and return them to their 
place. You must make sure that they survive. If you do not, then 
Darkness will fall on us all."

	"What have you seen, Tita?" Catherine begged. She needed to know.

	Tita shook her head. "I can't tell you more that what I have. I will 
state before the Council that this interference is of vital importance 
to the Order and it's survival, Elder." Catherine was staring at her 
with that calculating look, suspicion  radiating off of her. "It is, 
Catherine. Trust me. Now hurry!" She shook her niece's arm. "You don't 
have a lot of time."

	Catherine's fingers flew over the buttons of the phone as she started 
making the necessary calls.

**********************************************************

	"They're close." Owaru informed them with a gasp right before Matsuri 
drove the van over the crown of tree covered hill.

	"Yes, I'd say so." Jasmine answered dryly from the front seat as they 
crested the rise and the opening in the trees allowed them to see the 
rapidly growing forest fire blazing against the dark backdrop of the 
ocean. A red dragon, small with distance and looking like some excellent 
special effect from a movie hovered over it, then arched it's neck to 
breathe a fiery blast back into the burning trees.

	"That's Tsuzuku?" Elenora whispered with awestruck wonder as she stuck 
her head between the front seats.

	Matsuri almost drove the van off the road as she stared, then jerked it 
back onto the blacktop tumbling Elenora backwards with a "Hey!".

	"Sorry." She mumbled and forced her eyes to stay on the road.

	"Pull off here, Matsuri." Jasmine instructed.

	Matsuri stepped carefully on the brake pedal and guided the van onto 
the shoulder as Jasmine undid her safety belt and slid the com unit over 
her head.

	"What are we going to do?" Owaru questioned from the back as he slid 
open the door.

	Matsuri put the little arrow on the P, shoved her own com unit into 
place.

	"Get them." Jasmine shrugged as she jumped to the ground, Elenora and 
Owaru joining her a second later. "Matsuri, you stay here." Jasmine 
paused for a moment before she shut the passenger door, waiting for 
acknowledgment.

	Matsuri nodded. Jasmine gave her a reassuring smile, then they where 
gone, running with dragon speed and crossing ground in a straight line. 
Ground that the road wandered around. Matsuri sat and stared at the red 
dragon and the fire that raged under him, her knuckles white on the 
steering wheel. Hajime and Amaru where trapped somewhere in that blaze 
and Owaru was going into it. She chewed at her lower lip, then put the 
arrow on D and eased back onto the road. Jasmine would be angry but 
Matsuri needed to get closer. She'd be careful and the closer she could 
get the van, the better it would be for all of them.


	Owaru was concentrating on the ground and trying not to sneeze as the 
smoke tickled his nose, almost ran over Elenora as she just stopped dead 
in front of him.

	"Hey!" Then he saw the other woman who had stepped out from the shadows 
of the trees.

	"Hello, Jasmine! Long time no see!" The other woman called in a 
friendly voice.

	"Uh-oh." Elenora whispered beside him as they stood behind Jasmine.

	"Tamanji." Jasmine answered cautiously back, made a 'keep going' motion 
behind her back.

	Elenora grabbed Owaru's wrist, jerked them right into a deeper area of 
tree's and foliage and started running again.

	"Who was that?" Sparks had started to drift past them as they ran.

	"Our sister." Elenora bit back. "Where are they, Owaru?"

	"This way." They were in trouble and it drew him like a magnet.

	Elenora let him take the lead, followed him into the heart of the 
conflagration.

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