“Or anyone.”
Jonathan’s eyes were fixed beyond Eddie and the seraph, to the northeast and the river. Jennifer followed his gaze, and her heart twisted.
This stream of creatures was thinner and denser than the first. It spilled down the opposite cliffs and over the treetops like a rocket’s shadow, moving in an unerring straight line.
For them.
“Eddie,” Jennifer whispered, as she heard him gasp, “Jennifer!”
“We’ve got to get both of you out of here,” Jonathan agreed. The seraph turned to him, its cold fire raging, and he spoke directly to it. “Protect him.”
“But, Dad, how can it protect him against—”
“Argue another time! Eddie, get moving. To the west. Jennifer, to the east. Make that thing choose. I’ll follow the target and do what I can.”
Both did as he instructed, but after fifty yards Jennifer stopped.
The seraph wasn’t following its ward. Instead, it stomped its foot and cracked the ground.
Jonathan waved it on. “Follow Eddie! Do as I say! If this stays outside the dome, you’re the only one who can help him!”
Jennifer looked beyond them, at Eddie. He had stopped as well, and was looking at the oncoming swarm with quizzical panic. It was crossing over the flat current of the Mississippi, too far away yet to be sure which of them it would chase.
Dad’s right. I have to get moving. We both have to get moving.
“Eddie, run!” she called out, and turned to do so herself.
She had made it only another thirty yards when a shock wave knocked her off her feet. Scrambling to get up, she realized it had come from the seraph, who had unsheathed its brilliant blue blade.
Not helpful, she steamed. She checked the swarm to see where it was flowing. Only when she saw how close it was—spitting distance from the seraph—did she begin to understand.
It took longer for her father to catch on. “Dammit, you angelic freak, help those kids before—”
It was too late for anyone to do anything, now. The river of death passed over and under the seraph as if it were nothing more than a dead pine trunk. The creatures within splashed through the barrier and pooled around the feet of Jonathan Scales. Before he could think to change form and take to the air, the cloud scrambled up his legs, invaded his face, and darkened his features.
His astonished gray eyes looked at Jennifer for an instant before the entire mass breathed in, and out, and in . . .
. . . and disintegrated, taking his ashes with it.
CHAPTER 16
Jennifer
The funeral of Jonathan Scales did not take place in a cemetery. There were none close enough to the barrier, and Elizabeth decided it would be best to have guests from both inside and outside. The most suitable destination was a potato field northwest of town, which gave everyone involved an excellent view of possible invasion.
Mercifully, there was none. Not that Jennifer would have cared if there had been one. What exactly were they accomplishing, anyway?
They were gathered around a small handful of dirt, within which must have been some of the only ashes Jennifer could recall scooping up in the aftermath of Skip’s attack.
She had begged Eddie to help her, senseless to the barrier and everything around it. Beyond that, her memory was shredded by grief. She might have asked for her mother; she might have screamed at Skip to come out of the fucking woods and fight like a man; she might have rubbed some of the dirt cupped in her hand into her face.
She might.
She might have.
She . . .
She had an easier time remembering her grandfather’s funeral last year, when several dragons, including her father, had brought the elder’s body to the cremation plateau in Crescent Valley. From there, his spirit had traveled to the eternal crescent moon, where it flew in an eternal host. All dead elders received this honor.
But not Dad. He doesn’t get that.
It wasn’t only because they were trapped here. It was his sacrifice to his daughter, a price of birthright he had paid so that dragons who disliked him would still accept her as the Ancient Furnace. About half a dozen of those dragons were even assembled here today—a pitiful fraction of the total available. No beaststalkers from within the town came to comfort his family, not even the ones his wife and daughter (and he) had worked with every day for the last year.
She chewed her tongue and seethed at the proceedings. Eddie was there, bless him—but he could not even look at her, much less touch her. Ned Brownfoot was saying something, as if it mattered. Susan and Gautierre were here of course, and Catherine. It was good of them to come, she supposed with a sullen internal shrug. For all the good all this would do her father, they could be burying pebbles among the potatoes.
Her mother’s arm sought her far shoulder. Jennifer allowed it.
And where were these dragons, she fumed, when my father died? Xavier and the others—where were they while Skip created that swarm? Warm and cozy in Crescent Valley, a place I’ve protected even though they didn’t want me there to begin with?
WHERE WERE THEY? WHY HAVEN’T THEY FOUND SKIP? WHY AREN’T THEY HUNTING THAT LITTLE SHIT NOW?
Her mother’s hand felt the tension and began to rub her shoulder. Jennifer shook it off.
I should stop this, right now. End this so-called funeral. I should demand Ned Brownfoot take his fucking Missour-eh accent and sell it somewhere else. I should order Stumpy’s uncle over there to gather the Blaze and burn the forests down, until Skip comes screaming out with his eyeballs on fire. I should order Hank Blacktooth and his psychotic legions to focus their rage on the real enemy.
I should lead! So what if some of them die? At least they’ll be dying doing something worthwhile, instead of rotting away in this town.
This . . . fucking . . . prison . . . town.
She was stepping forward to say everything she was thinking when she felt her mother seize her shoulder with new urgency.
The burning shape of the seraph approached, the chilled sunrise framing its flames.
She glared at the useless thing. “What’s that doing here?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
She wanted no part of it, this thing that had not stopped Skip’s swarm from killing her father. It was useless. No, worse than useless: it had inspired a false sense of protection. If it couldn’t (or wouldn’t) stop anything from hurting her father, how could it stop anything from reaching Eddie? Or her mother? Or herself?
Potatoes under the seraph’s footsteps popped, and it trailed azure steam. The dragons on the far side parted and let it come through the barrier.
“Sweetheart, no.” Her mother sensed the revolt inside Jennifer and slipped in front of her. “Let it come.”
Her mother’s face, an oval of stoic despair, was the only one she didn’t despise in that moment. It was the only one she could not deny. Jennifer exhaled and watched the seraph step forward. The air filled with the scent of burning lavender, and all other sound vanished.
It reached a burning hand toward the soil containing her father’s remains.
“What is it—”
“Sshh. Wait.” Jennifer could see her mother didn’t know, either.
“Mom, that’s all we’ve got left of him!”
“Jennifer. Honey. Let it happen.” Elizabeth’s slender hand came up, and with a surgeon’s skill she closed the tears and exclamations of Jennifer’s face with soft fingers. “Let him go.”
The air around them began to vibrate. They both had to stand back from the resulting heat, and soon so did the others farther away. The seraph wailed, and the crescent moon above trembled. Feeling the soil beneath her harden, Jennifer looked down. It was turning into ice—or was it glass?
The wind changed and began to pull inward, toward the seraph. The vacuum was mild where Jennifer stood—only enough to tug at the ends of her platinum hair. For the seraph, however, it was a deeper force. The angelic figure began to shrink into itsel
f. Its steaming robes, its fiery wings, its sapphire eyes all slowly disappeared into a colorless singularity.
Once the seraph was gone, a shock wave knocked them all flat. By the time they recovered, all that was left of the seraph and the potato field around them was an indigo rain. It took them a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t rain after all—each colored speck was a minute dragon, and they filled the nearby atmosphere.
Neither Jennifer nor Elizabeth could say a word as the indigo spirits ascended, rising like a tide of algae pulled by the inscrutable sliver of moon far above.
CHAPTER 17
Susan
“Good afternoon. It’s Day 306, and we have another special edition of Under Big Blue—”
“Susan! You can’t be serious! Give me that!”
Grunting, she fought to keep the tiny video camera she had hidden from Gautierre. She knew he would act like this—that’s why she had slipped the smaller, ultraportable model into her jacket pocket. She could have used a smart-phone, but the resolution and memory sucked.
“Gautierre, I swear if you don’t let me do this, we are done.”
He paused, gauging her seriousness. “There’s no way my mother will tolerate this. I knew I shouldn’t have let you come here.”
“You knew what I would do. I’m a reporter, Gautierre.”
“You’re a teenager!”
“So are you—and you’re six months younger than me! What difference does that make? If I can live with the debilitating shame of robbing the cradle, you can let me do this.”
He sighed and turned to Catherine, the only other one there. “Help me make her understand.”
Their friend, already a dark green trampler, shook her reptilian head. “I’m not getting in the middle of this one, guys. You should figure it out soon, though: it’s almost three o’clock. I doubt anyone’s going to be late. We won’t get that lucky.”
“Susan.” He shot an edgy glance to both horizons.
“Uncle X asked me to come here to help talk with my mother. This is serious stuff. If you poke a camera into her face, she’s not going to understand. She’s going to think you’re mocking her.”
“I don’t want to ask her any questions. I don’t want to talk to her at all.”
“So why have the camera?”
Duh! So handsome . . . so brave . . . so, so dumb . . . “To record what happens! To show everyone out there what we’re trying to do! I’m going to be real discreet, Gautierre. She’ll never know. You have to trust me.”
He was still sizing her up when a half-V formation of large dragons appeared to the west. This was Xavier Longtail and several other members of the Blaze.
At the same time, Catherine pointed to the east, within the dome. A solitary winged figure was high above, scouting the surrounding terrain.
“Looks like she trusts us about as much as we trust her.”
“I wish Jennifer had come, too,” he said.
Susan rolled her eyes. “Ember never would have agreed to show. We don’t need Jennifer, babe. You, Catherine, and I are strong enough to handle your mother. If any of her goons show up, we’ll fly off.”
They kept their eyes on Ember’s graceful descent. She dumped the air from her wings gradually, being careful to compensate for the reduction in tail size.
Susan flicked the camera back on, put it into her otherwise empty pocketbook, wedged the purse between her chest and left sleeve, and checked the lens to make sure it lined up with the hole she had cut. It was an old trick of undercover reporters—she’d seen it done on dozens of investigative “gotcha” news shows—but Ember Longtail had little experience of the world beyond Crescent Valley.
They landed simultaneously, Ember Longtail and her uncle Xavier, almost mirror images of each other across the barrier. He nodded curtly as the other Blaze members lined up purposefully behind him. Susan knew a diplomatic show of force when she saw one: Xavier was trying both to show Ember a friendly set of faces and also demonstrate that he had the support of the Blaze.
“Niece.”
She nodded back. “Uncle.”
“I regret so much time has passed since we last talked.”
“The last time we talked, you didn’t have anything intelligent to say.” She turned to Catherine. “I assume I have you to thank for this meeting?”
Catherine nodded. She had sent alligators all over town, hoping to find Ember or one of the gang.
“You’re Winona’s granddaughter. The one Glory hobbled.”
“I am.”
Ember looked her up and down. “You’re tough. Our group could use someone like you.”
“No thanks. I owe Jennifer and her mother everything. They saved my life, and my dragon self.”
Susan winced as Ember scowled. “Fine. Be a lapdog. And you.” She was speaking to her son now. “What have they done to you, my dear Gautierre?”
Well, Susan thought, there’s been kissing. Lots and lots of kissing. Oh, the humanity!
“What lies have they told you, what silly and stupid dreams have they dumped in your head?”
That we should wait? I’m not sure we should wait. Bad enough I’m under Big Blue; do I also have to die a virgin?
“Did they tell you that dragons and their hunters can live in harmony? That all you have to do is hold hands”—she shot a look at Susan here—“and you will attain peace?”
“She’s not a beaststalker, Mother. Her name is Susan. She’s a good person. I brought her here because I wanted her to meet the mother I loved, growing up.”
“I’m the same mother I always was. It’s the son who’s grown up to be a disappointment.” Ember looked Susan up and down, then ignored her.
Aw, come on! I spent almost twenty minutes on my hair, you insensitive bitch!
“You had your friend call the meeting, then. And you invited your great-uncle. Fine. Get on with whatever you have to say to me.”
“I assume you know that Jonathan Scales was killed yesterday.”
“I’d heard. Who was the lucky beaststalker? I’d be tempted to shake his or her hand.”
Susan stirred. Gautierre held out a hand to her and kept his focus on his mother. “It wasn’t a beaststalker, Mother.”
“Another dragon, then. Even better.”
“It wasn’t a dragon, either. It was Skip Wilson.”
She snorted a plume of smoke. “Skip Wilson? That slight drink of water who came to Crescent Valley with Jennifer Scales last year and insulted the entire Blaze? Wasn’t he supposed to turn into a spider someday and crawl under some sort of incredibly narrow rock?”
Xavier acknowledged her sentiment. “He never did look like much, Ember. But he’s dangerous, and he appears to have found a virtually unstoppable method of killing whoever he’d like dead.”
“Well, he appears to have found a virtually unstoppable method of killing whoever I’d like dead, as well. You’re not suggesting I help you stop him?”
“That’s up to us,” Xavier answered, motioning to the Blaze members behind him. “I don’t suppose there’s much you can do inside there. But it might help your son and his friends to survive if they didn’t have to worry about you and your crew firebombing them while we all try to figure out a way through this. If they didn’t have to keep Hank from hunting you down, as you burn away the precious resources remaining. If they could count on you as an ally looking for a solution instead of an enemy adding to their problems.”
Ember chuckled and raised her head to the sky. “Ah, Uncle. If you could only hear yourself today. Whatever drugs that murderous Georges bitch has fed you, I wouldn’t mind a gram or two of, for recreational purposes.
“You want me to make life easier for her, now that her husband’s dead? Now that her daughter is in this skinny-ass spider’s sights? Now that her legacy of murder is nearly over—you want me to show her mercy?”
“Show your son mercy, then.”
“He’ll have it. The moment he picks the right side. He can even bring his boring litt
le whore.” Ember winked at Susan and motioned to the purse. “Make sure you don’t edit that line out, for your next news report.”
Before Gautierre could launch himself at her, she was up in the air and rocketing away.
CHAPTER 18
Jennifer
“Y’know, Mom, I’ve been sitting here for about forty minutes, waiting for the irony to get a little less thick.”
“I hear you.” She looked around the basement of police headquarters, which had become the new city hall since Skip Wilson destroyed the old one. “At least we’re outside the holding cells and not in them.”
Jennifer eyed her watch again. She kept a bland smile on her face; her mother did the same.
“So how’s Mrs. Gremmel feeling?”
“Diabetic patient? She’s sleeping better since we found a new store of drugs. I don’t know how much longer I can keep that going.”
“And baby Marshall?”
“Better. By a small miracle, he hasn’t needed much in the way of pharmaceuticals. We keep him warm with kangaroo care.”
“God bless the marsupials.”
This earned a smile—the first Jennifer had seen on her mother’s face since before the funeral. “I suppose I’m at least glad to be away from the hospital for the afternoon. Your father thinks”—she swallowed—“your father thought I’ve been running myself pretty ragged in there.”
“You’ve been doing awesome things, Mom.”
“And now, for a reward, I get to talk to Hank Blacktooth.”
Jennifer glanced around the shitty chairs, the dim room, the desk sergeant’s desk, now manned by a petite woman with short, carrot-colored hair slicked down like a helmet. Her dark eyes were enormous; she looked more like a child than one of Hank’s goons. She was pretending to flip through a fourteen-month-old issue of Newsweek while listening to every word. “He’ll listen, Mom.”
“I hope so,” her mother murmured, settling back more comfortably in the hideously uncomfortable plastic chair. “But he’s never struck me as the listening type.”
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