Trampolining with Dragons

by S. W. Clarke

  She was good. Mariana was truly, truly good.

  After that, I saw memories that hadn’t yet come to pass. A grown Ariadne and Mariana walking through Central Park, arm in arm. Standing by as a man’s arm went around her daughter in a white dress, tilting Ariadne’s face back to kiss her. Holding her daughter’s hand with both her own as she screamed in a hospital bed, pushing, pushing.

  She wanted this. She wanted all of it, and it was possible she could have it. If she claimed this body—my body—and defeated Lust, she might have a path back to her daughter. Her daughter might have a path back to her.

  All she had to do was take over.

  All she had to do was grasp the part of her soul that was Patience Schweinsteiger in her hand and squeeze.

  I said nothing. There was nothing I could say to affect Mariana’s choice; it was all in her hands.

  And so, trapped in my body, I did the only thing I could: I thought of Percy. All the memories of him, beginning with that egg tucked away in a circus tent. The pizza parlor where I’d hatched him. Flying on his back for the first time as we rushed to escape an angry baker whose bread Percy had stolen. The first show we did together in Kansas City. The moment he’d imprinted on me on that rooftop in New Orleans. Sleeping in his wing under the afternoon light.

  And, finally, Mariana’s voice broke in. I sensed a shift in her, a certain finality. “Patience,” she said, hoarse. “I’ve made my decision.”

  She didn’t need to say more. She and I inhabited the same soul, and I already knew.

  And now that I knew, a terrible regret came over me.

  Mariana stepped into my mind’s eye, dressed simply in a shift, as elegant as I’d ever seen her. Her blond hair lay over one shoulder, her eyes soft and sincere and sad on me. “It should be you.”

  I stared at her, unable to speak. Wild hope and grief surged through me.

  “I’ve realized my greatest desire,” she said. “It isn’t to live. It’s for Ariadne to live, and for her to be good. That is what I dedicated my life to—and that is why I married Valdis.”

  As she spoke, I knew her greatest desire wasn’t for Ariadne to live. Not precisely. It was to bring as much goodness into the world as she could. That was why she wanted her daughter to live. That was why she had married Valdis.

  And that was why she was letting me win.

  She was sacrificing herself.

  I shook my head, wracked with guilt. “You’re more selfless than me. You’re a better person. You …”

  Her mouth quirked. “Are you trying to talk me out of it?”

  “No. Maybe.” I wrung my hands. “I don’t know.”

  She came forward, took both my hands in hers. “Patience, do you know why I decided not to become a vampire when Valdis offered me eternal life?”

  “Because you weren’t fond of the idea of living on blood until the heat death of the universe?”

  She squeezed my hands with good humor. “That is true. But I also believed that, upon my death, my soul would get a chance to say goodbye to my parents. And I got that chance, and now they’re gone, and it’s time for me to rest.”

  I swallowed. “It’s not rest, Mariana. It’s oblivion.”

  She smiled, a soft, faraway thing. “I can’t think of a deeper slumber.” Then her vision sharpened on me. “Save my daughter, Patience. Save your child.”

  Save them both. That was my task, and nothing less.

  I squeezed her fingers back. “I will.”

  She stepped away, her hands parting from mine.

  I knew this would be the last time I would see her. It would be the last time she would share a soul with me. After this, I would be alone inside my body. For the first time in my life, it would be only me—Patience, who was once Mariana, who was a better person than I’d ever thought I could be.

  But she had shown me a path. She had shown me what was possible.

  Her hand rose, a farewell wave. “Goodbye, Patience Schweinsteiger. When you see our daughter, kiss her for me.”

  And with that, our split-second moment was over. Lust hadn’t moved, I hadn’t moved, but everything had changed.

  Mariana had control. It was her who sat behind my eyes.

  The side of her mouth lifted, her eyes narrowing on Lust as she gripped the creation crystal. “Yes,” she said. “After seven hundred years, I shall live out my greatest desire.”

  Lust’s pleasure deepened, her chin lowering. Her hand reached toward Mariana, and that was all the opening Mariana needed. She shifted her grip on the crystal, Orion’s thread glinting gold under a multitude of lights, wound tight around the dagger’s tip.

  She didn’t miss, because the thread dictated she couldn’t. Mariana dropped to her knees, sliding close enough to stab the dagger into Lust’s thigh.

  The moment the creation crystal broke Lust’s skin, everything changed.

  At once, Mariana’s face lifted to Ariadne’s. They met eyes as mother and daughter once more, and Mariana’s feelings flooded through me, all her love, all her fear, all her desire …

  All her belief.

  She could take over our one soul right now. Mariana could press me out forever, and I would wink out of existence. My body would become hers, and the rest of my mortal life would become hers. All of what I was rested on Mariana’s whim. She could have it all.

  But instead, she said—

  “I believe in you, Ariadne,” she whispered, “I believe you to be whole.”

  And it was then I knew: Mariana wasn’t just good. She was a GoneGodDamn genius.

  She was going to evict Lust from Ariadne’s body.

  As she spoke the words, I felt a shift inside me. My hands began tingling, all pins and needles as though I were falling asleep from my fingers to my arms to my chest, and then all through the rest of me.

  All at once, Mariana melted away from my mind. I felt her leave, passing through my body and into my arm, and finally through the dagger itself.

  Lust’s face contorted, lips parting to yell or screech or scream, but it was too late.

  The moment Mariana’s essence moved out of my body, through the dagger and into Ariadne’s body, her face lifted skyward and she screamed with such inhuman power and pitch, I thought I would never hear again.

  On she went, on and on, as a small black tendril rose into the air from her mouth, growing in size and substance until it poured through the air, draping like silk toward the stage.

  Lust. Mariana was pressing Lust out.

  A putrid smell reached my nose, like sulfur and dirty cat litter thrown together, as Lust’s true form emerged. She wasn’t a human, and she certainly didn’t have anything resembling a human body.

  She was a mortal sin, and she existed as a formless mass seeking a host. She was a parasite, an evil creation of the gods, and without a body, she was putrid.

  I watched it all with unblinking revulsion, right until her snake’s tail of a black mass slid out from Ariadne’s lips and the screaming finally, finally stopped. My ears rang as she hit the stage. Once Lust reached the surface, she oozed away, sliding across the stage and disappearing amidst the flames.

  Burn. Burn and never return.

  I set my free hand to the creation crystal, and with slow care, pulled the dagger free. The wound it left behind reseamed itself at once, the skin closing until only an unbroken canvas remained. I knew that was Mariana’s doing; even in her last moments, her belief that Ariadne was whole had sutured up the gash.

  My eyes lifted to Ariadne. Yes, the screaming had stopped, but her mouth was still open, her face still skyward. Had Mariana resisted taking control of Ariadne? Would she be able to relinquish her daughter’s body as she had done mine, inviting the oblivion of the afterlife?

  My answer came from the sky.

  By instinct, my eyes were drawn upward like a human seeking out the sun, and I began to tremble. From high, high up, a true golden glow descended.

  I didn’t know quite how I knew, but somehow I understood. T
his was the other half of Ariadne’s soul. It had been called, and was returning to her here on Earth.

  As the golden glow neared us, I couldn’t move. It was the only true miracle I had ever witnessed. Even five years after the gods had left, I wasn’t sure I believed in them. I wasn’t sure I believed in anything I couldn’t touch or see.

  But as that soul descended from the heavens, I knew I had been wrong.

  This universe was so much larger and more magnificent than I ever could have imagined.

  The glow came to a hover over Ariadne’s open mouth. And with a small, soft blink, it disappeared as her lips closed over it.

  Her face lowered, eyes searching the flames around her and then falling on me, kneeling beside her. Those blue eyes took on a clarity I hadn’t ever seen behind them. And, too, an absolute, adoring love.

  “Mother?” she whispered.

  Chapter 15

  I swallowed, staring up at Ariadne. I wasn’t her mother ... but I was.

  Her mother was gone. Mariana had given up her chance at life to expel Lust from Ariadne’s body, and then she had given that body over to her daughter’s soul.

  I could feel it. Mariana was no more.

  And yet I had memories of Ariadne that Mariana had gifted me. I had motherly feelings toward her. That was why my hand lifted, and Ariadne reached out to clasp it. “I’m not her,” I whispered. “But I knew her. She gave up everything to bring you back.”

  Ariadne blinked, eyes glassy when they opened. I wasn’t sure if she understood—where had her consciousness gone during those five years, anyway?—but she seemed to read the emotion on my face.

  I was sincere. I was as sincere as I had ever been.

  Percy landed beside me. “Tara …”

  “Not now, Perce.” I sheathed the crystalline dagger back into my boot. “Now Ariadne, what I’m about to tell you may sound wild, but—”

  “Tara.” Percy’s voice was louder, more insistent. “Look over there.”

  “Perce, would you—” I stopped as my head turned, my eyes fixing on the black puddle oozing its way toward Lust’s old, decrepit body.

  That black puddle was Lust’s essence. And it was still alive.

  I stood. “We need to stop it, Perce.” And before he could respond, I fell into a run toward the black ooze, even as the rest of the crowd seemed to come back to life themselves.

  Lust’s spell had been broken. Around me, a strange cacophony of voices started up. Some people booed, and some screamed about dragons in the sky. Security went to work trying to extinguish the fire still burning on the stage—bits of it were collapsing now—and Frank’s voice called out for Seleema.

  I didn’t see her anywhere. Then again, I had tunnel vision.

  I only saw the essence of Lust, pooling toward her old body faster than I could sprint.

  Percy flew up and ahead of me in pursuit, breathing fire down over Lust’s essence.

  The black ooze simply slid right past, the fire extinguishing atop it. When it reached the foot, it wrapped around the leg of her old body, slid up like a ravenous constrictor snake.

  Within moments, it had surged to the open mouth. In it went, disappearing in seconds between the lips.

  I came to a skidding halt over Lust’s body, breathless, my whips out. “Ash her.”

  Percy landed with a thud next to me, growling, fire at the ready. “Time to burn.” The fire roared out of his mouth toward her.

  But as it did, Lust’s eyes snapped open. Fixed on me.

  And what I saw there was singular rage. Hatred. Unquenchable fury.

  Then she disappeared under the flames. But as I glanced down at the watch on my wrist, I knew in that glimpse that they wouldn’t be enough to kill her. Not yet.

  She was burning time. Minutes were counting off like seconds.

  I stepped back. “We need to fly.”

  Perce’s flames cut off. His golden eyes found mine. “What?”

  As the flames dissipated and turned to smoke, I leapt onto Percy’s back. “Fly!”

  His wings snapped out, and he flapped them, bringing us into the air in the same moment Lust’s shriek resounded through the night. Her hand reached out, fingers grasping the air where we’d just been.

  She appeared through the smoke as Percy rose, her hair lifting in a strange wind as she burned time, her face incandescent with rage. She moved through a strange mix of ages—growing younger in one moment, and then older in the next as she burned time and sapped adoration from the crowd. “Do you know how long I planned for this moment, insect?”

  GoneGodDamn, Lust still had it going on. I didn’t even mind her calling me an insect. She’d never been weaker, but I’d guess she was still several times more powerful than Valdis had ever been.

  “Not long enough, it seems,” I called down. Then, to Percy, “You see how mad she is at me?”

  “Yeah, I think I do. I saw every tooth in her mouth when she yelled.”

  “That’s how fast you need to fly away from here.”

  “Through Times Square? But …”

  I holstered both whips, gripped his spine with two hands and leaned close. “I’m giving you free reign, Perce. Fly straight through Times Square.”

  I didn’t need to tell him twice. He turned us around, and with one hard flap of his wings, we jetted over the crowd.

  When I glanced behind us, Lust’s arms had gone up toward the sky. They went out in an arc, and the center of her chest burst open. She shed her skin like a shell, and out came a dark, unnatural creature with wings and a long, curled tail.

  “Is that … a bat-scorpion?” I whispered.

  Percy took a single look back. “Yep. And she’s chasing us.”

  I leaned closer. “Time for evasion, Perce. I’ve got a plan.”

  As Percy flew through the city, swinging around the side of skyscrapers, I raised my watch and called Ferris.

  No answer.

  “GoneGodDamnit,” I muttered. “He’s probably not paying any attention to his phone while he joyrides on Yaroz.”

  Without any preamble, Percy opened his mouth and let out a shriek in the night. It was a noise unlike any I’d heard from him before, and if I hadn’t been gripping him so tight, I would have instinctively clapped my hands to my ears.

  As it was, they were left ringing.

  And behind us, Lust burst from a cross-street with a screech of her own.

  “Great job, Perce,” I said. “You just broadcasted exactly where we are.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I did.”

  From a distance, a familiar noise resounded through the middle of New York City. Moments later, Yaroz and her children swept up behind with enormous wingbeats, tailing Lust as she tailed us.

  “You big blue genius,” I gasped as Percy banked us around a building, Lust in close pursuit. “Now she’s definitely—”

  Percy dove, pulling all the breath from my lungs as I clung tight to him. Even in the short time we’d been apart, he’d grown larger, more capable. Faster. And as a dragon rider, I had gotten rusty.

  This felt like riding a mechanical bull half-drunk.

  Above us, a plume of green gas spewed through the space where we’d just been.

  When Percy leveled us off, I stared back to where Yaroz and her children made swooping passes at Lust, who went on chasing us like, well … a bat-scorpion out of hell.

  “What was that?” Percy said.

  “Apparently she shoots green gas when she’s really pissed. And Yaroz and her kids are having a hell of a time catching her.”

  Dragonfire poured through the sky in Lust’s wake, always missing her. First Yaroz’s massive lungs, then her children’s smaller jets of flame.

  A whoop resounded over the buildings. I recognized that voice as Ferris’s. At least someone was having fun.

  “Where are we going?” Percy said.

  “We’re losing her. Do your thing, Perce.”

  He took a deep, long breath. “I thought you’d never ask.” />
  His wings shifted angle, and a second later we were arrowing down toward the city, on course to put a Percy-sized hole into the street below.

  Don’t scream. Trust the five-year-old. Trust your dragon.

  At the last second, he leveled us, took a tight right turn down an empty street. He cut it so close, his wing nearly clipped a building. Then he banked left into an alley, angling us at forty-five degrees to make it through.

  My thigh muscles were already crying.

  When we came up out of the alley, Percy swooped us around another building.

  “That should have done it—” I began.

  A second later, Lust appeared behind us, her wings in a frenzy, those red eyes glowing with fury. Box of frogs, was she mad.

  And as I looked back, I didn’t see the dragons. We had managed to lose the dragons without losing Lust. Somewhere far off, Yaroz shrieked in frustration.

  “Looks like it’s just Lust behind us again,” I said.

  “Yaroz can’t get in this close to the city,” Percy said. “She doesn’t have the maneuverability.”

  Well, we couldn’t go high; she was faster than Percy. Our best hope of evading Lust were tight turns and barrel rolls through alleys.

  “We’re still not shaking her,” Percy said. “What did you do to Lust, anyway?”

  “I basically ruined her birthday party.”

  “That would piss me off, too.” He dive-bombed as green fire lanced through the street above us. When we leveled off, he said, “Well, what now?”

  The answer was obvious, but it was the last thing I wanted. “Remember when I told you we wouldn’t be free unless I stopped her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing’s changed, Perce. Except that now, she’s hellbent on killing me.”

  A low growl rumbled in his chest. “No. The dragons and I will fight her here, now.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” I initiated a call on my watch, and said down to Percy, “Take us to the Singing Angel.”

  “But that’s a bar.”

  “Yeah, a bar always occupied by Others. Don’t worry, Percy—this was part of the plan.” The everything-went-to-shit plan. But I wasn’t going to mention that.