Trampolining with Dragons

by S. W. Clarke

  Chapter 18

  Percy and I stood aside, my hand on his neck, as World Army soldiers in HAZMAT suits placed Lust into her sarcophagus. I could see her lips moving, and I knew she was trying to work her magic on them.

  It wasn’t working. Maybe they had cotton in their ears.

  Now, watching them slide the lid over her frail form, her last words came back to me. “I always imagined what it would be like to die,” she’d whispered as I had walked her down the alley toward her waiting tomb. “I thought I would die in front of thousands—millions—worshipping me as I breathed my last. I never thought I would die alone in the dark.”

  Would she die in that sarcophagus?

  As if he’d read my mind, Erik approached me, his hair blown wild by the helicopter blades. He stood next to me, his shoulder touching mine, watching the operation take place. “This should stop her from feeding on others.”

  My eyes narrowed up at him. “What are you going to do, keep her in a pharaoh’s tomb for the rest of time?”

  He glanced at me, his eyes lit with lightness, relief. Fondness. “No, we’re going to jail her in the World Army prison system. She’ll be in a place where she can’t feed off of anyone. She’ll be comfortable, but she’ll be powerless.”

  What a strange juxtaposition. She’d be in comfort, but she’d also be in agony.

  Without anyone to adore her, Lust would be starved.

  Percy’s tail slid across the sidewalk as he shifted his head around to look at us. “Good. Because if she ever escapes, I’ll end her myself.”

  A jolt went through me. The knife’s-edge sharpness of his words—my child’s words—reminded me again of his change. He was growing. Maybe he was grown already. And he was a dragon, a carnivore and a killer.

  But he was also my son. And it was my job to remind him of the softness I knew existed inside him. The love.

  I chucked him on the shoulder. “All right, Mr. Big Shot. Hey, looks like you’ve got some fans who witnessed your heroism.”

  When Percy turned, Yaroz and her brood had landed across the street. The guru, shiva and the seven gnomish ninjas were dismounting, giving the helicopter a wide berth. Ferris gave a whoop, swinging his arms, and Percy called out his name.

  “Seleema and Frank?” I called out to Ferris.

  He pressed his thumb and forefinger together. “A-OK.”

  That was all I needed to know. The houri and her accountant were out there, safe, alive—probably indulging in another of her pleasures at this very moment, in fact.

  Erik and I were the only ones focused on the sarcophagus as the lid slotted to place. As the helicopter began to rise, lifting the great tomb from the street.

  I leaned toward him, my head lightly touching his shoulder. “About that grenade.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off Lust’s prison as it rose. “You picked a good time to use it.”

  “It was a smoke grenade.”

  “Of course it was.” He let out a soft chuckle. “She’s Lust. There’s no better way to defeat her than to keep her hidden.”

  I nudged him. “You sure know how to woo a girl with explosives.”

  Our faces lifted as the helicopter rose above the buildings and began a lateral motion out of sight, Lust in tow.

  “I’m still impressed you got past security and onto that stage,” he said.

  “You know, neither can I.” As the helicopter and sarcophagus disappeared, I let out a breath. “I don’t think she believed anyone would be able to sabotage her. Least of all a five-foot-nothing blonde with nothing but two whips and too much chutzpah.”

  He finally smiled, his dimples appearing as he turned to me. “Her fatal mistake.”

  “Well, Corporal”—I pulled back the sleeve of my jacket to reveal the watch Erik had given me—“I suppose this marks the end of our mission. Which means I ought to return this very expensive gadgetry.”

  He set a hand on my forearm, lowering it. “Keep the watch.”

  My eyebrows arched. “That doesn’t sound like protocol.”

  He took a step closer. “I’m breaking protocol. I’ve already unlinked it with the World Army—now it’s just a direct line to me.”

  Amidst everything, a small, semi-soundless bubble had filled in the space around us. And because of it, my chest tightened.

  Erik wanted things of me.

  He had expectations.

  My eyes lowered to Percy, who stood watching the events around us with absolute awe and thrill. Here was my heart, fully outside my body, belonging to the blue-scaled dragon on the sidewalk.

  “Erik,” I began, my stage voice sliding away, “I need you to understand something …”

  “Tara.” Erik’s voice caught me, and my eyes lifted. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “I know you have to leave. I know you’ll always be leaving.” His hand went out, lifting my fingers. He touched the watch face. “Wherever you are in the world, I’ll come meet you.”

  He wouldn’t try to keep me here.

  He would come meet me. Wherever I was.

  I should be dead. I should have died twenty different times in the past year, and yet I wasn’t. I was alive, my body was my own, Lust was entombed, Valdis was gone. Ariadne had a soul. Frank and Seleema had each other. Percy had died and been revived. And Erik understood. He understood my life.

  None of this should be real. But it was. And there in the street, with Erik’s grace, I finally understood it was over. All of it.

  I could forgive myself for Thelma’s death. I could be happy.

  I smiled, and then I laughed. Shook my head, wiped at my eyes.

  “What is it, Tara?” Erik said.

  “Patience.”

  He half-shrugged. “I’m nothing if not patient.”

  I took his hand, stepping closer than I used to find comfortable. “It’s my name, Corporal. I like it better when you call me by it.”

  Chapter 19

  Across the table, Seleema lifted her coffee, turning the cup for inspection. “I still do not understand why it is called ‘Happy Mug.’ I see no emotion here at all.”

  I raised my mug to clink with hers. “You know, Seleema, neither do I.” Around us, the only Happy Mug coffee shop in the whole of New York City sat still and silent, the barista standing with elbows on the counter, cheeks in hands, staring out the window.

  I couldn’t believe Frank had found this place.

  Frank patted her arm. “The happiness comes from drinking the coffee, dear.”

  Seleema took a sip, blinking once as she swallowed. “I find it mildly bitter and over-sweetened.”

  “The happiness,” I added, “comes from Frank bringing me back to my favorite childhood coffee place. Pale simulacrum though it may be.”

  He clinked cups with me. “How could I not? This was where you brought me when I thought we’d never free Seleema. I owed you at least this.”

  “You are a true warrior. A man worthy of, as Tara says, the ‘Brad Pitt of souls.’ ” Seleema leaned her head against Frank’s. Her cheek pressed against his shiny scalp, and it was obvious they’d completely forgotten their coffees and pastries.

  I pointed between them. “You two have that look in your eyes.”

  The apples of Frank’s cheeks reddened, but Seleema looked completely unabashed.

  “What look?” she said.

  “You know.” I made a crude gesture with my fingers. “That look. Like five minutes before you joined me at this coffee shop, you were both butt-naked.”

  “That is true,” Seleema said. Still without shame.

  Now that I hadn’t really expected. “Oh. But you were in the car, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.” She gave a single, guileless nod.

  Frank’s whole neck had heated now. “Anyway, I think Seleema and I exhausted ourselves for a while after the whole Lust debacle.”

  That was two weeks ago. They’d probably spent every night of those two weeks not sleeping.

  Now a p
redatory look entered Seleema’s eyes as she appraised her partner. “I am pleased to tell you that Lust taught me seventeen more pleasures.”

  Frank’s eyes widened, half-blank on me. “I don’t know if I can survive this.”

  She softly raked his shoulder with her long nails. “Your fears are warranted, young Franklin.”

  I grinned, picked off a bite of croissant. “Box of frogs, lucky little Franklin seems like he’ll die from coitus.” My eyes caught on my watch, and I pushed my chair out. “Ah, I’m late.”

  They both watched me stand.

  “To meet with her?” Seleema said.

  “Yeah. Let’s hope I don’t choke.”

  “How could you choke when your airways—” Seleema began, but Frank cleared his throat.

  “You won’t,” he said, his eyes full of confidence. “I know you won’t.”

  “Thanks, Frank.” I leaned forward, touched his hand. “You were the best New Year’s Eve accomplice a gal could want. And you really do have the Brad Pitt of souls.”

  He squeezed my hand. “When you and Perce come back to the city, you’ll know where to find Aunt Seleema and Uncle Frank.”

  Seleema got up, came around the table. “Allow me to walk with you for a few blocks.”

  I hooked arms with her. Well, I tried to. Mostly I just reached up and got an awkward hold on her bicep before I realized I’d look like a child walking with her mother. So I just nodded. “That’d be nice.”

  We came into the winter sunlight in silence. After so much time with Seleema, and just as much time spent trying to rescue her, it was hard to know what to say.

  She felt like my older sister.

  When we reached the end of the block, she reached into her jacket pocket and removed a small white box tied with red ribbon. She passed it to me. “I know it is past the holiday you humans refer to as Christmas, but I have also heard of the concept of ‘belated’ gifts.”

  “Why Seleema, you didn’t have to.”

  She pressed the box into my hands. “I certainly did not. I desired to.”

  I tugged on the ribbon, lifting up the lid. Inside, two sets of glue-on, three-inch nails sat on a pad of cotton. They were forest green and whittled to sharp, deadly points. “Well, this is a gift unlike any other.”

  Seleema stopped us, turned to me. “This is one of the weapons of a houri warrior. You are not able to grow nails as a houri does, so I have crafted small loops for your human fingers in case you ever need to, as you say, ‘cut a bitch.’ ”

  I pulled one of the nails out, slid it over my pointer finger. “A perfect fit.” I swiped my single claw through the air in a come-hither motion. “There’s my best attempt. I’m no houri warrior.”

  She smiled at me. “You are not a houri, but you are a fine warrior. And you possess an even finer soul.”

  That reminded me. I lowered my finger. “Seleema, is my soul still …”

  “No,” she said. “Your soul no longer swirls.”

  “So it’s just one color?”

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed. “Is it dark, or is it light?”

  She set a hand on my shoulder. “Tara Drake, what difference does the answer make?”

  My throat tightened as I looked up at her. She was right: it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. I knew who I was. Who I wanted to be.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  And there on the sidewalk, Seleema Nourra, Bint Al-Uzza, Zouge Al-Quam/Arousa-Franklin pulled me into our first proper hug.

  I didn’t even mind.

  When I got off the subway twenty minutes later, I came out onto the street at a jog.

  I was later than late.

  I arrived at Central Park and found them exactly where we’d agreed to meet. Ariadne and Grunt sat on a bench, Percy sunbathing on the grass nearby. I was struck again by his size—if he was as big as a Clydesdale before, now he must have been the size of the trailer he’d ridden in when we drove up to Canada just a few months back.

  Every day now, it seemed, Percy was a little bigger than before.

  “Tara,” Percy called when I came near. “Look.” When he turned fully around, something golden glinted from the septum of his nose.

  I stopped hard. “Is that a … nose ring?” My eyes darted between the two adults. “Which one of you allowed this?”

  Ariadne grinned, one hand over her mouth. Meanwhile, Grunt gave a customary grunt.

  “It didn’t even hurt.” Percy’s tail swung back and forth in his adolescent joy. “Can I keep it?”

  “No. Maybe.” I so wasn’t equipped for this part of motherhood. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “We walked past a piercing shop after the show,” Ariadne said as I came over. “Your son is irresistible when he wants something.”

  My arms folded. “Don’t I know it.” I couldn’t say much; the two of them had, after all, taken Percy out for a day on the town, and even to a Broadway show. They knew as well as I did how close Lust had come to ending the world. And they knew what Percy had sacrificed to stop her.

  His life.

  Begrudging him a nose ring felt downright petty.

  Ariadne stood, buttoning her pea coat. “Well, it’s been a day. I should get back to the apartment.”

  Since New Year’s Eve, Ariadne had been living her father’s apartment in Manhattan. Upon his death, he had made her the heir to everything—which meant she was set for her mortal life.

  I raised a finger. “Before you go.” I reached into my back pocket, pulled out a set of keys. “These belong to you.”

  She squinted at the keys as I set them in her hand. “What are these?”

  “They’re to the RV,” Grunt said. “The one we brought from your father’s house in Texas.”

  She looked back at Grunt. “What RV?”

  “He had a fleet of cars in that garage,” I said. “We uh, borrowed the biggest one to get from Texas to here. But it doesn’t rightly belong to us.”

  Ariadne’s blue eyes found mine, and a flicker of that daughterly adoration appeared there. It was the same look she’d given Mariana. She still didn’t know I’d seen everything. Her whole life, all those memories.

  Ariadne was very nearly my own daughter.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both.” When she approached Grunt and stood over him, he gazed up at her the same way I’d seen him look at Valdis. He respected her. Felt protective of her.

  “Grunt,” she said, “what will you do now?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll find my way.”

  I tilted my head. “You’re not rejoining the Scarred?”

  “It’s not the Scarred without Valdis.” He met my gaze. “And much as you hated the man, he was good to me. He was more than my employer.”

  I knew leaving the Scarred was about more than that. Hoped, at least. But I didn’t press the matter.

  “Do you have anywhere to go?” Ariadne asked him.

  He swept out a hand. “I can go anywhere I like.” His eyes darted to Percy, and he winked. “Maybe I’ll go slay a dragon, for old times’ sake.”

  Percy huffed out smoke. “You can try.”

  Ariadne laughed as she lifted Grunt’s enormous hand and placed the keys in his palm.

  He tried to pass them back to her. “I can’t—”

  “You can.” She folded his fingers over the keys. “I know what you did for me. Please, take it.” When she leaned closed to him and placed a kiss on his cheek, he whispered something into her ear. She nodded, and then he lowered his hand with the keys still in his grasp.

  Mariana had been right to believe in Ariadne. She was beautiful.

  “You know where it’s parked?” I asked Grunt.

  He stood, pressing the keys into his back pocket. “Let me guess, the most expensive per-day parking lot in the whole borough. The one here in Manhattan, right?”

  “Sorry.” I half-smiled. “I’m no New Yorker.”

  He shook his head, started down the path to rescue his
new RV from the clutches of exorbitant parking fees. As I watched him go, Percy came to my side and watched with me.

  “I’ll miss him,” he said.

  “Me too.” I set a hand on Percy’s head. “Me too.”

  Ariadne appeared at my other side. I could feel her eyes on me.

  Percy, sensing the weight of the moment, wandered off to give us space.

  When I turned to her, she smiled. “I know this is an odd thing to say, seeing as we’ve just properly met”—she lifted my hand, placed both her own over it—“but can we see each other once in a while?”

  I understood. I understood completely.

  “I was about to ask the very same thing.” This part was hard to say, even now. It felt like I was claiming Mariana’s child as my own, even though she would have wanted this. I wasn’t sure I was capable of being anything like Ariadne’s mother. But I said it anyway. “I hope you know I think of you as my own daughter. Even though you’re technically older than me.”

  She grinned. Her pale blue eyes swam. “I know you’re not technically my mother, and you’re younger than me, but in some ways, you’re just like her. You have her goodness.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m not sure—”

  She squeezed my hand, and my eyes opened. “It wasn’t just her who saved me. It was you. It took real love to defeat Lust.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. And so, for the first time, I kissed my daughter on the cheek as Mariana had asked me to. Then I set my chin on her shoulder and smelled her hair and thought how strange a thing time was.

  She had lived in the fourteenth century. In a way, so had I. But here we were, and the gods were gone, and we were still mother and daughter.

  “What will you do now?” I said into her ear. “Now that you have your whole soul.”

  She leaned back to meet eyes. “I’ll learn what it means to be mortal. Do you know, I don’t remember a thing from the time the gods left? It was all a blank until I saw you—my own mother—with that knife in your hand.”

  I gave her a lopsided smile. “Quite a reunion.”

  She laughed, and then I laughed because she had. And I realized that, as much as I loved Ariadne as a daughter, I also liked her. I liked her very much.