I felt a tugging sensation inside, familiar but unexpected. Was it still possible? I reached for union and felt a rush of welcome, of homecoming. Cries of delight and terror filled the air as the courtyard shrank around me.
My head level with the roof, I realised the courtyard hadn’t changed. I had grown. I could see little Luce and Garth, now a naked man, jumping up and down and hugging each other as they shouted to me. I ignored them. Jason lay on the ruptured earth, dead or unconscious, and I lifted one great foot, momentarily distracted by the temptation to make sure of it.
Then I remembered my purpose and spread my wings instead, delighting in the strength I’d thought lost forever. I leapt skyward, feeling the familiar rush of freedom as I caught the wind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Trueshape!
I trumpeted my joy to the sky. The stars wheeled above me as I beat upward, filled with renewed vigour. I had never thought to experience the joy of trueshape again.
Valeria climbed just ahead. She craned her long neck round, saw me on her tail and hissed her displeasure. She soared out over the harbour and I followed, gaining rapidly, delighting in the feel of the air rushing under my wings. Perhaps she wasn’t really trying to outpace me.
She landed on the very apex of the Harbour Bridge, above the symbol the humans had lit for their celebration. It was a stylised dove, with a sprig of olive in its mouth, emblem of peace. Now a bird of a very different kind perched above it, her armoured tail lashing across the dove’s face.
I circled in and landed some distance along from her, feeling a vibration in the steel beneath my claws as it took my weight.
“So you fly, too, abomination?” she snarled, her voice a deep rumble in her chest. “You are tainted with humanity, fit for nothing but death.”
Lachie stirred, still clutched in her claws, and opened his eyes. He saw me and those eyes widened in terror, and he began to scream and struggle.
“Silence!” she hissed, and he burst into noisy tears.
She laid one wicked claw against his throat. “Such a tough decision. Should I cut his throat or just … discard him?”
Quick as thought, she flung him, and he cartwheeled screaming through the sky. I leapt after him and she lunged, trying to snag my wingtip with her teeth and bring me crashing into the bridge. But her jaws snapped on air as I hurtled after the falling child.
I caught him before he hit the water, cradling him in my claws as I pulled out of the dive and beat away. Above, Valeria stooped from the bridge and plummeted toward me. She had the advantage of height and speed, whereas I was desperate to protect the sobbing form in my claws. I couldn’t fight; I could only hope to dodge her. Not a winning strategy.
I changed course abruptly and ducked under the bridge just as she would have seized me. I shot out the other side and pivoted in mid-air, dropping my precious bundle on the deck of the bridge, then darted away again. It was a risk, but I thought I knew Valeria well enough, and my hunch paid off. With her blood up, she wanted to sink her claws into me, feel my flesh rip and tear, and toying with Lachie couldn’t provide the same satisfaction.
She surged after me, while I ducked and weaved, the nightlights of the city wheeling dizzily around us. I led her up and around the bridge, using its great steel network of girders as a shield, and she bellowed her frustration.
“Stay still and fight!” she roared, but I was no fool. She was bigger and older than me, and I had more to lose. I needed to find an advantage, and fast.
She banked over the arch of the bridge again, almost catching me. Her tail swiped the top of the dove as she passed and knocked it loose. It dangled drunkenly, its peace offering pointing straight down at the water far below.
Many pleasure craft still floated on the harbour. White flashes of light winked from them as their passengers tried to photograph the aerial display. Did they think we were part of the fireworks? The fools should be fleeing for their lives.
I skimmed low over the water, hoping the usual draconian dislike of cold water would keep her at a distance, but she dived on me. Her wings beat in my face as her hind feet clawed for my belly. She didn’t bother turning her fire on me: in dragon form we were immune to it, and so the battle must be fought in more primitive style, with tooth and claw. I twisted away, barely avoiding them. I needed a miracle.
Something to give me an edge. Something like Jason in his human form with those wicked dragon claws like scythes. But he was old and skilled.
I doubled back and beat upward, trying to get above my rival. Wasn’t I skilled too? I’d experimented with form more than any other dragon I knew. I’d shrunk myself down to save Luce and destroyed a full company of goblins. And of course I’d saved myself with the ultimate throw of the dice when I’d transferred to a human body. No one had ever attempted that before.
I dropped down toward the waves again, tasting their salt in the air. Time for one last gamble. I let my tail dangle in the water to hide what I was doing, leaving a plume of spray behind me. Then I focused my will on what I wanted, reforming and shaping.
Valeria dropped like a stone, ready to pound me into the sea. As her claws reached for me I flicked my tail up again. It was shorter now, but the spike on its end was the length of a man and wickedly curved.
I whipped it up and plunged it into Valeria’s exposed breast, skewering her through the heart. Obliterating that vital organ completely.
Smacking into the water felt like hitting concrete, and our entwined bodies plunged deep. Cold water filled my nostrils. I could see nothing in the black depths. Panicked, I struggled to free myself from Valeria’s entangling weight. Which way was up? I followed the stream of bubbles and limped for the surface, breaking through with a great gasping relief. Dragons were not meant for swimming.
The water around me roiled with the waves of our impact. The air rang with shouts and screams from the distant boats, but none dared approach. I waited, bobbing on the water like a vast ugly duckling, until a still blonde figure broke the surface. Valeria. Definitely dead.
Taking off from the water proved impossible, though I flailed around in a brave attempt. Eventually I gave in and paddled to shore at the base of the bridge’s northern end, coming up into a park at Milson’s Point littered with drunks. Some were asleep; the ones that weren’t scattered, screaming, as I flexed my wings.
I flew up to where I’d left Lachie. He was gone, and my heart did a little flip of dismay before I spotted him hiding behind a lane barrier. Poor kid. Time for something a little less terrifying.
I relinquished my trueshape. Her trueshape? Our trueshape? I shook my head, too tired and worn to think about it. I still felt like Kate, but I felt like Leandra too, as if our personalities had given up fighting and fused together.
I stood on the Harbour Bridge, a woman who could turn into a dragon, buck naked, alone among the wide empty lanes and towering scaffolding except for my son, a boy who’d died months ago. It didn’t come much crazier than that. I laughed, a little burble of sheer happiness, and Lachie peeped out, his eyes like saucers.
“Mum?”
I held out my arms. “It’s okay, Monster. You can come out now.”
He ran to me and I crushed him tight, face buried in his hair, breathing in his precious Lachie smell. My eyes prickled with tears.
“I thought you were dead!” he sobbed.
“I know. I thought you were too. It was all a big mistake.” One that would involve some tricky explanations eventually, but for now it was enough to hold him and feel the truth of his existence.
When the sobs had wound down into hiccups he wriggled uncomfortably. “Mum, you’re squishing me.”
“Sorry.”
I loosened my hold and he looked up, eyes wide in his little pointed face. “Are you a dragon now?”
I could hardly deny it when he’d just seen me change. “’Fraid so.”
“Cool,” he breathed.
Typical. I grinned and stood up, still keeping a tight grip on
his hand.
“Come on, we’d better get out of here.”
“Maybe we should find you some clothes first.”
Good point. We strolled along the bridge hand in hand, my feet leaving damp footprints on the road surface. At the northern end we found a terrified group huddled behind a truck. Must be the fireworks crew.
“Who are you?” one of them asked as I approached. He was as tall as Ben, but about twice as wide.
“I’m Kate,” I said cheerfully, turning my will on him, “and you’d love to give me your T-shirt.”
He agreed he would, and I was soon covered to the knees in a Black Sabbath T-shirt the size of a small tent. We left them gawking after us and slipped past the police barriers and down the steps to Milson’s Point. There were a lot of very excited people there, shouting about dragons and fireworks and waving at the bridge, but none of them paid us much attention. I guess we didn’t look too threatening—a barefoot mum and her tired little boy—and I was more than happy to be overlooked. I’d had enough excitement already to last a year, and the year was barely three hours old.
I sank down on the lawn and put an arm around Lachie, too tired to do anything more challenging than sit and wiggle my toes in the cool grass. Sooner or later Garth would turn up. Until then I could sit here enjoying the view of the twinkling city lights, with my boy tucked safe and warm against me. Heaven.
He rested his curly brown head on my shoulder in a long contented silence. I thought he’d gone to sleep, but then a question of burning importance obviously occurred to him.
He sat up. “Mum, have you still got all my Lego?”
***
More than an hour passed before Garth showed, hulking across the grass with his usual surly frown. His face brightened when he saw us among the drunks and the all-night party crowd, Lachie curled up asleep with his head pillowed in my lap.
“You did it.” He squatted on his heels beside me. The most genuine smile I’d ever seen on his face appeared as one big hand reached out to rest lightly on Lachie’s hair.
“Where’s Luce?”
The smile faded. “Stuck with Alicia.”
I sighed. “I hoped someone would take Alicia out.”
Too much to ask, I guess. It would have been the icing on the cake to have Luce free.
“Me too. Luce managed to look the other way when I left, but that was the most she could do. I figured you’d need some help.”
“Thanks.”
“At least Valeria went down.” Garth’s eyes lit with pleasure at the memory. If he’d had a tail right then it would have been waving jauntily in the air. “How’d you manage it? I thought you were a goner for sure.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He had the grace to look a little abashed. I described the fight as we sat side by side, looking out across the dark water. A police launch still circled out there in the proscribed zone under the bridge. I’d watched them fish Valeria’s naked body out some time ago, small and rather sad-looking in its broken human form, and seen the flashing lights of the ambulance when they’d brought it back to shore. Another New Year’s Eve emergency, though a touch more exotic than the usual drunken antics. How the Emergency Services must hate New Year’s Eve.
“I’ve brought the car round,” said Garth. “We should probably go before Alicia works up the courage to come looking.”
I nodded, though I hated to disturb my boy. He looked so peaceful.
“Let me,” said Garth. He scooped him up in unexpectedly gentle arms. Lachie murmured something then settled again, his head nestled comfortably against the werewolf’s massive pecs. Jason used to carry him in from the car like that, after a night out. Which reminded me …
“What happened to Jason?”
“Got away,” Garth grunted in disgust.
Shame. I should have stomped him when I had the chance, but I’d had other things on my mind. Another time, perhaps. Nothing could dent my good mood tonight, not even Jason’s survival. We picked our way past sleeping bodies, couples cuddled up on picnic rugs, and the odd still-raucous group.
“There was a bit of confusion after you took off. Still, it was worth it to see Alicia’s face when she realised you were still in the game.”
I wouldn’t have minded seeing that myself. “A little upset, was she?”
“You could say that.”
He led the way out of the park and up the street. I floated along at his elbow in an almost Zen-like state of happiness, snippets of memories and emotions from both my lives bubbling below the tranquil surface.
The inside of my head was a very weird place right now. Leandra’s memories were as clear as my own, though I could no longer sense her lurking as a separate presence. Even some of my own memories looked different seen through the prism of Leandra’s knowledge. I could find no division any more. I was us, and we were me—not quite Kate, and not exactly Leandra either. A new whole, bigger somehow than the sum of its parts.
Better? Who knew? Right now I didn’t care. I reached out for at least the hundredth time to stroke my sleeping son’s head. Happier? Absolutely.
We finally reached the car, and I sank into the back seat with a sigh of relief. It had been a long night.
“Where to?” Garth asked.
I shrugged. What did it matter? My world was right here.
“The ambos took Ben to Royal North Shore,” he added, a little too casually.
Ben! He’d taken that slash Jason meant for me. How could I have forgotten? I sat up straighter, some of my euphoria slipping away.
“How bad is he?”
“He’ll live.” He laid Lachie gently in the back seat next to me and buckled him in. “Might have some impressive scars though.”
I stroked Lachie’s curls back from his forehead. He shifted in his sleep but didn’t wake.
I had trouble remembering why I’d been so angry with Ben. I could hardly blame him for wanting to protect his nieces. Would I have done any differently if someone had threatened Lachie’s life?
“His arm was pretty bad. Some gashes on the chest and shoulder too, but the arm was the worst.”
“What are we waiting for, then?”
In the rear vision mirror I caught a glimpse of his smile.
The trip to Royal North Shore didn’t take long, and we were soon striding into the emergency department. Garth carried Lachie, still sleeping, since I refused to be parted from him.
The place was jumping with people. Falls and brawls, all the fun of New Year’s Eve, though I guess it was well and truly New Year’s Day now. The sun would be up in a couple of hours.
At reception a harried-looking nurse cast a professional eye over Lachie’s still form.
“What happened?” she asked wearily.
“Oh!—nothing. He’s fine. We’re here about Ben Stevens. The ambulance brought him in a little while ago.”
“You next of kin?”
I was about to say no, but I took in the crowded waiting room, and the exhaustion on the nurse’s face, and thought better of it.
“I’m his sister.”
“You’d better come in. You two can wait here.”
“I have to bring my son,” I said. “He’ll be upset if he wakes and I’m not there.” Not exactly true, but she didn’t have to know that.
She looked about to make an issue of it, and I groped for my will, limp and exhausted as it was, wondering if I could even compel a kid to eat a chocolate at this point. But she must have decided she was too tired to bother, and led the way down a corridor depressingly similar to the last emergency room corridor I’d visited.
Only now, that remembered grief had no power to hurt me any more, for I could reach out and touch my son, sleeping in Garth’s protective arms. The werewolf smiled at me as I stroked Lachie’s head, as if he could tell what I was thinking.
There was some confusion finding Ben. It turned out he’d already left Emergency for the operating theatre, and an orderly had to be found to guid
e us through the echoing halls to the recovery room lounge.
We collapsed into the hard plastic chairs to wait. Garth looked exhausted. If he was anything like me he was probably aching all over, but he made no complaint. It was five o’clock in the morning and I’d flipped through every ancient magazine in the place before a nurse came out and told us Ben had recovered sufficiently to have a visitor. I picked up Lachie, who was awake and asking sleepily when we were going to have breakfast.
“No children,” said the nurse.
“He’ll be fine.” I pinned her with a serious glare. I don’t know if it was a compulsion or I just scared her, but she led the way through the swinging double doors.
Beeping machines lurked along the walls of the recovery room. Each bay had a hospital bed parked in it, with the occupant wired up to the machines, and nurses hurried between the beds. Someone got the all-clear to be released to the wards as we entered, and we stood aside to let the orderly wheel the bed past.
Ben lay in the far corner, propped up on pillows, his face nearly as pale as the bandages that swathed his whole right arm and stretched across his bare chest and shoulder. His free arm was hooked up to an IV drip, but he held it out to me all the same.
“You look like shit,” I said, leaning in to kiss his cheek, now rough with stubble. His familiar woodsy scent was long gone, drowned out by blood and sweat and horrible antiseptic hospital smells. But he still felt like home. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit. Better now, though.” His eyes rested on Lachie, suspiciously bright. “He’s safe. You’re both safe. Thank God.”
“You missed all the excitement,” I said, my own eyes welling up. It had been a rollercoaster of a day.
“I heard.” He shifted uncomfortably, wincing as he moved his arm. “Someone said there were dragons fighting over the harbour. Or did I dream that part?”
“It’s true.” I looked round to see if anyone could hear us.
“She was really scary-looking,” Lachie said, his dark eyes huge.
“She was?” Ben gave me an uncertain look. “Umm—how did you—?”
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