“Look for survivors!” she ordered Gautierre.
They found thirteen wounded over the next half hour, with several clearly dead and many dozens more missing. The two of them began turning over rubble and finding more. At first they were the only two who could withstand the poisonous fumes. Then a fire truck arrived and washed most of the reek away, and others could join in.
The ambulances—some real, some makeshift—came quickly and whisked the wounded away to the hospital. Gautierre and she kept at it, still in dragon form, with medics and police officers and townspeople at their side. They found another wounded person, then another.
“Keep digging!” Jennifer ordered them. And they obeyed.
Heavy equipment arrived—there was only one backhoe within the dome, but there were several jackhammers and quite a few trucks to carry the rubble away. In their stronger dragon shapes, Gautierre and she helped them move it all. They unearthed fewer survivors, and more corpses.
Scanning the ruined site after an hour, it occurred to her they might come across Hank Blacktooth. No one had seen him since the explosion.
Did she want him dead, or alive?
Does it matter? He’ll die soon enough, the day Skip wants to send a swarm for him and only him. Like he sent one for Dad. What can I do to stop it? Nothing. Xavier can search all he likes—within a month, we could all be dead.
She fought back tears of despair as her wing claws dug furiously. They cut open on sharp edges of rock and steel, and she kept digging through the pain. Voices called out to her, and she kept digging.
Finally, Gautierre put a wing on her and turned her around. “Jennifer! The police are getting a radio call—it’s your mother.”
Scrambling out of her pit, she flipped to human and grabbed the radio from a nearby officer. With a double take, she realized it was Chief Whittle—Carrot Helmet?—who had a look of concern on her face. She pressed the radio button. “Mom?”
“Honey. Our spotters think another one’s coming.”
“Where?”
“The hospital.”
Jennifer’s blood froze. “Mom. Get the fuck out of there.”
“We’re evacuating. Can you get here? I might need to get in the air, if . . .”
“Sixty seconds.” She handed the radio back to the young chief. “I’m going to leave my friend here to help you. You’re going to protect him.”
“No one’s going to touch him, Ms. Scales. You have my word. He’s found eighteen trapped survivors and digs faster than the backhoe. Thirty different people have come up to me asking his name, so they can thank him personally.”
“Gautierre Longtail.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“Thanks.”
She scrambled into the sky, pressing her wings hard, coming quickly within sight of the hospital and the rolling fields beyond. Her mother was waiting in the parking lot, with several staff bunched around her.
Useless, Jennifer thought tenderly. They can’t protect her. All they can do is get ash blown on them.
She landed next to them and looked where they were pointing.
“Smaller,” Jennifer muttered.
“Big enough,” Elizabeth guessed. It was the size of a large dragon—in fact, it held a shape very much like one, trailing wisps as it floated over the vegetation, as if a dragon were melting overhead.
“Turning!” the spotter called out from the roof. “Coming right for us!”
A beaststalker whom Jennifer recognized from the city council—Sarah Sera—tugged at Elizabeth’s sleeve. “You or your daughter will be the target. You have to get out of here. You have to get out of here at least five minutes ago.”
Elizabeth exhaled. “I don’t want to leave—”
“MOM.” Jennifer was already spreading her wings. “Get on board.”
“Another one!” called out a different spotter, pointing a bit farther to the west. “Coming faster!”
Elizabeth turned to Sarah. “Evacuate the hospital.”
“Mom!”
“Use a spread pattern, so it can’t hurt too many at once. If—”
“Get on me now!”
“If the building is destroyed, take everyone to Smart Bean Foods. Jennifer and I will try to meet you—ack!”
Snarling, Jennifer had grabbed her mother’s coat with her teeth and dragged her into the air.
The moment her hind claws left the parking lot, the first shadow changed course to intercept. It was only a few seconds before Jennifer spotted the second one—this one in the shape of a spider, and different from the first in color as well. In fact, Jennifer wasn’t sure she could really even call it a shadow . . .
“Honey. I’m slipping out of my jacket. If you could—gah!”
Jennifer snapped her head around quickly enough to deposit her mother on her back. She felt the woman’s fingernails embed themselves in her scales.
“That wasn’t funny, kid.”
“Get on board when I ask, next time. What do you think of these two swarms? They look different from what Skip has sent before.”
Elizabeth peered downward. “They’re both after us, each in a different shape. The dragon is probably meant for me, the spider for you.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I’d hate to have to share. I suppose we should be glad he’s not going after the hospital. At least they won’t have to evacuate.”
“It’s a matter of time. Once you and I are gone, Skip’s job gets considerably easier.”
“Cheery thought. Perhaps we could try to stay alive? For funsies?”
“Head west.”
“Over them?”
“We’ve never seen a swarm jump. I’d rather get out to the farmland on the edge of town. There are fewer people there, so they’ll do less damage.”
“This doesn’t exactly strike me as a survival strategy.”
“How long can you stay in the air?”
Jennifer’s mind went back to a seemingly endless flight over the seas of Crescent Valley. It was stressful and kind of awful at the time, but now it seemed like a vacation. “At least eight hours. Haven’t really ever tried to push it beyond that.”
“We have eight hours to come up with a plan, then.”
“No problem,” Jennifer lied through sharp teeth.
They did not need eight hours. As they crossed over the first shadow, it rose to meet them, and Jennifer at once felt alarm, relief, and irritation.
“Evangelina!”
The shape did not respond aloud, but coalesced into a three-dimensional winged form that cruised by their left flank, momentarily blotting out the sun before it circled back to hover over its companion shape.
Sister. Sister-mother.
“Do you think she and Skip—”
“Friends? Unlikely, given what I saw from her the last time she ran into him.”
“Good news, then. And the second one must be Dianna Wilson.”
“Pretty odd time to show up.”
“Not odd at all. Your father was married to Dianna once, and Evangelina is their daughter.”
“So they’re here because he’s dead? What, they want to bring a pot roast to the after-funeral party?”
“I doubt that.”
Jennifer looked suspiciously at the newcomer’s tattered black wings, six spindly legs, viciously spiked tail, and shrouded facial features. “Okay, so? He’s dead, they’re here? How does that make sense?”
“Calm down, honey. We can ask them. If they were going to attack, they would have done it by now. Right?”
“HEY.” Jennifer made a beeline for her half-sister. “MY MOTHER AND I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU’RE DOING HERE.”
No time, sister. Another swarm is coming.
“What, are you—is this draw-a-scribble-on-our-home-town day, or some shit?” How can Skip draw this quickly? It doesn’t matter. “Where is it?”
Mother feels it coming from the bridge. Heading this way.
“Coming for the hospital.”
“Evacu
ate!” Elizabeth called out to the people below. “Get clear of the building!”
Not necessary. Mother and I will handle this.
Evangelina darted off toward the bridge, descending farther and farther until Jennifer was sure she was going to crash. They followed her, as did the spider shadow they now knew to be Dianna Wilson.
Instead of crashing, Evangelina’s dragon shape soaked into the surfaces of the trees and structures, becoming a shadow again without losing any speed.
Jennifer saw the oncoming swarm now, a jumbled mess of the same sorts of creatures that had taken away her father, destroyed city hall, and buried townspeople at the police station.
“It’s huge—at least triple what he’s sent before.”
“That can only be for the hospital,” her mother deduced.
“How does he do it—how does he make so many, so quickly?”
“The better question is, how are Evangelina and Dianna going to—oh, my.”
The hunger never ends it never ends it never ends
Evangelina accelerated toward a swarm that looked ready to consume her—until her shadow swiftly expanded, covering an area ten times that of the swarm. Like a predator fish that had teased its prey with a deceptively small lure, Evangelina opened its maw and consumed the entire swarm whole, seeming to swallow a gulp of the Mississippi River as she did so.
CHAPTER 22
Andi
Andi watched in shock as the shadow of Evangelina Scales—she recognized her right away—dominated the Mississippi River and swept their sorcery out of existence. It was terrifying and beautiful, like the way Skip would sometimes grab her jaw and squeeze while loving her. She felt horribly exposed all of a sudden.
The feeling increased tenfold when she saw the spidery shape of Dianna Wilson flank her daughter. This shadow glowed jade, with each bright eye a different color. All eight were looking right up the cliffs at them, as if they had always known the two of them would be there.
“Mom!” Skip cried out. “MOM?!?!”
Andi grabbed his shoulder. “Skip. Time to go. We can’t win this fight.”
“Fight? I don’t get it. Why is my mom fighting me?”
“Um, maybe because you killed the first love of her life.”
“She left him.”
“Yes, she left him. Alive.”
“Oh, this is . . . unbelievable. Unbelievable! MOM!?!?” He called down to the river, where the two new shapes hovered in two-dimensional space. “STAY OUT OF THIS! YOU LEFT, REMEMBER? YOU LEFT! LEAVE AGAIN!”
“Skip, we—”
“Yes, I know!” He slapped her hand away. “Heaven forbid anyone stop the great Dianna Wilson from doing whatever the fuck she wants. Fine, let’s go.”
Incredibly, while Dianna and Evangelina did not pursue them, things actually got worse for Andi and Skip upon their return to the Cliffside.
Six arachnids were waiting for them in the dining area.
“Dear nephew,” said one of them, a baboon spider. “You have been failing. The time has come to accept the guidance of your betters.”
“Fucking Aunt Tavia,” Skip muttered, throwing up his hands. “I hope she died painfully.”
CHAPTER 23
Jennifer
They were in the parking lot—everyone from the hospital Jennifer realized, except for a skeleton crew that was taking evacuated patients back inside—when Evangelina and Dianna returned.
They approached Elizabeth first. Dianna shimmered until she was in the form of a woman nearly as tall as the doctor, with jet-black hair that framed a pale, freckled face and spilled down freckled shoulders. Her simple jade gown wrinkled as she bowed to the other woman.
“Dr. Georges-Scales. I’ve waited a long time to meet you.”
Jennifer watched her mother almost faint. “Dianna. I’m afraid I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I, for sure. But I will try by saying, I’m sorry for your loss. Jonathan was an extraordinary man.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”
Feeling like she had not so much to do here, Jennifer looked at Evangelina, who had changed into human form at the same time as Dianna. Evangelina was a dark mirror of her half-sister—they shared many of the same facial features as their father, but the older sibling’s hair and freckles were distinctly from her mother’s side.
“I—I don’t know how much time we have,” Elizabeth suddenly said. “Thank you for what you’ve done here. I don’t know how you stopped his sorcery, but it probably saved lives. My worry is that Skip may try again.”
“Evangelina can consume anything my son produces.”
“Are you sure? The last couple have come in rapid succession.”
“I am sure, for at least a while.” Dianna’s eyes were a reassuring cerulean—but Jennifer knew they would change color before long. “Skip has learned how to create servants who in turn can create more servants. A troubling development, to be sure; but we have at least some time to discuss how to stop him permanently.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and Jennifer felt a weight lift from her heart that she hadn’t realized she had been feeling. It’s over. Dianna can make it all right. She can turn things back to normal, like she did before.
Elizabeth nodded again, less formally this time. “Thank you again. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a reason to hope for anything in this town.”
Dianna looked up at the shimmering shell above. “Yes. I can imagine. Edmund Slider has left quite a legacy.”
“I hope it’s not presumptuous to ask: is there anything you can do about it?”
The downcast eyes of the sorceress shifted to olive. “Ah, you get right to it. And there, I have less comforting news. I alone cannot reverse what Edmund Slider has done.”
The crowd murmured again, less encouragingly now. “But you’re Quadrivium,” Jennifer pointed out in exasperation. “Like Slider was. In fact, you’re more powerful, aren’t you? You travel through dimensions. You can’t help a single town?”
“Jennifer. They have helped this town.”
“Jennifer Scales.” Dianna’s smile returned under indigo eyes, and the warmth in her voice appeared genuine. “I am sorry for your father, but I am so pleased to see you still well.”
“I’m not well. Not at all. Let’s get to it, please—or did you come empty-handed?”
Evangelina frowned with distaste. Even in human form, she did not use her voice.
Time has passed, Mother—but she’s still a bitch. I don’t know why you like her.
Jennifer jumped. She’d never get used to telepathy. It was so sudden and intrusive.
“Oh, Evangelina. I don’t know why I like her, really. Maybe it’s the parts of Jonathan I see in her. Maybe it’s her ability to bite off more than she can chew, and swallow it anyway. And maybe it’s the fact you don’t like her that makes her so appealing to me.”
“Hello? Standing right here. So you were saying how despite your amazing multidimensional powers, you have no antidote to the sorcery of a dead arachnid.”
“Jennifer, please.”
“Let them answer, Mom.”
“The answer does not lie with us,” Dianna said mysteriously. “I can only presume that it lies with you.”
“Could you be more precise? We’ve tried a lot of shit on that wall.”
“I have nothing else for you—just my own knowledge of Edmund Slider. He was not the type to leave a town to die, with no way out. He wants something from you. You must give it to him.”
“He’s dead.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It seems relevant.”
“Come, Dr. Georges-Scales. Surely you’ve seen one or two things that manage to last beyond death.”
“The seraph,” Elizabeth whispered.
“The what?”
“A protective spirit left by my friend. It sacrificed itself at Jonathan’s funeral so that he could move on.”
Dianna thought about that. “Edmund enjoy
ed the idea of self-sacrifice. Has anyone tried to leave the dome since that day?”
“We have scouts attempt every day. They test with their hands, shoot weapons, we’ve even rolled cars into the thing. The day of Jonathan’s funeral, after everyone left that field, I tried to leave myself.”
Jennifer scrunched her face. “Mom?”
Elizabeth sighed. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky. I wanted to go with him, more than almost anything.” She turned back to Dianna. “No matter how hard I tried, or how little, it didn’t work.”
“Sacrifice could be necessary, but not sufficient.”
The doctor’s features hardened. “The sacrifices we’ve made, I would deem more than sufficient.”
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive.” Dianna tossed the remark out casually. “I mean that Edmund put up this wall for logical reasons. Everything he did was based in logic.”
Jennifer recalled Edmund Slider’s geometry classes, and his relentless focus on logic. “Where’s the logic in all the suffering?” She surprised herself by asking the question out loud.
“Don’t look for the logic in the results. Things happened that he clearly didn’t expect. Instead, look for the logic in his goal. What drove Edmund Slider?”
“We don’t know, exactly.”
“You will have to find out.”
Elizabeth rubbed her chin as the crowd absorbed this information. “Okay. The dome has been up for months; it can stay up a bit longer while we figure this out. Meanwhile, we’re left with the matter of Skip and the attacks. You imply that your defenses can’t hold forever.”
“Correct. The sorceries are getting stronger by the day.”
“So we need to stop them, the sooner the better.”
“Agreed. It is a difficult decision for me, but I am ready to carry out what must be done.”
Elizabeth paused. “What did you have in mind?”
Dianna tilted her freckled face. “Why, the only certain solution at our disposal. Death. As Evangelina and I are the only two inside or outside this dome powerful enough to stop a werachnid like this—all due respect to your dragon friends, Jennifer—the task falls to us. We will implement immediately.”