This made Elizabeth stand. Jennifer sucked in breath and resumed the attack. She knew it was being unreasonable. Who cared? It was entirely possible she had never, ever been this angry at her mother.
“Take responsibility? Take responsibility? I woke up in a whole other universe and took responsibility for changing it back. Changing you back, and raising Dad from the dead.
“Then I took responsibility for facing down dragons and beaststalkers the night this damn dome went up. I’ve done everything you’ve asked, every time, and I’m sick of it! I’m done! I’m through! Fuck you and your responsibility! And fuck you for throwing Dad in my face!”
Elizabeth punched her.
Bent over, Jennifer held her jaw. Several silent moments passed as she considered her options.
Finally, she chose one. “Cripes, Mom. You and hitting people lately.”
“There are more thick skulls out there than usual.” Her mother grimaced and massaged her knuckles. “If it makes you feel better, it’s possible I’ve jammed my index finger. With Dianna, it was simply rejuvenating.”
“You’re quite the superironic pacifist.”
“You’re still talking, aren’t you?”
“Well, maybe you’ll want to find a sledgehammer and shut me up.”
“Tempting.” Her mother’s grim-but-cool expression wavered; her lips trembled. “Oh, boy, if your dad could see me now.” A lone tear slid down her mother’s cheek.
“He would understand, Mom.” The near- killing rage that had swept over her had evaporated the moment the tear made its appearance. The rage was gone, and all that remained was dull embarrassment, and sorrow.
Her mother took a deep, steadying breath. “Ever since Dianna came back, I’ve felt more and more empty inside. The loss of your father—it sounds strange, Jennifer, but I had always wished for a second child.”
Jennifer said nothing. They both knew that had been a physical impossibility for Elizabeth, since Jennifer’s birth.
“So he dies. It was so much easier to avoid the truth when he was alive. And then here comes Dianna, with Jonathan’s other child. And then here you are, growing up so fast . . .” She choked back a sob. “I’ll be alone soon, Jennifer. Either because you die like him, or you succeed brilliantly and leave me behind.”
“I’m not going to leave you, Mom.”
“Don’t be daft. Of course you will. You’ll be an adult someday. You’re not going to want to live in my house forever.”
“You won’t be alone. I won’t allow it.”
“You’ll have no say in the matter. It doesn’t matter; right now, we’re all living under this . . . this . . .” She waved at the dome, then wiped the tears from her face. “I’m sorry I suggested you don’t take responsibility, honey. Of course you do. I want you—I need you to keep taking responsibility. I can’t do this alone, any more than you can. We have to stay together, focused on the same goal.”
“Okay. Um. What is the goal again?”
“Protection of the innocent. Healing of the sick and wounded. Negotiations toward peace.”
“Right. I knew that. That’s it, huh?”
“No. Also, we have to figure that out.”
Jennifer looked out the window where Elizabeth was pointing and groaned. A two-hundred-foot-high wall of mist was billowing over the neighborhoods to the west. It shimmered with unnatural silver menace, and its tendrils swirled around houses and trees before the glistening bulk swallowed them whole.
“What do you make of it?”
“I have no idea, Mom. How can it possibly be good? Cripes, my jaw still hurts . . .”
“We should find Dianna.”
“Wow. You must really be worried, if you—”
“Find Dianna please, honey.”
There was no need. Dianna and Evangelina had already appeared in the parking lot outside. From the concerned look on the face of the sorceress, Jennifer already knew they would have little help to offer.
As they walked to the exit, they thought through the possibilities. “Ember?”
“Doubtful. There’s mist outside the wall as well.” Elizabeth pointed to the south, where the barrier was shrouded in this strange weather.
“Skip?”
“Possibly. It’s coming from a new direction, though. His attacks have come mainly from the northeast.” They were outside now and close to the other two.
“He can go wherever he likes, Mom. And don’t forget about Andi.”
“Andeana’s power flows from the music inside her,” Dianna interjected. She closed her eyes. “There is no music inside this mist. It’s a different sound altogether. Something . . . dragon?” One eye opened with an inquisitive brow.
Jennifer shrugged. “I’ve never heard of one of us doing anything like this. If it were Xavier, he would have told us.”
Not if he allied with his niece, after all.
“He’s not going to do that.” But Jennifer felt something fall inside. What if Xavier had been holding back? What if Ember had finally convinced him that the destruction of the town was the golden opportunity his vengeful heart sought?
She burns half the town, and her uncle drowns whatever’s left.
Evangelina sounded bored:
The answers are coming soon enough. It’s headed this way.
As it neared, a thunderhead with a long snout formed before the front like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. It took an unmistakable bearing—straight toward them, gaining speed.
Elizabeth took a subtle step closer and clutched her daughter’s hand. “My, my,” she murmured. “We are the popular girls this week, aren’t we.”
“What do we do, Mom?”
“No idea. You, Dianna?”
“It’s dragon . . .”
“So you’ve said. Yet this is hardly going to care about a bullet, or a sword. Do you have anything more helpful?”
“Wait. I hear it more clearly now. It’s water . . .”
“Really.” Elizabeth dropped Jennifer’s hand and hissed. “You’ve traveled through dozens of dimensions to come back here and tell me that mist is water. Wow. Just how stupid was my husband, at age fifteen, for you to impress him?”
Dianna shot back an unkind smirk. “I meant, the dragon. The dragon is water.”
“What do you mean, the dragon is water? How can a dragon be . . .” Jennifer trailed off. The leading shape twisted and unfolded two wings, each the size of an aircraft carrier. The appendages curled around the hospital, and a gentle rain began to fall upon them. From deep within the mist, a roll of gentle thunder began to speak.
We’ve come far, ancient girl, since we met at the sea;
Destiny’s tides pull at us, we yearn for the sea.
What you left behind does not drown or drift away, Oceans stay faithful, though you live far from the sea.
“I know that voice.” Jennifer felt a thrill as she burst into dragon shape. “I know that voice!”
What you left behind does not drown or drift away, Oceans stay faithful, though you live far from the sea.
“Sonakshi! Oh, wow. Even with the poetry, you are the best damn thing to happen here in a year. The last time I saw you, you had tentacles. How did you get through the dome?”
Is there a place in this world where rain does not fall?
Is there a place that denies the seeds of the sea?
From water we are born, to water we return, We pass through such magic as do fish through the sea.
“Of course,” Dianna mused. “In the form of mist, they’re weather. Weather can pass through the dome. Edmund created it so. I’m sure he had no idea . . .”
“Weather can—” Jennifer’s brow furrowed. “And tell me, Sonakshi. You’ve been able to whip through magical walls for . . . how long exactly?”
Time flows like the current that warms and sustains us;
Our ways, like the waves, are as ancient as the sea.
“So, longer than a few months. Um. How do I say this without sounding slobberingly ungr
ateful—where have you been?”
Do not tell the ocean when it may rise and fall, Tides may be quick or slow, like the beasts of the sea.
“Great. Slow tides. Okay, well, I’m still really happy to see you! Um . . . how many of you are in there?”
Sonakshi, like the ocean, can only be one.
But my friends are plentiful as fish in the sea.
The massive wings flexed, and suddenly the raindrops grew larger and faster. Jennifer felt like dancing—help is here! Help is finally here! We’re going to figure this out! We’re going to stop Skip! We’re going to beat this dome! We’re going to find out if blue really can be the new black!
After all, she could do anything any other dragon could do . . . and if there are dragons that can pass through the dome . . .
The rain kept falling.
I have to get them to teach me what they can do. Once I can pass through the barrier, I can lead them—not a few dozen, but an army of dragons as big as a rainstorm! No one can stop that, not even Skip!
Oh, Skip, you are gonna pay and pay and pay . . . it’ll almost be worth losing Dad and everything else to see the look on your face when my new friends and I rearrange your guts for you.
The rain kept falling.
At the point when they all considered going inside to avoid the sheets of water, the skies began to clear and thousands of shapes began splashing down next to them. In an instant, each one became as solid as any other dragon Jennifer had ever seen. They filled the parking lot and the yards and fields beyond, each one a true-blooded dragon with gray and dull green or dull blue markings, each one bound to the Ancient Furnace through loyalty . . .
. . . and each one less than a foot long, inclusive of the tail.
“Wha?” Jennifer exclaimed.
“Huh,” Elizabeth added.
“My.” Dianna snickered.
CHAPTER 31
Andi
“You’re back here with the birds?”
“Sorcery requires sacrifice, Andi.”
Andi tried to hide her disgust, but it was hard. The birds were her least favorite part. “Dianna taught me that the sacrifice must come from within.”
“Was that before or after she fucked everyone else over to get the universe she wanted?”
She didn’t have an answer to that, so she averted her eyes from the blood and feathers and took in the weather outside the office window. “Getting pretty dark out over town.”
“Go check it out, if you want.”
“You don’t want to come? It might be important.”
“You don’t want to go alone, take an aunt or uncle. I’ve got plenty to spare.” He picked up a butcher knife and pointed back toward the restaurant’s main room. “All they’ve done since they got here is mumble and disapprove of everything we’re doing. See if you can get them to do something useful instead.”
“You know they’ll say no.”
“They are pretty fucking ungrateful, aren’t they?”
Upon their arrival, the six remaining brothers and sisters of Tavia and Otto Saltin had claimed the most comfortable parts of the restaurant for themselves, started gorging on food Skip and Andi had been storing away for months . . . and didn’t even acknowledge the fact that since they’d come into Skip’s presence, they had been able to keep their crescent-moon shape . . . even though it was a new moon.
If Dr. Georges-Scales is right, and Edmund Slider set up that wall to last as long as Skip needs it . . . then that wall won’t be up for much longer.
“Maybe we should move somewhere else.”
He carefully sliced a new part of the bird open. “Tempting, but we were here first. I’m thinking we’ll come to a new understanding soon enough.”
“They creep me out.”
“It’s not the eight-legs thing, I hope.”
“Funny. No, it’s their attitude. They’re too—” Like your father, she was going to finish, but realized how that would come out. “They don’t appreciate what you do for them. Won’t you come with me instead?”
“Geez, Andi. It’s late afternoon in autumn, and you’re concerned that it’s getting dark.” He twisted the knife through some of the entrails. “Could you check the thermostat? It’s getting a little warm in here. I’ll bet they turned it up again.”
She hesitated. “Your aunt always thought that ornithromancy was a bit . . . outdated.”
“It’s a proven technique since the pyramids. My mom taught it to me. Over the past few months, I’ve added a few touches.”
“And who’d know better how to improvise on a grotesque, millennia-old technique than a teenaged boy?”
“Joke if you want, but you know full well we’d never have been able to create so many creatures for our swarms if I hadn’t looked at a few birds to unlock quicker ways to create them.” He picked up a strand of intestine and brought it up to the light so he could examine it more clearly. “The trick is to look for possibilities instead of certainties. Tavia was a musician like you. Music works like math and logic, clear and certain. To do this right, you have to be willing to try new things.”
“You don’t know anything about music, then. Musicians improvise and take risks all the time.”
This finally got him to turn. “Andi, if you’d been listening to popular music for the last twenty years, you’d know how ridiculous and hollow that sounds.”
“So what? I don’t know about risk? I don’t know about improvisation?”
He turned back to his entrails. “You know it when you see it. You follow others fine—my mom, the Quadrivium, me. And you obviously contribute. But you don’t create or lead much of anything yourself. You don’t know about trailblazing. Flying to new heights. Playing with fire.”
Andi stomped her foot. “Sounds like you miss a certain teenaged dragon.”
Skip snorted. “Miss her? I haven’t aimed at her yet.”
“Whatever. You want to play with dead-bird guts, stay here. I’m going to check on the town.”
Oh, crap.
Andi didn’t know whether to feel terror at what she was seeing, or pride in being here to see it without her obnoxious, patronizing prick of a boyfriend.
The roiling maelstrom pushing through the near edge of Edmund Slider’s barrier made no sound. Two hundred feet high, the wall of mist set the Mississippi swirling as it touched the muddy waters.
Not a storm. Not random. And coming up the hill.
For us.
The mass shimmered and shook and vibrated and shone with unnatural silver menace, churning and flowing around the trees below her and stretching even higher into the sky. Then the glistening vastness had gulped it all, shutting off her view of the town, and the river, and the barrier altogether.
She turned and ran.
Dianna, she thought. It has to be Dianna.
Only she had never seen Dianna do anything like this. Evangelina? Possibly—she didn’t really know that twisted spawn too well. She seemed more like a brute-force sort of threat than a fancy-towering-wall-of-mist sort of threat.
Jennifer Scales. The thought shook her, even though it made no sense. If Jennifer had a trick up her sleeve, she would have played it long ago.
Unless killing her father unleashed something, removed all restraint.
As she crossed the highway and neared the Cliffside Restaurant, she spared a look back at the mist. Its tendrils were already visible again, and they curled around the stars as if capturing them before blotting them out.
“Skip,” she called out even though he was too far to hear. “Skip!”
By the time she reached the restaurant doors, the Saltin siblings—all six of them—were at the windows, looking outward. They were in arachnid form of course, thanks to Skip.
And thank goodness for that—we’re going to need their best powers for what’s coming our way.
“Can you tell what it is?” she asked them. “Is it Dianna Wilson?”
The brown recluse wrinkled her mandibles. “This does not smell like
sorcery. It smells like . . . like . . .”
“Like dragon,” one of the two sun spiders hissed.
“How can that be?” the other asked. “No dragon can do this!”
“Jennifer Scales might be able to.”
The recluse backed away from the window and spat. “The dragon-stalker girl? That makes no sense. She’d have attacked long before now. Waiting a year suggests planning. Dragons do not plan.”
“That’s a fascinating theory, Auntie . . .” Skip snapped his fingers as he entered the dining room from the office. “Auntie-whatever-your-name-is. ‘Dragons are dumb, they can’t plan, we’re supersmart, rah rah rah.’ I think my dad thought the same thing, before she and her mom kicked his ass.”
“Show your elders more respect,” ordered the thick-legged baboon spider.
“Bite me, Uncle Ugly.” He examined the scene out the window alongside them. “Look, guys—it doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is Andi here has given us time to pull together and fight it. Thanks, Andi.” He flashed her a charming smile, and she forgot how upset she had been with him in the Dead Bird Office.
“So what do we do?”
The elders laughed at her question. “What do we do,” repeated the spindly harvester among them. “We fortify! We weather the storm, wait for it to pass, learn from it, and counterattack when the time is right. On our terms.”
“Arachnid Tactics 101,” Skip said. His gaze remained outside. “I doubt it will work here. Whatever that mist is, it knows us. Which means it knows arachnids. Which means it knows we will want to hide. Better to fight it, test its strength, and learn something more useful than how to duck. Andi, I’ve got two swarms ready. You want to send them?”
“Sure.”
“Great. If the rest of you can stand with us, we can focus on the center of the weather front—there’s a shape forming there, if you look—”
He was talking to an empty room, except for Andi and her sad smile.