He looked around wildly. “Are you okay? Who else is here? Jennifer? Her mom? Where are they? What’s their plan?”
He really did look dreadful. Ember had, as Susan expected, taken his silver moon elm leaf away, so he was human, and thin, and white-faced. His glorious dark hair was matted; his trio of braids, usually so neat and tidy, were clusters of tangles.
He wasn’t tied or chained or restrained in any way, but his arm was in a sling, and his chest and face were marked with scorch marks and bruises. Susan figured with the duo of dragons in the room behind her, his mother was probably in the room beyond. He couldn’t get past them as a human, so ropes were unnecessary.
“It’s just me,” she said, taking off her backpack and rummaging inside. “Everyone else is off saving us from the Poison Moon.”
“The what?”
“Try to keep up. We’ve got to go. If your mother tries to stop us, I’ll have to kill her. I won’t mind doing it—look at what she’s done to you!—but let’s be honest: killing a potential in-law is bad for a relationship. Plus, I’m hungry, and my scooter’s low on gas.”
“I don’t care about my mother, you’re right about what she—Susan, I can’t believe you came alone! You nitwit; what were you thinking? When I’m done being thrilled to see you, I’m going to strangle you.”
“You won’t get the chance,” Ember said, abruptly entering the room—the doors had been removed, Susan figured, for that reason.
Susan never stopped being amazed at how quietly dragons could move, even though they weighed anywhere from three to eight hundred pounds. And Ember looked, Susan was thrilled to see, almost as bad as her son. Wasted. Thin. Brittle. Ugly.
“Oh, good. You’re here. So, I’m rescuing your son.”
“What?” Ember seemed a little taken aback. Possibly because Susan wasn’t sobbing with fear. “What are you up to? What are you, the distraction? Does that disgusting mother-daughter duo you hang out with think you can distract me while they invade my lair and kill my gang?”
“What gang—the two depressed, starving creatures who loped away when I asked politely?”
The dasher hissed, and Susan remembered she would have little time if the fire came. Right now, her only hope . . . was the hope this woman held out for her own son.
“Gautierre, I think your mother doesn’t believe I’m good enough for you.”
“The first smart thing I’ve heard you say.” Ember sucked in breath. Her sides bulged, revealing some pallor in her own normally sharp coloring, and she coughed up phlegm and steam.
Susan didn’t want to wait for anything worse. She pulled the Coke bottle out of her pack.
Gasoline, of course, was far too precious to be wasted on something silly like a Molotov . . . she had known at the house she’d have to go with the turpentine in the garage. She’d also grabbed a box of sugar from the kitchen; there were no egg whites to be had, and no time to cut a tire into strips. Sugar was an acceptable thickening agent.
She’d also yanked her dad’s glass cutter from the tool bench and scored the Coke bottles with crisscrossing lines, for a better explosion. Her dad hadn’t taught her that one; she had read it in a book.
Finally, she had scored extra tampons from her bottom dresser drawer. Tampons make excellent fuses.
“Uh . . . Ember?
“Behold, I am a former Girl Scout, and the daughter of a military man who really wanted a son.” She flicked a lighter, lit the tampon string, and tossed the bottle between Ember’s feet. Both the dragon and her son were frozen in astonishment, so she pulled Gautierre behind a steel railing. “Hear me roar.”
The explosion was gratifying. Glass burst everywhere, and flaming gunk stuck to all possible surfaces, mostly Ember. The sugar fused the liquid to her target, and obligingly produced choking clouds of smoke. Much better than straight turpentine, though the smell would have to be washed out of her hair.
Sucky Sundays . . . her dad had dragged her on a number of weekend survival trips, soothing her mother with “it’s a camping trip, hon, it’s father-daughter time.” She hadn’t been able to look at a roasting wienie without irritation since. But she hadn’t ratted him out. Sure, she grew to loathe sleeping rough, and positively despised finding wood ticks on herself almost every Sunday in the summertime, but learning how to shoot was fun . . . and so was blowing up dead trees.
She had assumed for years that this was an unusual upbringing, but look around her! Growing scales and picking off sheep was more normal? Maybe, maybe not. She’d have to be out in the wider world, on her own, for at least five years before she’d know for sure how weird she was.
“Uh . . . Susan . . .”
“Stupid girl!” Ember sounded triumphantly surprised, even as the smoke made her cough and the flames stayed vibrant all over her wings, torso, and belly. There were no burns on her. Even the moon leaf around her neck, on a metal chain, seemed unaffected by the heat. “You’re fighting a dragon . . . with fire?!”
Gautierre sighed. “It was a good try, babe,” he said sadly. “You should run now. I’ll hold her off as long as I can. I love you—”
“Get out of the way, idiot.” She clutched his shoulder and yanked backward. She then pulled out the two-liter ginger-ale bottle, and threw it at Ember’s neck. The head was too risky—Ember might have ducked, and the ginger-ale bottle would have sailed over her head. Too low, and it wouldn’t do what she had brought it for. But the neck was perfect: the plastic bottle ruptured from the impact and heat, and a new liquid doused Ember.
She stopped chortling and began to scream.
“Acid bomb,” Susan explained to Gautierre, pulling the sawed-off shotgun from beneath her baggy sweatshirt. She was careful; it was extremely powerful and extremely illegal. If her dad heard she was using one, she could kiss television and computer games good-bye for at least a month. It was loaded, of course. She flicked off the safety.
“Fuck a duck!” was her stunned boyfriend’s contribution to the altercation.
“Well, I needed something in case those other two dragons wouldn’t move. Turns out I can still use it here, to put her out of her misery.”
The necklace and leaf around Ember’s neck began to smolder, and then melt. Then it fell off.
“Say hello to the new moon, bitch.”
Ember kept screaming, then . . .
. . . abruptly lost her dragon shape.
What was left of Ember Longtail—burning skin, yellowed teeth, noise and rage and fire—crawled toward them, swearing to kill them both.
What a waste she has been, Susan told herself. Of lives. Of time. Of everything. Poor Gautierre.
She gently raised one hand and covered her boyfriend’s eyes. With the other, she leveled the shotgun.
CHAPTER 45
Jennifer
“All right. That’s that. We’re not waiting another minute. Another nanosecond.”
Her mother shook her head, but Dianna, at least, was on board. Jennifer felt like marking the day somehow.
Assuming she survived it. Jennifer had a fleeting thought, more a flash than anything, there and gone again: If I get killed today, I don’t think Mom will be able to take it. Not both of us in the same month.
But if I stay, I’m dooming us all.
“Dianna’s right.” Hearing the words come out of her mouth was so surreal. “Let’s get it d—whoa.”
They had been having this discussion outside the hospital, so they were all in perfect position to observe the battered minivan (tastefully painted Serial Killer Green) come roaring up the street and screeching to a halt about four feet from their little group.
Her mother sighed—this would be some sort of medical disaster. A mass onset of rickets, maybe. Or the bubonic plague—the way things had been going, a plague seemed uncomplicated and boring.
She didn’t recognize the vehicle, but that meant nothing. Here under Big Blue, if you needed to drive somewhere, and you didn’t have a car, you poked around town until you found one wit
h gas. It was amazing how many people kept spare car keys in those little black metal boxes that stuck to the underside of the driver-side door.
Three doors—driver, and both back doors—shot open, and several people seemed to boil out: Catherine had been driving, and Susan rushed to the other side of the van to help her boyfriend out.
“Susan, geez!” Susan looked grim, bordering on defiant. She had what looked like burned sugar and turpentine stains all over her; she had a backpack stuffed with foul-smelling stuff; she was pulling Gautierre- in-a-sling along with one hand; and in the other—
“Is that a sawed-off shotgun?”
“Gautierre needs help, Dr. Georges-Scales.”
“I can see that.” Gautierre looked and smelled even more awful than Susan. Elizabeth motioned to a nurse, who escorted the couple inside.
Jennifer turned to Catherine, who appeared in better shape, though all the time under Big Blue, along with the trauma she had suffered and the intense physical therapy still left her gaunt. “What the hell happened here? How did you rescue Gautierre?”
“I didn’t. Susan did. I picked them up on the way back. September’s a bit cold for a scooter.”
“Aren’t you the one who drove your grandmother’s Ford Mustang convertible with the top down in November?”
“Those were better days. And it was a Ford Mustang, Jennifer. I’d drive that thing upside down in January, if I could.”
“Touché. Well, you have good timing. We could use your help if you’re fit for battle.”
“I’m not clearing her for fighting,” Elizabeth protested.
“So she goes against medical advice. Catherine, we’re about to go remove Skip’s head from his shoulders. And possibly play soccer with his head.”
“You might want to rethink that plan,” Catherine warned. She had slammed her door shut and stepped around to pull the passenger-side door open.
“There’s not a single thing you can say or do to make me rethink that plan. This is overdue by about fourteen months.”
Catherine bent into the vehicle, pulled up, and carried Andi over to the small group.
“We are rethinking the plan!” Jennifer shouted. “Everyone, gather round! We are rethinking this plan!”
“What is she doing here? How did you get her here?”
“The answer to both questions is, Eddie rescued her and got her as far as the bridge sentries. I was there with them, and I borrowed one of their cars to bring her back. Right before we picked up Susan and Gautierre.”
“Andi.” Elizabeth took the girl from Catherine’s arms. “Andi, stay with me. Stay with me, or you’ll die.”
“Okay,” the girl said tiredly. Jennifer wanted to feel rage, but the sorceress was like a dried-up shell or a doll left out in the rain. Dried blood streaked down her arms.
“Andi!” Elizabeth ran inside with her, taking her to the first emergency bed she saw. The others followed, Dianna bringing up the rear. “Catherine, clear off that bed. Jennifer, get my bag from behind the admittance desk—I’m going to need the last of the dopamine.”
“No way, Mom! You can’t give the last of anything to . . . to her! She refused to help us when we needed her! And she’s going to die anyway!”
Elizabeth turned, and Jennifer was certain another swing was coming. “Don’t you dare second-guess my medical decisions! Get the bag.”
Jennifer got the bag.
“Thank you. Catherine, put that pillow under her head. Then find a nurse—I need someone who can run an IV wide open; I need fluids and electrolytes, and transfusions. Dianna, come next to me and hand me what I need.”
Silently, the sorceress moved closer and laid her slender hands on the bag.
“There’s a white plastic bottle in there with a few blue round pills left. Take out the pills and put them in my hand.”
Elizabeth did not even look behind her, she continued to peer into Andi’s pupils and check her pulse with one hand, while holding the other one out. Clearly, she trusted Dianna to find the right medicine and deposit it there without argument. Which Dianna did.
“I’m sorry,” Andi murmured, after Elizabeth gave her the pills. They couldn’t tell whom she was talking to. “I should have left him when you gave me the chance.”
“You loved him,” Dianna answered. “I was no older than you when I fell in love.”
“It’s my fault.”
“Sssshhhh. I can’t check your pulse with you moving and talking, dear. Dianna—the syringes, and the bottle with the clear liquid. Yep, that one. Andi, I’m going to give you something for the pain . . .”
It won’t work.
Elizabeth turned to the next bed, where the delicate human shape of Jennifer’s half-sister lay recovering. “Evangelina, if you can’t say anything helpful . . .”
Sister-mother. You are wasting your medicine.
“Darling, please.” Dianna sighed. “If you’re strong enough to argue with Dr. Georges-Scales, you’re strong enough to get up and help us fight your half-brother.”
I am. I am recovering well. I can leave soon with you. Will you listen to me now, Mother? Will you tell her? She is still wasting her medicine on this one.
“Why?”
She doesn’t want to kill the pain. She never has.
They all stared at the neat, even scars down Andi’s forearms. Andi lifted her head but could not keep it up.
“I want to go back . . .”
“Are you crazy?” Jennifer spat. “Skip will kill you!”
“No. Not Skip. I want to go way back . . . way back, when it was dark. When I could sing and make light. Do you remember, Dianna?” Andi’s head lolled so she could smile at the sorceress. “Remember the sunrise song?”
Dianna’s fingers whitened around the edges of the medical bag. “Yes. I remember.”
Andi’s lilting voice filled the room:
Eyes open, eyes open, Where are you? Where are you?
There you are, shining star!
Look at you! Look at you!
Andi blinked up at Elizabeth. “I’m sorry I killed your husband.”
The doctor stopped what she was doing, clenched her eyes and fists, and pressed down on the mattress. “I forgive you.”
A broad smile lifted the girl’s cheeks. A bloody tear welled and tricked toward her left ear. “You’re going to be the first one out. I just know it.”
She began to laugh, an easy and carefree melody that filled the room. Before she could complete it, she died.
CHAPTER 46
Jennifer
By the time Dianna and Evangelina came to the bridge a couple of hours later, Skip was waiting for them, alone on the other side. The suddenly chilly air around had caused a fog to settle along the river, and droplets began to sparkle as they crystallized on the cold pavement. Off to the east, the carcass of Xavier Longtail was still visible.
He looked at both of them. “Are you here to kill me, Mom? Or will your favorite child try to do it for you?”
Brother. You feel strong.
There was admiration in the words, but no fear.
“Stronger than you.”
Time enough to find out.
“Francis.” Dianna looked around in despair—at the chaos under the barrier, the ruins of two buildings not far away, the green haze above. “Look at what you’ve done here. You have to stop.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with the Scales family, Mom. You’re no diplomat. Let’s get on with it.”
Dianna glanced at her daughter.
Yes, Mother.
Immediately, the creature’s black corona expanded, and the powerful figure of Evangelina sprang through the barrier.
Skip waved his right hand clockwise, and she veered off the bridge and careened into the river far below. “You’re going to find the laws of gravity have some difficulty applying consistently near me, Evanga- loser. The closer the crescent moon comes”—he glanced up at the sky—“the more power I gain over the forces of nature.
“How about you, Mom? You have anything you’d like to try?”
The human form of Dianna dissipated, leaving a play of bright hues—greens and oranges and yellows. The colors fell to the asphalt and crept toward him without thickness, slipping through the barrier where it met the bridge.
“What’s your plan—you’re going to watercolor me to death? Ugh, you know, I don’t care. Let me end this right here.” With a twirl of his finger, a void burned a circle around Dianna’s display. Try as it might, the two-dimensional form could not pass out of the ring. Nor could she revert to three-dimensional form.
“That’s your own little world I’ve created there for you, Mom. Like a moon hanging still in the sky, you’re going to stay there. For once, you’re going to stay.”
Evangelina had emerged from the water and was approaching from his blind side with more care than before. He turned as if to face her, then paused at a whistling sound from a third direction. In a flash, he was something else—an arachnid, if anyone could call it that, twenty feet of silver and vermilion streaks, with eight jointed and plated appendages. Each was tipped by a hairy, starfishlike claw. One of those claws caught something out of the air—an arrow—and the creature faced the woods to the south. An octet of yellow eyes focused on one large oak.
“Eddie, I saw you two hours ago when you helped Andi escape. You could do with a bit more imagination. But I do appreciate the arrow.” A spinneret threw up a long thread of silk, which Skip looped around two of his arms. A third knocked the arrow, and a fourth aimed it into the gloom surrounding Evangelina. The missile flew.
AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE
“Not bad for a guy who never took an archery course!” Skip reverted to his human form, tongue licking a loopy grin. “C’mon, Eddie! Toss me another one, and I’ll hit ’er again!