“Hurry, honey.”
Jennifer sped away, shouting across the river for Eddie as she cruised over the watery wreckage.
He was waiting for her, bless him, halfway up a tree and poised to jump. She hovered for half a second, caught him on her back as he leapt—
“Hummmph!”
—and then they were off.
CHAPTER 49
Jennifer
“So. What do you know about Apaches?”
“Nothing Susan hasn’t already told you, I bet.” Eddie shouted against the rushing wind. He clutched her neck with one gloved hand. “She told me they’ve got two crew—pilot and weapons. Each weighs about fifteen thousand pounds, standard loadout. They have a thirty- millimeter cannon with about twelve hundred rounds, up to sixteen Hellfire missiles apiece, and a bunch of Stinger air-to-airs. They’re pounding the ground with their Hydra rockets, and their tactics are to hang back while the Kiowas—y’know, the smaller ones—paint the targets. The Kiowas themselves are less heavily armed, but you still don’t want to hover in front of one with your ass showing.”
“I think sometimes you pay more attention to Susan than I do.”
“Can you see them?”
“Barely. My infrared vision only picks up smudges, instead of full shapes.”
“That’s their AN/ALQ-144 infrared countermeasures.”
“Seriously. Susan told you about all this? When?”
“Couple of years ago. Her father took me on a tour of the base. Dad loved the idea of me going into the military. Okay—I think I see them about a mile away, eleven o’clock.”
“Yep, got ’em. Looks like nine left.”
A swirling explosion lit up the ground beneath the others.
“Eight.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I get close to one and bust open the cockpit. You jump in and convince them to set down. We disable the chopper, rinse, repeat.”
He actually laughed. “Fine. Leave the hard work to me.”
“I’ll try to help you convince them that landing is a good idea.”
They had already caught up—Dianna’s sorcery powered Jennifer over the blurring rooftops—and the tail of one Apache hung tantalizingly close. It was in the rear of a formation targeting the grain elevator, half a mile beyond.
“Eddie, we’ve got to—”
The choppers fired. Jennifer and Eddie watched in horror as the rockets sailed into six concrete silos, ruptured the exterior, and ignited the grain dust.
CRAK-KLAM! KLAM! CRAK, CRAK-KLAM! CRAK-CRAK-KLAM!!
For a long moment, a new sun appeared on the surface of the earth—a rumble of brilliant explosions that spat flame onto everything around it. Trees, restaurants, automobiles, gardening shops, all of it began to catch fire.
“Get ready!” She came at the hindmost Apache from a rear angle, grasping the chassis with her hind and wing claws and keeping her tail clear of the port rocket pod. The rotor blades roared overhead, and Eddie nearly lost his grip on her. She hissed fire over the cockpit glass, shattering it. She could not read the expression of the chopper pilot in the rear seat, but from the jerk of his head, it was clear they had surprised him.
Eddie squeezed into the space behind and above the pilot, drew a knife, and held it against the pilot’s throat. “Set it down, set it down, SET IT DOWN!”
Jennifer braced herself in case the pilot decided to plunge too quickly. As it turned out, their altitude was too low for anything worse than a rough bump as the pilot drove the joystick forward. The landing gear screeched against hot pavement.
“Out, out, out! You’ve got ten seconds before she blows this thing! Out, go, go!”
Both crew members unbuckled, slipped out of their seats . . . then pulled their sidearms and aimed them at Eddie. Jennifer turned her body and her tail had enough prongs to knock both of them out in a shower of sparks.
“Pull the pilot out, Eddie. I’ve got the weapons officer.” From above, a hail of bullets ripped the ground near the helicopter they had forced down. Eddie and Jennifer dropped their loads and rolled under the chassis.
“What now, Sexy Beast?”
She smiled back at him. “Stick to the plan. This one’s down. I punch a hole in the gas tank”—her tail spikes whipped up and punctured the armored surface—“we drag these guys to a safe place, and we move on!”
They scrambled out from under the helicopter, dragging the officers to the edge of the parking lot. By the time the bullet fire started again, he was on her back and she was in the air, circling around the attacker.
Within seconds she was on top of this one, too. This time, she clung to one of the stub wings, told Eddie to hold on, and let her skin glow gold.
“Holy crap, Jennifer . . .”
“It’s not real, Eddie. Close your eyes, ignore the sounds and smells, and hold on!”
What she knew Eddie saw—and what every pilot and weapons officer in the six helicopters left in this squadron—was an endless stream of dragonflies pouring out of each of the twinkling stars above. Every dragonfly had a tiny, bulbous head and smelled like rotting fish. The streams wove a dizzying, shrieking web around every hovering vehicle. From below, the pavement cracked and gave way bit by bit to a shining, windswept field of whispering grass, each blade two stories tall.
Hide here, the grass blades promised them all. Hide, it’s safe. Safe from the flies.
The choppers set down immediately, seeking shelter from the mystical and odorous assault from above. As they bumped down, Jennifer let the illusion go.
“That smelled horrible, Jennifer.”
“Sorry. Care to take it from here?”
Eddie pulled out the sidearms he had taken off the last crew and blasted holes in the gas tanks of the nearest three.
“Out, out, out!” He called out. “They’re going to blow!”
Jennifer helped him, shifting into camouflage, leaping to one of the far choppers—these were the slighter Kiowas—and reappearing on top of the cockpit with a roar. This got the crew scrambling, which she helped along as she ripped off the hatch. By the time they pulled their own sidearms, she had melted into human form and kicked the weapons away.
“I’m trying to save your asses!” she shouted at them. “Get out of the helicopter—it’s going to blow!”
They emptied four of the six choppers this way. As Jennifer spat fireballs at the abandoned vehicles, the remaining two began to lift off again.
Eddie saw it first and cried out—then she saw it, too. An ugly and familiar winged shadow, slipping over the firelit pavement, leaping up and hugging the curves of the chopper as it flitted over the armored surface.
“Get down!” she tried to warn them. “Get down, get out!”
The cannon below the cockpit pointed at her and fired.
She burst into water vapor, and the bullets passed harmlessly through.
Fine. If that’s how you feel. Good luck with my sister.
Descending and reintegrating, she got Eddie mounted again and headed for the last chopper, which was fleeing northeast.
Toward the hospital.
CHAPTER 50
Susan
It didn’t take Susan long to find a car they could use—they had several spare vans spread across the parking lot, which they used for ambulances. It took her only a few minutes to secure Gautierre in the passenger seat. They were pulling out of the parking space when Catherine came up alongside them.
“Susan, wait!”
She screeched to a halt and opened the window. “Catherine, good! Get on in. We’re heading out of town.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve barricaded the roads. The bridge is blown. Helicopters are coming from all directions. You try to leave town, they’ll kill you.”
Explosions rumbled in the distance. The hospital was already in darkness; now lights elsewhere in town began to shut off. Several more blasts went off within the hospital.
“They’ll kill us if
we stay here! What do we do?”
“You’ve got to get word out there, Susan. You’ve got to talk to them.”
“Talk to them? I’ve been talking to them for months! They’re clearly not listening!”
“It’s different now, Susan. If you go live, tell people about your friends and family, tell them about your father and his command at the local air base, tell them he’s killing people, ask him to stop . . . Susan, you have to try.”
They looked at the hospital, which was on fire. “All the battery-powered equipment is in there. You want me to run into a burning building.”
“I’ll go with you. Gautierre will stay here. Come on—it’s not going to get any easier!”
With the fireproof scales of Catherine Brandfire protecting her through the ruined portions of the hospital, Susan found the equipment she needed. Fortunately, all of it was in an undamaged storage room. It took both of them to carry it all out, and Susan found her arms and fingers singed as they navigated the blazing hallways.
Five minutes later, with the help of Gautierre, they had a live feed to Susan’s website.
“Go!” Gautierre motioned to her, camera on his shoulder.
“Welcome to the last edition of Under Big Blue, with Susan Elmsmith. I’m Susan Elmsmith. It’s Day—aw, who cares! Big Blue is down, we’re free, it’s done—but everything has gotten much, much worse! Everyone, you’ve got to call law enforcement. You’ve got to call media. Our town is under attack from our own government! Innocent people are dying. Only you can stop it. Please, I know you haven’t listened before. I know you’ve wanted to ignore us because we’re different. But with the dome gone, we’re not really different anymore. We’re like every other American town—which means any other town could go through what we’re going through now. Do you want that to happen?
“Worst of all . . . it’s my own father who’s responsible. That’s right—my dad commands the air base that has sent these Apaches and Kiowas to destroy the town. Sure, he’s taking orders from a politician somewhere—so call them, too! But the main reason I’m reporting now, is to talk to my dad.
“Dad, I know you’re listening. You know I have a blog. You know my website. You know tonight, I’d be trying to get a message out. So wherever your command station is—you’ve got a computer screen up, and you’re watching your daughter.
“I’m alive, Dad. I’m still here. I made it. I can’t wait to see you. But I’m at Winoka Hospital, which took at least ten rocket hits. Maybe you don’t understand how many innocent people are in that hospital. You’ve killed a lot of people here tonight, Dad. But I still love you. I still want to see you.
“But I’m not going to see you if this doesn’t stop. If that hospital keeps burning, I’m going to run inside there, over and over, trying to rescue the people you’re trying to kill. Do you hear me, Dad? Your daughter is going to die inside a burning building. C’mon, Gautierre, Catherine, let’s go.”
She moved toward the hospital. The other two hesitated.
“Let’s go!”
“Susan, you’re not going to last—”
“Good-bye, then!” She dropped the microphone and walked away from them . . .
. . . and almost walked right into Dr. Georges-Scales.
“Susan.” Elizabeth looked at the three of them. “What’s going on here? What are you doing?”
“I’m going to save them, Doctor. I’m going to save this entire town.”
“By walking into a burning hospital? I don’t think so.”
“Try to stop me.” She deftly stepped back, picked up the microphone, and flipped her hair back for the camera again. “You all remember Dr. Elizabeth Georges-Scales, don’t you, everyone? She’s a hero in this town. She’s saved so many lives—lives my father’s trying to take away, by burning down a hospital. I don’t know if that’s what our military is for, but what do I know—I’m just a dumb teenager who’s stupid and petulant enough to run into a crumbling hospital, just to make her father stop. Anyway, let’s get her take on this. Doctor—do you support the burning to death of all of your patients, or should we go in there and try to save them?”
She jabbed the microphone under Elizabeth’s jaw.
“Susan. Your father doesn’t want you to die. He’s doing what he thinks is best. It’s wrong, but you can’t make him change his mind by committing suicide.”
“So who will save your patients, Doctor? You?”
Elizabeth gazed at the burning building. “The thought had occurred to me. But if you pause two moments and look around, you’ll see many patients are already being saved.”
With a nod to the dark parking lot beyond, Elizabeth got Gautierre to pan the camera left. In the far corner of the parking lot, almost one hundred yards away, a small group of dragons had linked wings in a fireproof circle. Within the circle were several gurneys, each holding a patient hooked to an IV. Several nurses were working with the patients—burn victims, bullet wounds, diabetics, pregnant mothers—with only the supplies at hand. It was a last stand against death. Gautierre zoomed in on it, as Elizabeth continued to speak.
“There are no enemies left in this town, Colonel Elmsmith. No one who wants to hurt your daughter. No one who wants to hurt me. Only people who want to help each other . . . and the forces under your command. I hope your daughter has inspired you to stop. She’s an amazing young woman, Colonel. She has so much to look forward to . . . she just fell in love. Let her keep falling in love, Colonel. Please. I don’t know how much longer I can keep her out of that building.”
Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda
The sound was distant, but getting louder.
Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda
“Maybe we should seek cover,” Catherine offered.
“Fuck that,” Susan said. “If they’re going to gun us down, let it happen here. Gautierre—keep that camera rolling. Don’t you dare leave me.”
“Not going anywhere, babe.”
Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda
Elizabeth took Susan’s hand—it was a warm, maternal touch, and Susan realized once again how much she horribly missed her own dead mother. She squeezed back.
Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda
“If they fire,” the doctor told her, “you and Gautierre get your ass in that car. Catherine, you, too. Find my daughter. She’ll help you get out of town.”
“You know we’re not going anywhere,” Catherine said.
Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda
Susan braced herself.
Six helicopters roared over the rooftop and descended to the pavement between them and the hospital.
Undaunted, Susan stepped toward them.
“SUSAN ELMSMITH.” The loudspeaker mounted on the center Apache blared. “DR. GEORGES-SCALES. TOWNSPEOPLE. STAND DOWN. FIRE AND RESCUE ARE ON THE WAY.”
CHAPTER 51
Jennifer
By the time Jennifer and Eddie had finished chasing the helicopter to the hospital, a convoy of fire trucks and ambulances were rushing into the parking lot.
It was a moment of enormous relief for them all, not least Elizabeth, who was openly happy to see her daughter alive.
“Got most of them down without a scratch,” Jennifer was proud to report. “But Evangelina is still on the prowl. We might want to get back to Skip and Dianna.”
“Agreed.”
The two of them, Susan, Gautierre, and Catherine returned to the bridge . . .
. . . where Skip was thawing in Dianna’s arms.
“Dianna!” Elizabeth surged forward, but caught herself as she realized what was happening. “Dianna, what have you done?” “What none of the rest of you had the guts to do.” The sorceress was crying, and her son’s features were paling. Spiderwebs of black poison were streaking across his face, chasing the crystals of ice away. “I told you we had to stop him, but none of you would do it. You gave me no choice. I had to do it myself. I had to kill my own son.” She buried her head on Skip’s chest, sobbing. Far, far away, the
sirens of fire engines and ambulances wailed.
Elizabeth knelt next to them and looked for a pulse in Skip’s wrist, then throat. Dianna did not try to stop her—in fact, she smiled.
“Still trying to save everyone, Doctor? How heroic. He’s past your help—the dose I had to use on him is beyond anything you can cure.”
“We don’t know that until we get him to the hospital. From there, they can chopper him in to the Twin Cities. Jennifer, help me get him on your back.”
Jennifer wanted to hesitate, but she didn’t dare. She stepped forward—
“You’re too late.” Dianna gently let her son’s body fall to the ground and got to her feet. Venomous tears had burned dark tracks on her cheeks, and Jennifer could not tell where the woman’s pupils ended and her irises began. “It’s my fault. I should have stayed with him. I shouldn’t have left him with his father.”
Elizabeth examined Skip’s body, but did not attempt any resuscitation. He was bleeding venom from his pores, and his pale skin was already starting to burn.
“I’ve lost him, just like I lost Jonathan . . . like I’ve lost everyone.”
You still have me, Mother. You lost me, but you found me again.
“Look who’s back.” Jennifer steamed at the sight of the shadowy shape that reappeared. “Thanks for all your help back there, by the way. Nothing like trying to get those choppers landing safely while you were blowing them up. I really appreciate all that.”
You’re welcome.
“Evangelina.” Dianna tried to smile. “I’ve failed you worst of all. I abandoned you to death, and death never really left you. It still seeps from your scales. You can’t help yourself. I’ve tried to show you better worlds, better places . . .”
Jennifer looked at the sky. “Um, Mom.”
“Hang on, honey.” Elizabeth was closing Skip’s pretty green eyes with a single hand and murmuring a prayer.
The monstrous form of Evangelina dwindled into a slender woman. Her expression was confused, and she tried to approach Dianna.
Mother. Please don’t cry. I’m still here.