Jonathan cleared his throat. “I better not keep you too long, Liz. Listen, I scouted those farms you sent me to—the ones to the northwest? There are maybe half a dozen cattle left.”
Michael twisted his mouth. “That’s maybe enough to feed this hospital population for a couple of weeks. If nobody has seconds.”
“Mother fuck,” her mom said in quiet despair. Then, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—thank you so much for looking. It’s good news, Jonathan.”
“Sure it is. I’ll bet Jennifer has more.”
They all—both parents and Michael, and possibly even the baby—looked at her. She chewed her tongue, trying to figure out how not to make what she had seen sound even worse than starving to death.
As it turned out, there was no way to do that. So she settled on telling them, no punches pulled, about the repeated hobbling of Tavia Saltin on the bridge in front of Skip and Andi.
Everyone sat down—first Jonathan and Michael, and then Elizabeth, with baby Marshall still in her arms.
“Did anyone see you?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. I was in camouflage, circling overhead. No one acted as if they knew or cared I was there.”
“That was dangerous, ace.”
“I know, Dad.” She did know. He might as well have said, We’re stuck under a dome, ace.
“You say Skip walked away from that?”
“And Andi. But I doubt this is the end of it. Skip doesn’t walk away from fights. Not these days, especially. He has something in mind.”
Elizabeth handed baby Marshall off to Michael before pounding her forehead with a fist. “Fucking Hank. Fucking Hank. Fucking Hank.”
“Liz. You okay?”
“I’m super, honey.” Whack! Whack-whack! “This is how I think.”
“Maybe it would work better if you could punch Hank instead of yourself.”
“Don’t tempt me. I can’t believe he’s provoking arachnids as we head into a second winter. What does he have stockpiled down there under city hall—provisions for eternity? Moronic mama’s boy.”
“On behalf of mama’s boys everywhere,” her father said with faux dignity, forcing Jennifer to stifle yet another giggle, “I resent that. And I doubt Hank thinks that far ahead. C’mon, Liz. I know this is bad, but we have to focus. You’ve got a baby that needs care here. What do you want Michael to do?”
Elizabeth rubbed her eyes and turned to Michael. “Kangaroo care it is. You have first shift. Watch him carefully for symptoms and start an immediate course of antibiotics if you see anything.”
As Michael nodded and took the baby out of the room, Jennifer marveled at the deftness with which her father, who not twelve hours ago had been nearly catatonic with pessimism and defeatism, had redirected her mother’s despair into positive action.
He really knows her. And she really needs him. No wonder she’s willing to resort to bad coffee to keep him going. Hey—I wonder if he does the same thing to me?
Naw. He’d be more subtle. He’d—
As if on cue, he turned to her. “C’mon, ace. Let’s you and I go bring those cattle in.”
Subtle like a brick to the forehead.
CHAPTER 10
Jennifer
Once the cattle were slaughtered, dressed, carried, and stored in the hospital’s walk- in freezer, it was early afternoon. Jonathan suggested a bite to eat (not cattle . . . they’d both lost their stomach for anything more substantial than ramen noodles), and they were back in the air over the town.
I know how to field- dress a full- grown cow. This is a weird thing for a teenage girl who doesn’t live in a meat-packing plant to know.
It looked ironically peaceful, as if it had worked out all the violence in its system for the day. Small dots of white and black marked where some robed figures still walked through the streets, but most people were back in street clothes and going about their business.
“Doesn’t look like Hank has anything else planned today,” Jennifer called out. Prob’ly too busy wondering why he’s never been admired the way his parents told him he oughta be admired. Loooooser!
“He’s not the one we’re worried about. Keep an eye to the east.”
“You think Skip and Andi will come back? What’s the point? Beaststalkers can assemble quickly. It is part of their essential awesomeness. And according to Mom, city hall is a fortress. It’s connected to the police station by an underground firing range, with all kinds of weaponry down there. At least fifty officers are going to be armed and prepared across the entire complex, at all times. Hell—I can see two snipers in the tower right now, trying to figure out if they see us up here.”
“I’m sure they can. They must have infrared technology, like we do. Better, since Hank has had access to the town armory for some time.”
“So why aren’t we picking bullets out of our teeth?”
“Ever try to pick off a moving, virtually invisible target from eight hundred yards through an infrared scope?”
“No,” she admitted. “I’ve gotten behind in homework. And also feeding people who are trapped under a dome. Also, guns give me a rash.”
He ignored her lame crack. “Neither have those kids down there. As long as we keep our distance, they’ll probably save the ammo.”
She looked east, where the trees sprouting from the steep hills were lessening their green and losing their first leaves. “Dad. It’s been two years.”
“Huh? Big Blue’s only been up—oh, you mean for you.”
“Yeah. Two years since I learned what I was. Since Skip came to this town. Since I met Catherine, first fought with Susan, then Eddie. I was wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“If I should’ve done anything different.”
He dipped his wings and whistled. “The eternal question. Ace, I don’t have the perfect answer for you here.”
“One of your half-assed answers will be okay.”
“From my own child I gotta take this? Heaven knows I’ve spent half my life making all sorts of mistakes, as a dragon and a man. All I can tell you is that every single person on this earth, living or dead, has made decisions they regret. No one gets a do-over. Nobody ages backward. And really, even if you did: what do you really think you could change?”
“I could have been more careful around Skip. Maybe it would be different with him, now.”
“Ah, there’s one where I can reassure you, ace. What hurts Skip is nothing you could fix.”
“Why’re you so sure?”
“Because of what his mother did to him. Then his father. His parents twisted him beyond anything anyone else could save.”
“Hmmph.”
“You have to let Skip go, ace. You don’t have to hate him. You do have to recognize that he’s beyond help. Even for the Ancient Furnace,” he teased.
“Oh, please, I don’t—hey, what’s that?”
Changing direction, they both squinted at what was coming over the hill on the highway to the west. At first, Jennifer was convinced the tar was bubbling. After half a minute, she realized something—many somethings—were crawling over the asphalt.
“Skip?”
Jonathan pulled up next to her and hovered with a sigh. “Skip’s response.”
CHAPTER 11
Jennifer
Jennifer and Jonathan banked lower until they could see greater detail in the swarm that worked its way toward the bridge. It moved slowly but purposefully, seething and clicking.
“They look like drawings,” she observed.
“I agree. I don’t get it . . .” He dipped down farther, until he was under the bridge’s arch. Jennifer looked around nervously for armed patrols, but no one else was near. No sentries? It was as if Hank assumed he could do what he did and suffer no consequence.
Well? Have there been?
She dropped to her father’s altitude. The creatures were on the bridge now. They did not climb the beams of the arch, but rather stayed on the road. There was definitely purpose
in their movement.
“They’re plainly sent to do something. Why send creatures with no thickness?” Jonathan mused. “What could they do? How could they attack or do anything useful if they don’t exist in the same space we exist in?”
“Maybe it’s temporary,” Jennifer guessed. “If they can’t attack, they can’t be attacked, either. Putting them in two-dimensional space would make for an effective delivery system.”
“Delivering what? And where?”
They simultaneously looked at city hall, as the creatures marched under them.
“Oh, crap,” she finally said. “We’re going to have to save him, aren’t we?”
“I’m afraid so, ace. And it’s the two of us—no time to get help. One of us disables the guards, the other evacuates the complex.”
“I’ll disable the guards. You want to save Hank Blacktooth, you do it.”
“Good luck.”
“Get bent, Dad. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
It occurred to Jennifer, as she bolted at the tower atop city hall, that those words had an excellent chance of being the last they ever said to each other.
All because we have to pull their asses out of the fire when they caused the problem in the first place.
Perhaps that’s not totally fair, she argued with herself as she dipped below one sniper’s shot and flashed to the left to avoid the second. There must be more than beaststalkers working here, just like there are innocents working at the hospital.
She flipped into human form as she entered the tower, knocked out the two snipers with the mahogany hilts of her crafted daggers, and tossed their guns out the window she had accessed. People who come in to work, want to do a good job, and go home to kiss their kids. Families like the family you thought you had two years ago.
She barely could make out the shape of her father as he approached the tower. He would be counting on her to clear a path, so she got to work.
So for all the janitors and secretaries, she continued to convince herself as she slipped down the tower stairs, all the network admins and evidence handlers. A guard positioned on a landing couldn’t process the sight of the teenaged girl coming at him until he was knocked out by a roundhouse kick. We’ll do it for them. We’ll evacuate them first, as it should be. Of course, they need a reason to leave . . .
Already back in dragon form, she burst out the stairwell door into the main lobby, a room two stories high, where half a dozen police officers stood guard, three up top and three below. Before they could react, their eyes told them the entire building was beginning to shake and melt. Jennifer added touches to the mass illusion, ones she had picked up from practicing the ancient creeper-dragon skill for the last several months: orange monkeys with elephant ears came shinnying down the grooved columns that dominated the domed chamber, and the stench of sulfur peeled off the elaborately painted plaster walls.
And if Hank Blacktooth manages to get out in all the commotion, she told herself as her invisible father patted her on the back for her fine work and darted off to the mayor’s office, well then . . . no plan is perfect.
The officers became the best sales force for their plan, ringing the alarm and calling for a general evacuation of the complex. “Earthquake!” went the cry, and Jennifer supposed that was a more efficient if less accurate description than “Earthquake with elephant-eared monkeys!” Very few municipal systems had a specific siren for that.
She gratefully watched dozens of innocent people—exactly the people she had come to save—come swarming from side hallways and stairwells, into the main lobby and out the front and side doors. Off into the lawn they went, to their designated safe zones. Nobody trained for evacuations with more effectiveness than government workers.
In a matter of a few minutes, she saw them all pass before her. Maintaining the illusion required her standing still, and so she did not move as everyone hustled and bustled, even rubbing up against her. She would be visible to them all, she knew—a shining golden form of a dragon, if any of them took enough time to examine her. She didn’t want to scare them more than they already were.
Fortunately, very few people on their way out were interested in a harmless statuesque form when everything else was apparently coming down around them.
The one exception was Hank Blacktooth.
“What is the meaning of this?” he was shouting, as an unseen force propelled him out of his second- floor office, down the stairs and onto the lobby floor. “What’s happening? Is this an earthquake? This doesn’t seem—what’s that—YOU!”
The moment he spotted Jennifer, she knew the ruse was up. Fortunately, the last of the workers and beaststalker guards were already out of the building—her father, she realized, had timed this purposefully, since bringing Hank out into the lobby too soon would have ruined everything.
“Hank,” she heard him say, “for once in your miserable life, listen to me. We’re trying to save you. Give me sixty more seconds of cooperation. If you don’t believe me after what you see, you can chop my head off yourself.”
“I will do no such—ooof.” Hank Blacktooth doubled over, fell down the entryway stairs, and rolled out of the building.
“That’s it, Jennifer. We’ve got to get out of here.”
As if to emphasize the point, the black swarm from the bridge began to discolor the walls, seeping in through an infinite number of dimensional cracks. They invaded the first-floor surfaces, then the second floor, then the dome interior . . .
“Out, out, out!” he cried, dragging her with him.
They flew through the darkening doors, over Hank’s groaning form, and into the open air as the building behind them began to hum. The creatures covered the exterior as well as the interior. They found every inch of brick, every pane of glass, every bit of wood and plaster, and dug in their appendages. Then the hum turned into a sizzle, and the creatures inflated into thickness. Bodies fattening, their sizzle turned into a whine, then a roar . . .
. . . and then the entire building was consumed by a billion tiny explosions, each one carrying away a small piece of Hank Blacktooth’s impregnable fortress, until there was nothing left except a hole in the ground.
CHAPTER 12
Andi
Andi watched Skip, who watched Winoka’s city hall disintegrate from the safety of the river cliffs.
“I hope you’re happy,” she muttered, trying hard not to look at the devastation.
He shook his head and pointed. “They evacuated.”
“Whatever. The building’s gone. That’s what you wanted.” She yawned. “You have your revenge.” And it’s all . . . so . . . tiresome.
“I wanted to kill Hank Blacktooth, and the rest of the scum that surrounded my aunt and tortured her.”
“Well then, you shouldn’t have told the bugs to attack city hall.” The moment the comment was out of her mouth, she wished she could stuff it back in.
Skip pretended he didn’t hear even though they both knew he did. “How did they know it was coming? There were no guards on the bridge. No one to warn them. I don’t understand—”
“Maybe the snipers in the tower—”
He narrowed his eyes and stood up suddenly. “Her. HER. HER!”
Andi knew whom he was pointing at before she even looked. There was only one Her.
“We have more work to do,” he hissed, dragging her by the arm back into the woods.
CHAPTER 13
Susan
Susan Elmsmith, would-be roving reporter and (hopefully) future television journalist, sighed and leaned back.
Gautierre’s head appeared directly over hers, blocking the autumn sunlight, and he opened his fingers, letting the delightful tidbits drop into her mouth.
“Mmmm. Pez.”
“It’s not the same as feeding you peeled grapes, I s’pose,” he admitted, while Susan crunched. “Grapes being really hard to come by.”
“I hate grapes. The seeds get stuck in my teeth.”
“E
at seedless ones.”
“That’s the sinister aspect of all grapes, you foolish boy.”
“This ought to be good.”
“Even the seedless ones have seeds lurking within. There you are, trying to enjoy romantic fresh fruit, then the next thing you know there’s seeds and all kinds of gunk jammed between your wisdom teeth.”
“Wisdom teeth.” Gautierre flopped down beside her on the blanket, handing her a pack of Grape Pez. “Huh.”
Susan busily shredded the wrapper and popped more candy in her mouth. They were over the border of the town on the south end, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm autumn day.
Eventually, Gautierre had come to see her side of their recent argument. After a face-saving interval of a few days, he had suggested a picnic, and given the limitations of Domeland, she thought he’d done well: Pez, and chocolate chips, and a box of Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, and canned apple pie filling, a bag of mini marshmallows, and room-temperature ginger ale.
Now they were lounging on a pair of sleeping bags zipped together, keeping an eye on the tree line. Gautierre had chosen the spot: the town was at their back, the site of the strange invasion was as far away as anyone could possibly get, they could see an ambush from a mile away, and he had flown over the area first to make sure no one had any nasty surprises planned.
She loved watching him fly, and she had to smile when she remembered his reaction to her reaction the first time she’d seen him in dragon form: Don’t let the lavender wings fool you. I’m all man! All weredragon, I mean . . .
“Wisdom teeth,” he now repeated, back to his other body, which was merely that of a ferociously handsome guy. Not many teenagers could pull off long, charcoal black hair woven into three braids, though Gautierre managed handily.