“Oh.” Jennifer’s heart fell—not for the trampler, who deserved to die for daring to attack her mother. But Dr. Elizabeth Georges-Scales had not killed a dragon since she was forced into a rite of passage on her fifteenth birthday. Jennifer knew the woman would be wracked with guilt, no matter how justified she was.
“It wasn’t your mother,” Susan interjected, reading Jennifer’s thoughts. “Gautierre defended your mom. He was fantastic. Heroic. His tail moved so fast and cut the asshole’s throat right before he crashed into your mom.” The girl turned to the boy. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Please, Susan. I didn’t want to kill him. But something inside me . . .” Gautierre was a mix of embarrassed and horrified. Plainly, he was still coming to terms with the kill. Before today, he was one of the dwindling number of innocents among them. Now he, like the rest of them, knew what it felt like to take a life. Jennifer felt bad for him, and grateful.
“Thanks.”
“The urge is so hard to control,” he continued. He wasn’t talking to any of them. “In that shape. Hearing Mark scream, watching that trampler go after Dr. Georges-Scales . . . I don’t feel like I’m defending a single person. I feel like I’m defending family. My own. I—geez! Every attack feels so
personal
.” Jennifer could feel herself nodding with him. “There’s no room for thinking. Just acting.”
Susan rubbed his arm. “It saved Jenn’s mom. Maybe yours, too.”
“How did Ember get away?”
“Your mother’s shout hurt most of them,” Catherine explained, “but based on Jack’s autopsy, we think they purposely plugged their ears with tree sap. Only the light would have affected them, so they could scramble. If Jack had been smarter, he’d have escaped, too—but he couldn’t resist the idea of taking out the great Dr. Georges-Scales.”
“Sap in their ears.” Jennifer lay back in bed. “That’s why they were so bold. They’ve never landed on the rooftop before. Never risked groups of more than three. Now they’ll try again.”
“Maybe not. They must be down to—what, now? Twelve? And Jack was one of their most experienced. Everyone else in Ember’s gang is a juvenile, some young dumb-ass who came along for the destruction when Winona led the Blaze here. The older dragons still alive under this dome are either allies or loners in the woods by now.”
“You are suggesting that attrition can win this conflict.” Elizabeth stood in the doorway now, hands on hips; the gaunt form of Jonathan Scales loomed behind her. Jennifer saw relief and irritation in her mother’s tired expression; worry and pride in her father’s. As wretched as things were beneath the dome, Jennifer never forgot how lucky she was:
her
family, at least, was together under Big Blue.
Gautierre stretched out his hands and stared at his fingertips; Jennifer thought of Lady Macbeth in a ninth-grade English class an eternity ago, with the Midwestern twist her teach spun on it.
Out out, ya dang spot! Geez, now, out!
“I don’t want to see anyone else die, Dr. Georges-Scales.” He sighed. “And it doesn’t make up for Mark. But I’m still glad there are fewer of them. They can’t keep this up for much longer. Wherever their hideout is, winter’s going to be awful for them.”
“It’s going to be awful for all of us. You are a brave soul, Gautierre Longtail. And I’m grateful you had my back up there on the roof.”
“Me, too,” Jonathan Scales said quietly, his long, pale fingers grasping his wife’s shoulder.
“But dragons are notoriously bad planners, and you are no exception.”
“Feted and slammed,” Catherine teased, and got the ghost of a grin as a reward.
“Your theory of attrition only works with two assumptions: first, that the unfriendly beaststalkers in this town do not decide to resume hostilities, with us or anyone else. Second, that we can get out of this dome someday soon. Knowing what I do about this dome and Hank Blacktooth, neither assumption seems realistic.”
“Oh,
that
weiner,” Susan muttered darkly.
“You think Hank Blacktooth will attack again? He hasn’t since spring.”
“He hasn’t attacked
us
since spring. If Ember’s on the move again, he and his so-called police force will be looking for her or someone else to kill. If killing doesn’t work, then he’ll be looking for someone to blame, which will get his people fired up, and they’ll go looking to kill. Us, Ember, innocent people—it really won’t matter. We’re all starting to look the same to each other.” She didn’t say it out loud, and didn’t have to: they were all thinking the same thing.
We look like prey.
“All the more reason for Ember and her gang to die now,” Jennifer snapped. “We’ve got to patrol more aggressively. Try the sewer system. Ember stank like no one’s business. Way worse than usual.”
Blurgh.
“Try not to talk, ace,” her father advised. “You’ll undo all your mother’s hard work.”
Elizabeth seemed less nurturing. “Aggressive patrols, Jennifer? Would that be anything like Hank’s aggressive patrols from the spring? Or the ones Glorianna used to send to other towns, at their ‘request’?”
“You know it’s nothing like that, Mom.” She widened her eyes at her father, a full-blooded dragon in his prime, hoping he would back her up. “Just because it’s an idea someone else had, and used against us, doesn’t make it a bad one, you know?”
“I know no such thing.”
“Again, ace: no talking. And your mother’s right.”
Dammit! He’s sucking up to her. He’s clearly a traitor. Or a seriously whipped husband.
“Dragons ambush, beaststalkers patrol, somewhere out there a few arachnids are doubtless laying traps,” her mother continued in the cool, informative tone she used to teach med students how to pull an infected appendix. “It’s all perfectly well-intentioned, you see—they’re fighting back, or exacting a justifiable price, or ridding the world of an imminent threat, or bringing an unreasonable group into line, or making more room for whatever master race is the flavor of the day. Meanwhile, we celebrate the fact that the older ones are dying, and all that’s left to fight each other is children . . .”
Jennifer couldn’t help it; she rolled her eyes, knowing her mother hated it, but completely unable to resist the reflex. Besides, her mom had it wrong. “Not what I’m saying, and c’mon, you know that . . .”
“Still using your voice against medical advice,” Jonathan reminded her.
“Fine,” Elizabeth snapped, ignoring her husband’s gesture to end the conversation. “Whatever
you’re
saying,
I’m
saying that it’s children fighting children. I’m sick of it. Let’s not worry about more patrols, people. Let’s focus on our mission: healing, protecting, living in peace.” Elizabeth stripped off her surgical gloves and stuffed them into the red biohazard box by the door. These weren’t for waste removal: a former cafeteria worker or janitor would come by every evening, collect the boxes, carefully sterilize the contents, and return them for reuse. “I’m glad you’re okay, honey. Feel better soon.”
She brushed past her husband and out of sight.
CHAPTER 5
Jennifer
Later that night, Jennifer felt well enough to morph into dragon shape, which made her feel immediately better. She could feel the tissues around her jugular regenerate, and she decided she was well enough to get up and walk.
Of course, she knew her mother would not agree. Fortunately, Jennifer was nearly as good at camouflage as her father.
Dressed in jaunty, rippling tones of pea green paint and white linoleum (
why, I look like a spring day in the countryside! Ha!
), she made her way calmly down the hall. Her recovery room was within the wing most staff here used as makeshift residences. There was no need to be overly precise with the colors or noise. Most lights were off, and all medical staff would be elsewhere in the hospital, busy tending to far worse cases than Jennifer. The nearest nurses’ station, like so many throughout the building, was empty. Down the hall another thirty yards, two seated nurse’s aides faced each other, reading and chatting. Jennifer knew they had sharp eyes—but it had been weeks since the late Mark’s infrared technology had helped snuff out the last enemy creeper. Camouflage, they were not looking for.
The exit door to the stairwell was more than ten yards from them, and they did not notice it open enough to let a stubborn patient slip through.
This stairwell opened up onto the roof, not far from the stairwell and fortification they used for spotting Ember’s gang. Jennifer was relieved to see the rain, which, combined with the twilit gloom, would make her escape virtually impossible to detect. Whoever was standing guard in the rebuilt fortification would be looking up, not over.
She spent some time breathing in the fresh air and looking over the parking lot. The wide swath of concrete lined in yellow was broken only by an occasional grass- lined curb and splintered tree . . . and a volleyball net. Last spring, a few EMTs had stuck the net up to establish some small measure of normalcy. A small league had formed, which had lasted two months before a brutal attack by creepers in Ember’s gang convinced them that “normal” and dead was not as good as stressed and alive.
Even with that specific threat gone, no one felt much like playing volleyball. Even several rains later, there were still deep bloodstains and scorch marks on the asphalt.
“Knock it off,” she heard.
Flinching at her father’s voice, she thought she was busted until she heard her mother’s response.
“I’ll do no such thing. You need something.”
“Save your drugs for someone with an actual medical condition.”
They were inside the fortification, Jennifer realized. It was their watch.
“Fine, I’ll hold on to the meds. How about a shot to the snout instead?”
He snorted without much humor. “Go ahead and try. I can handle whatever you dish out.”
“Such bravery! I’m all atwitter. Seriously, Jonathan. You should take something to keep you awake. Caffeine, if nothing else.”
“Coffee? Are you serious?”
“Yes, coffee.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Tea, then.”
“Coffee, tea. What’s with the fucking breakfast drinks?”
“Jonathan, I don’t have a lot of pharmaceuticals to offer. We need you sharp, now more than ever.”
He sighed. “You don’t
need
me at all.”
The doctor’s voice remained patient. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”
“It means, I don’t see the point. Gautierre was right. Attrition will take care of Ember. She’s not the problem. The problem is, we’re not getting out of this dome, not without a breakthrough. And Liz—I ain’t the breakthrough.”
Elizabeth actually chuckled. “Is this what all the irritability is about? You’re not feeling useful enough? Jonathan, you’re being foolish. You and I are part of a team. We need everyone—”
“Don’t give me that team-spirit-crap pep talk. I’m your husband, not some janitor you promoted to medicine scout.”
“Great. So as my husband, you should already know that
I
need you. Jennifer needs you. There are others, of course. But you could start there. You two are the irreplaceable ones. The others, as fond as I am of them . . . they’re teammates. That’s all.”
“You’re kidding. You haven’t needed me for years. And this past year, you’ve become a leader of this town with no assistance from me whatsoever—you’re a surgeon, people need a hospital, they trust you because Glory raised you, and they hate Hank in any event. No one looks at you, and says, ‘Eh, I’ll follow her because of that Jonathan chap.’ ”
“Jonathan, this is beyond silly—”
“No, it’s not. Nowadays, I’m way more of a hindrance than a help—your beaststalker allies don’t trust me, and the dragons still with us are following Jennifer because of who
she
is. Heck, there are one or two elders out there in those woods who’d be a heck of a lot friendlier if I weren’t around.”
“They’re fools. Jennifer is who she is because she’s your daughter!”
“
Your
daughter.”
“Okay . . .
our
daughter. What’s the difference?”
“You’ve met my other daughter, remember?”
Jennifer let out a low hiss. Evangelina Scales, Jonathan’s daughter by his first wife Dianna, was a murderous psychopath (was there any other kind?) with powerful and dark gifts. They had all barely survived her in a fight to the death.
Then, for extra fun, Dianna Wilson (aka Mrs. Scales the First) had managed to manipulate the universe so she could reunite with Evangelina and disappear with her daughter into no-one-knew-what dimension.
“You
must
feel brave, to bring that subject up.”
“I’m only pointing out, Jennifer is the way she is because of
you
. Not me.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. If you’re going to act like this, go off shift and send someone else up. Someone unmired in self-pity.”