CHAPTER 44
Susan
Gautierre was in the
next room, a tall, dank space that would have seemed chilly in July
heat because of the sweating concrete walls, the cement floor, the
lack of windows . . . it really was the next best thing to a cell,
and here Gautierre was on a cot in the middle of it, rather
undramatically. Except for an atrocious smell, he was
alone.
“Susan!”
“In the nick of time,
I see. Geez, you’re hardly even cute anymore, Gautierre. There’s a
nifty new invention; it’s called a hairbrush.”
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.