Seraph of Sorrow (4 page)

“What is she doing here?”

Jonathan pulled back from the embrace. “Dad, she—”

“
Today?
Your mother is upstairs dying, and you decide
today
is the right day?”

“It’s important, Dad. She didn’t want to come, believe me. She wasn’t sure—”

“Then she’s the only one of you two with good sense.” Crawford pushed away from Jonathan and faced Elizabeth, wavering between sorrow and revulsion. “It’s not appropriate for you to be here. How my son convinced my bees not to swarm and kill you, I have no idea. In any case, you should go. Now.”

“Dad, she’s not going anywhere. Of course the bees didn’t attack her—the bees have more tact than you do. I’m introducing her to Mom. Then we’re going to Crescent Valley.”

Crawford spun away from Elizabeth and crowded Jonathan with all the force his aging frame could muster. “Crescent Valley! Are you insane? Do you have any idea what will happen to her—what will happen to
both
of you—if you take her there? I’ve done everything I could since Winona’s . . .” He trailed off in frustration. “I don’t know what else you want of me, son. You asked me to keep these things secret. And I have. I haven’t told your mother about your girlfriend here, or whom you’ve had to kill since meeting her.”

“Jonathan,” Elizabeth said in a faint voice, “maybe this isn’t a good idea . . .”

“Hold tight, Liz. Dad, I’m sick of the secrets. I’m sick of how it made me feel as a kid. I’m sick of how it screws up my life now. I’m sick of how it almost cost me Liz. And I don’t like what you’ve had to do, either. It isn’t right and we shouldn’t have to live this way. Liz is the love of my life, she’s going to be family, and she’s going to know everything. So is Mom.”

His father barred the way up the stairs. “Son, don’t do this to your mother.”

“Do what? Tell her the truth? What’s wrong with truth, Dad? Why do you have a problem with that?”

“I have a problem,” Crawford spat, “with a son that tells me in one breath he wants to learn all the things he can about being a dragon, and then in the next insists he loves a dragon’s worst enemy. Do you think I’m going to keep passing on my skills and knowledge to you, if you keep to this course? Can you honestly expect me to keep the Blaze in the dark forever?”

“I
expect
you to act like a father, and not a bigoted ass!”

“Jonathan?” Caroline’s frail voice tumbled down the stairs. “Is that you?”

For a few seconds, neither of them answered. They stared at each other.

“Crawford, is Jonathan here?”

“Don’t shout, dear,” Crawford called back up. “You’ll tire yourself out. Yes, it’s Jonathan. He’s coming up now.”

The old man took a step to the side. “Well, go on up. If you’re not going to kick your girlfriend out, then take her with you—I certainly don’t want her down here.”

Jonathan took the first stair and motioned to Elizabeth. She paused and bit her lip. His father took advantage of the delay to grab his son’s shoulder. The elder’s expression was as caring and sincere as his words were sharp and vicious.

“What is it about her that appeals to you, anyway? Is it the thrill? Desire for forbidden fruit? Or do you just hate yourself enough to throw your life away to some murderous whore?”

With a sharp shove, Jonathan pushed his father away. He took his foot off the stairs. “Say she’s a whore again, Dad. Go ahead.”

“I’d rather he didn’t,” Elizabeth sniffed with blinking, reddened eyes. “Mr. Scales, I mean no disrespect in being here.”

Crawford regained his balance against the wall. “Disrespect is all you people know. My friends and I will never forget the graves desecrated at Pinegrove.”

Her face tightened in resolve. “Mr. Scales, I would
never
—”

“You’ll never get the chance. I meant what I said, Ms. Georges—go ahead up, if that’s what you and my son want. Go on up there and take a good look at my wife. It’s the last anyone like you will ever see of her. Touch her failing body, if you like. You’ll never reach her again. And say whatever it is you think you need to say—because shout as you like, your pathetic voices will never carry to her final resting place.”

Her lip trembled. “Jon, I want to go home.”

“Jonathan?” The words just reached them downstairs. “Are you coming?”

“Liz, please. I need you. My mother’s dying up there.”

“Then you should hurry and say good-bye. I’ll be in the car.”

He watched her go, shocked, and then took in his father’s triumphant smirk.

“She’s a real catch, Jonathan.”

“You’re a real shit, Dad.”

The stairwell’s carpet was still fresh from a remodeling upstairs. As he reached the top step, he noticed the smell of sickness had begun to settle over the new fibers.

“Mom?”

“Jonathan, you’re here.” The voice came from the master bedroom. It gained strength with every step he took. “Come where I can see you.”

He slouched into the room, observed the withered thing on the bed that used to be his mother, and mumbled a greeting.

She squinted at him, eyes still burning gold within a paper-white face. “I’ve been waiting weeks to talk to you.”

Jonathan realized she was right—it had been only weeks since they’d seen each other, but that had been long enough for so much to happen. For him to meet Liz. For them to fall in love. For him to kill a pair of tramplers and then cajole his father into hiding the truth from the Blaze. For his mother’s sickness to escalate.

“Me, too, Mom. I, uh, brought someone. You remember Liz, that girl I talked to you about on the phone?” He sat down in the chair beside the bed, breathing through his mouth so his nose wouldn’t have to confront what was in the room.

His mother grasped his hand with no more strength than a newborn. “You’ve talked about her a few times. She sounds splendid. Where is she?”

“Er, in the car. The thing is, Mom . . .” He swallowed. “She’s, uh . . .”

“In the car?” Caroline twitched her face enough to shake some gray strands off her sweaty cheek. “Won’t she come in?”

“She did. But Dad didn’t let . . . He doesn’t think . . .”

“What, he thinks I’m too weak?” The indignant tone recalled an earlier, stronger mother, and Jonathan almost smiled. “He thinks I’ll embarrass you? He thinks he can make these decisions for me? You go get her. I want to see her.”

“I don’t know if now is the right time.”

“Today’s the day,” she said with a dry smile. “The end is—”

“Liz is amazing,” Jonathan interrupted. “She’s going to be a doctor. She’s gorgeous.”

“Naturally.” Her giggling made her cough, and she mustered the strength to bring a fist to her mouth. They both pretended not to notice the smear of blood on her hand as it returned to her side. “She sounds like a winner. So go downstairs and tell your father I want to meet her.”

“I think there might be trouble. She’s different.”

“Different doesn’t matter.”

“
This
different might matter.”

“Love prevails,” Caroline insisted. “Crawford and I—him a creeper, me a dasher. He likes telling stories; I like listening to them. I like opera; he hates it. My parents didn’t care for him at first. Until you were born. Children make all the difference.”

Jonathan thought of the brief, secret marriage to Dianna Wilson and the lost child that ended it all.
No sense bringing that up now,
he told himself.
Not to anyone. It’s over and done with, far away from this house.

“I—I don’t know about children,” he admitted. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to. I think her folks struggled to have more than one kid. She comes from—”

“I thought you said her parents are dead.”

“They are. See, she has—in her family, there’s a tradition—they all—uh—they have a family tradition—”

“What, they’re Lutherans?” she teased in a whisper.

He took a breath, held it. Let it out with a whoosh. “Beaststalkers. Liz is a beaststalker.”

Her golden irises dimmed.

“She’s not like—she’s not a killer or anything. Like I said, she’s going to be a doctor.” He rushed to keep filling the silence. “She’d never do anything awful like—well, like the stuff Dad says she’d do.”

The grandfather clock downstairs chimed the hour. Caroline coughed again. This time she didn’t cover her mouth, and the blood trickled down her lips.

“Mom?”

“Jonny,” her slack jaw barely managed. Her eyes began to roll back.

He stared at her.
“Mom?!”

Her head lolled to one side, and she was gone.

Jonathan didn’t dare bring Liz to the funeral ceremony—not the one on this side of the lake, and certainly not the one on the other. In fact, he couldn’t bring himself to discuss Crescent Valley with Liz at all. Instead, he suggested that afternoon on the way back home that she stay away from Crawford Scales’s farm for the foreseeable future. She didn’t argue the point.

His father tolerated his presence at both ceremonies, but did not speak to him at the funeral home, or at the service, or when the next crescent moon came and they carried Caroline Scales’s body together to the massive plateau in Crescent Valley and cremated her body. It wasn’t until the crescent moon had passed, everyone had finally gone home, and the two of them were alone in the lakeside cabin that Crawford finally said something to his son.

“I will never teach you,” he said, “another damn thing about being a dragon.”

“So you’re Jonathan.” The older woman’s disorienting white eyes did not meet Jonathan’s own; instead, they focused on his belly. He could not be entirely sure she wasn’t about to gut him. Her voice dripped with distaste. “Libby speaks highly of you.”

“Mayor Seabright.” Jonathan nodded, but didn’t offer his hand. He and Elizabeth had already agreed that Glorianna Seabright would never take it; and anyway he didn’t feel like touching her. This was a courtesy call, for his wife’s sake. Their wedding had been a small affair, a month or so after the funeral of Caroline Scales. The union ceremony had been conducted by a justice of the peace in a distant town (though not, Jonathan noted to his new wife dryly, the same one who had presided over his first marriage). Only Jonathan’s college friend Jack Alder and his fiancée, Cheryl, attended as witnesses. That was enough for Jonathan, but Dr. Georges (or Georges-Scales, she had to remind him to refer to her now) felt it was necessary to make this visit. She wouldn’t start their honeymoon until this was done; thus their visit to Winoka City Hall and its elaborately decorated council chamber.

The mayor was important in my life,
was all he got out of his bride. Beyond that, she wouldn’t say. Jonathan accepted the mystery—Liz would tell him in time—though he already knew enough about Glorianna Seabright to be disgusted and frightened.

There was no weapon visible on her person, which meant nothing. “I hope you enjoy your fleeting visit to our town,” she snarled at him. Then she turned to his wife. “It was good of you to come to city hall, Libby. And to bring your pet. But I’m not sure why you’re here.”

“I wanted you to know I’ll be leaving Winoka.”

“Leaving?” Glorianna’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”

“Not far. Jonathan and I found a nice place in Eveningstar, a short drive away. I’ll continue my studies at the U.”

“Eveningstar.” The mayor bit her lip and strode a few paces away on long, steady legs. “You’re going to go live with
them
.”

“No one knows who I am there.”

“Perhaps. I don’t suppose you would see that as a tactical advantage we could exploit.”

“No. I see it as a chance to raise a child normally.”

This got the old woman to laugh. “Normally! Do you think anything will be
normal
about a child the two of you would have? Whatever offspring you produce”—and she glanced at Jonathan again, though still not directly at his face—“will stand out from humankind like a chimpanzee among college professors.”

“I didn’t come for insults.” Elizabeth sighed. “I wanted you to know where you could find me. If you ever wanted to . . .”

“Wanted to what? Talk? Reconcile?” The mayor forcefully stepped into Elizabeth’s frown. “For years, you’ve had little to do with me or anyone else in this town. Do you think I’m shocked that you’re giving up the house your family worked so hard to build and leave for you?”

Jonathan was able to restrain himself only because he and Elizabeth had already discussed this point. He already knew the strange twist of fate that had put his grandmother’s Pinegrove land into the hands of murderers, and then on to the woman he loved. By state law, the property was already half his again—and it would pass to any children they had. There was no need to relive here the town’s bloody history.

“I’m not giving up the house,” Elizabeth pointed out. “We’ll rent it out for a few years. Then, maybe after I’ve completed medical school—”

“Do whatever you want with your land,” Glorianna interrupted with a flick of her fingers. She stepped away from the younger woman and spoke to the ceiling. “Live in Winoka, live in Eveningstar, live in the mountains of Afghanistan for all I care. Live with this reptile and give birth to a clutch of leathery eggs. Or don’t. Obviously, what I say will make no difference. You’ve made it clear what you think of me.”

Elizabeth’s face was hot with frustration. “I’m grateful to you for so much. We’ve had our differences, but I don’t see why—”

“There’s lots you don’t
see
. But I see everything, Libby. Everything.” She pointed at Jonathan. “For example, I can see the beast wriggling inside this skin you call your husband. Nobody else can see it outside of a crescent moon, but I can. I wonder what Wendy and Hank would say if they knew the truth about him?”

“Please don’t tell them,” Elizabeth begged. “They wouldn’t understand. No one else would understand.”

“
I
don’t understand!” The mayor’s normally cool demeanor vanished, and Jonathan was surprised to see moisture on the tops of her cheeks. “Everything was going to pass to you, Libby. Everything still can.”

His bride was sobbing now. “I don’t want that. I want
him
.”