Seraph of Sorrow (47 page)

CHAPTER 22

The Seraph

At the age of fifteen, Jennifer Scales cried for the first time over a dead woman’s body.

The fresh corpse of Wendy Blacktooth was already beginning to gray and chill. Her eyelids were relaxed, her hair splayed around unhearing ears. A graceful, hollow throat bore the only imperfection on the body: a large puncture wound above the collarbone.

Jennifer squeezed the tears from her eyes. She had seen death before, to be sure. But those deaths had been among the elderly . . . or among those she would deem evil.

But this woman was young. Not evil. And not coming back.

And I’m responsible,
Jennifer thought.

Hadn’t she enlisted Eddie and his mother as allies? Hadn’t she sent Eddie to his own murderous father to learn what he could about the rumors of beaststalker mutiny, and then encouraged the Blacktooths to help her intervene once he learned about this meeting? Hadn’t she had a responsibility to help Winona or Glory see reason? Hadn’t she known Ember Longtail would probably be among the dragons . . . and still failed to spot the dasher in time to help Wendy?

After Wendy fell, Jennifer had managed to chase away Ember—but the dasher had vanished, demonstrating superior speed. Jennifer had returned to the bridge to help her mother, but it was hopeless. Even Elizabeth Georges-Scales had to stop trying to save her friend’s life eventually, but neither of them would leave the woman’s side.

I’m sorry, Ms. Blacktooth.

Her tears fell upon a cold, motionless hand. Then Jennifer saw something incredible, something marvelous. Something that reflected all the sorrows Jennifer felt, and more besides.

How does something like this happen?
Jennifer wondered as she shielded her face.
Where does it come from?

What rose from Wendy Blacktooth’s body was too large to be mortal, and too bright to be sunlight. It had wings of blue fire, and robes of incandescent silver. It surveyed Jennifer and everything around her with two burning, sapphire coals. The air was filled with the scent of burning lavender. Though it made no sound, Jennifer could barely hear anything else.

“Mom . . .”

“I see it, Jennifer. I can’t believe I see it, but I do.”

“What is it? Is it . . . Ms. Blacktooth?”

“It’s not Wendy. I’ve seen this before . . . in Glory’s private papers. It’s called a seraph.”

“What is . . .” Jennifer trailed off in awe, then recalled her question. “What is it here for?”

“I don’t know.”

Jennifer looked across the bridge, at the crippled, the unconscious, and the dead. There wasn’t one of these over Glory. Why here, over Eddie’s mother?

Before she could ask, Elizabeth reached across Wendy’s body and held her daughter’s chin. “Have you been crying?”

“What . . . what kind of question is that? Of course I’m crying!”

Elizabeth wiped her daughter’s cheek, whispering something.

“What’s that?”

“Something Glory taught me, from her papers.
The seraph’s mother is death, its father an enemy’s tears.
Glory thought . . .” She wiped her own face. “It doesn’t matter what she thought. She was wrong. Charles Longtail was right. He tried to tell me about a world where an enemy will weep upon our dead. I ignored him and lost my chance. But you, Jennifer . . .”

“I’m the enemy?”

“You’re part dragon. The way Wendy and I were raised, you’ve been our enemy for centuries. But instead of acting like an enemy when Wendy died, you mourned her, mingling death with an enemy’s tears. Now . . .”

They both looked up at the seraph. It surveyed the bridge and then strode eastward with purpose, leaving a wake of pure steam and footsteps of azure fire. It passed through the barrier as though neither wall nor wanderer existed. Xavier Longtail scrambled out of its way.

“It’s heading for—”

“Eddie,” her mother finished. “It’s going to protect Eddie. Maybe there’s a little Wendy left in it, after all.”

The winged force knelt by the unconscious boy’s side and covered him with its wings. Eddie stirred, but did not wake.

“Great.” Despite her cynical tone, Jennifer actually did feel better for Eddie’s safety. “Who’s going to protect
us
? More specifically, Dad.” She pointed in the opposite direction.

Jonathan Scales was not far away and drawing closer, due mainly to the fact that the beaststalker onslaught was beating him back. He blinked in and out of camouflage. A beaststalker shout ripped the air, causing him to cover his ears and roll away. He responded upon recovering with a short burst of flame. It was not effective: His enemies had deduced he was not in this fight to kill, and they had no such conscience.

Elizabeth surged toward the melee, without a single weapon.

“Mom! How’re you going to—”

It was no use. Her mother was already ten steps ahead of her. Head still swimming from everything that had happened tonight, Jennifer followed.
She’s right. We can’t let Dad die, on top of all the other horrible things we’ve seen tonight.

Unfortunately, she could not make it in time to stop the next attack. A dozen arrows came shrieking at Jonathan. Elizabeth pushed him down just as the barbs arrived. All dozen darts hit her in the torso, and Jennifer screamed.

Then she gasped, along with everyone else.

“Stand down,” Elizabeth snarled, picking splinters out of the holes in her jacket.

A few of the warriors hesitated, but two young men did not listen. One called, “Traitor!” and came at her, sword high. The other ran up behind Elizabeth and swung with his own blade.

Jennifer did not even need to react. Elizabeth delivered a roundhouse kick to the first man’s jaw, sending him sprawling. She turned just in time for her left arm to come up in reflex and block the second man’s attack. The blade cut through her sleeve before shattering. She brought her right fist across and knocked the assailant to the ground. Neither man got up.

“Stand down!”

The remaining beaststalkers took two steps back and lowered their weapons. The dragons they fought pulled up and began to circle, taking in this new development.

“Sweetheart!” Jonathan gasped, getting back up on his hindclaws. “You’re not hurt!”

“Apparently not.”

“You never told me you couldn’t be hurt by beaststalker weapons!”

“That’s because I had no idea I couldn’t.”

Now the dragon scowled. “You mean you pushed me out of the way with the intention of taking twelve arrows in the heart?”

“We
could
discuss this later, darling.”

“Fair enough.”

Elizabeth raised her voice. “Glory Seabright is dead. Her time is done. So is this battle.”

“You’re not in charge here.” Jennifer didn’t recognize the pregnant woman who spoke out. “You’re an insult to the mayor, and to all of us.”

Elizabeth drew herself up so straight and so high, Jennifer could have sworn her mother grew a foot taller. “I am Glory’s heir. She raised me, she loved me, and I loved her. I will
not
tolerate any bickering near her corpse.
She is not a carcass you can just leave on the battlefield,
while you pursue your selfish games! She is my mother, and you will do what I tell you, or I will throw you off this bridge!”

The beaststalkers stood in silence. The dragons traced a quiet holding pattern.

“You. And you.” Elizabeth pointed to two of the largest warriors. “Sheathe your swords, haul your ass over there, and pick up my mother. Carry her to city hall and guard her. You two.” She pointed to two more. “Pick up Wendy Williamson. Glory was her mother, too. We’ll bury them together.”

No one moved, until a woman Jennifer recognized from Winoka’s city council spoke up.

“What are you guys waiting for?
Move it!
”

“Thank you, Sarah.”

“You’re welcome. What else do you need?”

“We need to make sure no one provokes any of the—

“Look out!”

This time, Jennifer caught sight of the elegant, deadly shape of Ember Longtail even before her mother did.
Not again,
she steamed as she flipped her two daggers out and leapt at the returning attacker.
You don’t get her, like you got Wendy.

As Ember’s double-pronged tail came around at an angle sure to pierce her mother’s throat, Jennifer’s daggers moved in two neat circles.
Swick
and
swack
they went . . . and two long cuts of dragon meat splattered onto the road.

Ember roared and pulled up, the stump of her tail spurting blood upon the asphalt. Stumbling back, she unleashed a torrent of fire at Jennifer and Elizabeth. Jennifer flashed into dragon form and held her mother inside her wings. When she looked back up, she saw Ember’s attention had shifted slightly, to something behind her. She turned and caught sight of two familiar figures, not far from the crowd.

Susan? Gautierre? What are you doing here? What are you doing
together
? And, Susan, why do you have a video camera?
There was no time to ask these questions. Ember snarled and stepped toward Susan, ready to unleash fire again. Jennifer went cold with a thought:
She thinks Susan is a beaststalker, like everyone else here!

The next stream of fire was even bigger, and Jennifer was too far away to help.

Gautierre, however, was in perfect position. By the time he interposed himself between his mother and Susan, he was in dragon form. The flames bounced harmlessly off his scales.

“Fool!” hissed Ember, but Gautierre did not hear her. He was already turning to check and make sure Susan was okay. Jennifer couldn’t restrain a grin.
Ah.
That’s
why
he’s
here. Now all I have to do is figure out Susan. And the camera.

With a stomp of her foot, Ember was back in the air. Jennifer gave chase. Behind her, she heard her father urging the rest of the Blaze to hold steady. The angry roars of the dragons in response convinced her: She would have to give up this chase, turn back, and help him.

“Come after my mother or friends again, and I’ll cut more pieces off you!” she screamed at Ember’s shrinking shadow, before she circled around to rejoin those on the bridge.

As it turned out, they were not so angry at her father, as at herself. “Jennifer Scales must pay!” came the cry, and in a flash she had hundreds of elders screaming through the air at her. “Revenge for attacking our own! Revenge for our lost Eldest!”

Jennifer did not have time to try to explain or make peace. The scaled cloud of rage blacked out the stars and moon, and she saw it was intent on chasing her down and killing her.

I can use that,
Jennifer realized. She shifted her scales to indigo long enough to get past them and over the bridge. Then, she turned herself bright yellow and kept going, letting her scales shimmer like a beacon.
Not too quickly,
she reminded herself as the cloud gave chase.
We don’t want the tramplers to give up! Mom will need more time to clear the bridge.

She lowered altitude and kept close to the riverbank. Soon, she was going so slowly that the more aggressive dashers were almost passing her. That made her pick up speed again.

When some of those dashers climbed high into the air and hurdled down and smashed into the earth in grand explosions around her, she began to think she may have made this too easy for them. Flaming shingles and smoking branches whipped by her face, and the persistent growl of the Blaze strummed louder in her ears. She picked up speed, until she was doing fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour. Still they chased her. Eighty, ninety miles an hour she reached . . . and the fastest among them began to close in on her periphery.

The chase grew hotter, and now there were other things in the air—dragonlike shapes full of hornets, and missiles of electricity, and other magic she had never seen before. Something sharp stuck her in the left wing, making her cry out and lose altitude. Worst of all, she saw they were in the uninhabited wetlands south of town, and the shimmering barrier loomed large in front of her. There was nowhere else to run.

“All right, enough!” she shouted, landing and screeching to a halt. “Enough,
enough
!”

She whistled and stomped her feet, and within seconds she was surrounded by clouds of hornets and dragonflies in the air, and a tapestry of snakes on the ground. The dragons pursuing her balked, giving her time to address them.

“If you want to tear me apart, I’ll give you the chance!” she promised. “All I want is for you to listen, for one minute.”

Several spouts of flame ignited the air, sending waves of immolated insects to the frost-bitten ground. Jennifer heard the stomping of dozens of feet, as the tramplers among them summoned their own allies—crocodiles and Komodo dragons and serpents of all sizes. The black mambas she had called kept a courageous perimeter, but she knew they could not last. She retreated until she felt the tingling of her hair entering the barrier. The horde pressed closer.

“Give me a chance to explain!”

“Kill her!” they cried, stomping out the last of her snakes.

Jennifer felt something strange within her. She had a vision of the gigantic silver moon elm, when she had first seen it on the volcanic island in another universe, and the way it shuddered when its serpentlike guardian, Seraphina, uncoiled from its trunk and branches. Right now, whatever was inside her was unwinding and flexing. The murderous faces of the Blaze drew closer, and she felt her internal organs ignite. Her skin sizzled painlessly, and her hair began to smolder. She didn’t know what was happening to her, or if what was happening would protect her against the Blaze . . . or destroy them all.

“How dare you attack the Ancient Furnace!”

The sudden declaration startled Jennifer, because it came not from any of the dragons assembled in front of her . . . but from behind.

She turned and almost cried with relief, letting her body relax and douse whatever had been growing inside. Xavier Longtail, black as the night with glittering golden eyes, deadly three-pronged tail twitching in outrage, was drawn up to his full height. The bright green and red markings of Geddy the gecko flitted over his wingspan. Her relief turned to dismay as she realized what lay between them. Xavier was on the wrong side of the barrier!