Seraph of Sorrow (48 page)

“Ancient Furnace? She is not worthy of the name!” a trampler cried out. “She fought against the Eldest of the Blaze, and played a hand in her death!”

“She attacked your own niece, Elder Longtail!” added a small dasher, whose scales shimmered between scarlet and violet.

“She did that on my behalf,” Xavier announced. That made all of them pause, including Jennifer. He explained. “Ember Longtail was acting against my wishes. I have come to terms with the woman who killed my brother. When Ember attacked this woman, she disobeyed my will . . . the will of her own clan’s elder! In defending the woman, Jennifer Scales did what I would have done myself, were I not behind this wall.”

“She was not doing your will,” the small dasher sneered. “She was protecting the murderer, who happens to be her own mother!”

“Once again, Elder Longtail, you find yourself on the wrong side—literally and figuratively.” This creeper who spoke now was nearly Xavier’s size. “That barrier you stand behind makes you irrelevant. So does your sudden, naïve hope for peace. You would have left a better legacy if you had joined us this evening.”

“My legacy?” Xavier asked in a curious tone. “What will you have to say about my legacy, Elder Turner? Our legacy is written on the stone plateau in Crescent Valley. When do you suppose you’ll make your next visit?”

The Blaze looked up and around at the shimmering blue dome.

“If anyone has made themselves irrelevant,” Xavier continued, “it is the lot of you, for rushing off to destroy a town that in seventy years hasn’t come close to finding or threatening Crescent Valley. Its mayor is now dead, its future uncertain. One of its most likely leaders has a dragon for a daughter—that would be the Elder Scales you’re trying to kill here. This young elder is the obvious choice both to keep her mother safe, and to ensure the safety of dragons trapped in that town. You want to attack her? You want to have beaststalkers choose a leader that despises us? You want to try to live there, inside that cozy dome of yours, with no friends? How many of you do you think will be left two days from now? Two weeks? Two years?”

“The barrier won’t last that long,” the creeper insisted, as his comrades shifted uncomfortably. “The arachnid who created it is dead!”

“Yet it persists. I have to admit, I’m no expert on this sort of sorcery. Maybe you’re right, Elder Turner. Maybe you can kill Jennifer Scales.”

“
Try
to kill Jennifer Scales,” Jennifer Scales corrected him softly.

He ignored her. “Frankly, I can’t think of a worse move you could make tonight. And I’ll be sure to carve
that
in the stone plateau, after you’re all dead. So much for legacy.”

Jennifer began to relax when she saw a few of the dragons in back begin to turn to walk away. Several reptiles that had been summoned, feeling their masters lose interest, began rooting about the frozen turf. After a minute, only a few dozen dragons remained.

“So what do we do?” a dazzling emerald trampler asked. “We sit and wait for this thing to disappear? We return cheering, with the Ancient Furnace propped on our shoulders? What?”

Xavier began to answer, but Jennifer stepped in front of him. “I promise I’ll find shelter and safety for all of you, for as long as it takes. First, please, I need to help a friend. One of our own. Can I trust all of you to go back with me to the bridge?”

By the time Jennifer and the Blaze had returned to the bridge, the bodies of Glory Seabright and Wendy Blacktooth had disappeared. Hank Blacktooth was also gone. Elizabeth had ordered him removed from the scene. Only a few beaststalkers stood sentry.

The corpse of Winona Brandfire was still there, but she had been covered with a tarp. Jonathan, Elizabeth, and her beaststalker companions had their full attention on the trembling form of her granddaughter, Catherine, whose blood still seeped from the wound at the top of her spine. Jennifer shifted out of her scales and sheathed her daggers as she approached.

“How is she?”

“She’s not in immediate danger,” Elizabeth said. “We should get her to the hospital to stop the bleeding. Even after extensive surgery, she is going to have difficulty walking.”

“And being a dragon again . . . ?”

“Jennifer, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know how to begin undoing what Glory has done.”

“Dad?”

“I’ve never heard of it happening, ace.” He looked at the members of the Blaze, who had perched themselves along the southern bridge railing. “I don’t think any of us have.”

“But all Glory did was wound her! You’re a surgeon, Mom! If you can fix a wound, why wouldn’t that fix the hobble?”

“What’s hurt is not visible to a surgeon, or anyone else in this world.” Elizabeth rolled back off her knees with a sigh of despair. “There’s nothing to fix, no medical precedent, nothing we can offer someone in Catherine’s condition! Until tonight, when I saw Edmund Slider stand up, I didn’t think it was possible to recover at all. How he did it . . .” Together, they looked through the barrier at the arachnid form that lay in the wheelchair. Not far beyond, Eddie was still asleep in the embrace of the seraph.

“Hey!” Jennifer called out, struck by an idea. “HEY!”

“Honey, what are you doing?”

“You said nothing in this world can do anything about this. Maybe something from another world can. Hey, you!”

The seraph lifted its head.

“Yeah, you! You’re here to help, right?”

It did not move.

“I mean, you’re not just here to sit in the middle of the road and keep my boyfriend’s ass warm, am I right? You’re here, you’re helping. My friend Catherine needs help.”

“Ace, perhaps a bit more decorum toward the huge hunk of immortality . . .”

“It doesn’t scare me, Dad. It’s like you used to say about me all the time growing up: ‘I brought her into this world; I can take her out.’ Yeah, that’s it! Get up, walk on over here . . .”

The scent of burning lavender reached them even before it had breached the barrier again. In a few steps, it reached Catherine. Everyone except Jennifer backed up to give it room. As it knelt, the pavement beneath it crackled.

“What’s wrong with her?” Jennifer asked it. “What can’t we see that needs to be fixed?”

The seraph’s face drew close to Catherine. Its fire did not burn her, but a fever glistened on her broken skin. One of the silver sleeves fell back and a hand filled with light emerged. As the hand plunged slowly into her wound, Catherine cried out.

“Catherine.” Jennifer tried to sound comforting, even though she had no idea what the seraph would—or could—do. “Try to hold still. We’re going to help you.”

Her friend’s eyes searched, but saw nothing. “Jennifer, are you with me?”

“Always.”

“It hurts so much.”

“Hang in there.”

The bulge in Catherine’s back extended as the seraph probed deeper. Her friend sucked in a breath, reached out with a weak hand, and grabbed Jennifer’s wrist.

“How much longer?” she asked the seraph hotly, knowing she would receive no reply.

Instead, the seraph withdrew its hand, plucking out something dark and twisted. As soon as it was out, Catherine fainted.

“What is that?”

The seraph held out its silvery palm. It held a small, liver-sized shape.
A dragon,
Jennifer realized. It was still, darkened, and torn. The wings were curled back and broken.

Jonathan inched forward. “Liz, didn’t Glory claim she saw the ‘monster’ inside me?”

Elizabeth nodded and reached out to touch the shape. “Incredible. I’ve done surgery on dozens of patients I
knew
were weredragons, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“We all must have one,” said Jonathan. “That’s what Glory saw, whenever she looked at me. Or Catherine. Or any of us.”

“Can you fix it?” Jennifer asked.

“Even seeing it now, I wouldn’t know how. I could stitch together the tear, but it would be like . . .” She paused and swallowed. “. . . like sewing up a corpse.”

“What about you?” Jonathan asked the seraph.

It shook its head, then pointed at them and moved its other hand up the front of its neck, out from under its featureless chin, and over the tiny body lying on its hand. They watched it repeat this motion several times before Jonathan finally cried out in understanding. “It wants us to breathe fire over it! Maybe if we can ignite it together, it will return to life . . .”

He pressed forward, but the seraph suddenly straightened and yanked its hand away. A strange, unhappy humming sound washed over them, and the seraph pointed directly at Jennifer before repeating the fire-breathing gesture.

“I think it’s up to you, ace.”

“I think you’re right, Dad.” She looked at him regretfully. “I’m sorry. I know you wanted to show the Blaze . . .”

He shrugged, but she saw his disappointment. “Catherine’s life is what matters here.”

The seraph presented the cold, miniature corpse to Jennifer. She shifted to dragon form.
Do I have one of these inside me, too?
she wondered.
And if so, who would fix me, if I lost it?

Her fire washed over the glowing palm. Nothing happened at first, but the seraph motioned for her to continue. After a minute of sustained flame, she finally saw a change. The two halves cleaved together, sealing in a new glow. Afraid to stop, she emptied her lungs until her ribs ached and her throat tightened. By then, the transformation was complete.

What the seraph held now was a shining, milky white color. Its limbs shifted gently.

Before Jennifer could say anything, the seraph knelt and pressed the tiny, living shape back into the opening in Catherine’s back. When it was done, it gestured to Elizabeth, turned, and walked away. Moments later, it was back at Eddie’s side.

“I suppose I can take it from here,” Elizabeth deduced. “But I have to admit, as many weredragons as I’ve worked on, I’ve never had to operate on one in actual dragon form!”

Jennifer took in the sight of Catherine, still unconscious and still bleeding, but with glorious scales covering her, and glorious wings, and glorious claws! The Blaze gave exclamations of astonishment, and Jonathan reached over and squeezed Jennifer’s wing claw with his own. “The world’s about to change, ace.”

One of the Blaze began to call out louder than the others. “A miracle from the Ancient Furnace! Hail to the Ancient Furnace!”

“All hail the Ancient Furnace!”
They were all shouting now.
“All hail Jennifer Scales!”

“Fickle bunch, aren’t they?” she muttered. She shifted back into her human shape, daggers in plain sight, hoping they might stop. They only got louder. Jonathan winked at her.

“We should get her to the hospital.” Elizabeth reminded them of Catherine.

It took no convincing at all to get several of the Blaze to volunteer their help in carrying the teenaged dragon’s body to Winoka Hospital. A few others offered to bring the body of Winona Brandfire with them, so it could be prepared and preserved until such time as they could take her to Crescent Valley and the stone plateau.

Elizabeth naturally wished to arrive at the hospital with these dragons, and Jonathan offered to carry her.

“Meet you there, honey?”

“I’ll be right there.” Jennifer spotted a familiar figure hovering outside the barrier. Xavier Longtail smirked as she approached to a rising chorus of
Bless the Ancient Furnace!
and
She is returned to us!
from those dragons who remained.

“Good to see you still alive, Elder Scales.”

“Please don’t call me that. It makes me feel, like, seventy years old.”

He waved the jab aside. “Your healing of Catherine Brandfire will make you a legend. All will follow you now, without question.”

“Even you?”

He coughed, possibly to hide a chuckle. “As I’ve said before: It’s your integrity that keeps me on your side, Jennifer Scales. Everything else is impressive, but unnecessary.”

“You’ll go back and let the others in Crescent Valley know what’s happened?”

“Yes. I expect most of them will come here to render whatever assistance we can.”

“I don’t see the point.”

“Nor do I. Yet they will come. It will do their hearts good, if you make yourselves visible now and again.”

“We will.” She motioned to Eddie, and the seraph huddled over him. “I imagine he’ll be safe for a while?”

“I’ll look out for him, once I return.”

“He’s got nobody now, Xavier. And he’ll be looking for Skip and Andi. Please do what you can to stop him from looking for them.”

Xavier bowed. “Far be it from me to deny the wishes of the Ancient Furnace!”

She searched his tone for irony and found none, so she smiled. “Thanks. Also, could you do me one more favor?”

He cocked his head.

“Take Winona Brandfire’s place, as Eldest of the Blaze.”

It took a while before he was done coughing. “Elder Scales, I don’t think the Blaze—”

She turned to those dragons still assembled on the bridge. “I hereby name Xavier Longtail our new Eldest of the Blaze! Who’s with me?”

“HURRAH!”
they cried.
“All hail Xavier Longtail, Eldest of the Blaze!”

Turning back to Xavier with a flip of her platinum hair, she flashed him a sweet smile.

He scowled back at her. “Ned Brownfoot is technically older than I am.”

“So is Smokey Coils. I doubt either of them will care.”

“I don’t suppose my being Eldest will make you any more inclined to listen to me.”

“Unlikely.”

“Take care of our people in there, Elder Scales.” Xavier’s golden gaze turned more serious. “Take care of Gautierre. And take care of yourself.”

She saw it in his eyes.
He doesn’t think we’ll last.
“Once the barrier’s down, I hope you and Gautierre will join me and my parents at our house for dinner.”

“I’ll see you soon, Ambassador.”

At the hospital a few hours later, as nighttime slowly shifted into morning, Jennifer and Jonathan sat in the waiting room outside surgery, each of them squeezing their legs and arms into separate oversized chairs. They were tired, but neither could sleep.