Night Shifters (42 page)

Tom was something that Edward had made. Not only by inadvertently passing on some long-forgotten gene that had caused the boy to turn into a dragon—no. Of that guilt he could have easily absolved himself, because . . . who can be sure of what he’s passing on to his sons? And who can control what his children inherit?

But these days with the other shifters—getting acquainted with Kyrie and even the policeman—Edward had realized that he’d done something else, something drastically wrong with Tom. Because the other shifters weren’t as troubled and hadn’t gone through so much to get to a place of balance. And hadn’t made mistakes nearly as bad as the ones Tom had achieved.

Which must mean that shifters weren’t inherently unstable. Of course, Edward had tried to tell himself that Tom was inherently unstable; that there had been something wrong with the boy from the beginning. But he’d seen Tom at the diner—Tom holding down a job and establishing contact with other human beings all around him.

There was nothing wrong with Tom. If he’d gone around the bend, it had to be his father’s doing.

And so, Edward was ready to pay for his crimes and for the fact that he had been a truly horrible father. So he’d been perfectly calm, in the Great Sky Dragon’s grasp, while the dragon lifted him above the crowd. Even though he’d been held there, immobile, for half an hour, he didn’t feel scared or upset.

He devoted his time to a vague dream that Tom would come back; would figure things out with Kyrie; that sometime in their future they would have children. Even if Edward would never get to see his grandchildren, he could imagine them vividly. And it was worth it to him to sacrifice himself for them.

And then the car stopped. And Tom showed up. The four of them—the four children, as Edward couldn’t help thinking—walked through the massed triad crowd toward the Great Sky Dragon.

Tom was at the front, looking pale and drawn and absolutely determined.

“Tom, no,” Edward shouted. “It’s not worth it. Leave.”

But Tom shook his head, black curls tossing in the light of the morning. He frowned. He walked all the way to the front of the Great Sky Dragon and stood, feet planted apart, arms crossed on his chest. “I’ve come,” he said.

Edward had the impression the giant creature holding him laughed, though there was no sound. “It is good that you come,” he said. “And now, what do you want to do?”

“I want you to let my father go,” Tom said, casting his voice so that, normally low as it was, it could be heard all over the vast parking lot.

“Or?” the Great Sky Dragon asked.

“I don’t think there’s any or,” Tom said. “You’re much bigger than I am, and we’re surrounded by all your minions. I’ll fight you, if you want me to, but I don’t think there would be any contest.”

“No,” the Great Sky Dragon said. “There wouldn’t.”

“So, I’m here. You do whatever you have to do, but you let my father go first.”

“Tom, no,” Edward said. “Don’t do this. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me. I was a horrible father.”

At that something like amusement flickered over Tom’s face, which, from where Edward was looking at it, looked like a terrible, pale mask incapable of human movement. For just a moment, Tom blinked, and looked up at his father, and his eyelids fluttered, and his lips pinched upward in an almost smile, “No shit, Sherlock. Did you have to consult many experts to come to this conclusion?” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter, because I’ve always been an even worse son, and—” As Edward opened his mouth, Tom held up a hand to silence him. “What’s more, I brought this final situation on by my own actions. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t a baby when I stole the Pearl of Heaven. Nor were my impulses uncontrollable. I knew what I was doing. I knew whom I was messing with. And I did it anyway. So, you see, it’s my doing, and who but I should suffer for it?”

Tom looked away from his father. “Let my father go,” he told the dragon. “And promise me that all my friends will be able to leave safely. And then do whatever you think you have to do to even the score.”

Edward felt himself being lowered, slowly, until his feet touched the pavement. He put out a hand and grabbed at Tom’s shoulder. “Tom, no. Please. I can’t live knowing—”

But the dragon flicked a toe at Edward’s back. Just, flicked it. And Edward went flying, backward, head over heels, to land bruised and stunned at Kyrie’s and Keith’s feet.

Tom watched the dragon flick his father out of the way and send him flying. A look back over his shoulder showed him that his father was alive and well. He turned back to the dragon.

Having no illusions about how long—or how little—remained for him to live seemed to make everything around him very bright and sharp. The dragon glittering in the light of the morning was a thing of beauty, golden and scintillating. And the sun coming up over the Three Luck Dragon painted the sky a delicate pink like the inside of certain roses when they’re just opening to the light of morning.

As for the morning air, it smelled of flowers and it felt cool to the skin, with only a hint of warmth to indicate the scorcher the day would later become.

I’ll never see another sunrise,
Tom thought.
Yesterday was my last sunset. That meal eaten with Kyrie, hastily, in my father’s hotel room, was my last meal. Worse, I’ll never kiss a girl, beyond the half-hearted kisses and gropes I got back before I knew I was a dragon. I’ll never kiss Kyrie.

Weirdly, none of this seemed startling. It was as though all his life he’d been hastening toward this. Or rather, as if all his life he’d been worried about how he was going to die and what would put an end to his life. Now he need worry no more. He knew exactly where he would end and how.

A brief thought of whether there was anything after flickered through his mind. His parents were Catholic—or at least Catholic of the sort that didn’t believe in God but believed that Mary was His mother. They went to mass sometimes. Certainly for big occasions and momentous parties, like weddings and baptisms and funerals. And Tom had attended catechism lessons in the faraway days of his childhood. Well, at least he’d been present while dreaming up ways to trip up the catechist, or look up her skirt.

He had no objections to the idea of an afterlife. But he also couldn’t believe in it. Not really believe. If there was anything on the other side of this, he sensed it would be so different that who he was and what he thought on this side would make no difference at all. For all intents and purposes, Tom Ormson would stop existing.

He wanted—desperately wanted—to look over his shoulder at Kyrie. He heard her back there, her voice muffled, as though someone held a hand over her mouth. She was yelling, “Tom, no.”

But he didn’t dare look. If he saw her. If he actually saw her, he knew his courage would fail him. Instead, he stood, legs slightly apart for balance, letting his arms uncross from his chest and fall alongside his body. In a position that didn’t look quite so threatening.

He looked up at the huge, inhuman eye of the Great Sky Dragon.

“Ready?” the creature said.

“Ready,” Tom said.

The creature lowered its head to be level with Tom’s and said—in a voice that was little more than a modulated hiss, “You have great courage, little one.”

And for a moment, for a brief, intense moment, Tom had hope.

Then he saw the glimmering claw slice through the air. It caught him just above the pubic bone. Tom saw it penetrate, before the pain hit. It ripped upward, swiftly, disemboweling him from pubic bone to throat.

Looking down, Tom saw his own innards spill, saw blood fountain out.

I’m dead,
he thought, and blinked with the sort of blank stupidity that comes from not believing your own eyes.

And then the pain hit, burning, unbearable. He screamed, or attempted to scream but nothing came out except a burble of blood that stopped up his throat, filled his mouth, poured out of his nose.

He dropped to the ground and for a second, for an agonizing second, struggled to breathe. His rapidly fading brain told him it was impossible. He was dead. But he tried to breathe, against pain and horrible cold and fear.

He inhaled blood and heard Kyrie call his name. He thought he felt her grab his hand, but his hand was as distant and cold as the other side of the moon.

And then there was nothing.

“Tom.”

Kyrie had struggled against Rafiel and Keith, as they held her back, struggled and kicked and tried to yell at Tom not to do this. It wasn’t worth his sacrifice. It just wasn’t.

They could fight the dragons. They could.

“No, we can’t,” Rafiel told her. “He’s giving himself up so that the rest of us can get away in peace. If he doesn’t do that, all of us will die.”

“There’s hundreds of them and five of us, Kyrie,” Keith said. “We’ll all die.”

“Then we’ll all die,” she yelled. “Can you live with the idea you calmly allowed him to sacrifice himself for us?”

“I can’t,” Edward said. But he was gathering himself up from the ground, and he looked bruised and tired and hurt. He didn’t look like he would lead any charges against any dragons.

So Kyrie yelled, “Tom, don’t do it,” and tried to struggle free, to go grab him. If they ran. If they ran very fast . . .

But Keith and Rafiel both grabbed her and held onto her arms, and covered her mouth.

She was twisting against them, writhing . . .

And it all happened too fast. That claw rising and falling, in the morning sunlight, catching Tom and ripping . . .

Kyrie saw blood fountain at the same time that the men, startled, let go of her. She careened forward, under the power of her own repressed attempts at movement, and the burst got her to Tom just as he was falling, his face contorted in pain.

She didn’t even—couldn’t even—look down to where his body had been ripped open. His insides were hanging out, and he was twisting, and his face looked like he was suffering pain she couldn’t imagine.

His wide-open eyes fixed on her, but she didn’t know if he could see her. She fell to her knees, and grabbed his hand, which felt too cold and was flexing in what seemed to be a spasmodic movement.

“They can still save you,” she said. “They can still save you. The wonders of modern medicine.”

But blood was pouring out of his mouth, blood was bubbling out of his nose, and, as she watched, his eyes went totally blank, in the morning light. Blank and upward turned, and wide open.

She couldn’t tell if his heart was still beating and, since it was probably in the mass of organs exposed in the front of his body, she couldn’t check. And she didn’t need to. She knew he was dead.

She stood up, shaking slightly. And then she lost it.

She never knew the exact moment when she lost it. When she realized she was doing something stupid, she had already flung herself forward, at the Great Sky Dragon, arms and legs flying, mouth poised to bite.

“You bastard,” she said. “You bastard.” Only it wasn’t so much a word as a formless growl, and she kicked at the golden foot and tore with her nails at the golden scales.

She felt more than saw as several of the human spectators, the triad members, plunged forward to grab at her, and she didn’t care because she could take them all. All of them.

Only the Great Sky Dragon grabbed her in his talons, one of them still stained red by Tom’s blood, and brought her up to his face, to look at her intently with his impassive eyes. “Pure fire,” the voice that wasn’t a voice said. “I wonder if he knows what he holds.”

And then she was tumbling down, and hitting the ground hard.

As she struggled to sit up again, she could see the Great Sky Dragon already high in the sky, flapping his wings—vanishing.

Around them, the other men—or mostly dragons—were disappearing. Some flying and some just . . . scurrying away.

Aching, Kyrie looked over at Tom’s corpse. He was still staring blankly at the sky. What did she expect? That he would get up and say it was all a joke? Corpses rarely moved.

She swallowed hard. Grief felt like a huge, insoluble lump in her throat.

But the madness was gone. She knew she couldn’t avenge herself on the dragons. Or on any of them. She knew as she knew she was alive and that Tom was dead that there was no remedy for this.

She scooted forward and took hold of Tom’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. She knew he couldn’t hear her, and she’d never devoted any thought to the possibility of life after this one. But if there was anything, and if he could hear her . . . “I’m sorry. This is not how I meant for this to go. I didn’t even realize . . . I didn’t know myself until just now.” She squeezed the cold hand, knowing it was beyond comfort.

“Kyrie, you have to get up,” Rafiel said. “I’m going to call the police. You have to get up from there.”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll stay with him. I’ll go with him. We can’t leave him alone here.” She saw a fly try to alight on Tom’s wide-open eyes, and she waved it away with her free hand. Oh, she knew he was dead and he couldn’t feel it, but it seemed . . . indecent.

“Kyrie, he’s going to the morgue. You can’t go with him. You don’t want to. Let me help you up,” Rafiel said.

She felt him tear her fingers away from Tom’s hand. As if from somewhere, far away, she heard her own thoughts tell her that she was in shock. And she believed them. It just didn’t change anything, did it?

There were sounds of someone throwing up behind her. She thought it was Keith, but she didn’t turn to look. It had to be Keith, anyway, since there were only the five of them . . . the four of them here. And it couldn’t be Edward because he was crying, somewhere to her right side. He was crying, loudly and immoderately. And she thought that was weird because she didn’t know lawyers could cry.

Rafiel threw something warm—a jacket?—over her shoulders. “You’re trembling, Kyrie. You need something warm,” he said.

“Tom’s jacket,” she said.

“What about it?”

“It will be ruined,” she said. “All the blood. He’s going to be very upset.” And then she realized what she’d said was nonsense, but she couldn’t seem to think her way out of that puzzle.

She felt Rafiel lead her very gently. And then there were lights, and noise, and a siren, and someone was asking her something, and she heard Rafiel’s voice say, “She really can’t talk now. She’s in shock. I’m sorry. Perhaps later. We were walking across the parking lot to see when the restaurant opened, and this giant Komodo dragon came running out of nowhere, and it attacked Tom. I’m not really am not sure of the details. It all happened so fast.”