Rise of the Poison Moon (18 page)

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Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

Tags: #Magic, #Fantasy fiction, #Dragons, #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Spiders, #Shapeshifting, #Epic, #Good and evil

BOOK: Rise of the Poison Moon
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Rudduddudadudduddudadud
The faint, familiar, clipped whirring sound broke her train of thought. She had fled the hospital and been so upset about her abstract boyfriend, she’d barely noticed the thing that was new, the old thing that was new: the helicopters.
Pre Big Blue: not such a big deal. They’d occasionally fly over, usually traffic or news copters circling to get closer to the Twin Cities. Sort of a “ho, hum, there’s the WTCN traffic chopper, lost its way again” situation.
But now: more and more often they could be spotted (and heard) outside the dome. And they were never news choppers; nope, those were Army Hueys, each and every one.
She didn’t like to look at them, even before the abstract thing had happened. They reminded her of her father, which reminded her that he had done nothing to contact her and, very likely, nothing to help her.
And who wanted to be reminded of
that
when you were stuck under a dome and the whole world was apparently adopting a wait-and-see attitude toward you and all your friends?
How could they watch and wait? How could they not try to contact them? Heck, holding up a damn sign to the window would have been something. But no . . . nothing. They did nothing.
So: under the best of bad circumstances (to wit: the day of the picnic) it made her feel weird to hear and see the choppers.
Today, though. Today that sound was wretched, it was the sound of failure and loss and fathers who were waiting and seeing instead of caring and trying.
It was the sound of people who didn’t give a tin shit that a wonderful weredragon named Gautierre had been brave and strong, and had gotten his ass handed to him as a reward.
“Nope. I’m done. That’s it. I am
out
. Tilt. Overload.” She paused. Nature had no reaction to that; there wasn’t even a lone bird chirping. Winoka was silent around her, and at last she knew what that meant, what it had always meant: Winoka would be her tomb. She just wasn’t smart enough to lie down and be dead.
“At least you’re out, Gautierre,” she said. Then, “Screw everything.” She forced her feet to resume their trudge.
CHAPTER 28
Susan
“Susan? Hello?” Jennifer rapped on the door . . . for some reason, since Gautierre died, Susan had holed up in one of the empty apartments in the complex directly across from the abandoned radio station.
Before Big Blue, these “2 BR, 1½ BA” townhomes would have rented for a brisk $1,800 a month, utilities not included. The radio station wasn’t the draw for renters who weren’t Susan; the draw was the river view, and the new construction, and the ice-cream shop less than two blocks away.
Jennifer had no idea why Susan would have left dozens of other spots to stay, by herself, in a part of town that wasn’t convenient to the hospital, the train, or the grain elevators.
Hell, the only thing this place did have was that nice river view right beside the big willow tree where she and Gautierre had seen Ember—
Oh. Right.
“Susan?”
“For cripe’s sake.” The door was yanked open. “What?”
“Yeesh.”
“I’m aware,” her best friend retorted, “of how I look.”
“Um. If you say so.”
Susan looked wrecked. Jennifer had no idea when she’d last washed her hair, which was floppy, more stringy than curly, an unattractive length, shiny with grease, and needed a trim in the worst way. Not to mention deep-conditioning treatments.
Her skin was blotchy and uneven, too pale in some spots, flaring with acne in others. The circles beneath her eyes were enormous and dark; she’d lost at least eight or nine pounds, and Susan hadn’t needed to lose an ounce. Shit, these days in Domeland, nobody needed to lose weight.
“You look like you can’t find your heroin dealer.”
“Well,” she replied, turning and walking away, “I can’t.”
Jennifer followed, closing the door, and followed her into the living room. Her friend had done nothing to make this apartment a home; it was furnished—it had been the model apartment—but looked like a page in a catalog, not someone’s refuge.
All she’d done was bring in a sleeping bag, a backpack, and two rolls of toilet paper. No books. No knickknacks.
“Um.”
How have you been? Nope. How’s it going? Uhuh. So what’s new? Definitely not.
Under Big Blue was no place for irreverent small talk.
“How awful is it?” she finally asked.
“Pretty damn awful.” Susan sighed, and flopped down on her sleeping bag.
“Yeah. I figured.”
“What do you want, Jenn?”
“Me?”
Susan snorted. “Please. You’re not here to check on me. You need something.”
“Maybe it’s both,” she replied, stung.
“It’s not. You’ve remembered I exist because someone—probably your mom—has an updated plan of attack, and someone—probably your mom—has realized I can play a tiny, stupid part in it. And lo, the Ancient Furnace approacheth.”
“There’s no need to be unreasonably nasty,” Jenn said nervously. She knew Susan wanted her to be embarrassed and guilty. But she fought against it.
Dammit, she’d had a fistfight with her mother over this exact thing.
Time to step up, Jennifer. Stop being a baby, Jennifer. Why aren’t you there for me, Jennifer. Get back to work, Jennifer. Save the world, Jennifer. Raise the dead, Jennifer. Help Susan mourn Gautierre, Jennifer. Don’t think about your EXTREMELY DEAD DAD, Jennifer.
She felt dull heat in her palms and looked; she had clenched her fists so hard, her fingernails had cut the skin.
I am doing the best I can, Winoka, thank you very much, and if that doesn’t leave time to stroke people, that is too damned bad.
“Are you okay?” Susan asked. “You look weird.”
“I’m fine.” She practically strangled on the lie and abruptly was tired of the whole thing. “Yeah, I’m busted. I am not fine. I am the polar opposite of fine. And we need your help.”
“With what?”
Jennifer stared. “Seriously?”
“What’s wrong now?” Susan was unrolling the toilet paper, which was two-ply. She was separating it, making two piles of one- ply. Waste not, want not. “You know, specifically.”
“Well, specifically, my dad’s dead, my mom’s dead on her feet, Skip’s trying to kill us all, so then we’d all be dead, and we need to get the word out to the world, which is pretending we’re dead.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? You think they don’t know? Everybody knows. My father probably knows, for all the good that’s done me, or anybody.” She shrugged. “We’re screwed. We haven’t got the sense to lie down and stop kicking. It always takes longer for the dumb ones to clue in.”
“Anyway,” Jennifer continued, determined not to strangle Susan . . . not yet. “Anyway, we need you to do another broadcast. Several, in fact. If they see—if they hear—”
“What? We’ll be saved? The National Guard will show up on horseback and save the day? Even you’re not that arrogant.” She paused, then asked, seeming honestly curious, “Are you?”
“Susan, I love you, but will you please knock it off? You think you’re the only one hurting? Have you seen my dead dad around anywhere lately? Hmm? You think I don’t want to curl up on a smelly sleeping bag and turn two-ply T.P. into one-ply?”
Susan shrugged. That maddened Jennifer more than anything else. She wouldn’t even get mad . . . didn’t care enough to so much as raise her voice. It was like yelling at a store mannequin.
“So that’s it?” she yelled.
“Yup.”
“You’re out. You won’t help.”
“Nope.”
“Because you’re
sad
.”
“Because the cost is too high, and it pretty much always has been. Find another tool, Jenn. I’m done.”
“You’re
not
a—”
“Don’t even bother. I’m the screwdriver in the Ancient Furnace’s Toolbox of Life . . . or I was, anyway.”
“That’s the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard.”
“Don’t care. Run along, why don’t you. Make a couple of boys fall in love with you or fix a parallel universe or find out about a weird half-sibling or roast a couple of neighborhood cats with your weird sparky smelly breath.” Her eyes turned hard. “Make your way through life, dodging every bullet and arrow while those around you get killed. Come through unscathed, while everyone around you feels pain.”
“That’s not fair, Susan—”
“And do it outside, please, because I’ve got zero interest in continuing this conversation.”
Jennifer wasn’t sure if she was numb or shocked. “What about you?”
“People like me? What you and your mother call ‘the innocents,’ in your clueless, patronizing way? Why, that’s easy. We’ll die.” Susan looked forty years old, which scared Jennifer more than anything else that had happened since she’d knocked on the door. “Gautierre and your dad. They’re the lucky ones, y’know.”
Jennifer turned, began to leave, paused, booted Susan’s backpack into the dining room, and kicked the door open on her way out.
“We’ve got all
kinds
of toilet paper at the hospital!” she yelled, before slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER 29
Jennifer
Too much talk. We should go kill them now.
Jennifer rubbed her forehead. An Evangelina-sized migraine was forming behind her eyes. “Color me astonished. Psycho-Beast, here, wants to strew death like I salt french fries.”
Mmmm. French fries. When was the last time . . . ?
At what point does the chatter end, with you?
“We’re getting nowhere,” Elizabeth said.
“Then it must be Tuesday.”
They were where people seemed to always end up: the hospital roof. Jennifer wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t exactly supersafe. The view, perhaps.
“I do think,” Dianna said, resplendent in a jade T-shirt and black leggings liberated from the Wal-Mart, “we’ve given your approach enough time, Elizabeth. It’s time to change tactics.”
“What—kill them?”
“At least one of them. Andi, Skip—perhaps it doesn’t matter which.”
“You are so cavalier with other people’s lives. Have you ever read a history book? People kill people, and more people kill more people to prove that killing people was a bad idea. It’s called escalation, Dianna, and nobody wins.”
“Except those who wrote the history book.”
Her mother sighed and looked at the sky.
“Hey, Ms. Wilson,” Jennifer called out. “It’s not that I wouldn’t love to see Skip choking to death on his entrails. Frankly, the thought makes me tingle all over. I’m just not sure what I get out of the deal. It won’t bring down Big Blue. It won’t make a new herd of cattle appear. It won’t make a bunch of—of—I dunno, antibiotic-type thingies like—like—”
“Doxycycline,” her mother said helpfully. “Latamoxef. Cefoperazone.”
“Right, those. It’s not like they’ll suddenly appear in orange bottles stuffed with cotton balls. So what’s the point?”
“The point, silly child, is that he is the enemy, and he is trying to kill you. The most certain way to make sure that does not happen is to kill him first.”
“
Do unto others, before they do unto you.
That’s your motto, isn’t it, Dianna?” Elizabeth’s tone dripped with contempt.
“It has worked for me so far.”
“Sure it has. You abandoned Jonathan, after all—you hurt him, before he could hurt you. You stuffed your child”— she motioned to Evangelina—“into a dark hole rather than face the consequences of your actions with him. Years later you ditched Otto before he could consume you—though I can’t say I blame you entirely for that. Then you left Skip, before he could grow old enough to leave you. You led the Quadrivium’s sorcery to change the world into something that suited you better, before the world could change you into something that might fit better—and then you called a halt to the whole thing and undid your whole creation rather than risk what Jennifer might do to it. Then you disappeared into some really thin piece of paper, or wherever the hell you’ve been with Evangelina, teaching her the same lessons you’ve taught Andi: avoid what you can, disdain and kill what you can’t.”
Dianna’s lips pressed harder and harder throughout this speech, until Jennifer was certain they would split apart into mandibles. “I was wondering when you would stop being diplomatic with me,
Doctor
, and start being honest.”
“You want this honest doctor’s opinion? I’m grateful you left Jonathan. I can’t imagine what he would have turned into had you kept your claws in him through early adulthood. At least he died an honorable man.”

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