Rise of the Poison Moon (19 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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“And you’ll die an honorable woman, is that right? And your daughter—she’ll die an honorable girl? And you’ll all be dead, and everyone will honor you and feel sorry that they didn’t
listen harder
and
care more
?”
“It’s so touching that you’d rather we all lived, and acted more despicable. Like you.”
“I’d rather
Jonathan
lived. You and your daughter can go to hell.”
“Whoa, hey.” Jennifer raised her hands. “Why all the sudden hate? Don’t tell me you’re still bitter that I fucked up your stupid Arachno-Land.”
“Jennifer, let me explain. Dianna doesn’t hate you because you disturbed the Quadrivium’s plot. She hates you because you represent the child she and Jonathan
could
have had, if she hadn’t run. If she hadn’t been so weak. If she had maintained a shred of responsibility, and dignity, and respect for her own offspring. Instead, she ended up with the wreck of an excuse of a thing you see festering over there.”
I feel like I should take that personally.
“Dearest, most exalted, most honorable Elizabeth Georges, daughter of such hallowed lineage!” Dianna raised her arms to the sky in mock homage. “What astute words you speak! Tell us, can we come lick the morsels of wisdom from your palms, like dogs before a goddess? Can we, from such a humble ritual, learn to be a hint more like you—the self-righteous, insecure, overbearing perfectionist who can’t stand the thought that her dead husband ever loved another woman? I mean, what was his problem, right? Not waiting for you, instead going off at age sixteen and fucking some cheap spider-tart, when your virginal aura of perfection must have been so damn visible and obvious from hundreds of miles away, even at an early age? And then, only when I was done with him, did he bother to look around and settle for you. Settle for your quaint, homespun philosophy of peace and self-loathing. Settle for a daughter who didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger and kill a ruined, dangerous child like Skip when she had the chance. Several chances, in fact. How much blood is on her hands, because she didn’t stop him? How much blood is on yours? How much more will you let spill?”
“Sounds like you wish you’d done it yourself,” Jennifer shot back. “So why didn’t you? What, after you ditched Evangelina, you ran out of extradimensional holes to stuff your kids into?”
A black fog covered Evangelina. Jennifer drew her blades.
Yes.
This time, there were no parents interested in stopping them.
You will be excellent practice for when we kill brother and his whore.
Dianna reached out and slapped Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s head snapped to the left ninety degrees, but she was already grinning as she faced forward again.
Then she giggled.
What giggling giggling why?
Jennifer lowered her blades. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Dianna stared at her adversary, irises burning crimson. “How dare you laugh at me?”
“Well, because it’s all so ridiculous!” Elizabeth pulled out her sword and flung it off the roof; they heard it clatter on the asphalt below. “You don’t want this! You don’t want to hurt me at all!”
“Um, Mom. She seriously looks like she wants to hurt you.”
The doctor could not stop smiling. “Okay, sure, so we have Dianna Wilson here, Sorceress Extraordinaire, Traveler of All Dimensions, Warper of Worlds. She’s less than a foot away from me, and what does she do? She slaps me. She doesn’t immolate me with a blink of an eye, or point her wand at me and blast me with a bolt of lightning—”
“We don’t use wands,” Dianna interjected through clenched teeth.
“She doesn’t use any one of what must be three dozen lethal sorceries at her disposal. She reaches out with a flimsy hand and whacks me across the face. Slaps me. Slaps me—she might as well pull my hair and call me a poopyhead! She slaps me like a grade-schooler, Jennifer. Why would she do that? Why?”
It did look ineffective and pointless, Mother. No one can die from slapping. Or hair-pulling.
“Seriously, Jennifer. Why?”
Jennifer rubbed her eyes. “Well, Mom, it sounds like you have a pretty good idea already. Clearly, my rabid half-sister is curious. Why don’t you share?”
“
Because she doesn’t want to fight me.
Fighting me—I mean, seriously fighting me—would risk killing me. And she knows Jonathan wouldn’t want that. Doesn’t she?”
Dianna stared at her.
Elizabeth leaned in closer and yelled in the other woman’s face.
“Doesn’t she?”
“I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want you spitting on her nose, either, Mom.”
“See, she can talk tough all she wants about taking action and going out there and killing people. And if your father were alive and tried to argue with her, she could ignore him and go off and do whatever she wanted, free of conscience. Heaven knows she’s done what she pleased until now. But she can’t, anymore. Because he’s dead. And you can’t argue with a dead person.”
Then soon, she won’t be arguing with you, either.
Before anyone else could react, Dianna had her hand out at the advancing form of her daughter. “Stay
back
, Evangelina.”
“Yeah, doggie. Stay. Good doggie.”
“You can’t argue with a dead person,” Elizabeth continued, “because the only voice they have left, is the one in your head. The one that won’t hold back, won’t lie, won’t sugarcoat the truth. Dianna here knows
exactly
what Jonathan would want her to do. And because she still loves him, in her twisted, warped way, she’s going to do it.”
“Again, Mom—are you sure? Because back when she was calling you a self-loathing, overbearing perfectionist, it sounded like she was on a different course.”
“She needed to say her piece. I needed to say mine.”
Dianna exhaled. “You’re done, then.”
“Almost.” Elizabeth wheeled around and slugged Dianna across the jaw. The sorceress dropped like a rock.
“That’s how we learned to slap someone in grade school, here in Winoka.”
The sorceress groaned and rolled halfway over. Elizabeth crouched down and pulled a clump of her beautiful, jet-black hair.
“See, it’s foreplay like that right there, Dianna, which helped Jonathan to get over you. My bed was like a boxing ring, in the best possible way. The love of your life couldn’t wait to go fifteen rounds with me—more, when he could get it. Why, there were weeks we nearly starved to death because we couldn’t bear to stop touching each other. If he hadn’t changed during the crescent moons, we would have ended up with nutritional deficiencies.”
“Okay, Mom. Now you’re hurting
me
.”
The doctor whispered harshly. “No one asked you to come to this town, Dianna. You don’t like the leadership, don’t let the dome hit you on the ass on the way out.”
She let the head drop, stood up, stepped over the prone form of Dianna Wilson, passed the stunned shadow of Evangelina, and headed for the stairwell. Jennifer followed her, glancing back long enough to point to her eyes, then the two of them, then the sky.
“Um. I guess our watch shift is over. You guys got next.”
CHAPTER 30
Jennifer
The next morning, Evangelina and Dianna were gone.
No one had seen them leave, and Jennifer feared the worst. Or was it the best?
“Do you think they’ve gone to kill Andi and Skip?”
“I don’t know,” her mother answered over a breakfast of highly artificially flavored toaster pastries. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, if they’re gone, what are we going to do the next time Skip sends another swarm?”
“Evacuate, like we did last time.”
“And then?”
It took a few seconds for Elizabeth to stop chewing. “Jennifer, I don’t have all the answers.”
“You sounded pretty sure of yourself yesterday when you were pissing all over your KO.”
“Cute. If you’re done haranguing your mother, I’d like you to take Catherine and Susan and do a townwide patrol. Spend some time in town. Get Susan to do a blog. See if we can rally a few more to help us.”
“Susan doesn’t want to do a blog.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked. She’s still down on Gautierre.”
“She needs to pick herself up.”
“Try telling her that.”
“You try telling her that. She’s your friend.”
“What’s the point?” she snapped. “No one listens to me. Or you. Not Susan, not Ember, not what’s left of Hank’s army, not Evangelina or Dianna, not Andi, and certainly not Skip!”
Elizabeth’s calm did not give way. “You’re suggesting we give up.”
“I’m suggesting the two of us can’t do it all!”
“We have others.”
“What others? A few dozen nursing assistants? What are we going to do—sling bedpans at these people? Mom, it’s time to give up. We’re not doing anything useful—”
“Don’t you dare.”
Elizabeth actually reached across the cafeteria table and clenched her daughter’s hair, ignoring the startled yelp. “Don’t you dare dishonor him like this. I do not care how hard this gets for you. He sacrificed his afterlife for you. People are depending—on
you
. You have a responsibility. You will see it through.”
“Ow, Mom, my hair—”
“Preferably without whining.”
Without looking away, Jennifer reached up carefully and disentangled her mother’s fingers from her locks. Elizabeth relented, but her face retained its hardness.
“You’re a bitch.”
Her mother blinked slowly, like an owl. “You’re soft.”
“Well, I’d rather be soft than—”
“You mean, you’d rather be selfish than take responsibility.”
Jennifer kicked back her chair and stood. “Oh,
here
we go. I’ve been taking responsibility for the last two years! I became the fucking Ancient Furnace when I didn’t want to. My reward for that dumb-ass stunt was I got to watch Grandpa die, and then found and fought his murderer when no one else could. Remember? Or were you too busy working at the hospital and giving patients more attention than you ever gave me?”
This made Elizabeth stand. Jennifer sucked in breath and resumed the attack. She knew it was being unreasonable. Who cared? It was entirely possible she had never, ever been this angry at her mother.
“Take responsibility?
Take responsibility?
I woke up in a whole other universe and took responsibility for changing it
back
. Changing
you
back, and raising Dad from the dead.
“Then I took responsibility for facing down dragons and beaststalkers the night this damn dome went up. I’ve done everything you’ve asked, every time, and I’m sick of it! I’m done! I’m through! Fuck you and your responsibility! And fuck you for throwing Dad in my face!”
Elizabeth punched her.
Bent over, Jennifer held her jaw. Several silent moments passed as she considered her options.
Finally, she chose one. “Cripes, Mom. You and hitting people lately.”
“There are more thick skulls out there than usual.” Her mother grimaced and massaged her knuckles. “If it makes you feel better, it’s possible I’ve jammed my index finger. With Dianna, it was simply rejuvenating.”
“You’re quite the superironic pacifist.”
“You’re still talking, aren’t you?”
“Well, maybe you’ll want to find a sledgehammer and shut me up.”
“Tempting.” Her mother’s grim-but-cool expression wavered; her lips trembled. “Oh, boy, if your dad could see me now.” A lone tear slid down her mother’s cheek.
“He would understand, Mom.” The near- killing rage that had swept over her had evaporated the moment the tear made its appearance. The rage was gone, and all that remained was dull embarrassment, and sorrow.
Her mother took a deep, steadying breath. “Ever since Dianna came back, I’ve felt more and more empty inside. The loss of your father—it sounds strange, Jennifer, but I had always wished for a second child.”
Jennifer said nothing. They both knew that had been a physical impossibility for Elizabeth, since Jennifer’s birth.
“So he dies. It was so much easier to avoid the truth when he was alive. And then here comes Dianna, with Jonathan’s other child. And then here you are, growing up so fast . . .” She choked back a sob. “I’ll be alone soon, Jennifer. Either because you die like him, or you succeed brilliantly and leave me behind.”
“I’m not going to leave you, Mom.”

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