Rise of the Poison Moon (29 page)

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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“Your daughter brought down the dome, when she froze Skip.” Dianna approached with an exasperated expression. “Please, Jennifer! Protect us all! Finish the job!”

Jennifer bit her lip. “What if she’s right? I’ll never get the chance to stop him again,” she told her mother. “What else can we do?”

“Let me take him back to the hospital. We’ll keep him frozen for a while. We’ll talk. I’ll bet you and I will come up with something.”

Jennifer looked around at the clear sky. The dome was gone. It was a miracle. Her mother’s miracle—that much was obvious, whatever Dianna said.

“I want to believe you so much, Mom.”

“Then believe, honey.”

Her mother’s hand caressed her hair, and Jennifer felt a peace she hadn’t felt in months. Maybe years.

“Okay, Mom. Let’s take him back.”

The peace deepened inside. She knew she had made the right choice.

Then the missiles slammed into the bridge.

CHAPTER 47

Susan

Susan knew three things about Apache helicopters.

First, she knew that the AH-64A was a tank- killer when first designed and constructed. They each had an array of Hellfire missiles, Hydra rockets, and Stinger missiles that worked together effectively against air or ground targets. They also each had a thirty- millimeter cannon slaved to the aircrew’s helmets: where they looked, the weapon would fire. They were truly amazing military hardware.

Second, she knew an Apache battalion came with nearly twenty Apaches and about half as many Kiowas, which were scouts that often laser-painted the Apaches’ targets. The Apaches could then remain hidden behind terrain and still attack the painted target with Hellfire missiles. Her father had explained this to her one Thanksgiving dinner years ago, using a turkey drumstick as an Apache, a spoonful of cranberry sauce as the Kiowa, and a mound of mashed potatoes for terrain. The unfortunate target was Susan’s own pile of dressing, which had too many pieces of chopped celery. Watching the cranberry-painted, vegetable-infested concoction “destroyed” by the hidden Apache drumstick under her mother’s barely tolerant gaze had made a deep and favorable impression on Susan.
Celery,
her father had explained with mock seriousness,
simply does not recover from that sort of firepower.

Third, she knew her dad was an excellent pilot and that he would almost certainly be in the first wave of Apaches to secure the town of Winoka, once the barrier came down.

Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda

She heard the sound while sitting at Gautierre’s hospital bedside. He was sleeping peacefully, though the bruises and burns on his face would take time to heal.
Certainly,
she was calculating,
watching his mother die at the hands of his girlfriend will have an even longer recovery period. Is that what Skip had to deal with, after Jennifer killed his father? Is Gautierre Longtail the next Skip Wilson?

Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda

She recognized the sound immediately and looked out the window. The first thing she noticed was the clear sky full of stars.

No blue tinge.
It took a moment to process.
No blue tinge. No Big Blue! The dome is down!

“Gautierre!” She shook him awake. He started, and she spared him an apologetic look as she pointed. “Look! It’s gone! The dome is gone. Jennifer did it!”

Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda

He sat up and smiled at the untainted sky. “Maybe we should get in a car and bug out of this town.”

She considered the idea.
What if they’ve only interrupted the sorcery—not stopped it? We’re going to feel like first-class asses if we get trapped twice. Why not get to an outside, fully supplied hospital?

Two things stopped her. First, she wasn’t so sure any hospital out there would be better than the one where Dr. Georges-Scales was in charge, supplies or no. Second, those choppers would be the first wave of the military force that would come in, secure the town, and evacuate anyone in need of medical assistance.

We don’t need to go anywhere. Help is coming to us.

Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda

She could see them now—three of them, anyway. The twilight made them hard to define precisely, but she was pretty sure they were Kiowas.

“They’re coming this way,” she told Gautierre. “Their recon’s been pretty good—they must have seen people coming in and out of here for months. They’ll know this is a good place to—”

Several thundering explosions rocked the entire building. The lights went out, and Susan could hear screaming from down the hallway.

How could they? They saw my blogs. I told them all about the suffering in here. I introduced them to dragons, to beaststalkers, to all of it . . . and all they want to do is
destroy
it?! And Dad is leading them!

The feeling of betrayal reeled her senses, but not so badly that she couldn’t keep her feet. She staggered to Gautierre’s bed and began disconnecting his IV.

“Change of plan, babe. Let’s blow this fucking town.”

CHAPTER 48

Jennifer

“Get off the bridge! Get off the bridge!”

Dianna and Evangelina slipped out of the third dimension, leaving Elizabeth and Jennifer to drag Skip’s frozen body off the creaking bridge. The volley of explosions had blasted the underside of the span, sending chunks of asphalt and steel plummeting into the Mississippi. Eddie, once again on the wrong side of the bridge, was forced to run back to the eastern bank.

Pieces of the arch support over their heads were hanging loose, and Jennifer could feel the entire western half swaying back and forth. She shifted into dragon shape and lifted Skip-sicle the rest of the way so that her mother could focus on running.

They barely reached the western abutment when a horrific screech of metal against metal signaled the death of Winoka Bridge. The entire span plunged downward with a cascade of roaring splashes. The river consumed the lower material without difficulty, but the higher bits of the arch stuck in its craw and poked out like broken teeth from a watery grin.

Somewhere to the north, another several explosions rumbled.

“That sounds like the hospital,” Elizabeth muttered.

“What’s going on?” Jennifer asked.

Ruddaduddaduddaruddaduddadudda

Even with her excellent dragon vision, Jennifer could not spot the helicopters at first. Their anti- infrared shielding and low flight paths shrouded their approach. When she did spot them, she cursed.

There were at least ten of them slipping through the river valley, some larger than the others. They popped up fewer than two hundred yards away, pointed their rockets at the electricity substation on the riverbank, and let loose with a new storm of rockets. Moments later, the lights began blinking out across Winoka.

“Mom. They’re going to destroy the town.”

“I can’t believe that, honey.” In the dwindling light, Elizabeth’s despair was still visible. “I see it, but I can’t believe it.”

“We can’t let them do this.”

“Agreed. How do we stop them?”

You could try forgiving them.

“Evangelina, that sort of sarcasm doesn’t help—”

Fine. Let’s move to action. We must destroy them.

Jennifer and Elizabeth looked at each other. Was Evangelina right? Did they have no choice?

Surely, this time, you will not argue. Surely, this time, you see the only possible path.

“You don’t have to leave it to her.” They turned, surprised, to hear Dianna say this. Her hands glowed with golden energy. “You can pursue them and deal with them in any way you like. Maybe you can find a less violent way to stop them than what my daughter has in mind.”

Mother. You’re interfering. I’ve had time to heal, and I am hungry.

“Daughter. Stand still and listen. This is not our town. This is not our legacy. Those it belongs to need our help. Let’s give them a chance.”

Evangelina’s legs twitched. Then she was gone.

Dianna sighed. “You will have to move quickly if you want a different outcome from what she has in mind. You won’t be able to save all of them—but maybe you’ll be able to save some of them.”

“Save them? Have you
seen
them? According to my friend Susan, they top out at one hundred eighty miles per hour and have heat-seeking missiles, among other fabulous blow-uppy stuff. Perhaps you saw them take out the bridge we almost died on. Ms. Wilson, I don’t think
saving
them is going to be a problem. I think
catching
them is going to be a problem. I think
not dying
is going to be a problem.”

“What can you do to help us?” Elizabeth asked.

Dianna raised her glowing hands and motioned at Jennifer. “I can make her faster.”

Jennifer licked her lips. “How much faster?”

“Fast enough. You could take your mother with you. Perhaps together, you will find a way to disable one or more of the helicopters.”

Another volley of missiles smashed into the center of town. Jennifer figured it was the armory, an opinion confirmed by a rapid succession of subsequent explosions.

“Faster.”
With a single word and a burning touch, Dianna transferred a jolt of energy through the limbs of the Ancient Furnace. Jennifer immediately marveled at how slow the rest of the world seemed to be going.
Let’s race,
she told everyone and everything she could see.
Let’s race race race!

She turned to her mother. “Ready!”

“Jennifer, honey.” Her mother was clearly torn. “I can’t go with you. I need to get to others, form some sort of defense. They’re going to come after the hospital.”

Now Jennifer was racing her own fear, which seemed disturbingly up to the task. “How will I do this alone?”

Her mother motioned across the river. “You don’t have to. Take Eddie. Take out as many as you can, hurting as few as possible.”

“What if I don’t have a choice?”

“I trust you, Jennifer. Make the best choices you can. It’s all anyone can do.”

Suddenly, a helicopter over their heads spun out of control and careened into a building. The resulting fireball lit up the streetscape enough for them to make out a shadow of a dragon slipping away, looking for its next kill.

“Hurry, honey.”

Jennifer sped away, shouting across the river for Eddie as she cruised over the watery wreckage.

He was waiting for her, bless him, halfway up a tree and poised to jump. She hovered for half a second, caught him on her back as he leapt—

“Hummmph!”

—and then they were off.

CHAPTER 49

Jennifer

“So. What do you know about Apaches?”

“Nothing Susan hasn’t already told you, I bet.” Eddie shouted against the rushing wind. He clutched her neck with one gloved hand. “She told me they’ve got two crew—pilot and weapons. Each weighs about fifteen thousand pounds, standard loadout. They have a thirty- millimeter cannon with about twelve hundred rounds, up to sixteen Hellfire missiles apiece, and a bunch of Stinger air-to-airs. They’re pounding the ground with their Hydra rockets, and their tactics are to hang back while the Kiowas—y’know, the smaller ones—paint the targets. The Kiowas themselves are less heavily armed, but you still don’t want to hover in front of one with your ass showing.”

“I think sometimes you pay more attention to Susan than I do.”

“Can you see them?”

“Barely. My infrared vision only picks up smudges, instead of full shapes.”

“That’s their AN/ALQ-144 infrared countermeasures.”

“Seriously. Susan told you about all this?
When?
”

“Couple of years ago. Her father took me on a tour of the base. Dad loved the idea of me going into the military. Okay—I think I see them about a mile away, eleven o’clock.”

“Yep, got ’em. Looks like nine left.”

A swirling explosion lit up the ground beneath the others.

“Eight.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I get close to one and bust open the cockpit. You jump in and convince them to set down. We disable the chopper, rinse, repeat.”

He actually laughed. “Fine. Leave the hard work to me.”

“I’ll try to help you convince them that landing is a good idea.”