by Patrick Ness
“A tooth,” her father said. “Isn’t that interesting?”
“Dad—”
“Whatever it is you’re too afraid to tell me,” her father said, still watching the sheriff’s car head off into what was now falling snow. “I’m braver than you think.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He just headed back toward the house, leaving her there. She let that sink in, knowing she deserved it but wondering what to do. She found no answer. She moved to follow her father, but she felt Kazimir’s footsteps behind her, terrifyingly quiet for a creature so large.
“Time to open your eyes, Sarah Dewhurst,” he said, as if whispering into her ear. “The days grow short.”
“What days?” she said, still watching the house her father had vanished into.
“The days until you meet your assassin.”
She did turn at this, eyes wide.
“He is coming,” the dragon said to her. “And he is going to kill you.”
Eight
“BUT WHAT DO they mean?” Nelson said, tracing his finger along the tattoos down Malcolm’s chest.
“That feels really nice,” Malcolm said, a catch in his voice.
“And why do they stop here?” Nelson’s fingers didn’t stop at Malcolm’s waistline, where the tattoos did. He carried on down through the uninked skin and hair.
“That feels nice, too.”
They were at the border, waiting for the night to get late enough so there was no chance of traffic. It had taken most of three days to get there, even in Nelson’s truck, not just because of the increasing snowstorm but also because Malcolm had agreed to go to a crossing much further east, all the way over in Montana, that Nelson said wouldn’t be manned.
Their first night after the campground, with no tent and a fire a risk too far, they had huddled together in the truck for warmth, turning the engine on every hour or so to bring in a little heat.
“We’re going to have to get close,” Malcolm said, “or we’ll freeze to death in our sleep.”
“You sure?” Nelson said, with a little smile that Malcolm hadn’t understood. Or told himself he didn’t understand, when in fact he understood perfectly well and had hoped his voice didn’t give it all away when he made the suggestion.
What on earth was he doing? Where had this come from? And why had those questions evaporated so completely when Nelson snuggled in behind him and started talking about his family, breathing a sad story into the back of Malcolm’s neck? His parents had found him with someone. They didn’t approve of that someone in a very violent way. His father had beat him; his mother had told him to never come back. Nelson had left, taking the truck he’d bought from his grandfather with money from farmwork.
“Where are you going to go?” Malcolm had asked, wanting the breath to continue.
“Right now, I’m going to Montana with you.”
“And after that?”
Nelson didn’t answer, Malcolm turned around to see why, and it happened. Despite the freedom of the Believers, Malcolm had never been kissed, by anyone at all, until Nelson. Shy, questioning, but unambiguous, Nelson tasted warm and slightly sour and of tobacco and warm again. Then Nelson, in the relative warmth of the truck cabin, had started to undress him.
This was not in the preparations Malcolm had been given. He’d been warned of predatory men and women who might seek this in exchange for favors, favors like a ride to the border. He’d been warned about those who might try to take this from him by force. He had nodded and understood and accepted properly the wise words he had been given.
But this didn’t feel like that. At all.
He was only ever supposed to accept a ride with someone when he was in deep extremity and only then for the briefest possible time. But he had happily agreed to another day’s ride from Nelson. And then another day after that. And here they were again, Malcolm shivering in the cold while Nelson traced the tattoos on his skin.
“They’re down your legs, too,” Nelson said. “And you’ve had them a while.” Nelson gently ran his fingers across Malcolm’s inner thigh. “Your leg hair has had time to grow back.”
“They start when we’re very young,” Malcolm answered. “They’re our scripture.”
“Like the Bible.”
“In a sense. But it’s more about your dedication to what you believe. The more you commit yourself, the more scripture is written on your body.”
“And you know this when you’re a child?”
“Believers don’t think age is a barrier. Some of our most important preachers are children.”
Like me, he didn’t say. He had preached since age seven, been acclaimed for it. It had made him the obvious selection for this mission.
He pushed the thought of the mission firmly out of his mind.
Nelson kept looking—between Malcolm’s legs, around his hips—seemingly more out of interest than lust. “It’s a little cold to be all the way naked,” Malcolm said, gooseflesh appearing everywhere.
“Only for a second. I want to see.” Nelson glanced up. “If that’s all right?”
Malcolm smiled. Nelson had become almost an entirely different person after the kiss. Softer, younger, like he’d thrown off the burden of having to defend himself against possible attack. Malcolm wondered if he would ever experience that feeling himself. His defenses were for something else entirely, not for who he wanted to kiss, wanted to touch like this.
The second day, they had literally spoken to no one else save for a gas station attendant midway. Malcolm used his cash to fill the tank and buy them enough food for the road. Nelson’s eyes had widened at the money.
“Is that why those people are after you?” he asked. “Did you rob a bank?”
“No,” Malcolm said. “It’s all mine, free and clear.”
They got back on the road, going as fast as the snowstorm would let them. Malcolm felt some anxiety at their pace and that they were going in the wrong direction, but an unmanned border crossing was clearly high priority after being chased out of the campground. Besides, he was finding it hard to feel anxious about much in the presence of Nelson.
“So why are they after you?” Nelson asked carefully that second day, driving and eating the sandwich Malcolm had bought. “You never said.”
Malcolm sighed. “I haven’t done anything wrong, if that’s what you’re asking. People don’t really like Believers. Officials especially. We rarely even leave our Cell compounds anymore.”
“Then why did you say you didn’t want to kill them?” He glanced over. “Was that for real?”
“I wish it wasn’t,” Malcolm said, quietly. “I have to be somewhere. Soon. It’s more important than I could even say. They would have stopped me. Tried to.”
“You don’t mean . . .” Nelson ate the last bite of his sandwich, trying to look nonchalant. “You don’t mean actually kill them, though.”
Malcolm watched him, watched his handsome profile, watched the way he cleaned his lips with thumb and pinkie. The question of attraction had barely come up in his training. It was a religious mission, not unlike priesthood or a nunnery. Relationships were never meant to enter it. That had been drummed into Malcolm since he was a boy. He had been surrounded by women, too, almost exclusively, his entire life, and though he knew about this feeling, there had almost literally been no opportunity to even entertain it, much less act on it.
He barely knew Nelson. Nelson knew him even less. But the connection had been so instant, so strong, that he already worried about disappointing him.
“Not actually, no,” he lied, and his heart leapt at Nelson’s disguised relief.
That night, lying together again, Nelson had said, “I never thought this was possible. I never thought this would ever happen.”
Malcolm heard him crying, but Nelson wouldn’t let him turn around to comfort him. He kept talking, though. “I always thought it would have to be rough. And violent. And full of shame.”
Malcolm didn’t ask why he thought that, but
he could have taken some guesses.
“But this,” Nelson said. “Like this.” He choked up again. “I just don’t believe it.”
With that, he had finally allowed Malcolm to hold him. Malcolm pushed away all thoughts of the mission, of the very short time he had, of how he would—without fail—have to leave Nelson behind.
But not that night. And not this one either. Not just yet.
“And down over your feet,” Nelson said, moving his hand across Malcolm’s toes. Malcolm giggled involuntarily.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Turn over.”
Malcolm did, somewhat clumsily in the limited space, and felt Nelson’s fingers moving down his bare back, along his spine, between his buttocks.
Oh, Mitera Thea, he thought, praying before he could even stop himself, but why shouldn’t he? If it was all ordained? If it had all been seen and decided long before he was born? Thank you, he prayed, thank you for sending me this. And why wouldn’t she? Was she not benevolent? Was she not the holiest Mitera Thea there had ever been? It was a secret for now, but when the rest of the Cells found out she had not only convinced a dragon to fly him to the start of his journey but actually incinerate two men so the mission wasn’t lost, well, no Mitera Thea had achieved anything close to this in two hundred years. She truly, truly had the power of dragon blood in her, enough to change the world. Why wouldn’t she be able to do this for him, her humble servant, if she chose? Thank you, Mitera Thea, thank you.
“You’re really committed then, I guess?” Nelson said, still looking, his voice unsure.
“Does it bother you?”
“My experiences with religion aren’t good.”
“We think sexuality is healthy.” He turned his head back around to look at Nelson. “That it’s the dragon part of us.”
Nelson grinned, shyly. Malcolm found his heart thumping just at the sight of it.
“I like that,” Nelson said. “The dragon part of us.”
He smiled again, and that was it, Malcolm’s heart was lost.
“Goddammit,” Agent Dernovich said, not for the first time.
“I would ask you to watch your language,” Agent Woolf said, also not for the first time.
“I am watching it. I’m watching myself swear because we had him. We had the little fucker and now—”
That word, apparently, was too much for Agent Woolf, who got out of the car with her notebook and headed back to her hotel room. The last hotel room they were probably going to get out of this trip. The APB—or whatever equivalent the Canadians used—had found no truck, no boys, no sign of what Agent Dernovich was now completely convinced was their would-be assassin.
“How can they not have found him?” he’d asked, a hundred times in the last seventy-two hours.
“It’s a big place,” she’d replied. “Lots of roads to cover. And they’re not happy we’re here.”
That was an understatement. The Canadians were fuming. They knew, of course, that bureau agents were in the country, but had diplomatically looked the other way as long as they kept their heads down and stayed on the sidelines. The APB had violated that, especially when Dernovich connected it directly to the murder of two of his own who had been melted on a road. The Canadians had also been less than happy when Dernovich had used the word “assassin,” and even less so when he couldn’t say who the assassin was supposed to assassinate. He had stopped short of telling them about the threat of all-out war.
Cutler had been called on the carpet by his bosses, who’d been called on the carpet by the Canadian government. There’d been a lot of carpet-calling, all of which had landed back down on Dernovich. Which would have been fine if days hadn’t kept passing with that bastard Believer kid still not being seen.
Dernovich went to his own room. It was late. Woolf was right to be pissed off at him. He was frankly pissed off at her, as she’d been spending more and more time in her notebooks, going through those damn runes that had offered nothing but gibberish. On the other hand, maybe that’s not what she was doing at all. Maybe she was writing up a report about her no-good partner.
He put a nickel in the TV to watch the news, but had barely heard the first headline when his hotel room phone rang.
“Is that Agent Dernovich?” a Canadian voice said, politely.
Dernovich made a disgusted sound. “You guys ever heard of a tapped phone line?”
“I’m sorry,” said the voice, still polite, affecting not to hear Dernovich’s sarcasm. “Is that Agent Dernovich?”
“It is.”
“Think we found your truck here, Agent.”
Dernovich sat up so fast his head spun.
“You still there, Agent?” said the voice.
“Where?” was all Agent Dernovich replied.
Even before properly waking, Malcolm knew the knock on the truck window wasn’t friendly. He opened his eyes and looked straight into the beam of a powerful flashlight picking its way over Malcolm’s face, his bare shoulders under the blanket, the bare shoulders of the now-waking Nelson behind him.
“Oh, no,” he heard Nelson breathe.
“Whatever moves you’re about to make,” said a voice behind the flashlight, “you’re going to make them nice and slowly.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Nelson started.
“Not what it looks like to me,” said the voice. “Put your clothes on. No sudden moves.”
“Oh, no,” Nelson kept whispering, “oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.”
“It’s okay,” Malcolm whispered back, gathering the clothes that lay scrunched around them. He was shivering. It had really been far too cold to stay naked, but how could you not when it felt that nice?
He wondered if he would ever feel that way again.
He sat up, seeing the man holding the flashlight. He was an RCMP and had a pistol in his other hand. Nelson saw it, too, and raised his own hands in response.
“As long as you just get dressed and don’t try anything,” the Mountie said, “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Then why are you pointing a gun at us?” Nelson asked, pulling on his shirt.
“He’s not pointing it at us,” Malcolm said, also dressing, but keeping his eye on the Mountie. “He’s pointing it at me.”
“How did they find us?” Nelson asked.
“Maybe this border isn’t as unwatched as you thought.”
“That’s what my grandfather told me—”
“I’m not blaming you,” Malcolm said, calmly. “I’m really not.” He smiled at Nelson. A true one. Let there be that, at least, he thought.
“Hurry up in there,” the Mountie said. “It’s not getting any warmer.”
Malcolm put on his thick sweater, feeling the sleeves as he pushed his arms through.
“We’re getting out now,” Malcolm said. “Don’t shoot us.”
“That depends on you,” said the Mountie.
Malcolm opened the door. Nelson did the same behind him. Malcolm stepped out into the snow, his hands in the air. Nelson started coming around the front of the truck.
“You stop right there for a minute,” the Mountie said to him. Nelson did. The Mountie turned back to Malcolm. “Is your name Malcolm?”
“No,” Malcolm said, simply, as this was actually the truth.
The Mountie’s face hardened a little. “I’m looking for a teenage male Believer in a rusted brown truck making for the American border.” He shined his flashlight in Nelson’s face, making him squint. “Possibly in the company of another teenage male.” The Mountie brought the flashlight back to Malcolm. “And you’re telling me you’re not him?”
“No,” Malcolm said, “just that my name isn’t Malcolm.”
“Are you playing smart with me?”
“No.”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir.”
The Mountie glanced again at Nelson. “Your kind disgust me, you know that?” He spit in the snow at Malcolm’s feet. “Fruits.”
“Watc
h your mouth,” Nelson said.
The flashlight was back on his face in an instant. “What was that?”
Nelson’s face was suddenly angry, very angry. Malcolm got a terrible feeling in his stomach and silently adjusted his sleeves.
“I took enough of that from my dad,” Nelson said. He hooked his index finger in his mouth and showed him an empty tooth socket that Malcolm’s tongue had recently visited. “That’s what the last person who called me a fruit did. I promised myself no one would ever do it again.”
“Well, now, that’s a pretty speech,” said the Mountie, “but I’m the one with the gun. I can take as many of your teeth as I want to.”
Quick as he could—which was very quick, as he’d been trained for this, as he’d nearly been trained for only this—Malcolm shunted the blades from his sleeves to his hands, and before the Mountie even saw what was happening, Malcolm swung his arm out in a single arc.
Efficient. Exact. His arm was already back down at his side as if nothing had happened.
The Mountie blinked in surprise and put the palm of his flashlight hand up to his neck. The light accidentally illuminated the blood now spurting from the incision Malcolm had made in his jugular. It pulsed with the beat of the Mountie’s heart, letting out a little spray every time that muscle contracted.
“You fffff . . .” the Mountie said, swinging the gun toward Malcolm. But he never made a shot, and they never knew what the “f” was going to stand for—nothing good, probably—because the Mountie slumped to his knees, dropping the gun. The flashlight lit the sprays of bright red being flung onto the snow and onto Malcolm’s pant legs. The Mountie made a terrible swallowing noise and fell, face-first, between Malcolm’s feet.
Then all there was to hear was the snowfall, which was silent as a breath, and nothing to see but the shadows across Nelson’s horrified face.
“Can’t they go any faster!” Agent Dernovich shouted at the RCMP Security Service vehicle ahead of them, an unmarked Oldsmobile, just like theirs; did all Secret Service drive Oldsmobiles? Did criminals know to be on constant lookout for them?