by Patrick Ness
“Ready?” he asked.
“Go into the bathroom,” Malcolm said, urgently, with such solemn command Nelson barely even hesitated, just looked frightened (I’ve lost him, Malcolm thought then, and knew it to be true) and started moving—
It was too late. The door burst open with the boot of a man who was clearly a colleague of the two men who’d tried to kill Malcolm in the woods. A woman was with him. Both had their guns drawn.
“Freeze!” the man yelled. Malcolm heard Nelson cry out, but he didn’t look around. He kept his eyes on the man as he stepped a little in front of the woman, who had her own gun on Nelson. “Drop it,” the man said, for he had seen the blade Malcolm held in his hand.
Malcolm did not drop it, his heart pumping. Guide me, he prayed. This cannot end here. I know you will not let it.
“Drop it, or I will kill you,” the man said.
“We need him alive,” the woman said.
“That’s up to him. Drop it. I’m not going to count to five. I’m just going to shoot you, all right?”
Malcolm looked at the blade in his hand. It seemed so far away, so oddly quiet among all this shouting. Almost like it was a secret, a whisper.
He dropped it.
I am in your keeping, Mitera Thea. I hand myself over to you.
“Cover me, Woolf,” the man said. His gun was still out as he approached, but he lowered it slightly to take a pair of manacles out of his coat pocket. “I’m going to put these on you,” he said, “and if you try anything, anything at all, she’ll shoot you dead.” The man addressed the woman without looking at her. “You got him?”
“Affirmative,” the woman said, her gun now pointed at Malcolm.
The man lowered his gun.
Malcolm released the second blade he held in his left sleeve. It fell silently into his hand. The man took Malcolm’s right, raising the open cuff of steel to slap on him. Malcolm moved his left arm back to start the swing.
“No,” Nelson said, seeing, “don’t!”
The man’s eyes met Malcolm’s.
Malcolm swung the blade.
A gunshot filled the room like a wave, unbelievably loud in the small space.
Mitera Thea, he said. How does the world end?
It ends in fire, of course, she said. But we will change its destiny. We will change it entire.
What is my role?
You are the tipping point. You will nudge history in the right direction, and it will be changed.
And all will be glorious?
All will be glorious.
Mitera Thea?
Yes?
Will I die?
I will guide you and protect you and guard your path. Do you believe me?
Yes, Mitera Thea.
Do you Believe?
And he raised his eyes, and he said, I do.
The man lay on the floor of the motel room, astonishment on his face along with the blood bubbling on his lips. He was alive, but Malcolm could see that he would not be for long.
“Woolf?” the man said, looking at the woman.
The woman who had shot him.
“You have to hurry,” the woman said to Malcolm. “The time frame has changed. You must leave right this moment.” She nodded toward Nelson. “Take the boy. I’ll make sure you’re not followed for as long as I can. Do you understand me?”
Malcolm didn’t answer her, just held his blade and looked at the dying man.
“Do you understand me?” she said again, but gently, no anger or harshness there.
Malcolm turned to her. “Yes, Mitera Thea,” he said.
Eleven
“BUT HOW?” SARAH said, distraught. Eleanor, Bess, and Mamie lay dead in the snow.
“Rat poison,” her father said, pointing to the granules scattered across the sty.
“Someone did this on purpose?” She turned to her father. “Why?”
He didn’t answer, just looked shamefaced, which, she supposed, was its own answer. Why? Why had the Dewhursts always had a tough time of it? Because her mother and father had been different races. Because they were poor. Because they were forced to hire a dragon to try to save their farm. Did there need to be any other reasons?
“I’ll report it,” her father said, “but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
Sarah had no illusions about what happened to animals on farms, had regularly been served pork and beef, was responsible for the welfare of the piglets they sold to the butcher every year, for heaven’s sake. So why should the loss of these three hurt her so much?
Because they weren’t for butchering—or if they were, it was so far into the future as to not be real yet. Because they’d greeted her every morning when she fed them. Because they were as clever as dogs, she knew. They learned and they recognized.
They were hers.
“Someone actually thought this through,” she said, her voice hiccupping. “They sat down and figured out how and took the time to see it done.”
Her father sighed behind her. “We can get more,” he said.
“With what money?” she asked, not really caring.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said, “but you might as well feed them to the dragon when his work day’s done.”
“But they’re poisoned.”
“Rat poison isn’t going to hurt him.” He was already walking away. “Trust me.”
She knelt down by Eleanor, put a hand on her chilly hide. Pig skin was usually so jumpy, giving a start whenever you touched it, no matter how gently, that this was the thing that really drove home how dead her pigs were. It was stupid, crying over them. She cried over them anyway.
The crying occupied her enough that it took her a few moments to realize that her father had told her to deal directly with the dragon herself.
“Did something happen?” Miss Archer said, the instant she saw Sarah’s face.
“Someone poisoned her pigs,” Jason said, following Sarah into the library.
“What? Why on earth—?”
“Because human beings are mean and pointless and will destroy anything nice that they see,” Sarah said.
She and Jason went to a study table. Miss Archer came and sat down heavily beside them. They were the only three people in the library today. It was a wonder the graduating class knew how to read. “Is it worth going to the police?” Miss Archer asked.
“For pigs?” Sarah said, and was annoyed that she needed to wipe her eyes again.
“I guess not,” Miss Archer said. “With Kelby still missing and everything.” She paused in a heavy way that made Sarah’s stomach start to curl. “People know the sheriff interviewed the dragon. You don’t think—”
“The dragon didn’t have anything to do with it,” Jason said, fast. Too fast, really.
Miss Archer was surprised. “How are you sure about that?”
“Because . . .” Jason scrambled, “no dragon would risk their life on someone as worthless as Deputy Kelby.”
“It could be why they poisoned the pigs, though,” Sarah said, quietly. “If they think the dragon did it.”
“Why would anyone care that much about Kelby?” Jason asked.
“It wouldn’t be that. It would be humans versus dragons.”
“It’s like when you have a terrible relative,” Miss Archer said. “You can complain about him all you like but when an outsider does . . .”
Jason frowned. “Outsiders complain about my family all the time.”
“Yes,” Miss Archer said, “I guess that was a bad example.” She rubbed her chin distractedly. “You hope for good in the world, you know? You always hope. And then someone kills a deputy and someone else poisons your pigs. Back and forth it goes, on and on, getting worse and worse. It’s like the U.S. and the Soviets now, over this satellite business.”
“What happened now?” Jason asked, getting out his textbooks. It seemed impossible to Sarah that, with all that was going on in her life, there was still schoolwork to do.
“Did you see today’s pa
per?” Miss Archer said. When they shook their heads, she got up to find it.
“I still don’t think anyone would care enough about Kelby to take it out on you,” Jason said.
Sarah shook her head. “It’s not a reason. It’s an excuse. Might have even been Mr. Svoboda. He knew we couldn’t afford to pay him sire fees this year.”
“Maybe it was this assassin who’s coming—”
But Miss Archer was on her way back. “Eisenhower’s threatening retaliation if they launch without proof they won’t be spying on us,” she said.
“That’s like asking for proof the sky isn’t blue,” Jason said, picking up the paper.
“Don’t you feel helpless sometimes?” Sarah said, not looking up. “Caught in the middle of other people’s decisions? All these important things they do, not caring that people they’ll never meet get hurt?”
“It’s always been that way,” Miss Archer said. “Just what humans do.”
“Yeah, well,” Sarah said, “if the world ends in a couple weeks, at least that part will be over.”
“Tomorrow,” Jason said.
“Tomorrow what?” Sarah asked.
“Not a couple weeks.” Jason tapped an article with his forefinger. “The Russians moved the launch up to tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Sarah yelled at Kazimir. “Does that mean the assassin or whoever is coming tomorrow, too?”
“These pigs are poisoned,” Kazimir said, sniffing the three carcasses—such a harsh word for them, but carcasses they were, if she had to harden herself enough to let the dragon eat them.
“Yes, I know,” Sarah said. “That’s what I’ve been saying—”
“Not rat poison. Different.”
She looked up at him, confused. “Different how?”
The dragon sniffed again, then put a claw forward, tapping the body of Mamie. “This one.”
“What about her? He can’t come tomorrow. I’m not prepared. You haven’t told me how to be prepared—”
“There is nothing you can prepare for. You must simply act as you think best.” He pressed his claw into Mamie’s side, on the bloat of her stomach. The claw cut the flesh, letting out a terrible hissing sound. Sarah covered her nose at the smell—
Then she stopped. “That doesn’t smell like rat poison.”
“As I said.”
Sarah inhaled a few times, not too much as the stench was quite strong. “That’s fertilizer. Ammonia and—”
“A disguised poison for much more than rats,” Kazimir finished.
Sarah gasped. “Someone was trying to kill you. They knew we’d feed you the pigs.”
“Yes,” Kazimir said. “Someone.”
She followed his gaze as he turned it back to the house. “No,” she said, suddenly. “No, I know what you’re thinking—”
Kazimir laughed, deep and low, a vibration she felt in her spine. “Trust me when I say, you do not know what I am thinking.”
With a swoop of his wings, he left her there, tumbling back into the air as if she were the least of his concerns.
“Did you poison my pigs?”
Her father looked up from where he was oiling the leather of his boots, boots that should have been replaced at least two winters ago. “Of course I didn’t, and I’ll thank you not to speak to me in that tone of voice, missy.”
There was a pause before he said it, though, a pause when her eyes caught his, where anything could have been going on behind that stone face.
“You’re trying to poison the dragon,” she said.
“And have seventy tons of dragon meat rotting on my farm? No, thank you.”
“Mamie isn’t full of rat poison. It’s something else.”
He affected surprise at that. She knew he was affecting it. She could see the falseness right there. “Well, whoever gave it to them—”
“You.”
“Not me, and that’s the end of it.”
“Why are you letting me talk to him now?”
“What?”
“This whole time, it’s been, ‘Stay away from him, don’t even tell him your name’ and all of a sudden it’s ‘Feed him the pigs, Sarah.’ You wanted me to do it.”
“Well,” he said, turning back to his boots, “with the way you’ve been sneaking out and talking to him at night, I figured you’d taken over the job.”
He knew. Of course, he knew. It was foolish of her to think otherwise. How often could she sneak out without the one other person on the farm noticing?
“He saved me and Jason from Deputy Kelby that day,” she said. “I wanted to thank him.”
He looked at her now. “Just that one day?”
She swallowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Kelby is missing. The sheriff was around here talking to the dragon. And your jaw is still sore from your ‘fall.’”
“That was against the counter.”
“So we’re still lying to each other, are we?” He put one boot down and started on the other. “Good. Makes things easier.”
“What are you lying about?”
He glanced back up at her. “What are you?”
Here was the chance. She wanted to tell him. The burden was heavy, the confusion even heavier. And if Kazimir was telling the truth? If someone was coming to kill her? Tomorrow?
“This is crazy,” she whispered to herself.
“I can agree to that,” her father said. He set down his second boot, looked at the floor for a moment, and sighed in that way of his. “I’ve been getting letters. Letters telling me exactly what kind of bad news that claw out there is, Sarah.”
“From who? Small-minded people, I bet. People who’ve never liked us, Daddy.”
He looked at her again, calmly, almost sadly. “The letters said he would win you over.”
“If by winning me over, you mean saving my life, then I’ll take that kind of being won over.”
“Big words for getting you out of a conversation with a deputy.”
And here it was again. Another chance. She held her breath.
She took the plunge.
“He was going to kill us.”
“Who?”
“Kelby. He had his gun out and he was going to shoot Jason.”
“This was on the road?”
She shook her head. “Outside Jason’s work. At night.”
His look darkened. “And how did you find yourself outside Jason’s work at night?”
“Is that the thing you really want to know?”
“I will. At some point.”
“Kelby caught us.”
“Doing what?”
She raised her voice. “Just being together! Standing in the same place! It’s bad enough that I’m black, apparently, but if I’m seen with a Japanese boy, well, then.”
She could see how much he knew this to be true. He calmly waited for her to continue.
“There was a fight,” she said.
“Who started it?”
“Who do you think?”
“I’ve seen Hisao Inagawa get angry. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason could, too.”
“And don’t you think they have the right?”
“The law doesn’t care much about your rights when you look like Jason Inagawa.”
“Or me.”
“Or you. Yes. I’m sorry.”
She ran her foot along the floor of the kitchen. Dusty. Her fault, though between the two of them, they had to do the work of a farm that required at least five. Maybe they could hire the dragon to mop when he was done with the fields.
She saw her father was flexing one fist. “He hit you, didn’t he?” Flex, flex. “Kelby hit you in the jaw.”
“Yes. With the butt of his gun.”
The fist still flexed. “And the dragon . . . took care of him?”
“No.”
Her father looked surprised. If this was truth-telling, it might as well all come out, right?
“Jason got into it with him. The gun went off. . . .” She sudden
ly found it difficult to say any more.
“Jason shot Deputy Kelby?”
“He didn’t mean to!” She was upset now, like a dam was bursting. “Kelby was going to beat him. I think kill him, maybe.”
“Sarah?” Her father was standing now. He came over to her. “Sarah.” He held up her chin so he could look her in the eye. “If Jason stepped between you and Deputy Kelby, I’m never going to regard him as the problem, okay?”
“It was an accident. But the police would never believe that. Not even if it was Kelby.”
He let go of her chin, but not before a gentle rub on the still-fading bruise on her jaw. “No,” he said, “I don’t reckon they would. But Sarah? Sarah, you’ve got to trust me now and you’ve got to tell me the truth, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What did you do with the body?”
She slowly turned from him, looked out the window and into the snow, out over their farm, where the dragon slept.
“And he says someone’s coming for you?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
“And that he’ll protect you? As if I’d let anyone dangerous get within a mile of you.”
“That’s what he says, but I can’t get any more out of him. Only that it’s got something to do with the satellite the Russians are launching. Somebody using it as an excuse to start a war between men and dragons. Maybe the spy part of it is going to see something it’s not supposed to. I don’t know. I don’t think he does either.”
They were standing on the back porch, both wrapped in blankets against the cold. She had told him everything. He had told her all about the letters he’d received, the money they’d paid, told her what they’d predicted, how it had all come true so far.
“So who do we believe?” she asked him now.
“The letters have been right about everything so far.”
“So has the dragon. And he saved my life.”
“Maybe he was supposed to.”
She turned to her father. “Even if the letters are right, he did save me. You can’t kill him. That wouldn’t be . . . honorable.”
He stood next to her, and she could almost feel the tension still there. “The people who write these letters, they’re not going to be happy about not getting what they want.”
She glanced out toward the dragon. “You think he will be?”