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by Patrick Ness


  (You have not saved us.)

  “Nelson, I . . . What did he mean?”

  “That woman is here,” Nelson said in horror, looking behind Malcolm. “She just shot the policeman and that man from the truck.”

  “Daddy?” Jason was dead in Sarah’s lap, an idea so big she couldn’t yet feel it. The aura from the claw was close to her now, and she felt wind buffeting her hair. The edges of the aura were ragged and strange, as if curtains were opening and closing over a road that looked a lot like—but was not exactly like—the one where this was all happening.

  The dragon had gone. Her father had pushed it . . . somewhere. Her father, in the truck where the plow had been tied as a weapon. He had gone that far in considering how he might kill the dragon for the invisible people who’d written the letters, she thought.

  She watched him jump out of the truck, start running toward her, then he fell to one knee, his hand going to his chest. He looked up at Sarah with the same surprise as Jason, before he fell to the ground and didn’t move, his eyes dying just like Deputy Kelby’s.

  “Daddy!” she screamed and started to rise.

  The aura surged around her, the curtains of light flapping in whatever torrent of wind was driving them and wrapping her away.

  She was no longer there.

  “Damn,” Agent Woolf said. “Damn and damn and damn.”

  She should have shot the girl first, but she had been obscured by the aura from the Spur, an aura that now seemed to have taken the girl completely.

  Well, never mind. Malcolm had done his work. It was complete. This world and all of its human inhabitants would be highly inconvenienced, but that mattered little to Agent Woolf.

  She moved toward her trained assassin. The boy who had traveled with Malcolm moved away from her, behind the truck. He would need taking care of after Malcolm. She doubted anyone would believe whatever he might say about what he’d seen, but why leave a loose end?

  “Malcolm,” she said, stepping forward.

  “Yes, Mitera Thea,” he said, his hand still on the Spur.

  She stopped herself, curious. “Why did you stay with the name Malcolm above all the others?”

  “I grew accustomed to it,” he said, still not looking back at her.

  “It’s dangerous to grow accustomed to things,” she said. “You find them harder and harder to discard with each passing day.”

  “But there will be no more passing days for me,” he said, finally turning, “will there?”

  The boy was clever. Which, of course, was why he had been chosen so young, selected out of all the orphaned children at the Cell, the ones even now innocently knocking on doors, collecting money and secondhand clothes for a cause they would never know the full purpose of.

  “And why do you say that?” she said, to his question.

  “You have not saved us,” he said, and she didn’t know what he meant. “I accept my ending,” he said, turning back to the Spur. “I have killed, Mitera Thea.”

  “It was needed. It was what you were trained for.”

  He didn’t answer that right away and finally just repeated himself. “I have killed.”

  “It’s a burden,” she said, softening her voice, not out of sympathy but because she knew softness would aid her approach, help her in dispatching what was, after all, an exceptionally trained assassin. “One that I’ve had to share.”

  Malcolm looked around. At the bodies of the sheriff, the young man, still visible under the swirling aura that had taken the girl, and then her father, face down on a road, no longer moving as the blood pooled around him. “Why?” Malcolm asked.

  “You ask your Mitera Thea why?” she said, affronted.

  Without turning around again, he said, “I do.”

  She would have to be careful now. Very careful indeed. There was doubt there. It was probably only knowledge of the end; no matter how much he may say he had accepted it, it was only human to struggle. He probably couldn’t help himself. She wondered if she could outfight him. She had trained him after all.

  “They cannot see into the hearts of dragons,” she said now, taking another slow step behind him, her hand returning to her gun. “They wish to. They’ve tried for centuries. And even when some of them knew better, even when some of us worshipped dragons, worked to protect them, they still wanted to know, to look into their hearts.”

  “The satellite,” Malcolm said.

  “It is only the beginning.” She took another step. “They will not stop.”

  There was a dangerous pause. “But you have stopped them.”

  “I have. You have.” With every sentence she took a step. “You will go to glory, Malcolm. It awaits you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. You told me this mission would bring peace. That it would stop war between men and dragons.”

  Again, troubling. “And so it shall. Forever. A lasting peace for the dragons without any humans to bother them again. It was the only way. Listen to your Mitera Thea. She knows.”

  “I have killed, Mitera Thea.”

  “In a just cause—”

  “And I have harmed one who might have loved me, given time.”

  Ah, there it was. The other boy. One who had clearly turned Malcolm’s head away from his purpose. “You wouldn’t have arrived here had you not met him,” she said, “even with my help.”

  “He’s more than a circumstance, Mitera Thea. He’s whole and complete on his own.”

  “I’m sorry your heart’s been bruised. Your capacity for caring only shows how right we were to choose you.”

  “And how were you chosen, I wonder,” he said.

  Now, Agent Woolf felt real danger. This wasn’t just insubordination, this was heresy, as impossible for Malcolm to do as breathing fire. It was time to end this.

  “I won’t harm you,” he said, still not turning back, his hand still on the Spur. “You may shoot me as I know you intend to. Though I don’t know why.”

  “Because humans are weak, no matter how much they profess their love for dragons. You would eventually talk, which might stop the world ending in fire.”

  “And you? You won’t talk?”

  “I will not be here.”

  He turned at that. A full understanding was dawning, of how thoroughly he had been betrayed. She saw it, tumbling across his features like an explosion underwater. She had the gun pointed directly at him, no more than three feet away. She would have shot him already, but his hand was still on the Spur. “Did you try to have the blue killed?” Malcolm asked her. “You said you would just drive him away.”

  “Sometimes one must commit even the vilest blasphemy for the greater good, my child.”

  “How can a Believer say that? How can a Believer believe that and still call themselves a Believer?”

  “You must let go of the Spur of the Goddess, Malcolm,” she said. “You must do it now.”

  “Who are you?” he said, fear in his voice.

  She lowered her head, looked at the ground, letting out a sigh. The gun lowered, slightly, too. She felt him relax a little, she felt hope reach from him.

  As she had intended.

  “Time’s up,” she said, raised the gun and fired.

  But Malcolm knew a defensive deception when he saw one. By the time her gun was level with his head, he already had a blade out of his sleeve, slashing at her hand.

  The gun went off as he cut her, sending the shot astray, his blade going so deep he severed her forefinger altogether. She cried out and dropped the gun, right next to her lost finger.

  The fight was on.

  He leapt at her, was surprised that—despite her obvious injury—she was already leaping back at him. The fist at the end of her uncut arm struck him hard on the temple. He absorbed it, stayed standing, and slashed at her again. She jumped to avoid it, and he took his advantage, slashing more and more.

  She got back out of his reach, then looked up at him with a smile. “You let go of the Spur.”

  She tumbled to th
e road, nearly somersaulting to avoid another swing, but getting past him and almost reaching the Spur. He made to jump on her back, trying to break her spine with both his feet, a bit of brutality she had taught him herself—

  Which made her know just when to roll to avoid it. He swung his hand down in another slash, but with surprising strength, she caught his wrist, holding it there, sweat now covering both their faces.

  “You made me kill,” he hissed at her.

  “The cause was just,” she hissed back.

  “What was the cause?”

  She kicked at his knee, giving it a painful crack that made him stumble. She scrambled up toward the claw, but he threw himself at her, shifting his weight until she fell. He knelt on her arms, her face below him. “What did I kill for?” he demanded.

  “You killed,” she panted, “to save the dragons forever.”

  With a powerful kick of her legs, she bucked him off, catching him a blow across the face as he fell. Now she stood over him, the claw directly behind him, the aura still growing, pulsating, reaching out across the road.

  He rose and she struck him again. He felt a tooth knocked from its root and spit it out onto the road. She grabbed him, the bloodied four-finger fist around his throat, the other holding her gun, which she had picked up with terrifying speed.

  “Who are you?” he gasped again.

  “I’ve told you,” she said, putting the barrel of the gun against his forehead. “I am your Mitera Thea.”

  “What happened to my real mother?”

  She paused, clearly not expecting this. “You were an orphan. Like all the others.”

  “A lot of orphans in the Believers,” he said. “If you think about it.”

  “Now? You ask this now?”

  “It’s because I can see Nelson sneaking up behind you with a rock.”

  She spun. She knew she shouldn’t spin, but she did. She had him in her grip, she had the gun against his forehead, she could pull the trigger at any second, but turning away from him, even for an instant was a risk. And he was probably lying—

  Nelson struck her in the face with a stone.

  She felt her nose break, along possibly with her cheekbone, but the worse outcome was that it knocked her off-balance, the gun sliding up—

  She could feel Malcolm on her even before she reached the ground, felt him break the forearm that held the gun, felt him wrench it from her grip and fling it away. She shunted aside the pain as best she could, but only looked up in time to see him over her, the blades in both his hands, ready to strike.

  “I believed in you,” he said, and she could see tears in his eyes. He drew back his hands.

  “No,” the other boy, Nelson, said. “Don’t do it.”

  To her surprise, Malcolm immediately stopped.

  “She’ll kill you,” Malcolm said to the boy. “She killed the two men here today. She killed the man in our motel room—”

  “Isn’t that enough?” Nelson said. “Haven’t enough people died? The boy over there, too. And what happened to the girl and the dragon? They’re just . . . gone, Malcolm. Somebody has to say, stop.”

  She saw Malcolm swallow. She wondered if she could back away from him while he was distracted—

  He put a foot on her hip to keep her from moving.

  “And you’re saying it?” Malcolm said.

  “Whatever that claw thing is doing,” Nelson said, looking beyond them, “it’s getting bigger.”

  Malcolm turned to look, too, and Agent Woolf found herself unable not to look as well, though forever keeping her mind on any chance to escape.

  The aura was increasing. Malcolm had clearly got a large quantity of blood from that blue. She’d have to stop it soon; the other boy was right to be afraid of it. She would find an opening to make it so. She would or there would have been no point to any of this.

  “It will swallow this world,” she said, “and everything in it, including this boy here—”

  Malcolm didn’t even look at her, just pressed with his foot to cause her enough pain to stop talking.

  “You saved me,” Malcolm said to Nelson, marveling at the fact. “She was going to shoot me.”

  “I told you. I want it all to stop.”

  Malcolm looked back down at the Mitera Thea. She was in a bad way. Blood across her face, blood flowing from one arm, the other newly broken. But she was looking back up at him with eyes that signaled no defeat. He knew how dangerous she was.

  He thought he knew what to do next, though. He knew she probably knew, too, and that she would do her very best to prevent it.

  But it would stop all this. For however long, it would stop this.

  Which is what Nelson wanted.

  “Then I’ll stop it,” Malcolm said, and stepped to the Spur of the Goddess, taking it in his hand.

  He disappeared along with it.

  “No!” Agent Woolf screamed. She scrambled to her feet, cursing at the pain in her arm, but again trying to shunt it away.

  “Malcolm?” Nelson asked, but there was no sign of him at all.

  The aura itself was rapidly shrinking, too, like a tornado disappearing down a drain. There was no time to waste. No choice. She’d have to go through and take what consequences would come.

  “Where did he go?” the boy demanded of her.

  She took a step back to gain momentum, then ran at the ever-shrinking aura.

  “What are you doing?” Nelson yelled.

  She leapt.

  She was gone.

  There was a sudden quiet, one that for a moment made Nelson think he had gone deaf, so complete and sudden was it. The aura had vanished, but the spiral in the air was still dissipating. Nelson could see the fading splash of the explosion that had happened way up there, miles above the earth.

  It was only the sound of sirens in the distance that stirred him. Surely the spiral in the air had been seen, surely someone had heard all the gunfire.

  Police were on their way. Lots of them.

  And Nelson was standing alone in a road, surrounded by dead bodies.

  Part 2

  Fourteen

  SARAH’S WORLD HAD disappeared, but somehow also not. There was a moment of shimmer, as if she were underwater, and the world above stretched and ebbed until she broke the surface. But broke the surface where? For all she could tell, she was on a road that for most of its length looked just like the road to her farm. The turn, the small hillock beside it, the gravel, all the same.

  But it was daylight, and the hillock was in slightly the wrong place.

  There was the usual uniform gray cloud of the Pacific Northwest winter obscuring all horizons, where it had been completely clear just a split-second ago. If there was a Russian satellite flying overhead, no one here would ever see it. She looked back down the road.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  He was gone, too. She’d seen him put a hand to his chest, stumble to the ground. She’d seen his eyes go out.

  Then he was gone.

  So was Jason, no longer in her lap. The cars were gone as well. Her father’s truck, the sheriff’s car, the truck that had belonged to the boy with the claw. Who was also gone.

  From the utter madness of what was happening, from a crowd of friends and strangers at night, from a bloodbath and a dragon and some sort of world-warping magic thing, she was—in an instant—alone on her road.

  But also not her road.

  She got to her feet. She could see the roof of her barn from here, a sight so familiar and comfortable it was all but invisible to her on her thousands of walks home to it. It was now taller than it should be, with a second-floor hayloft door looking out at the road. She also shouldn’t have been able to see her house from where she stood, but the rise that crops of onions had curved over for her entire life was now a dip of land instead, still filled with onions, but now leaving a clear view to the farmhouse.

  Which was painted white, not the natural wood it had always been. The fields beyond, too, had none of the c
learing that Kazimir had done. They were still thick forest, as were the fields next to them, which had been waiting for sugar beets to be planted until a moment ago. The clouds were so low, she couldn’t see Mount Rainier and had a panicked moment wondering if it was there behind the clouds at all.

  “What is this?” she said, to herself, to no one, turning in a full circle. Was she just waking up? Had she sleepwalked out here and dreamed a different landscape that had felt so real the one she was seeing now was causing doubts?

  But no. Jason had died in her arms. His blood was still all over the front of her work dungarees. Oh, no. Oh, nonono, Jason, her father—

  “It is not as I expected,” she heard a voice say, the voice of a young man but oddly deep. She saw him walking side-on to her out of a ditch that also hadn’t been there a few moments before. He was looking around, seeming as befuddled as she was. “I thought it would be . . .” he turned to face her. “Smaller.”

  He was about eighteen years old, with wavy blond hair and one impossibly blue eye, the other seemingly sewn shut, plus a cut on his chin that bled dark black blood.

  He was also completely naked.

  “Try not to scream, Sarah Dewhurst,” he said. “I am Kazimir.”

  “You’re young,” was the first thing she said, after her legs had given out from under her. She hadn’t fainted, she didn’t think, but it felt like all the air had left her body, making it a weight she could no longer support.

  It wasn’t what he’d said. It wasn’t the eye-stitching or the blood or that he knew her name. It was that she had believed him. She felt the truth of it hit her like a stone. Of course, he was Kazimir. That he looked human, spoke like one, had the shockingly exposed anatomy of one, didn’t seem to matter at all; she immediately knew it was true. It was this that had caused her to tumble. If Kazimir was different but still himself, then she really was elsewhere.

  “I am the age I ever was.” He stooped beside her, somewhat bemusedly checking to see if she was all right, but checking nonetheless.

 

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