by Patrick Ness
She took a step toward him.
“We can solve this,” he said.
She took another step. And another.
“This does not have to end this way.”
She picked up speed, smiling now.
He sighed, and said, “They know how to find where you hide.”
This stopped her cold. “What did you say?”
“You destroyed the satellite in the other world,” he said. “You were driven to do it. Perhaps not even knowing why. But you forgot to ensure this world did not have one either.”
She raised her head. “You’re bluffing. I’ve not seen nor smelled anything—”
“You did not look enough. Because of you, the satellite now knows how to find the heat signature of a dragon. Not an issue in a world teeming with dragons, but in a world where they only need to find one? You do know a direct hit from one of their nuclear weapons would probably destroy even you, Goddess.”
“They would not dare.”
“You killed a million people. They would dare.” He clenched his hand; more black blood came out. “I used to laugh at them, just as you do. At their society. Their lack of honor. Their lies.” He took the Spur into his bloody hand. “When you get to know them as a dragon, though, they can still be quite wondrous.”
“I lived as one for thousands of years. You have nothing new to tell me about them. I know their cowardice, their avarice, their hate. They proliferate like a disease. I am superior to them in every conceivable fashion.” She was smiling now. “And when my brood hatches—”
There was a silent flash of light on the horizon, so far away no sound was heard yet. They all turned at the brightness of it, a ring of light rising into the sky, evaporating the clouds above it.
Then the sound came. A rumble like an earthquake, rolling and rolling and rolling.
“Your brood,” Kazimir said, “will not hatch.”
“What the hell was that?” Gareth Dewhurst asked.
“The general dropped a quarter-strength nuke on the crater of Mount St. Helens,” Agent Dernovich said, his voice disbelieving.
“Why?” Darlene asked.
“It was supposed to be just a threat,” Dernovich said. Kazimir had told them what the Goddess would almost certainly be doing and where might be good places for a satellite to look. But it was meant to be a bargaining chip to drive her back to her own world or, failing that, at least a ceasefire to ensure other cities didn’t burn. Exile or treaty was their only hope, but the general had clearly been unable to resist the nest, not when it was unguarded by the mother.
A mother who would now be enraged.
“You kill my children?” she screamed. “This is supposed to convince me to bow to you?”
“They were not supposed to bomb them,” Kazimir said, visibly shocked.
“And this is the species you trust, blue?” she sneered.
“I never said I trusted them.” He looked her in the eye. “But you know, even you, deep down, know that we need them.”
Her fury went from hot to cold, which was in no way an improvement. She lowered her head so that she was level with Kazimir. “I am a Goddess. I am a Creator. I will birth another brood. They will still not stop me.”
“Perhaps not,” Kazimir said, “but she will.”
He held up his hand, the signal for Sarah to come out from behind the fence.
Sarah nearly missed it. She had been consciously looking away from Kazimir’s nakedness—again, this had been such a weird week—when fire wasn’t being breathed or mountaintops being nuked. But now he was waving urgently (for him). Ignoring the mind-warping terror that told her to run the other way, she jumped back over the fence. The ground gave off waves of heat that bent the air like tarmac on a hot summer day. She stumbled a couple times, but kept going toward his outstretched hand.
Toward the giant red dragon, watching Sarah like fury itself.
Darlene gripped Gareth’s arm tighter. “There she goes.”
“This is madness,” he whispered. “Oh, please be safe.”
“You said she wasn’t our daughter,” Darlene said, but gently.
“Close enough,” Gareth said.
“And what exactly will she do?” the Goddess said, watching Sarah stop next to Kazimir. “She will not survive my flames so easily.”
“She will stop you,” Kazimir said. “The prophecies say so.”
The dragon billowed out her wings, and Sarah remembered the pose from Kazimir on the night they hired him in the gas station parking lot. She was making herself look her most threatening, as if Sarah wasn’t terrified enough—
Then she realized the dragon was frightened of her.
It took all of Sarah’s courage not to back away as she came nearer. And nearer. She felt Kazimir take her hand, the other still holding the Spur of the Goddess, sticky with his own blood.
The dragon brought two great nostrils up to Sarah and inhaled hugely, again reminding her of that night by the gas station.
“There is no magic in her,” the dragon said, watching Sarah from less than a foot away. “She is human, through and through. She is nothing special.”
“She never has been,” Kazimir said.
“Then what am I doing here?” Sarah squeaked, unable to not watch the Goddess.
“The prophecy said you would be in the right place at the right time,” Kazimir said. “And so you are.”
He leapt forward and, just like Malcolm had done to him in another world, he slashed at the dragon’s neck with her own Spur.
“He’s made his move,” Agent Dernovich said, still watching through the binoculars.
He felt Grace pressed against him and held her tight. He saw Darlene and Gareth do the same, Darlene taking Hisao’s hand, too.
The world rested in the balance.
The dragon flinched, a winged claw flying to her neck to feel the wound. She roared, but then she laughed.
“A scratch,” she said, leaning back down toward Kazimir. “That was your plan? Have the girl distract me, while you tried to kill me with my own claw? I shall chew you both alive, then spit out your screaming bones.”
“I was not trying to kill you,” Kazimir said. “My blood alone was not enough.”
“Enough for what?” the dragon said.
Intoning the words, invoking the magic through her blood, Kazimir activated the Spur of the Goddess and shot her with the same spiral of light that had so recently destroyed a satellite.
The blast was even stronger than Kazimir had warned. It had been enough to take down a massive hunk of metal from space, he’d told Agent Dernovich, it should be enough to take down a dragon without anyone else having to die.
But it needed dragon blood for that. A more potent, purer kind than Kazimir’s changed body could offer.
Well, he’d got that, Agent Dernovich thought, having to look away from the binoculars for a second time as the light blazed. He’d got the blood of a Goddess.
“Please work,” Darlene said next to him. “Oh, please work.”
“Daddy?” Grace said by his side.
“Hide your eyes, sweetheart,” he said.
“Daddy, it’s not working.”
He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked back out into the field of battle.
It wasn’t working.
It wasn’t working. The light was hitting her, just as it had the radio tower, just as it had the satellite, but it was like she was being sprayed with a strong firehose. It knocked her back, but didn’t seem to be doing her any harm. It was as ineffective as dragonfire.
Kazimir finally lowered the Spur as she rose into the air.
“Shit,” Kazimir said, then he turned to Sarah. “Run!”
They ran. The dragon wheeled in the air, a roar of pure fury coming out of her now, as she turned on them.
“No,” Sarah said, sprinting for the fence, as if those three feet of wood planks were going to protect her. “Please.”
Kazimir was looking behind as they wen
t, firing the Spur at the dragon again and again, trying desperately to keep her at bay. “It did not work!” he shouted.
“No kidding!”
“But the prophecy!”
He fired again, but she was on them, above them. They could even see the cold air turning to steam as it roared down her throat, ready to incinerate them.
The army opened fire.
Grace screamed wordlessly as the barrage began. The tanks all fired, the big guns throwing out their charges, the soldiers firing their guns.
“Sarah!” Darlene yelled, turning to Agent Dernovich, who barely heard her over the roar of firepower. “They’ll kill her!”
Agent Dernovich shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“What do you mean?” Gareth said, but then he saw how Agent Dernovich picked up his daughter, how he held her close against his chest, closed his eyes and softly kissed her on the head.
It was then that Gareth Dewhurst began to pray.
The first tank mortars hit her on the neck, knocking her to one side. They exploded against her skin, and they hurt.
But they did not kill her.
She flapped her great wings harder as the small explosions continued against her chest and wings and legs. Still she rose. The bullets were as nothing. The charges from the bigger guns hurt like pellets, but did no damage. She could endure the mortars. She could certainly endure them long enough to melt the tanks where they stood.
Sarah screamed against the sound of the artillery. It was so loud, she thought she’d go mad. She felt a weight against her back and only slowly realized it was Kazimir, trying to shield her from any stray bullet or shrapnel that came their way. They were in an insanely dangerous place, but running would have been suicide.
She turned her head up to his.
“It’s over,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
He nodded slowly, and she knew it really was. They had failed to stop the dragon, failed to even hurt her much. There was no option left but to drop the biggest bomb the army had on top of her and hope it did the trick.
Everything was lost. Her family there. Her family here. Both Jasons. And soon all hope. Kazimir’s arms were around her neck, and in the cataclysm of the barrage, she took them in her hands and held him tight back.
It was the end. They would face it together.
“You were remarkable,” he said into her ear.
“You, too,” she said.
They huddled against the ground and waited for the world to end.
They would all die. All of them.
She flew straight into the barrage, carving a line of gathered forces with as hot a fire as she could create. Soldiers didn’t even have time to scream as they were atomized. Tanks exploded, melting into vapor as they flew through the air.
They would die. They would pay for killing her brood. They would pay for not bowing to her. They would pay for the lives she’d had to lead as one of them for too long.
She remembered who she was.
She was a Goddess.
She destroyed another row of tanks, another row of soldiers, flying fast along the front line, pulling up to circle around for another pass. She knew they would try to bomb her. She knew it must be coming any moment, but she would knock the planes from the sky.
There’d be nothing to stop her.
Mortar and tank fire followed her. One blast punched a small hole in her wing. She cried out in pain, wheeled to one side and found herself flying straight for a barn.
The dragon shifted suddenly in the air, and in a split second, was heading right for them. Agent Dernovich vaguely heard the Dewhursts and Mr. Inagawa cry out.
He held Grace away from what was coming. He would face the dragon. He would face it so his daughter wouldn’t have to.
There was a man still standing on the open second floor of the barn. Others were trying to escape, but this man stood his ground as she steadied herself in the air with the hole in her wing. It was difficult, but it was doable.
The man’s face . . .
His smell . . .
She knew it.
He held a little girl in his arms, but it was him she knew.
She flapped her great wings to slow herself, landing in a muddy part of the drive.
“You,” she said.
The man stared back at her, eyes wide.
“Dernovich,” she said. The mortars were still firing, loud and heavy, but the barn seemed just slightly out of range. That would change soon, of course, they would be on their way, as would the planes.
“You know me?” the man shouted, astonished but still not fleeing. “How do you know me?”
She didn’t answer. As Veronica Woolf, she had regretted shooting Agent Dernovich, even though in her mind it had been required. He had been an oaf and an overbearing partner, but he had treated her expertise seriously, which was more than most men at the bureau did. And he was dedicated to his job, dedicated—if he’d only known—to stopping her. So she had killed him.
But here he stood.
The feeling was the same as when she had seen the woman. The one who fell. The one she caught. The one she freed. Recognition. A pause. Could she burn this man? She had shot him once before.
But he had no children in the other world. Had regretted it bitterly. And here he obviously had a daughter, they smelled so similar. Could she so consciously kill his little—
His little girl.
No.
No.
A girl with no special powers, a girl simply in the right place at the right time, a girl who would be responsible for dooming her—
She had paused too long.
As she took in her breath to destroy them, Jason Inagawa, unheard under the artillery, drove a truck directly into her belly, his family’s steel plow attached to the hood.
She cried out. Instead of a blast of pure fire, a rush of acid spilled from her mouth. She fell forward, over the truck as she felt something break inside her, something terrible, something final.
“No,” she said, her great voice gurgling as she collapsed, unable to even flash her claws at the two boys running out from either side. Her head hit the ground. She was unable to raise it as the great engine of fire inside her burst its banks, ravaging her organs, burning them, melting them.
She looked up to the last face she expected to see. The last face she ever would see. “My son,” she said, in agony, in shock. “You killed me, my son.”
“Goodbye, Mitera Thea,” was all Malcolm said.
A pulse of magic flew out of her in a great circle, unleashed from her body, all that had ever bound her together and allowed her to live, to be, to destroy, exploded from her. It blew out the windows of the farmhouse and knocked Malcolm and Jason back as it shot into the great world beyond.
The dragon who had been Agent Veronica Woolf was dead.
Twenty-Eight
“ONE BLOW?” AGENT Dernovich said, as they stood over her corpse later, after he had called off the nukes, after emergency services were flown in to tend the wounded, after Malcolm had made an effort to explain who he was. “All that, and it only took one blow to kill her?”
“You have to know exactly where.” Malcolm glanced up to Agent Dernovich, who was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “It’s a rare chance, almost a folk legend. And exceptionally difficult to pull off.”
“No kidding,” Agent Dernovich said. He was still holding Grace. She hadn’t let him put her down, even when he was making his phone calls, and to be fair, he hadn’t put up much of a fight.
Malcolm kept watching her.
So did Kazimir and Sarah. “It wasn’t me, after all,” Sarah said. “I wasn’t the girl.”
“Without you,” Kazimir said, “I would have never got the Goddess’s blood. Which would have never put her in the right place to see the other girl. Not that I had any idea what was happening at the time, to be honest, but there it is. Prophecy.” He shrugged, back in the clothes of Gareth Dewhurst, another bandanna tied around his
lost eye. “You were crucial.”
“My father died in the other world for my crucialness,” she said. “And Jason.”
“But billions here were saved.” He gently put an arm around her. “It feels like a terrible exchange. And it is. But she is defeated, which she would not be if you were not you.”
“Me, the girl who wasn’t special.”
He sighed. “You saved a world. I would take your brand of non-special any day.”
There was a crowd outside the farmhouse. Soldiers guarding what was now a kind of crime scene around the corpse of the dragon. General Kraft wanted Kazimir and Sarah for questioning, but Agent Dernovich had given them his sworn promise that they would be free to go after that, as much as General Kraft wanted to learn more about the dragon hiding under Kazimir’s skin.
“I told the general you wouldn’t take kindly to that,” Agent Dernovich had said to them. “So we’re just going to call you an ambassador, which has a special status.”
“That convinced him, did it?” Kazimir had said in return.
“I hate to say it,” the agent said, “but if you stay here, you’re going to need an ally. I’ll be that ally, if you allow me. I saw what you did here. I won’t forget it.”
“So are you?” Sarah asked Kazimir now.
“Am I what?”
“Staying here? In this world?”
“Give up my dragon form?” He looked at the bandage on his hand, where the blood stained black. “Or face another world war in the one we came from and perhaps give up any form forever?” He looked at her. “Not my favorite choice. What about you?”
Sarah saw her parents—well, she saw Darlene and Gareth Dewhurst standing together, really together. They’d not left each other’s side. Darlene had offered her her old room back if she wanted it.
“I’ve got nothing to go back to,” she told Kazimir.
He squeezed her shoulders. “It will be nice to have a friend here.”
“Does that mean you’ll never be a dragon again?”
“I will always be a dragon, Sarah Dewhurst, no matter how I look.” He turned to the corpse of the Goddess, massive still, terrifying still, a hill all on its own on this little farm, tucked away in this little corner of the state. “Besides, you saw it when she died. We all saw it.”