by S. E. Smith
I opened my mouth, felt my throat close, and my thoughts slowed and thickened. She was stopping me—
I have just cause.
I almost let my surprise show at the sound of Peddrenth’s voice in my head.
Iris jerked violently. “What did you say?”
The Reverend looked confused. “Um, should anyone have just cause—”
“I heard that.” Iris snapped. “You don’t have to repeat it.”
My dad cleared his throat nervously. “Is there a problem my, er, dear?”
Iris looked around, saw everyone was staring at her in confusion, and gave a fake smile very much at odds with the fire bolts shooting out of her eyes. And possibly some smoke out her nose. “Bridal nerves.” Her titter sounded like chalk on a blackboard. With a last, suspicious glance at me, she said, “Please continue, Reverend.”
He opened his mouth to continue, but before he could speak, one of the guests gave a small shriek that rapidly grew in volume, swelling into quite the echo, thanks to the vaulted ceiling.
We all spun around. The offending lady encountered a look from Iris and stammered out, “I’m so sorry, I thought I felt…something…cold…brush against my leg…” Her voice trailed off, she looked down, then up again. “I’m so sorry…”
Another woman gave a gasp. “I felt it, too!”
The guests were shifting, stirring, looking down. Pretty sure I knew who was doing the brushing. I hoped the shadowy spaces under the pews would give him enough cover. Did I imagine the faint click of claws against the stone floor?
“I thought I saw—” This time it was a guy, one of the engineers who spoke.
“What do you think you saw?” Iris asked in a deadly tone through gritted teeth. It was weird, because she seemed to swell and her shadow against the wall was kind of dragon-like…
“Eyes…” The word echoed around the room and a flush stained his face. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”
I did. Eyes peered out of the shadow beneath the front pew. His snout hovered between a secretary’s nylon-covered legs, so close I wondered why she didn’t feel his breath on her ankles.
Iris’s gaze swerved toward me. I swallowed. “Maybe you have a mouse, Reverend.”
He opened his mouth make some kind of answer to me, but Iris impaled him with her steely gaze. His mouth moved several times, liked a landed fish, but no words came out.
“We came here to get married, not—” Her mouth worked, as if she held back a slew of expletives with an effort. “Could you continue?” Her harsh tone bounced around, building briefly before fading. She managed something sort of smile-like. “Please?”
“Of…of course.” He glanced down at his book. “Dearly beloved—”
“We’ve done that part.” The gritting of her teeth sharpened all the lines of her face, erasing her man-bait “it” factor like it had never been.
My dad looked at her in some alarm.
“You are right, of course. We were objecting, I mean, we were asking for objections, I mean—”
“What exactly do you mean, Reverend?”
Her deadly tone drained the ruddy color from his pendulous cheeks.
He is objecting to this marriage. Everyone objects to this marriage. Peddrenth sounded firm, very dragon-like. There was something symbolic about my dragon taking on the dragon lady.
“This is not funny.” Iris’s eyes kind of bugged out.
It was funny, but I managed to hold back the giggle, because her looks might actually kill.
Iris stared at my dad. “Surely you heard that!”
“Um, what did you hear, um,” the Reverend glanced down at the sheet with their names on it, “Miss Smith?”
She stared around the room. “You can’t stop this wedding. There is no impediment.” She spat the word out.
“Im—uh—pediment?” the Reverend asked, his eyes going side-to-side in that way people do in the presence of crazy.
Her fingers curled into talons. I think she snarled. Or growled. No actual words. Just bared teeth.
I felt a need to look around because her expression was scary. I think I managed to look puzzled despite the bubble of laughter and yes, fear, trying to crawl up and out my throat.
“There’s no, um, impediment, is there?” My dad sounded kind of hopeful.
“That’s what I said!” Even Iris seemed startled when her words echoed back on her from all corners of the chapel. Her mouth worked for several very long seconds, then twisted up in this half snarl, half smile. “Let’s just—”
In almost slow motion, the secretary in the front pew glanced down and saw Peddrenth’s snout sticking out between her ankles. Her shriek rose, traveling up and up, increasing in intensity and coming back in waves as echo met echo. She jumped up and then up onto the pew. I couldn’t see Peddrenth anymore, but I could track his movement as person after person leapt up on the pews.
One guy, a physicist, added fuel to the panic by yelling, “That’s not a mouse! It’s too big and scaly!”
I had to give the Reverend chops for not running and jumping up on something. He did cast a longing look at his closest up point—the pulpit. My dad just blinked. Iris looked incredulous. Her gaze swept the room as Peddrenth kept the panic going. And then I think she snapped.
The temper tantrum was impressive and sucked all the angst out of the room, leaving only her frustration and rage. When she finally stopped, and the echoes finally faded, the silence was not a happy one. I think even my heart quit beating.
She pointed her red laser gaze at each guest in turn. One by one, they sank down, though no one put their feet on the floor.
Iris’s face was so red, her eyes so bugged out, she looked like she’d escaped from a graphic novel. And I’d swear her nose tried to extend into a snout.
My breathing stopped when her crazed gaze settled on me. Her chest rose and fell. Her lips pulled back in a snarl.
“You,” she said. “You did this.”
I felt my jaw drop, because yes, I planned to do something, but I hadn’t actually done anything yet.
“Iris?” There was a sternness to my dad’s tone that I remembered from my younger days.
With a decided twitch, her gaze flicked at my dad. “This is between Emma and I, isn’t it, dear?”
It took all my self-control to not let even an eyelash flicker on my outside.
Why yes, it is between us, you Kruvox bitch.
I didn’t know she’d heard me until her arm lifted back and swung toward me. My dad caught it two inches from my face.
“Iris?” Not just stern, but shocked now.
She shook him off, her gaze never leaving mine.
“Don’t play games me with me, little girl.”
I’m not a little girl anymore.
“I’ll crush you like the little bug you are.” Her lips stretched back, revealing sharp canines. There was an echo of Smaug-ness about her and I felt a fellow sympathy with Bilbo, who had also awakened the sleeping dragon. I felt, distantly, the unease that rippled through the benched congregation—did they see or just sense what was happening? I didn’t dare look away to find out.
Bug? You’re the cockroach inside my head and you call me a bug?
“It’s…it’s not the done thing, to…to…”
I had to give the Reverend chops for trying. Iris ignored him and another protest from my dad.
Her fingers flexed, then curled into an upturned fist, almost cutting off my oxygen supply. Somehow I managed to keep my arms at my side. I stared at her, then mentally reared back and slugged her. It felt like a real hit, sounded like one, too, though only inside my head.
She reeled back with a shocked look. The hold on my throat eased.
“Excuse…me?” Maybe it was the lack of oxygen making me lightheaded. Or an adrenalin rush. Or maybe I just liked hitting Iris. Inside my head, I took up a mental boxing stance, watching her closely. She swung at me, the physical blow not even close. I mentally ducked and hit back. Then hit her
again.
I don’t know why she took physical shots at me. I just know it was both comical and scary watching her punching the air and staggering around from my hits.
My dad backed away, though protectively toward me, which gave me a warm fuzzy. The Reverend was less gallant, but I couldn’t blame him. This was a lot of crazy to process.
She took a couple more swings. I dodged all but the last one. Managed to not rock back on my heels, though it hurt like a son-of-a-gun. I had a feeling I was going to have a real black eye.
“Do you think you’re strong enough to take me on?”
My mom kicked your ass and I will, too.
She kicked off her shoes and took her version of a boxing stance, dancing to one side, then the other.
“Your mother was weak. I killed her and I should have killed you, too,” she snapped.
The words echoed and re-echoed around the chapel. She froze. A look of panic twisted her face. It seemed like it took longer for the echo of the damning words to fade away.
She looked left, then right. She had no friends left in this room. Malice replaced panic. “I’ll take you down with me you little mongrel spawn of—”
I mentally punched her in the mouth and her head jerked back, a trickle of blood tracking from the side of her mouth. She wiped it away. In the fraught silence, I heard the distant sound of approaching sirens. Someone must have called the cops.
Her head jerked to the side, tilted to listen. I could almost see her trying to figure a way out. Her gaze tracked to my dad. “Did you tell them about her? That she was from another plan—”
I didn’t have to think about this hit. My mental fist connected so solidly, the shock of it shuddered through me. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped.
I liked the thump her head made when it hit the stone floor.
Seven
I stood next to my dad and watched them wheel his former fiancé out the double doors to the waiting ambulance. My headache was gone and my memories were back, the good and the bad. The EMT’s thought she’d had a stroke. I knew better and wondered what would happen when she woke up.
We will deal with that later, Mazan told me. He’d gotten Peddrenth under his cloak and had slipped outside in the confusion. They were going to disable the ship and then—well, I wasn’t sure what happened next.
I was glad to feel whole as my dad and I finally escaped the church, both divided and united by our secrets. Overhead, the now full moon—which brought out the crazies, according to one of the cops—both taunted and beckoned with what might have been.
I realized my dad was staring up at it, too.
“What’s going to happen to the launch?”
He sighed “It will be cancelled.”
I glanced at him, but the night hid his expression from me. “I’m sorry,” I said, shifting from one foot to the other.
He looked at me then. “Are you?”
I wasn’t. But I was. It had taken eight years to get him to this point. “Are you?” It was a question I could ask in the dark.
He didn’t speak for several seconds. “I should be.” He sighed again. “There is no fool like an old fool.”
His words gave me an out. We could slide past this. Get back to—yeah. Neither one of us could go back to that shadowy status quo. It was weird to realize now that I hadn’t known, but I had. I’d felt it and just buried my head in the work. I’d let the days slide by, not living my life. So much time lost. Was I really prepared to lose even more? Or not live the days we had left?
I faced him. “No, dad. You aren’t, you never were a fool.” I glanced around. We were alone, but I lowered my voice anyway. “She…Iris…did something to you.” And to me, but I wasn’t sure he could handle that right now.
He turned to stare at me, the moon’s light now full on his face. His gaze met mine and I saw the person, not just the dad. He’d been young once, had lived, had loved an alien—if we lived through this I really wanted to hear that story—lost her and…gone on. He’d put one foot in front of the other day after day after day. He’d stood between me and Iris, or thought he had. He loved me and I loved him.
Relief broke the shadows in his eyes. We stood there smiling at each other and I realized that even if Iris tried again, we’d won. She’d lost. Dead or alive, she wasn’t going home. No one would believe anything she said after her little breakdown in the church. At least my mom hadn’t died for nothing.
“Your mom would be proud,” he said, almost as if he caught my thought. He went silent again and I could almost feel the wheels turning inside his head. Finally he sighed. “If she did something—then it’s not over, is it?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not over yet.”
I don’t know what he saw in my eyes—or if he could see anything—but he was a genius. He nodded slowly, his shoulders straightening just a bit. Then he looked up at the round, gold moon. “I would have liked to take a ride around the moon.”
I looked up, too, started to agree. Stopped. “Maybe we can.”
Dad looked at me, his brows arched. I grinned.
“Well, I am my mother’s daughter, too.”
You would think that someone who had married one alien, had almost married another alien, and had spent the last eight years building a space ship, would be a little less shocked by Mazan’s space ship. Of course, he’d had a more than few shocks in the last twenty-four hours.
“You…wish to fly around your moon?” Mazan had that “seeking to understand” look as his gaze tracked between me and my dazed dad.
Dad looked from the cool tech to Mazan to me. I think he wanted to say something, but instead he indicated the command seat and lifted his brows as if to ask if he could sit down. After a brief hesitation, Mazan nodded.
I stepped up to Mazan, my hand on his arm, our faces close together.
All my memories of him were back, too. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten him. No wonder he’d looked so hurt. My heart ached at the thought of our lost eight years. He was my other half. No wonder I’d been a travesty of myself, a lost ghost-like creature drifting through a monochrome life. If I’d fought back sooner—no, now was not the time to look back. But wow, what a difference a day makes. Not just color, but Technicolor had returned, full and vibrant, but also bittersweet because I didn’t know how much time we had left. No one was going to call us when Iris woke up. I’d probably know before they did anyway. So I smiled at Mazan and said out loud, “Yes, we really would like to fly around our moon.” Inside my head, I told him, I’m so very sorry. Can you forgive me?
He blinked, his hands coming up to cover mine, his touch both cool and comforting.
When you look at me like that, I can forgive you anything. But what—
For letting her steal my memories of you. I smiled, totally forgetting my dad was watching. I love you. I inhaled his closeness, his familiar alien scent, trying to take it as deep as I could, to live as much as I could in this moment.
His hand tightened on mine. The implant that might kill me linked us together with an intensity that brought tears to my eyes. I felt his love, the loss he’d felt, his joy we were back together, his fear it wouldn’t last.
We stared at each because we needed to see each other for as long as we could. The moment was perfect except for lack of kissing, but with my dad a few feet away…
He smiled, taking my breath away. It was the smile I’d missed a few days ago during our second first contact. “I will take you to the moon. To Mars. To the next galaxy. To where ever you wish to go, I will take you there.”
And then he kissed me even though my dad was there and I didn’t care because wow. As second kisses go, it was a whopper. I felt connected to him in every way two people could be connected, all of it heightened by that crazy implant.
Such a pity that dragon-lady Iris chose that moment to wake up.
I don’t know if we actually staggered. It felt like we did as fire burned into us, a howling hurricane of rage that rode
the implant from me to Mazan and back again. It hurt that she attacked him through me. It helped that she had to fight us both. We drew strength from each other. But…
She had nothing left to lose.
I felt it to my aching toenails. She would rather die than be stuck on Earth in a mental institution or jail. And she planned to take us with her. I couldn’t look at my dad, couldn’t see him, couldn’t tell if she was after him, too. It took all my focus to hold my ground.
And it wasn’t enough.
Cell by cell fire burned deeper and deeper into our minds.
It was too bad we really did use all our brains. If I’d only had to protect ten percent—
I think I felt an arm come around my waist. Not Mazan. He still gripped my hands. My dad? Had he joined us in the link—or he been there all along? I didn’t have time or focus to be embarrassed by what he might have overheard.
He stopped Iris’s progress, but even with dad’s help, we weren’t regaining lost ground.
Iris was pretty pissed. Her rage gave her power.
Or it helped her maximize the link.
I didn’t know. Didn’t really care. I wanted to win. I wanted to beat her.
I wanted to believe we could because love should conquer all.
Our love has conquered, Mazan told me. She has lost.
He’d come here expecting to die with me, I remembered now. He’d been prepared. I was behind that curve. I felt her find knowledge of his ship in our heads. She could still take out Earth if she exposed it to those monitors…
Did I feel an actual shudder under my feet? Had she somehow managed to take control? No, if she had the ship, she wouldn’t be so mad. Her rage built as she felt the ship lifting off.
Who’s…flying… I managed the question, barely. It felt like the edges of my mind were starting to disintegrate in the heat of her dragon fire.
We tumbled to the floor as the ship accelerated, the nose pointed toward the stars. I felt air rush out of Mazan and my dad as they tried to cushion my fall.
We were flying.
And dying.
Anger gave me the strength to push back. It surprised her for a few seconds, but she’d had a long time to be mad.