Trampolining with Dragons

by S. W. Clarke

  There was nothing I could do. I may have screamed, or I may have only done it in my head—I certainly couldn’t move. I couldn’t even make my muscles work.

  Avarice breathed hard, blood running down his back. As I stared through stinging tears, the red glow began to recede, the field shrinking around us, all the wild magic being drawn back into the sin’s body.

  When the field passed through me again, I was released. My wracked body dropped to the ground, and I landed on my shoulder, my head touching the ground with my eyes still on my dragon.

  I couldn’t stop staring at him. I couldn’t stop willing him to move.

  Move. Please, just move. One talon. One wing.

  I still couldn’t even see his head.

  Eventually, the sound of bare feet on the cement neared me, and my eyes shifted up to see a bloody, drawn figure. Her hair had been ripped away in chunks, her skin was covered in ash and cuts and some of her teeth were broken.

  But her eyes no longer glowed red.

  She was speaking. Her lips were moving, but I didn’t comprehend the words. Nothing made sense anymore, least of all regular English.

  If Percy was gone, the world wasn’t right.

  If Percy was gone, the world had no right existing.

  I watched her talk, and eventually I began to understand. Lust was telling me that she never broke her promises.

  And she had promised me death.

  Her finger went out, shaking, and pointed at the unmoving form on the ground. At Percy. Then she knelt beside me and whispered, “And here is the true death, Patience Schweinsteiger. It’s living on when the object of your truest love has passed. That is the gift I give to you.”

  She was right.

  All the bloodlust had gone out of me, and I’d fallen to shivering. What good was killing Valdis, avenging my family, destroying Lust, if I didn’t have Percy when the sun rose over Brooklyn tomorrow?

  What good was living when Percy wasn’t?

  It was all pointless. Not a bit of it mattered.

  With Lust standing above me, I knew I had changed. All the fight had gone out of me, and I knew I would give anything just to devote my life to that dragon. That was all—just him. And all it took for me to change was his death. All it took was an irrevocable new reality.

  Lust had killed him. Percy was gone.

  She rose, eyes passing up and down my body one more time. Then she turned away, and her footsteps receded down the street toward another bar, where the faint sounds of revelry still whispered through the air.

  My face turned back to Percy. It was an automatic thing. And it was even more automatic to seek out the use of my fingers, my hands, my arms.

  I needed to get to him. He was afraid. He needed me by his side.

  Around me, other voices spoke. Grunt. Yaroz. The ninjas. They tried to talk to me, but I ignored them all.

  I rolled onto my belly, found my legs wouldn’t obey. So I pulled myself onto my elbows, nearing him a few inches at a time. The whole way, a sob hung in the back of my throat like a ball of ashes, stuck and choking me.

  I thought I’d known pain.

  I hadn’t. Not like this.

  My mother, father, sister? I had loved them, but not like this. My love for them was warm and strong, but this was burning, an invisible tether between our chests since the day I’d hatched him.

  I knew that now. I knew it because his chest had gone still, and I felt the tether like a tangible thing. Despair and hope and anger filled me, all spiking in a carousel. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he was alive.

  Either way, Lust had to die.

  When I crested the hole in the street, I found him.

  I could only see one golden eye. It was open, blank. Devoid of the dragon who’d animated his body.

  The sob found its way out, my face contorting, eyes squeezing shut. People had stopped trying to talk to me. I wouldn’t have been able to tell, anyway; the world had achieved a strange lack of sensation. No sounds, no smells, no tastes. Just the pain remained.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  He wasn’t supposed to die for me. He wasn’t ever supposed to die.

  I found my seat, dragged my legs one at a time forward until I could lean over and lift his head, cupped between both hands, and set it in my lap. When I stroked his face, I could almost pretend he wasn’t gone.

  When I began to hum, I could pretend he was sleeping.

  Why hadn’t I ever told him where his name came from? He must have asked a thousand times, and I’d refused a thousand times.

  It was a simple, natural thing to want. Why had I been so stubborn?

  GoneGods, if I’d known it would end here …

  I leaned over him, my face touching his, the song still coming faintly from my throat.

  As I hummed, a memory of a hospital came back to me. I sat in a waiting room, and an old woman who called herself Cassandra had whispered something to me.

  “When your child falls sick and is knocking on death’s door,” she’d said, “sing to him. It will bring him back—I promise.”

  Sing.

  I didn’t have the heart for words, but I did my best.

  I whispered into his ear, a hoarse, off-key sound, about blackbirds in the night, about learning to fly, about coming into the light. It was the same song my mother used to sing to my sister and me, though she was far better. She’d actually seen Paul McCartney in person. And she’d always told me it was her favorite song.

  “Why?” I’d asked her once when I was about eight. “Why that song?”

  And I suppose she thought I was old enough to know the real reason, because she’d said, “Because it’s not about sugar and candy. It’s about feeling broken and having hope anyway, and god, Patience, nobody’s ever reached adulthood and not had that sense of brokenness at one time or another.”

  My mother was right. She was wise about things like that. Here I was, an adult with my child’s broken head in my lap, singing because of what an old woman in Canada had said to me and because it was the only thing I could think of to do—

  I didn’t finish the song. A hand had touched my shoulder.

  If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have reacted. I wouldn’t even have lifted my face. But those fingers were like the morning sun on me, even through my jacket.

  When I lifted my eyes, a radiant, blue-eyed, porcelain face gazed back into mine.

  It was the angel.

  The actual singing angel.

  Her lips parted, and she began to sing.

  Chapter 17

  She sang a song—my song—but it wasn’t. Not really.

  It was otherworldly. It could hardly be called music at all. It was something more, something possessing. That’s the only word I had for what I heard.

  It possessed me. Mind, body and soul.

  The angel’s yellow dress crumpled as she dropped to a seat beside me, her eyes on the motionless dragon in the street. Her shaking hand went out, her cheeks glistening in the lamplight.

  She was crying.

  And as her hand went over mine, she sang with a voice like the breeze. Invisible, a force of nature, unmistakable. I could barely hear her over my breath, but I could feel her.

  Now I understood.

  I finally understood why so many legions of singers had performed for her. Had tried to raise her eyes. Had done their level best to receive her boon.

  The angel was a mortal, but she was still an angel.

  Not like Lust’s guardians. They had been corrupted by desire and power. But this angel, she had remained unaffected.

  Pure.

  A little bit of the universe existed in her vocal cords, and as her fingers remained over mine, I knew she was burning time.

  I could feel it passing through my hand as though it were my own.

  Was this what it was like to have time? To have magic—real magic?

  I knew this was as close as I would ever get.

  She sang for a moment or an hour
. I didn’t know. I only knew her hand over mine, and the balm of her voice and the hopeful thought that the world was not so terrible and barren a place as I had always imagined.

  Maybe there was a little goodness. Maybe it was in me, too.

  When she reached the last note of the song, her fingers lifted away as the note escaped into the air. I wanted to reach up, catch it, hold it close, listen to it like a seashell to my ear from time to time.

  But the magic wasn’t mine to covet. It had been offered to Percy.

  Beneath me, the slightest movement. I could swear the scales of his face had shifted.

  I pulled in air like a drowning woman, scooting closer, both hands going to his head. “Percy?”

  His golden eye remained open, but as I stared, the pupil obtained a spark behind it. It was the same eye, and it hadn’t moved, but the difference was unmistakable.

  It was life, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t hear little Perce say my name. But not Tara. Instead, “Mama?”

  I folded over him, circling my arms around his head. A dragon’s warmth had come back into his body. “Yes, it’s your mama. It’s me.”

  He shifted beneath me. “It’s OK, Tara. I was just out for a little while.”

  I didn’t loosen my grip; the irrational feeling had come over me that if I let him go I would lose him all over again. “That’s right. Just a little while.” My hands kept going over his head and neck, feeling his aliveness and not fully believing it.

  He was alive. Percy had returned to me.

  “Tara?” he asked after a few seconds.

  “Yeah?”

  “Were you singing to me?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, little egg.”

  “But Lust …”

  Lust. By the GoneGods, I would excise that word from my vocabulary the first chance I got. “We’re safe from her,” I said.

  Now he raised his head, and I sat up with him. When my eyes strayed to where I expected the angel to be seated next to us, I found the spot empty.

  The singing angel was gone.

  “But Tara.” I felt Percy’s eyes on me. “Is Lust alive?”

  “Yes.” I tried to keep my lip from curling and failed. “Barely.”

  “Then we have to end her.” His talons scratched along the asphalt as he brought himself upright. “Like you said: we’ll never be safe from her if she’s still alive.”

  I dragged my eyes back to him as Grunt approached us, the head of the stop sign nearly touching the street. “That was the damndest thing I ever saw,” the ogre murmured. “I swear, for a second it was like the gods had returned.”

  My eyes stayed on my dragon.

  Percy was right. We would never be safe from Lust until she was gone. And in this GoneGod World, she was mortal. Powerful as all get-out, but mortal.

  I reached out to Grunt. “Help me up.”

  He did so, and as I stood, my head spun. I still wasn’t fully recovered, but I wouldn’t need to be in fighting shape to take Lust down now. All I would need was one good flick of my whip.

  “Which way did she go?” Percy’s wings extended, and he rose from the ground. “Get on. We’ll go after her.”

  “No way, Lazarus.” I nodded at the ogre. “You stay here with Grunt.”

  Percy huffed. “Seriously? After everything, you’re going to treat me like a child?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t have time for this right now …

  A heavy hand fell on my shoulder, and I opened my eyes to find Grunt giving me a look. It was the look you give someone when you want to gently inform them they’re making the wrong choice.

  “He’s as much a part of this as you are,” Grunt said, soft. “She held the dragon captive for months, after all. And he’s no child anymore.”

  No child.

  I was about to object, but Grunt only gestured for me to look at Percy. And so I did.

  His head rose twice as high as mine, elegant and noble on his neck, and the way he stared down at me, I felt his piercing intelligence almost like a sharp blade.

  I saw it now, like a curtain being lowered. Grunt was right: he was no child anymore.

  “She went that way.” Grunt pointed down a side alley leading toward Times Square. “Fly, and you’ll catch her before she gets what she wants.”

  Percy turned toward the alley, glanced at me over his shoulder with a Well, what are you waiting for? look.

  Nothing. I wasn’t waiting for anything.

  I started toward Percy, pressing two fingers to my lips and sending a kiss toward the singing angel as I passed the bar.

  When I climbed onto his back and gripped his spine, I felt it again: I had changed. Pursuing Lust wasn’t about bloodlust. It wasn’t about revenge or vendettas.

  It was about protecting my son.

  Just like that, the pain of the last five years didn’t nettle my heart anymore.

  I leaned forward, already dialing Erik’s number on my watch. He would know what to do with her once I’d brought the sin to heel. “Let’s end this, Perce.”

  It didn’t take long. A few alleys over, she staggered like an old drunk, her back a question mark, one hand trailing against the brick building in the almost-dark.

  And at the end of the alley, a group of revelers beckoned. They had all filtered out of a bar and stood in the street dancing. Someone played “Auld Lange Syne” on their phone, and they were completely unaware of what approached them.

  It wasn’t a large group, but it was enough.

  If Lust got close to them, she would feed off their adoration for her like the marrow from a bone. Just like that, she would become as dangerous as she had ever been.

  A breathy refrain escaped her, over and over. As Percy and I drew near, I finally made out the words. “Love me … Love me.”

  The Beatles didn’t know how on the nose they were when they said all you need is love.

  She was close. Almost too close.

  Lust heard Percy land and peeked over her shoulder at us. Her eyes widened, and she began a frantic staggering away.

  I slid off his back. “No.”

  “No?” Percy said as I passed by.

  I didn’t answer. I strode down the alley, my hand going to Louise, and I shot her out at Lust with the tenterhooks extended. She wrapped around the frail form and held, pinning Lust’s arms to her body.

  I stepped up behind her. “Percy, make sure no one comes down this alley.”

  Behind me, I heard a scuffle and a growl as he stood guard.

  This close to an almost-dead Lust, I couldn’t believe her frailty. I couldn’t believe this was the creature who’d nearly taken everything from me. She looked like bones with a drape of skin overtop, like a malnourished grandmother.

  I almost pitied her. Almost.

  When I turned her around, she had on a smug smile. But it wasn’t the familiar Lust smile.

  It was desperate.

  Her lips parted to reveal only gums, and her eyes took a wild wideness as she stared at me. She could see my intent. “Do it,” she rasped. “If you must, then do it.”

  I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. She had, after all, imprisoned Percy and Seleema for months. She had intended to take over the world. She could easily become that dangerous again, given just a little love.

  That old twitch came back to my fingers, the whip-snap desire to resolve my problems through violence.

  But I didn’t need to do that anymore.

  “Now I’m going to give you a death,” I whispered, stepping close. “I’m going to show you the same mercy you showed me. To live without love.”

  As I finished, the wind kicked up, tugging at my braid. I recognized the inorganic sound of a helicopter’s rotors descending it from the sky toward the cross-street.

  The corporal had arrived.

  Lust’s eyes shifted past me, her desperation shifting to toothless horror as the few wisps of her hair were blown back from her scalp. “Gods, please no.”

  I can’t say it didn’t feel
good to hear her beg.

  I stepped around her, both hands going to her small shoulders, and we faced the descending helicopter together. Both of us watched as what looked like an enormous metal sarcophagus hanging from wires was lowered to the cross-street.

  When it hit the ground with a thud, Percy’s wings flared at the end of the alley. Two World Army soldiers rappelled down from the helicopter, and I recognized one of them.

  Erik.

  When they reached the street, the two of them started jogging toward us, automatic rifles in hand.

  I started Lust forward. My whip kept the sin’s arms tight to her sides. “The gods are gone,” I murmured in her ear. “Now it’s our justice.”

  We walked toward Percy and Erik. Toward the beckoning safety of the streetlamps and Lust’s tomb.

  But I knew it was more than that.

  We were walking toward the end.

  When we reached the end of the alley, Tara Drake would no longer be a vigilante. Percy would no longer be a child. Lust would no longer threaten the world.

  This part of my life was over. And the strangest part was that my relief was coupled with wistfulness.

  We had survived, but so much had changed. I wasn’t quite sure who I would be when I stepped out into that street; I had spent so long being that fourteen-year-old in a field in Texas who’d lost her family to a coven of vampires.

  Could I be kind? Could I be properly good?

  I had betrayed my one sister, Thelma. I had left her to die. Could I ever really forgive myself for that?

  I didn’t have the bloodlust anymore, but I still felt half-broken. Half-damned.

  As we neared Percy, his golden eyes shifting onto me, a voice that sounded a lot like Mariana’s entered my head. Give yourself a chance, Patience. Remember that goodness you felt when the angel touched your hand.

  Give myself a chance. I could do that.

  I might not be totally good, or even great, but I had my life. I had time to become better, to inhabit the part of my soul that had once been Mariana.

  Mariana had given me the gift of the rest of my mortal life. The least I could do was show Percy the world.