Dragonsword

by Chloe Garner

  “And all of that about you can’t trust any of them, they’re all demons?” Jason asked.

  “I’m a hypocrite,” she answered. “Someday it’ll probably bite me, but trust is like a contract. The ones I trust get that.”

  “Where to next?” Carson asked.

  “How are you for sleep?” she asked.

  “I want a burger and fries,” Jason said. She pointed at him.

  “That sounds like a plan. You want to get it to go and go pick up Sam?”

  “Sure,” Jason said.

  The demon chauffeur for the evening was waiting in the car, and she told him where to drop them off. Forty minutes later, she let herself into her apartment. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the bed with the laptop. Abby was in vision sitting against a wall and Kelly stood guard by the door. Sam looked up. Something was wrong.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “He found him,” Sam said.

  “Who what?” she answered, going to the refrigerator for drinks.

  “Kerk. Found the thirsty man,” Sam said. She froze, mind spinning off into some very difficult calculus.

  “Where?”

  “Seattle.”

  Of course.

  “Not Anchorage?” she muttered.

  “You guys are chasing a thirsty man?” Carson asked. “That was one of the first things Tanner and I bagged with Dad.”

  “He’s not your ordinary thirsty man,” Jason said.

  “No, he’s managed to maintain prime power,” Samantha said. Abby snapped back into the room.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Yeah. We have to do this,” Samantha said.

  “We can let it go,” Jason said. He’ll turn up again.”

  “No. We let him go this time, he won’t turn up again until he’s killed someone else. Here, demons may die, and innocents may get hurt or killed, but he will kill someone. We have to go.”

  She turned to Abby.

  “I know,” Abby said. “You can’t keep me safe on the road. I’ll stay here. I won’t go out. I don’t want to put any more on you than you’ve already got.”

  “I’m sorry,” Samantha said. Abby grabbed her by the elbows.

  “Just come back soon. We need you.”

  “I’m going to get him back,” Samantha said. Abby licked her lips.

  “I’ll know if he dies.”

  “Abby…”

  “I’m marked,” she said. I’ll know he’s dead before the demons who kill him do. And then…” she said, looking down and back up, “and then I’ll kill myself.”

  “Abby.”

  Abby shook her head.

  “I know what the consequences are. They’re going to come for me, and I won’t let them have me.”

  “Call me,” Samantha said, feeling her throat close and fighting it. “Call me before you do it?”

  Abby shook her head.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I could help you,” Samantha said. Abby shook her head.

  “When do you always stand the best chance of winning an attack?” she asked.

  “During the transition,” Samantha said. Abby was stable now. Carter made her safe, but more importantly, nothing had changed. All of the demons who had failed to take her stood testament that she was a hard target. The moment something changed, demons were going to take a shot at her again, simply to see if it were possible to possess her, and the chances were good that one of them would pull it off, no matter what Samantha did.

  “Abby,” she said. “Please.”

  “This is life,” Abby said. “I wanted to warn you. This isn’t so you can talk me out of it. I don’t want you to be surprised.”

  Samantha’s chest twisted tight, and she swallowed, finding her throat hurt.

  “No,” she whispered through her teeth. Abby hugged her.

  “I believe in you,” her friend whispered. “Be strong.”

  Samantha couldn’t cry, because if she cried, it was going to be hard, ugly sobs. And she had to be stronger than that. She nodded into Abby’s shoulder, then turned away.

  “We’ll take you back to your apartment. Kelly can stay with you to make sure you’re okay, and get you anything you need,” Sam said. The angel squawked, and Samantha made a hand motion to silence him.

  “I’ll be fine for a few days,” Abby said. “You guys go and do what you need to do. Come back soon.”

  It was a somber group who made their way down to the subway and to Carter’s apartment. They didn’t talk much on their way out of the city after they left Abby at her apartment. Samantha had taken the passenger seat, eyes out hard on the road. They would go and find the thirsty man, kill him, and turn around and come back. Undoubtedly there would be a demon in Chicago or Kansas City to kill on the way by. A week to a week and a half.

  It was a massive risk. The timing would be tight. If the buyer showed up in New York while she was gone, Abby would probably find out about it, because the host of demons she spied on day-in and day-out would act differently. Sam would also be watching Ozy and a few other key players Samantha had identified who were likely to be involved no matter who the negotiating sides were. Maybe by leaving, she could trigger the next step. She wasn’t ready, but she was as ready as she was going to be. At least she hadn’t gotten too much of a fight out of Kelly over staying with Abby. Sam wouldn’t give the angel room to argue. There wouldn’t be room for him in the car, and she was hunting a human, not demons. Kelly seemed to think humans would be universally fragile and disposable compared to demons, and Sam didn’t belabor the point.

  So they left. And drove. Carson snored in the back seat. Sam was watching her, she could feel it, but she wasn’t ready for anything outside of her own mind. If he bumped into her wrong, she was going to fall apart, and she couldn’t do that. Not right now. Maybe later, but not right now.

  <><><>

  She watched the car consume mile after mile of interstate highway. Sam slept, Carson slept, they stopped for food, the boys argued about pointless things and talked about old times. Gradually she grew numb. When Carter had gone missing, she’d been angry. It wasn’t until she’d had to cope with the reality that Abby was facing that Samantha felt fear.

  More gradually, as the guys swapped stories and argued their minutia, she was able to smile and laugh, even telling a few stories of her own. She told Carson about the blood demon right after Sam pledged, and how she’d led the thing right into the trap, the way she was supposed to, just to find Sam cowering in the corner.

  “Thing nearly took my head off,” Jason said.

  “Hey, I didn’t know what was coming,” Sam said. “You were actually afraid of him.”

  “No, my body showed all of the chemical signs of fear. I felt fear. But I wasn’t afraid,” Samantha said, holding up a finger. “There’s a difference.”

  “Cowering?” Carson asked.

  “She’s not kidding,” Jason said. “It was tragic.”

  “How can you tell? I mean, even folded up as small as he gets, he’s still bigger than Krista.”

  “Dang, that girl has got some pent up fury,” Jason said.

  “You’ve never wrestled her,” Carson said.

  “No, but I remember her chasing you around the yard that one time. What did you do, again?”

  “I asked her best friend to a dance,” Carson said. “Man, I’d forgotten about that.”

  “I think your dad actually thought she was going to hurt you,” Jason said.

  “I bet Tanner just ate it up, too,” Carson said.

  “If he could have gone and gotten popcorn without missing anything, I think he would have,” Jason said. Carson snickered.

  “Good times.”

  <><><>

  “I am so sore,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his neck as Gwen devoured miles.

  “It’s a side effect,” Samantha said. “You can turn it off if you want, but I wouldn’t. It tells you when you’ve gone too far.”

  “I st
ink,” Sam said. “Do you want to stop and get a place to shower and shave?”

  “The whole car kind of has a funk,” Carson said. “Like fast food and…”

  “Boy,” Samantha finished. “We’ll be there by tonight, but we can stop if you want. Just for a few hours.”

  “You know where we are?” Jason asked.

  “Yeah,” Sam answered.

  “Idaho,” Samantha said. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” Jason said. “There’s just a place up here that we stop. You mind a detour?”

  She shrugged, and Jason got off the interstate a few exits later, working his way south over the next two or three hours. Finally, they stopped at a roadside motel and got out.

  Moving felt great. She did a full set of stretches in the parking lot, ignoring the guys as they pulled overnight bags out of the back and went into the room. Jason was already dressed and toweling off his hair when she finished and followed them in. He waved at Sam and left.

  Samantha and Carson played slapjack until Sam finished in the bathroom, and she took her bag in with her, going through the elaborate process of getting her hand woven through the hair pin before letting her ponytail down and pulling her hair out of it. She washed with the pin clasped around her palm and a waterproof leather satchel hanging at her waist. It was preposterous.

  She dressed and put her hair back up, ignoring that it was still wet, then brushed her teeth and turned the bathroom over to Carson.

  “Where did Jason go?” she asked Sam as the door to the bathroom closed. He gave her a strange look, evaluating her somehow, and she wished she had more insight to what it meant. He kissed her forehead and took her hand.

  “Walk with me,” he said.

  She put her shoes back on and went out with him, walking a few blocks along the little highway before turning down the main street of the tiny town. They came to a playground filled with children enjoying after-school freedom and Sam stopped. Samantha found Jason sitting across the playground from them, watching the kids play.

  “He knows that’s creepy, right?” she asked. “This is probably the kind of town where they shoot the creepy ones first and ask questions later.”

  “They know us here,” Sam said.

  “Why?”

  He jerked his head.

  “You should ask him that. I’m going to go back and hang out with Carson. Tell Jason to take his time.”

  She nodded and he squeezed her hand and left. She picked her way around the playground to sit on the bench next to Jason. He startled.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hey. Sam leave?”

  “Went back to distract Carson, sounded like. I was just telling him how much you look like a pedophile over here. Single guy in his late twenties, watching kids at a park…”

  “They know me,” he said.

  “That’s what Sam said. What is this place?”

  Jason licked his lips and leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “If you put up a map of the United States and put a pin in it for every ghost and every demon anyone I know has ever hunted, there’s this big dead zone. It’s mostly because there just aren’t many people around, but… You know. This is kind of the middle of it.”

  “Okay…”

  The flicker of a smile he made at no one in particular bespoke pain.

  “That’s how we figured out what to do with him.”

  Samantha was suddenly nervous.

  “With who?”

  “My son.”

  She looked out at the kids scrambling on the monkey bars, playing in the sand, wrestling and screaming and running.

  She found herself lost for words for a long time, and he didn’t seem to be in any mood to chatter.

  “Which one?” she finally asked.

  “King of the mountain,” he said, his voice tight with pride and emotion. A boy with a plastic sword stood atop a hemisphere jungle gym, wrestling other kids in the careless manner of children who weren’t afraid of cuts and scrapes. She heard Jason draw a deep breath, and he sat back on the bench, rubbing his face with both hands in a quick motion.

  “Kara doesn’t ever come,” he said.

  “He’s Kara’s?”

  Jason laughed.

  “Who else?”

  “Does he know you?”

  “We’ve met.” He rubbed his face again and gave Samantha an apologetic smile. “They just told him that we met before he was born. He doesn’t know.”

  “Does he know he’s adopted?”

  Jason nodded. Samantha looked out at the boy again, who roared.

  “He looks like he needs a cape.”

  “I think he has one.”

  She laughed.

  “What do his parents know?”

  “That we do dangerous things. They think we’re crazy, but not dangerous crazy.” He cleared his throat. “They said it was okay if he knew I was his dad, but…” There was the pain again, and he shook his head.

  “What’s his name?”

  “David.”

  “Did you pick it?”

  Jason nodded again.

  “For my dad.”

  Samantha bit her lip, then chewed it.

  “Wow.”

  He sighed.

  It was too much. She sat up.

  “Okay, just where do you get off having a kid?”

  He grinned.

  “For all I know, there are half a dozen of them, all over the place,” he said. “Kara was just the only one who knew how to find me in order to come jab her finger in my chest.”

  “Oh, and I bet she did,” Samantha said. He nodded.

  “We were nineteen. She was so mad…”

  “What did you do?”

  “She kept working for all but the last two months or so. We came up here and interviewed families. Picked David’s parents - that’s his mom, over there - she had him in a hospital in Boise under a fake name. His parents picked up the bill, and we left.”

  “You were there?”

  “I held him,” Jason said, face sombering again. He nodded. “We did right.”

  A handsome woman with dark brown hair and weathered features, the one Jason had identified as David’s adoptive mother, was watching them with a curious expression. Samantha smiled at her and moved an inch further away from Jason.

  “At the time, I think it was harder for Sam than me,” Jason said. “To just leave him like that. Sam had always assumed he’d have a real life, you know? Kara and I both knew we’d never have families. Not even get married, not to mention have kids.” He shook his head, a crooked, bemused smile crossing his face. “I don’t even know why Kara decided to have him. I don’t think she ever considered…”

  There was a breath’s pause.

  “Yeah,” Samantha said.

  “What we do,” Jason said, leaning out over his knees again. “I’ve never really needed a reason. It’s what I was bred for, and I’m good at it. Like a horse just runs.”

  It was a question, somehow.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t need a reason, but I’m not lying when I say that I’d be dead if it weren’t for him.”

  Samantha frowned.

  “What do you mean?”

  Jason shook his head, dipping a shoulder to look up and back at her.

  “If it weren’t for him and the fact that he gets to lead a normal life… to be normal, something would have killed me by now.”

  She wouldn’t have understood it, if it hadn’t been true for her, as well. She didn’t have a specific person, but rather a warm memory of who she had been, herself, before everything had changed. The thing that made a warrior’s death not worth it; that made her fight past her last breath. She chewed on the inside of her lip and nodded. He watched for understanding, then, flashing relief, looked back at the playground.

  The weathered woman approached them.

  “Jason?” she asked. He stood and dipped his head to her.

  “Hi, Janelle.”

  “Is this…?”
/>   “I’m Sam,” Samantha said, standing and shaking hands with the woman. “Just a friend.”

  “My brother’s girlfriend,” Jason said. “She travels with us.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, showing a cross between regret and relief. “How is Kara?”

  “Kicking,” Jason said, then grinned. “As fierce as ever.”

  The woman pressed her lips in a controlled smile.

  “We see it in him every day. We call him our lion cub.”

  Jason beamed, looking away.

  “Would you like to come to dinner?” she asked. “He’s been asking about you.”

  “No,” Jason said. It was too fast, an emotional reaction. He reeled himself back in. “No, thank you. We need to get back on the road. I just…”

  She let the implication hang in the air for a moment, then smiled again.

  “Of course.” She dropped her voice, warm, kind, and confidential. “He wants to meet you.”

  “He has a dad,” Jason said. “You and Craig are the best parents he could get. I don’t want to be confusing.”

  “That’s not what it’s about,” she said, putting her hand out. She hesitated to touch him, then brushed her fingers against his arm. “He knows who his family is, and that we love him. He wants to know where he came from. And why…”

  Samantha could tell that the woman was trying not to make it an accusation, but it landed as one, anyway. There was no way around it. Why Jason and Kara had given him up. Samantha looked over at the boy again. He was chasing several other boys with the plastic sword. One of them had found a loose board and was wielding it defensively. David roared as he ran.

  “Is he okay?” Jason asked. “He’s doing good?”

  “He’s happy,” Janelle said. “Healthy. Broke his arm late last year falling out of a tree, and his little toe kicking a rock this spring, but nothing that he didn’t do to himself.”

  “Doing good in school?”

  Janelle smiled and folded her arms, looking over at her son.

  “When he pays attention.”

  “You tell him that there are smarts in his family,” Jason said. “He should be a smart kid. He just has to work on it.”

  “We tell him he can do anything,” Janelle said, looking back at Jason with knowing eyes. “He may not be able to do everything, but he can do anything.”