Dragonsword

by Chloe Garner

  “Work,” Sam said. She winked.

  “How did you know?”

  “I know her,” he answered. “I will always know her.”

  “I can’t believe you were so sure you’d shoot at me,” she said.

  “Scratch one thing off the list of weapons to use to kill you,” Jason said.

  “Kill me? Oh, you are the best. How much fun would we have had…? Anyway, no, dear. You don’t kill me. You chase me around like humorous little puppets.”

  She turned her head. Jason didn’t look away.

  “Well, that’s all the time we have for now. Ta, boys.”

  She vanished. Kelly appeared an instant later.

  “Where did she go?” he bristled.

  “I can’t follow,” Sam said. “She’s too strong.”

  Jason looked back toward the house to find Samantha sprinting toward them.

  “There was a demon?” she asked. “What happened?”

  Jason looked at Sam, who had a similar gape-mouthed expression to the one he was sure was on his own face.

  “You explain it, man,” Jason said. “I got no clue what just happened.”

  <><><>

  “Every word,” Samantha said. “That was every word she said?”

  “That’s it,” Jason confirmed. Sam nodded.

  “She’s gone to New York. We have to go back. We need to go,” she said.

  She wiped her hands on a napkin and stood, signaling Sam to stand up and let her out. Leaving New York had triggered something. The next step. She hadn’t guessed it would be such a literal trigger, but she would take it.

  “What about Seattle?” Carson asked.

  Samantha felt her shoulders drop. She’d forgotten.

  “It will wait,” Jason said. “This is first.”

  Carson swept the trash onto a tray and followed them toward the door.

  “No. We have to do that. We have to go get him,” Samantha said.

  “Sam, we’re talking about Carter, here. You’re allowed to go after the demons who are going to kill him instead of chasing a random guy across the country,” Jason said.

  “She can’t,” Sam said. Outside, the sun was still rising, and the air had a crisp, washed, after-rain feel to it. She heard something in Sam’s voice that made her pause.

  “We’ll go,” he said. It was loud enough for Jason and Carson to hear, but spoken confidentially.

  “What?”

  “We’ll buy a car and go to Seattle. You and Jason go back to New York and you go get her.”

  “No,” she said. “He’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll take stuff out of the cabinet. We’ll be okay. You know I know what I’m doing enough to protect us.”

  “You down with this?” Jason asked Carson.

  “Sure,” Carson answered.

  “Then we’re going to go sit in the car.”

  Sam and Samantha didn’t turn as they left.

  “You want to leave me,” Samantha said. He nodded. Her heart lurched. He laughed.

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “I’ve kind of wanted to do this for a while.”

  Her mind reeled too fast for her to pay attention to what her face told him; apparently the terror showed. He gave her a grim smile.

  “I’ve been following Jason around my whole life. When he died, all I did was follow you instead. It was always someone else’s life that I was just playing along with. But this is my life,” he said, pressing his fingers against his chest. “I want to do it on my own, just for a little while. To see what I’m like when I’m not with you two.”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re going to leave me.”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  It came out in a burst, like something rupturing in her chest, and it hurt.

  “Please. Please don’t leave me. I’m pushy and I’m high strung and I’m too idealistic, and I wouldn’t want to live with me…”

  “Honey,” he interrupted, putting his arms around her and tucking her head under his chin. “I love you.”

  She was shaking.

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “I need you.”

  He laughed.

  “Not really. But I get it. If you need me to follow a demon, or any of the other psychic stuff, I can do that from anywhere. All you have to do is call.”

  She tucked against him.

  “Don’t die.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll put it on the list.”

  “You’re really going to do this. You’re going to leave me.”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  She shuddered, then jumped across the boundary. She looked up at the wrinkled man on the hillside.

  “Please,” she said. “Isn’t there another way?”

  He turned his head to look at her with compassionate curiosity.

  “Another way for what?”

  “Don’t take him away from me. Please.”

  He smiled.

  “Child.” He put his hand out and she knelt on the grass in front of him. He put his hand on her head and she took a steadying breath. “Do you trust me?”

  It was a hard question. He asked it often.

  “Yes.”

  “Walk on.”

  She looked up in surprise. She rarely got such direct statements from him. He grinned. Sat.

  She sat down next to him, watching water making its way from the waterfall at the north end of space, across the wide expanse of vibrant green, to the cold pond underneath the ancient oak. She claimed her peace, sitting quietly for a long time.

  “You know they don’t get it,” she said. “They think I come here and you just tell me all the answers.”

  “I always tell you what you need,” he said.

  “You do. They think it’s a cheat sheet. I have no idea if I’m doing anything right. I’m trying to save Carter, but… There are so many things that could go wrong.”

  “I know.”

  “And Sam… I don’t want him to go.”

  The wrinkled old man laughed.

  “It’s a good sign.”

  “Please don’t let him die.”

  She wanted to say she couldn’t do it, but being dramatic at the creator of the universe rang flat. He nodded.

  “All things die.”

  She sighed, feeling the foreshadowing of grief she always did when she thought about it. The man shifted and looked at her, head tilted to one side.

  “When the time comes, bring him to me,” he told her.

  His eyes were serious, just for the moment, and he shook his head. No questions. He wouldn’t answer them. She nodded, feeling helpless. He smiled again, reaching over to brush her hair back paternally.

  “Lahn led’dd Eloi.”

  It was like flipping a switch.

  Those words.

  Peace; victory. I have you; I will find you; you are mine. I am.

  The ideas in each word were so huge; angels and humans had translated them hundreds of ways into dozens of languages. Be still and know I am God. Fear not. I hold the world in my hands. You bear my mark and are called by my name. They bespoke power and intent. Nothing did them justice.

  And eloi.

  The angels had a myth, a simple story of explaining before and after, in which God spoke the world into existence using a specific sequence of the fifteen thousand words in angeltongue, using each of them once, save eloi. I am. He started and finished with eloi.

  Samantha would introduce herself to a stranger in angeltongue: eloi Anadidd’na Anu’dd. My ‘I am’ is Anadidd’na Anu’dd. God was eloi Eloi. I am was powerful in incantative magic, and the fact that everyone had a different I am made the magic unique. God’s I am was transcendent.

  She dropped her head, accepting the blessing. He smiled, simple, happy, and looked back out over the valley. They sat like that, side by side, for a long time.

  “Thank you,” she said. He nodded. She closed her
eyes and stood, feeling the light and the warmth of the place, then dropped back across.

  She looked up at Sam.

  “I don’t want you to go, but if that’s what has to happen, let it happen,” she said. He squeezed her harder.

  “I’ll get him,” he said. “Maybe some others Kerk has lined up for us. But I’ll be there when you need me.”

  His eyes were sad, but he nodded at her.

  “Go on. You should be on the road.”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve got cash?”

  “Of course.”

  She buried her face in his chest again, hugging him, then pulled his face down to kiss him, trying to forget that they were in a parking lot. He kissed her back, taking the light affectionate kiss she offered him much deeper, lifting her weight to her toes. She pulled away, embarrassed and he frowned. She jerked her head toward the Cruiser and he shook his head, confused. She rolled her eyes.

  “We’re in public.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “Fair enough.”

  He took her hand and kissed it, then led her back to the car.

  “Settled?” Jason asked. “That looked like a goodbye kiss to me.”

  Samantha felt herself flush and she turned her face away, trying to settle her mind to what was going to happen next. They found a used-car dealership and Sam and Carson got out. Sam went through the cabinet, taking a wide selection of things that Samantha approved of, and they unloaded the rest of his stuff and Carson’s things. She played Sam’s hair between her fingers, then hugged Carson and got back in the car, forcing numbness on herself. This wasn’t like the last time he left her. He would come back. He was just fulfilling her obligations where she had let herself take on too many. He would come back.

  <><><>

  “I didn’t think you’d drop it on her quite like that,” Jason said, looking over his shoulder at Samantha as she sat in the car.

  “This is the right time,” Sam said. “Just keep her off me for a little while, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jason said. “You’re sure about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jason nodded, rubbing his thumb along his jaw.

  “Okay. Keep in touch.”

  Sam nodded, looking torn for just a moment.

  “Take care of her.”

  “Always.”

  <><><>

  Samantha had Jason pull off the interstate less than an hour out of town.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “You need sleep,” she said.

  “I feel fine,” he answered.

  “We both need sleep,” she said, “but I’m going to recover a lot faster than you. I’ll drive us back to New York.”

  “I said I feel fine.”

  “Fine. Let me drive for an hour or so?”

  He looked set to argue, but shrugged and got out, passing her in front of the car. She shifted the seat forward and moved all of the mirrors. He made an exasperated noise and she grinned.

  “Just settling in.”

  She merged back onto the interstate, checking to make sure the GPS was still set up. It was going to be a very long trip.

  “Get comfortable,” she said. He leaned his seat back and shuffled back and forth for a second.

  “I’m telling you I feel fine,” he said. She glanced at him.

  “Sleep now, Jason.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, then his head collapsed sideways and his arms flopped, one into his lap and the other on the floor. She turned her head back to watch the road.

  <><><>

  Fifty-eight hours to New York, Jason slept. Samantha ate frequently, feeling the wear that sleeplessness was putting on her body, and knowing she would have to crash, herself, once they got there, but she felt like she had left the city exposed, simply by leaving it. She was relieved when the skyline came into view, realizing the absurdity of her expectation that it might not be there, and relieved all the same. She drove to Carter’s apartment and called a demon to chauffeur her over to her own apartment, wanting to sleep somewhere familiar. The demon, in the body of a skinny boy barely old enough to drive, didn’t have any problem helping her get Jason into the back seat, but swore he wasn’t helping her carry him up stairs. She ignored him, watching Jason sleep for a moment, then watching the road again. In front of the apartment, she snapped her fingers at him, and he sat bolt upright in the backseat.

  “I feel fine.”

  “I expect you do,” she answered.

  “What happened? Where am I? Where’s Gwen?”

  “Gwen’s at Carter’s apartment,” Samantha said, giving the demon a tight smile and getting out. “Return the car to the garage. I’ll call if I need you.”

  “What happened?” Jason asked, getting out of the car.

  “You slept,” Samantha said. “Dreamlessly, it appears.”

  He looked around.

  “We’re in New York.”

  “Yes.”

  “I slept the entire way across the country?”

  “Yup.”

  “No way.”

  They walked up the stairs in the building, and outside the door to her apartment, Samantha took Jason’s hand and put it to the door, putting her own hand next to it, reshaping the magic of the lock to recognize him. He waited.

  “You can come and go like you want, now,” she said. “I’m going to go sleep. Don’t let me sleep for more than twenty-six hours; we’ve got work to do.”

  “We sprinted across the country for you to sleep?”

  “In the meantime, you go get Kelly and Abby and bring them here. Kelly will want to keep watch over me, and…” she blinked and shook her head, “honestly that’s what I’m looking for. As long as you understand the risks you’re taking, you can go back to the bars and see what you can find out that Abby might have missed. Get debriefed and be ready to roll when I wake up.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Find her. Kill her,” Samantha said, throwing herself onto the bed fully clothed.

  “My kind of plan,” Jason said. “I like it.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, feeling the wave of exhaustion coming at her as she let herself go. It hit her all at once, knocking her senseless in a flurry of sand and water and light, tumbling her around until she couldn’t remember any more.

  <><><>

  Carter sat in the dark. There were lamps, and he could light them if he chose, but the dark suited him.

  He hadn’t been this alone in a long time. It reminded him of hiding in dark corners, sharp, boyish terror pounding at his senses as he cursed himself over and over for what he had done.

  He was not that boy any longer. He hadn’t been in a long time.

  She would come to him soon. His body told him it was time for food again, and she was never late. He was angry and disarmed and powerless.

  Samantha had told him to stay put, but he’d never been much good at following orders. He hadn’t considered anyone else fit to give them since he’d returned. He cursed himself, again, for what he’d done.

  There was the soft whooshing noise of a demon existing in space that had previously been empty air, and the dark lamps lit, casting midnight blue light down on him. He looked up at Nuri.

  She put a plate of food on the table at the end of the bed and picked up the empty one. She lifted the pitcher of water and, finding it full enough, put it back down.

  “Why?” Carter asked. She looked at him, her features obscured in the dark light save for the whites of her eyes and her teeth when she spoke.

  “All these days, you’ve not spoken to me. Why have you chosen today?”

  “Because I want to know why,” Carter answered. She smiled that terrible, predatory smile, like a cat at its prey.

  “Because I have the power to. Because of your great value.”

  “You’ve known for a long time,” Carter said, finding his voice hoarse from lack of use. She nodded, once. “Does Kjarr know I’m here?”

&
nbsp; “No one knows you are here, Carter black-blood.”

  “All of it? You were part of it from the beginning?”

  “I was there when the plan to take you was hatched. I was one of the first to put together all of the pieces and realize what could be done and what must be done.”

  “When Sam finds out what you’ve done, she’s going to kill you.”

  “What makes you think she can? I’ve taken you, haven’t I? And held you against your will for all this time?”

  Carter grinned, bitter.

  “Because that’s the girl I trained her to be. She risks herself to fix what’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what you do with me, she’ll make you pay.”

  “She is formidable,” Nuri said, “but she won’t look for you here.” There was another terrible pause as the woman stood, full height, watching Carter where he sulked on the bed. He sat up taller, glaring her down. “We are friends, your young protégé and myself.”

  “She’s too smart for you,” Carter said. “She’ll figure it out.”

  Her teeth showed in the blue light.

  “How long are you willing to wait to be right?”

  Nuri vanished. Carter fought the urge to hug his knees. He couldn’t cross. Something about the room cut him off from the hellplane and his always-present way out. It was just him, in his own body, in the small, cylindrical room of cold metal. He ate his meal quickly, not tasting any of it, then waved his hand at the lights, putting them all back out.

  <><><>

  She woke up like floating in water. One moment she was asleep, the next she was awake. Her body creaked and groaned as joints came unstuck and muscles slid over each other, and she started the long sequence of limbering back up.

  “All right, angel, let’s see what you’ve got,” Jason said. Abby bounced onto the bed next to Samantha.

  “Good morning, love,” she said.

  “How long did I sleep?” Samantha asked.

  “Twenty-three, I think,” Abby said. “I’m keeping an eye on Sam.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I can’t believe he actually told Jason to shoot you.”

  “I know. I don’t know whether to be impressed or afraid,” Samantha said.

  “He was very sure.”

  “I guess I would have been, too, if I knew what he did.”

  Kelly and Jason squared off and Samantha glowered at them.

  “I’ve been putting this off,” she said to Abby.