Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light (13 page)

“She wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” Jonathan answered. “I tried on several occasions to find her, and came close once or twice. But she always anticipated my arrival and vanished. She plainly did not want to see me again and likely considered our marriage a grave mistake. After a month or two, I received papers to end our marriage quietly, through an untraceable stream of lawyers. Since that’s what she wanted, I signed them. A few years later, I heard she married another werachnid—Otto Saltin, your father,” he nodded to Skip. “And, of course, I met your mother.”

“And now it appears Evangelos is alive,” Skip said.

Jonathan nodded blankly. “I wouldn’t have believed it. When I considered the midwife’s words and Dianna’s, I came to the natural conclusion he was dead. I know little of sorceries and other dimensions. But ‘bad portal’ could have meant Evangelos ended up somewhere Dianna didn’t expect—somewhere bad or hidden, where she couldn’t follow. All this time, Evangelos wasn’t dead. He was lost.”

“Abandoned in a different world,” Skip murmured.

They sat in silence for a moment, until Jennifer couldn’t contain herself.

“So that’s what this thing is—your son? My brother?”

“Half brother.”

“But how do you know that for sure, if you’ve never seen him? How did he get back here? What does he want?”

“Even now, we only have pieces of the puzzle,” Jonathan admitted. “But put them together, and it’s a pretty convincing picture. First, the DNA evidence at Jack Alder’s house says that someone related to me was there when he died. It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t your grandfather. Evangelos is the only other person who could possibly leave DNA related to mine.

“Second, your description of him sounds like something half-spider, half-dragon. While I can’t say for sure how the offspring of a werachnid and weredragon ought to look, that’s as reasonable a picture as any.

“Third, the words this thing scrawled next to Jack—and the words you heard in your own head—are hauntingly similar to what Dianna wrote in the midwife’s blood. Rage and grief have passed from mother to child. Somehow, unlikely as it may seem, Evangelos has survived, found his way out of whatever dimension he was trapped in, and come into our world.”

“Okay, so let’s say it’s him,” Skip conceded. “What is he doing here? Why is he killing people?”

“Both victims have had some telling last words,” Jonathan answered. “If Evangelos has spent the last twenty years someplace unpleasant, and if he holds his parents responsible, then it’s possible he’s trying to pass on his grief the only way he knows how—making me experience what he has experienced. No friends, so he finds my best friend and kills him. No father. Thus, last night.”

Jennifer swallowed. “This sounds like the beginning of a nasty trend.”

Her father nodded. The fear on his face was clear. “I am going to assume that Evangelos does not have a wife or a daughter, either. After that, I assume he will come for me, to complete the circuit.”

“So why didn’t he try to finish me off last night?” Jennifer asked. “I mean, I was right there, and he was right on top of me. He must have known who I was.”

Elizabeth spoke. “He’s probably a bit wary of you, dear. He’d want to learn as much as he could first, and it would be hard for him to get close to Winoka. After all, the beaststalkers in that town are a new experience for him. He may be staying on the fringes of town until he can get a measure of them.”

It was clear to Jennifer her mother was avoiding telling Skip that the two of them were beaststalkers as well. She felt a twinge of irritation—more secrets!—but managed to keep her feelings to herself. Her mother continued.

“My guess is that he has started with those people close to your father who don’t live near him, and is trying to gain the courage to enter Winoka. Out here, he probably didn’t expect to run into you. He might not even have realized you existed until you were on top of him, and it startled him. And since you hurt him, he’ll think twice about his next steps.”

“Which may make Winoka the safest place to be,” Jonathan admitted. “After the funeral, we should probably all head back there and hunker down until we can learn—”

“Now wait just a minute.” Jennifer held her hand up. “Yesterday, Winoka was crawling with beaststalkers and it was too dangerous for me to stay. Today, Winoka is crawling with beaststalkers…so it’s the least dangerous place I can stay?” She turned to Skip, a pleading expression on her face. You see what I put up with?

“We can discuss this further tonight,” Jonathan offered. “Skip, I brought you up here because I wanted you to hear the truth as soon as I knew it, because you may be in danger yourself. You are, after all, the closest link to Dianna. Also, I thought you may have insights on Dianna or Evangelos…?”

Skip shrugged. “Most of this is news to me. Mom spent most of my childhood looking for something, but she never told me what—or who—exactly. Her obsession makes a lot more sense now. And then she was gone—” He stopped, plainly upset. “Anyway, I’m glad I finally found out what it was all about. Thanks for letting me know, Mr. Scales.”

Jonathan nodded sympathetically. “Since there are dragons coming here soon, Skip, it’s best if Elizabeth takes you back now to Winoka. What you do after that is up to you. You’re welcome to stay at our house. Or, you may want to go home, and let your aunt know what you’ve learned. I assume she’s aware Dianna and I were…friends?”

“She knows,” Skip nodded. The others waited for him to offer more information, but he didn’t. Jonathan changed the subject.

“The funeral will be later tonight. After that, I expect the Blaze to help Jennifer and me figure out next steps. I imagine we will end up trying to track down Evangelos, though I’m not yet sure how to do that.”

“What happens after we find him?” Jennifer shuddered at the memory of the dark, cold thing hovering over her grandfather. The first time, her anger had gotten the better of her and she had lunged thoughtlessly. She wasn’t sure how brave she would be in a rematch.

“I won’t mince words,” her father answered. “Evangelos is my son. He is your half brother—and Skip’s, too. But he is a killer, and we have to stop him. Somehow.”

CHAPTER 8
The Elder’s Funeral

«
^
»

Several hours after Elizabeth and Skip left in the minivan, with darkness settling over the cabin, three dragons arrived. Ned Brownfoot was one of them—he’d come to take his old friend back into another world. Ned and the others helped Jonathan bring Crawford’s body from the cabin, out over the lake, and into Crescent Valley.

The first thing Jennifer noticed when they emerged into the ancient refuge was that the large crescent moon, which normally greeted them with a ring of fire, gave no such sign this time.

“The venerables are waiting,” Jonathan explained. “They will not signal again, until your grandfather has a proper funeral.” The dragons struck out in a path Jennifer had never taken before—due north, with the area of their homes and hunt far off to the left.

Jennifer ignored the additional clue about the venerables, and instead asked a question that had been on her mind since that afternoon.

“Dad, Evangelos attacked last night, right?”

“Right.”

“And the moon didn’t wane into a crescent until tonight, twenty-four hours later, right?”

His silence indicated that he had not thought of this yet. “This is a mystery.”

“You want to know what I think?” She was proud that she had thought most of this through—using the same logic Mr. Slider was so fond of. “I think he’s got a bit of Ancient Furnace in him, too. I mean, he’s your son, which puts him in the fiftieth generation of Scales, just like me. It makes sense that he’d be able to change at will.”

Despite their grim errand, Jonathan glowed with admiration. “It’s getting harder and harder to stay ahead of you, ace. I’ll admit I hadn’t thought that deeply about it. Soon, you’ll be giving me lectures.”

“Count on it. Anyway, a big part of tracking down my brother will be figuring out who he is when he’s human.”

“Of course, it’s possible he’s always in beast form.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I feel pressure to change into dragon form if I stay human for too long—but I also feel pressure to change back. I know we can’t be sure, but my guess would be some of the time, at least, he’s running around as a guy. How old did you say Evangelos was?”

“He was born twenty years ago. But who knows how fast time passed, where he lived? He could look like an old man to us, or a precocious toddler.”

Jennifer sighed. “That doesn’t exactly narrow it down. It sounds like there’s only one way to catch him.”

Jonathan nodded. “We’ll have to wait for him to strike again. I just hope we’re ready this time.”

Looking back on her grandfather’s funeral, Jennifer had to admit it passed by her like a surreal dream. Set alongside her experience of Jack Alder’s funeral, her grandfather’s ceremony felt too strange, too mysterious…and far too brief.

After traveling at least fifty miles with their burden, they came to a stout cylinder of a plateau, which broke through the surface of the moon elm forest like an enormous tree stump among weeds. They descended and came to rest upon the unnaturally smooth stone. The northern half of the large circle was covered with etchings, which Jennifer could not decipher. The southern half was bare, and about fifty elders were waiting upon it solemnly. Winona Brandfire was foremost.

Ned and the others laid Crawford’s human body down gently where the plateau’s designs ended, and Jonathan guided Jennifer back to a place in front of the gathering. She made out some familiar faces, including Xavier Longtail. The prickly dasher did not acknowledge her, but kept his attention on the corpse before them.

Wordlessly, Winona motioned to the other elders, and together they drew closer to where Crawford lay. To Jennifer’s alarm, they all breathed in deeply and let out a sustained inferno that rippled over the plateau and washed over her grandfather. She almost cried out, but relaxed at the reassuring touch of her father.

The fire went on for a long time. When it finally ended, she gasped—there was nothing left but a few ashes, and the rock beneath was glowing with molten heat. The smell of sulfur settled upon the plateau.

Winona stepped up and dipped her wing claw into the pool of hot, liquid rock. As her finger swirled a foreign pattern, she called out the words that when cooled would remain etched into this rock forever.

“Crawford Thomas Scales. Elder of the Scales family. Survivor of Pinegrove. Warrior at Cloverfield, White Lake, and Eveningstar. Grandfather to the Ancient Furnace.” (Jennifer flinched a bit at this.) “Master hunter, and ambassador to the newolves.”

Then Winona looked up at the other elders. One by one, they said other words, and the eldest dutifully etched them into the bubbling plateau surface.

“Shepherd.” This came from Joseph Skinner, the young weredragon who kept up Crawford’s farm. Jennifer was surprised to see him here before his fiftieth morph; but it made sense given his close relationship to the elder.

“Friend.” This came from a shaken Ned Brownfoot.

“Guardian.” A toneless Xavier Longtail.

“Mentor.” Her own father.

Suddenly, Winona’s stare was upon Jennifer. She didn’t know what to do or say. How could she pick one word to describe what this man had meant to her?

But after a moment, she thought about her fondest memories—sitting on his lap at the cabin as a little girl, while he told her tales about dragons and angels and sea monsters and everything else that seemed part of an impossible world…

“Storyteller,” she finally managed. Winona nodded, carved the last swirl, and whispered over the new designs.

As the rock cooled, Jennifer spotted a slim, pale violet shadow slip up into the air. It spread two wings as it faced the crescent moon, and then it vanished.

“The elder has joined the venerables,” Winona announced. She turned to Jonathan. “You are the elder now, for your clan.”

He nodded, accepting the fact without ceremony. “I would like to propose, Eldest, that we postpone the Fifty Trials for my daughter. Not only are we grieving, but it is imperative that we find and stop the killer. No one who knows me is completely safe. Jennifer and I must focus our efforts on stopping any further attacks.”

Winona shifted her head just enough to eye Xavier. “Do you have any objections?”

The dasher looked like he wanted to say something, but reconsidered. “No, Eldest. But perhaps a Blaze could advise the Elder Scales on his next steps. He deserves a ceremony of initiation, if nothing else.”

“A good idea. Jonathan, do you have time to join us in full Blaze tonight?”

Now it was her father’s turn to hesitate. Jennifer wondered herself at Xavier’s apparent change of mood—probably in respect for her grandfather, she guessed.

“I have time, Eldest,” Jonathan finally answered. “I will need to make arrangements for Jennifer.”

“Leave that to me. Jennifer.” The ancient trampler’s face softened at the sight of the young dragon before her. “My granddaughter can perhaps comfort you in this difficult time. I’ve let her back into Crescent Valley, and she is waiting at our home. For now, we’ll all fly back to Flames Mountain together.”

Like a dark flock, the dragons all lifted into the air together and left the plateau. Behind them, they left the sounds of newolves baying a dirge in the wilderness.

Catherine hugged Jennifer with trembling wings as soon as the younger dragon landed in front of the trampler’s cave. She insisted on waiting on her guest wing claw and foot, and wouldn’t hear anything of going out for training or turf-whomping or anything else Jennifer wanted to do. “At least not until you’ve had a bit more time to rest. After all, you’ve gone through so much these last few days! You need to take care of yourself.”

After a few hours in the Brandfire household, Jennifer thought a lot better of Catherine’s advice. A trampler cave had furnishings most caves would not, such as comfortable straw beds, oream wool blankets, and large rough-hewn fireplaces. Also, since tramplers were lizard-callers, there was always a large alligator fetching water buckets from the nearby stream, or a Burmese python dragging firewood across the cave floor with its coils. All in all, it was a restful place to recover from the recent turmoil.