Seraph of Sorrow (27 page)

“Take them,” the girl told her and her brother. “If I see any of you again, you’ll end up just like them.” And with that, the brunette warrior walked away.

Forrester and Winona waited a few more minutes for the mob to clear the intersection. Most of them followed the girl when she drove away. The emergency workers who finally dared enter the area scurried to put out the building fires. They paid no attention to the bleeding, paralyzed people on the street. Winona wondered if they knew what these people used to be.
Why should they get any help?
a part of her told herself.
They started the fires in the first place!

Nevertheless, she went alone to pull her mother’s body out of the intersection and into darkness. Then it took a few minutes for Winona to get the limp woman resting securely over her brother’s spiny back. There wasn’t room for two to ride.

“You head straight home now, Win. You got money for a taxi?” Forrester waited until Winona nodded blankly before he turned and disappeared into the night.

Winona stood in the street for some time. Water from fire hoses sprayed a nearby building, sending a soft shower her way. Her jeans and sweatshirt began to cling, but she didn’t budge. The water was washing something away, and she wanted it gone before she moved.

It wasn’t until an EMT came up behind her and put a concerned hand on her shoulder that she stirred. “Miss? You okay?” His clean-shaven, earnest face smelled like good earth.

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “Did you see what happened here?”

He misunderstood the question. “You may be going into shock.” Taking her hand, he led her out of the spray and toward an ambulance. The vehicle’s lights flared with silent warning. “Come take a seat over here, miss . . .”

“Oh, I’ll be fine.” She slipped out of his grip but didn’t try to run—that would only alarm him. She wiped moisture off her face. “I guess I looked silly, standing there like that. I’m fine.”

“You live near here?”

She nodded, lying again. “Just down the road. I came out to see what was happening.”

“I should get you home. Why don’t—”

“I’ll walk back.” She managed a grin and motioned to her sneakers. “I went through all the trouble of buying running shoes, so I might as well use ’em.”

Winona wasn’t sure if he was going to let her go, until he surveyed the mess around him. Clearly, there were higher priorities. “All right. You promise me you’ll head straight home. Those monsters may or may not have left for good. I’d hate to find your body in the morgue tomorrow morning. Sometimes, the bodies are burnt so bad, even dental records don’t help.”

“Okay. Good night, sir.” She gave him a shy smile and walked away.

Once she was sure he wasn’t watching, she doubled back and found a few stragglers watching the firefighters. From them, she learned the name of the man her mother had killed—Richard Evan Seabright. She also learned his daughter’s name and the location of their farm.

It was not far to walk—certainly closer than home. The early spring air was cool but not uncomfortable. Winona lingered on the gravel road by the Seabright farm. There was nothing remarkable about this building. A few dozen people clustered around it, and several trucks and cars filled the long driveway loop. These visitors looked like they planned to stay awhile.

“Looks like you’d like to stay here with them,” a voice behind her said.

She whipped around and froze at the sight of a dragon she had never met. It was a maroon creeper, thinner and longer than most, his stringy coils laid out lazily across the gravel road. Violet quills cascaded down his back, and his head bore five horns, laid asymmetrically in a curve from the back of his head down his left temple to his quilled chin.

“Are you crazy?” Winona asked the newcomer in a harsh whisper. They were at least a hundred yards away from anyone who could hear, but she wasn’t taking any chances. “Didn’t you see what happened earlier? Didn’t you see who was responsible? Who are you, anyway?”

He spread out two translucent crimson wings in greeting. “I’ll answer your questions from last to first. My name is Tasawwur, but you’ll just want to call me Tasa. I did see the occupant of this house earlier tonight, and I did see what she did. And I suppose yes, I am a bit crazy. Otherwise, why would I be here tonight?” His silver-blue eyes gleamed. “Come to think of it, Winona Brandfire, why are
you
here tonight? Wouldn’t you be safer at home?”

“I’m here because . . .” Winona trailed off. Why
was
she here? Did she expect to meet this young warrior? What would she say to her? What would she do?

After tapping his hindclaw a dozen times, Tasa folded his wings again. “Yes. Well. As long as you have a good reason.”

“What’s yours?” she shot back.

“I’m obviously here to talk some sense into you—and failing that, to protect you.”

She squinted. “I’ve never met you before. Ma doesn’t let me talk to strange dragons.”

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, but your ma’s home, and I’m trying to get you there.”

Winona sighed. She had assured her brother, and the EMT, that she was going straight home. It was almost dawn. With no clear reason to stay, why wouldn’t she—

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden bright light. Reminded of the girl’s blinding scream in the town, she froze, but then relaxed when she heard the sound of an approaching engine. Headlights had crept over the nearby hill.

Winona turned to Tasa, but he was already gone.
Camouflage,
she realized. She had seen a creeper or two do this, though not with the speed and effectiveness Tasa had. Not even she could tell where the dragon had gone. By the time the truck pulled up next to her, there was no reason for the driver to think there was anyone with this teenaged girl.

“Honey, what are you doing out here all by yourself?” The woman stepped out of the car and jogged around the idling engine. “Are you okay?”

The woman was so sincere, Winona checked herself. Her arms were smooth, unbroken cocoa under her sweatshirt sleeves. Her face was slick with sweat, but that was it. “I guess so.”

“You shouldn’t be out here. Your family will be worried sick.” The woman brushed a lock of honey blonde hair out of her own face, revealing deep green eyes. “Won’t they?”

Winona motioned vaguely in the direction where her own town lay. “My family . . . my ma . . . she . . . they . . .”

Understanding washed over the woman’s face. “Oh, honey. You lost someone tonight?” She stepped forward and wrapped her long arms around Winona. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. What happened tonight . . .” She choked back a sob. “It’s going to be okay.”

When the woman finally let go, Winona gave her a small smile. “I have to get home.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay here tonight? There’s lots of company for us both. I swung back home to pick up some extra tents, sleeping bags, food . . . There’s plenty for you.”

A murmur—was it the wind, or Tasa?—distracted Winona. “They need me back home.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“It’s not far.”

“I wish you’d let me drive you.”

“Really, ma’am. No thanks.”

The woman sighed. “Bless these girls who grow up so fast. I couldn’t get Richard’s girl to do what I told her, either. Now I’ve got to stay at her place, if I’m going to keep an eye on her. I suppose I’m doing it for myself, as much as for her . . .” The woman stared back down the road, toward the town. Only a faint red glow suggested the chaos that had overwhelmed them both. She shook her head and focused again on Winona. “You take care of yourself, honey, all right? If you need anything, you come right back here and ask for me. My name’s Victoria.”

“Winona.” They shook hands. “I’ll remember. Thanks.”

After the woman had gotten back in her truck and pulled into the Seabrights’ driveway, Tasa reappeared. “We’re leaving now!”

She rode on the creeper’s back. The ride was a haze of jumbled roads and lurching forests, and at times she felt Tasa had no more sense of direction than she did. A few times she jumped off his back and jogged a few steps in another direction. He would beg her to climb back on, agreeing to go any direction she wanted as long as it wasn’t heading back where they had been. Despite all this, she did eventually get home, mumbled thanks to Tasa for his help before he vanished into the backyard woods, and stumbled through the side door.

Forrester was in their mother’s room—she was resting; he was awake in a chair by the bed. He looked up, acknowledged Winona with a nod, and then turned back to their mother. Without a word, Winona went to her own bedroom and rolled under her sheets.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out, Ma.”

“Oh no, you’re not.”

“Ma, Winona’s here. She’ll look after you tonight. I’m going out with the guys.”

“No, you’re not! You’ll get in trouble, like you did last crescent moon. Remember?”

“I remember.” Forrester’s large jaw clenched, pushing a sharp lower canine into the scales of his upper lip. “I remember Joey and Laura, and Andy from the crescent moon before that, and Brian and Mike and Paul from the crescent moon before
that
, and . . .”

“Forrester Astin Brandfire,” Patricia told him. “You stay home with your ma!” From the confines of her bed, her voice still carried some authority. But not to this boy.

“We get ours, and they get theirs,” he muttered, his scaly form slipping down the stairs.

“Forrester! You get back here!” But he was already gone.

Winona stood out in the hallway, her toes squirming in the carpet, not daring to breathe, until she heard her mother’s voice again.

“Daughter, don’t stand out there like you wish you could disappear. Come in and help me out of bed. I want to go downstairs.”

“Okay, Ma.” Winona repressed a sigh. While Patricia Brandfire had lost weight since the events of a few months ago, she was still not small, and it was no easy matter for her teenaged daughter to pull her into a fireman’s carry. After a miserable spring and summer, the children had suggested to their mother that she take up residence in the downstairs guest room, so that carting her up and down the stairs wouldn’t be necessary. She had rejected this notion.
I carried you for nine months; now you can carry me.

Once they were downstairs, Winona set her mother in the wheelchair, which had a control lever that reached the woman’s mouth. Using this, Patricia steered herself into the living room. “I want to watch my programs,” she ordered. “With dinner.”

Winona didn’t bother asking if anyone was coming over to join them. She and Forrester had tried to cheer their mother up by inviting guests over for meals, but Patricia’s mood made this an increasingly awkward practice. Nowadays, the only dragon who visited at all was Tasa, and he slipped up only as far as the back door for whispered conversations with Winona, when Forrester was out and Patricia was asleep or engrossed in television.
How’s she doing?
he would ask with clear concern, and
How are you holding up yourself?
Occasionally, he’d ask after Forrester, especially on nights like tonight. On this topic, he was typically blunt:
Do you think he’ll make it back? I heard a friend of his died last week. How many does that make now? Someone’s got to do something, don’t you think?
When Winona suggested Tasa himself stop bugging
her
and go do something if it was so damn important, he would sniff, smile, and race off like a bullet into the air. Where he went, and what he did, Winona never asked.

In any case, tonight was dinner for two. She pulled a plastic vat of frozen gumbo out of the freezer, put it in the microwave, pressed a button, and ambled back into the living room.

“Just a few minutes,” she promised her mother from the doorway. When Patricia only grunted without taking her eyes off the television, Winona wrinkled her nose. The movie was a black-and-white oldie about vampires. It was always something like this nowadays. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mermaids, faeries, talking cars, dancing dinosaurs—as long as it wasn’t real, it was something Patricia would watch.

“How about a courtroom drama, Ma?” she suggested, still standing a few feet behind the motionless figure in the wheelchair. “You and I like watching those together.”

Patricia didn’t answer. The vampire on the screen jumped in front of the heroine, who screamed atop severe orchestral music. Before she could escape, her predator was upon her, piercing her neck and drawing blood. Paralyzed and helpless, she fainted and gave herself up.

“Ma? Don’t you want to watch something else?”

“Gumbo’s gonna be ready soon. I can smell it.”

Winona wrung the dish towel in her hands. “Why don’t you ever answer my questions? Aren’t I good enough to talk
to
, instead of
at
?”

Vampire and prey shrank into darkness. “You wouldn’t understand any of my answers.”

“I understand you fine when you talk to me, Ma. You just don’t want to talk. Not since that girl paralyzed you in the street. Shouldn’t we talk about that? Or see a doctor?”

“Dr. Longuequeue’s already looked.” Longuequeue was a dasher who’d recently immigrated to the area from Europe. “I’m never changing back again.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of doctor. I mean a doctor you could talk to.”
Or I could.

“I don’t need anyone in my head. I remember clear enough what happened that night.”

Something in her mother’s tone made Winona press. “And what do you remember?”

“I remember you not doing what you were told. I remember your brother not doing what he was told. Then I remember getting hurt.”

Winona reached up and rubbed her ear. “That’s not fair, Ma. We didn’t get you hurt.”

“You didn’t stick a pitchfork in me, you mean. You still stabbed me in the back.”

“Before that happened, you were burning that town to the ground. There were people screaming, with no weapons or any fight in them at all, and you and your friends were torching them and burning their homes and laughing, and—”

“Cowards,” Patricia corrected her. “Cowards, not people. Cowards who hid in the shadows. We had to smoke them out so they would fight. It’s not a pretty business, Win. I didn’t expect you to understand. I
did
expect you to stay home. To follow the rules.”