Seraph of Sorrow (3 page)
Jonathan turned back to the window. “I don’t want to talk.”
“Fine, you’ll listen better. As you know, I enjoy telling a good story—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“—and there’s one I’d like to share with you, which I think suits this situation.”
“You don’t know what
this situation
is.”
“Let’s see about that.”
Jonathan let out a sound that might have left his throat under a crescent moon.
“Once upon a time . . .”
“Dad.”
“
Once upon a time
, there was a dragon named Roman Candlelight. He lived in a faraway land called Crescent Valley.”
“Crescent Valley.” Jonathan simmered.
Secrets again.
His father had shared this name with him, but little more. Crescent Valley was some sort of hiding place where dead dragons called “venerables” flew around and mythical passageways to “silver moon elms” existed. Adult dragons got to live there. Younger dragons had to content themselves with rumors.
“Like many young men, Roman was proud, and young, and foolish, and impulsive, and self-centered, and annoying as all hell—”
“Dad.”
“—and above all
impatient
. He left Crescent Valley because he decided there must be a bigger world out there, and he belonged in a bigger world. While traveling, he ran into a beautiful woman with long, auburn hair that hugged her spine. She was walking down the same road, and she smiled at him, and so he followed her.
“Hours passed, then days. They never said a word to each other, not even to give their names. He stayed several steps behind her, watching her curves hitch back and forth like a metronome, afraid to catch up in case she should let him pass by. He had to content himself with the rare glances she tossed back over her shoulder. Each one pierced him like a hot spear.”
“So Roman was a stalker?”
“He followed her, on foot, for two days and nights. Neither of them tired. He began to believe she was testing him, that if he could keep up with her until she quit, she would tell him her name and they would be together forever.”
“I see where you’re going with this. You’re saying that love requires patience, and—”
Crawford smacked him on the back of the head. “Rule Number One.”
“Ow, Dad, I—”
Smack.
“
Rule Number One.
What is it?”
Jonathan stared out the bedroom window. “Rule Number One: Don’t interrupt your neurotic, self-centered father while he’s trying to tell a dumb story.”
“You’ve been listening to your mother too much; but you’re close enough. As I was saying, he thought she was testing him. When nearly fifty hours had gone by, she came to the edge of a lake and stopped. Hardly daring to hope, Roman walked up next to her.
“She took a deep breath, and the sweet air was passing from her lips to tell him her name when the moonlight on the lake dwindled by the tiniest bit. Her body convulsed, and so did Roman’s. He looked up and saw that the moon had lessened into a crescent.
“He morphed into a dragon, but her new shape was something altogether different—a spider with a carapace as dark as a maroon twilight, and eyes like emerging stars. She gave a shriek at the sight of him, and leapt out over the lake. By the time Roman recovered and thought to follow her, she was gone.”
Jonathan sat in silence, startled. A dragon who fell in love with a spider? This was hitting awfully close to home. Did his father know more about Dianna Wilson than he let on?
“Roman searched for her for years,” Crawford continued. “He had fallen in love with her, you see. It was forbidden, of course, and rightly so. Such love is impossible. But Roman wasn’t like you and me. He could only think of her beauty, and her walk, and her name that she never told him. Nothing else mattered to him. It was stupid. That’s young love for you.”
Having no appropriate reply, Jonathan let the comment pass.
“He walked up and down that stretch of road, and all around that lake. He searched the watery depths, peeked into nearby caverns, everything and anything to find her. She was gone.”
“No one ever found her?” Jonathan’s voice almost cracked.
“Never. But his obsession didn’t fade. Decades later, when Roman Candlelight became our kind’s Eldest, he commanded the entire Blaze to help him. They boiled the lake’s water away and burned the surrounding forest down. Nothing was found. They raided the nearby towns, and leveled houses. Nothing was found. Little by little, the Blaze came to reject his leadership, as he sank into madness. Finally, they banished him and sent him to a remote tropical island, under the same moon as Crescent Valley but far away from anyone else. The name Roman Candlelight became synonymous with foolish conquests, dangerous obsessions, and eternal isolation. Roman didn’t know when to quit. He didn’t know how to accept loss.”
Jonathan took a deep breath. “Wow. Great story, Dad. Dumb loner loses a girl, never gets a clue. I feel loads better now.”
“You’ve missed the point.”
“I get the point—”
“The point is, loss is part of life. Life without loss, without danger of loss, is not worth living. Deny the loss, and you deny life.”
“And if you deny life,” Jonathan continued for him, “the Blaze will throw you out and you’ll wander alone in twilit jungles until you die. That story’s horrible, Dad. Do you have one where the listener doesn’t want to knife himself after hearing it?”
“Not today. As much as this might shock you, son, I don’t want you to knife yourself. You’re coming out of your teenaged years and you’re almost bearable again. So here’s what I
do
want: I want you to move on. Emotionally for now, and physically soon. This is your house as much as it’s ours, but you can’t stay here forever. And you’re going to need to learn how to deal with a much bigger universe, after you leave.”
Jonathan peered through the familiar window and saw a world—trees, birds, the sheets drying out on the line—swaying back and forth to a mysterious breeze. The wind forced its way through the cracks around the panes and chilled him.
Why does it start? Why does it stop? How hard will it blow next time?
“I don’t know where to go,” he admitted.
“I think it is time,” Crawford said, “for you and me to go to Crescent Valley.”
Jonathan would recall that day and realize that without losing Dianna Wilson, he might have waited years before his father let him into the dragons’ ultimate refuge. It meant a lot to him that his father broke the rules to teach him a lesson he needed to learn about the wider world. But as much as he’d gained that day, he never forgot what he’d lost, and he never stopped feeling that his secret relationship with Dianna Wilson would come back someday to haunt him and those he loved.
CHAPTER 2
Secrets
“You sure you want to introduce me to your friends? I doubt they’ll like me.”
Elizabeth Georges squinted at him over a blue raspberry slushie. “You mean Wendy? What makes you say that?”
“I just know.” Jonathan stretched as he lay on the park bench with his head in her lap.
Or am I paranoid?
He wasn’t sure. Ever since a few years ago, he wasn’t sure of anything. Love? Dianna Wilson was long gone. School? He had switched undergraduate majors five times. Family? His mother was slowly dying, and his father was grim even toward his son.
For all that this woman was teaching him once again how to be sure of something. Hooking a finger around her thumb, he gently scraped her palm with a fingernail. “I guess I have trouble making friends. Um, that crap you’re eating is going to turn your tongue blue.”
Elizabeth took a long sip of the slushie through the heavy red straw-spoon and then began grinding the faded ice. “Wendy’s kind of a tense person, I suppose. Especially around Hank. She’s gotten weird about—well, about a lot of stuff. And I don’t care if this drink turns my tongue blue, do you?”
“If she’s a tense person, she’ll suspect I’m different. Don’t you think that could become a problem? It’s not so much the blue tongue I worry about—though I’m not kissing a frost monster, however gorgeous she may be. It’s the fact you think there are
actually blue raspberries
that grow in some magical land, with natives hand-squeezing this mythical fruit into some sweet, all-natural, frozen slushie mix that they ship to your local convenience store.”
“All she knows about you, and all she’ll ever learn, is that you’re a graduate student. There
are
blue raspberries.”
“See, you can’t say that one thing, and then say the other, and then expect me to believe you have any clue about either. Raspberries come in three colors—red, gold, and black. That’s it. No blue, no chartreuse, no pink with silver polka dots. What you call ‘blue raspberry’ is the tragic result of an industrial accident at an unscrupulous candy manufacturer.”
Resting the festive paper cup on his forehead, Elizabeth teased his ear with the straw-spoon and spun a golden curl around her other hand. “You’re jealous that you didn’t discover the natural wonder that is the blue raspberry. I wouldn’t introduce you to Wendy if I honestly thought she’d learn what you are, because if she learned, you’d be dead.”
He waved the utensil out of his ear. “So you think she and I will get along?”
“I don’t know.” She looked out with thoughtful emerald eyes over the glorious riverbank, full of autumn hues and dark, rushing water. “Do you plan to relate your ridiculous blue raspberry conspiracy theory to her?”
“I’ll bet she has the good sense not to drink these things. I mean, you’re premed, Liz. You study stuff like nutrition, don’t you? You say she studied sociology—whatever that is—and she knows better! Aren’t you embarrassed?”
She got the straw-spoon up his right nostril, making him flinch and spill the cup onto the ground. He kept his head in her lap anyway. “It’s not like she’ll use her degree, anyway. All she wants to be is a housewife for Hank.”
“What, you mean stay in the house while he works, cook and clean for him, bear his many children, service him in the bedroom in all manner of ways without complaint? What’s wrong with that? Aren’t you going to do the same for me?”
Jonathan wasn’t completely sure the straw-spoon wouldn’t have gone through his pupil had he not grabbed her wrist in time. “Bear a child for you someday, maybe. Everything else, you’re on your own. And you
don’t
want me to cook.”
“Not if you’re going to spend every trip to the grocery store hunting up and down the aisles for blue raspberries to use in your recipes. What makes you think Wendy could kill me? Personally, I don’t think your average beaststalker would stand a chance.”
“She’s not average. In any case, how would you fight her? Delight her to death with your amazing chameleon skin?”
“Unless beaststalkers are fireproof, I don’t think it’ll make a difference what color my scales are when I roast her.”
He took her silence as a signal he had gone too far. “Oh, hey, I’m sorry. I’d never do that, not to anyone, unless they were trying to hurt you.”
“That’s not—” She took a deep breath and licked her lips thoughtfully with a bright blue tongue. “You’re right. Wendy isn’t fireproof.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “Dad was saying a few weeks ago that he’s finally going to teach me the elder skill for our kind.”
“Elder skill?”
“Yeah. Apparently older dragons can do stuff we young ‘whippersnappers’ can’t. Elders keep this stuff pretty quiet, since they don’t want us trying it before we’re ready. Dad says teenaged dragons used to die all the time trying skills they couldn’t do right.”
“Hmmph.”
“What,
hmmph
?”
“It’s interesting.”
He lifted his head and gave her an impatient sigh for making him drag this out of her. “
What’s
interesting?”
“All the stuff you dragons don’t tell each other.”
“It’s sacred, Elizabeth. You have to appreciate that. There are things a parent has to keep from a kid. Didn’t your family keep stuff from you?”
Her hesitation was almost imperceptible. “Loads. But we’re not kids anymore. And it wasn’t necessarily right, even back then.”
“What do you care? It’s between my father and me.”
The straw-spoon was back in the cup, jabbing apart whatever frozen blocks remained. “And there are secrets between you and me, of course.”
“Liz, let’s not talk about Crescent Valley.” He immediately regretted the phrasing. She didn’t need to reply:
We
never
talk about Crescent Valley.
She paused long enough to see him wince, and then shifted gears. “So he thinks you’re ready for this next step, whatever it is?”
He shrugged and enjoyed the way the back of his head shifted her skirt. “I guess.”
She snorted. “You don’t sound ready. One moment you’re talking about defending me against Wendy, the next you’re mumbling about
guessing
. You’ve never gone up against a beaststalker. Wendy would take three seconds to do in you and your lousy self-confidence.”
“I got all the confidence I need, when I’m with you.”
“Your hand is under my sweater, Slick.”
“True. So what makes you think—”
“Let’s go.” She yanked his hand out, nudged his head off her lap, and got up. “Date’s over, unless you want to admit there’s such a thing as a blue raspberry.”
“No way. And as long as Wendy doesn’t start anything with me, she has no worries.”
“You’re wrong,” she told him with gentle certainty. “On both counts. Come on, I’ll let you buy me another slushie on the way home.”
“So, you were a sociology/anthropology major when you went here for college, huh?”
Wendy Williamson awarded him a baleful stare, barely visible in the blue incandescent light that flooded the sorority house basement. She took a sip of cheap beer from her plastic cup and called back in clipped tones over the party music. “Yeah. And?”
“And, er, nothing.”
Wow, she hates me.
“I’ll bet you’re glad to be back on campus.”
She shrugged. “This was more Lizzy’s idea than mine.”
“Yeah, she wanted to check out some of her old haunts, introduce me around. I’m glad you and Hank could come along. Where is he, anyway?” Neither Liz nor Hank was in the basement with them—not a huge surprise, since the party was spread over the three floors of the sorority house, and involved over one hundred college students, alums, and assorted others.
Wendy not only didn’t answer his question—she didn’t move.
No help at all! Does she
want
this conversation to be painful?
“Um, so. What kind of work do you do now?”
“Why, you thinking of changing your major?”
“No. I’m a graduate student. Architecture, remember?”
Cripes, Liz, where did you go?
“I guess I’m curious about what you studied, and what you do with it now.”
Wendy leveled her aquamarine eyes. “I know where you’re going with this. You’re like my parents, telling me I’d never get a job, blah blah blah. For your information, I didn’t go to college to
get a job
. I’m not some
cog
in a
machine
. Hank and I are going to get married, and we’re going to have a child, and I’m going to stay home and raise the kid.
Is that okay with you?
”
“Geez, yeah, that’s fine! I think that’s the right choice for you. Staying home, doing the kid thing, couldn’t be more right for someone like you.”
Wendy’s blue-washed features lit up in indignation. “Right for someone like me? What do you mean by that?”
Unsure of what he had stepped in or how much of it was still on him, Jonathan shifted his feet. “Uh, nothing! Hearing what you said, it just, you know, makes sense and all, and I’m glad you found the right choice. You know, for you.”
“So if I want a career like Liz, that’s the
wrong
choice? She’s the smart and savvy career girl, and I’m the dumb housewife? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No!” He checked over his shoulder quickly, unsure if he could make it to the door before she gave chase and devoured him. “Geez, Wendy, I’m just saying it sounds like you’re going to be happy, and I’m happy that you’re happy, and—”
“Because I’m not some trophy or prize for a man, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“I’m not saying that! You’re no prize. Ah, I mean, I wouldn’t call you a trophy, or anything like that . . .”
She brushed a bit of spilled beer off her dress as one dance tune ended and another began, sending the crowd around them into a frenzy again. “You know, I cannot for the life of me figure what Liz sees in you.”
He breathed out. “I think it’s my sharp conversational skills.”
Before she could turn to walk away, he grabbed her shoulder. “Wait! Come on, Wendy. We should try to get along—”
“Hand. Off. Now.” Her head shifted slightly, and Jonathan noticed her arm move. He could not quite see the attached hand, or what it was reaching for.
Irritation at her obduracy finally beat discretion. “Or what, you’ll deal me a deathblow with whatever you’ve got stored inside your dress? A dagger, or a gun, or a Persian flanged mace? Yes, Wendy—Liz already told me what you and she both are, and what Hank is.” He almost said the word
beaststalkers
, but decided to play it not so savvy. “You’re some sort of soldiers. You kill stuff. Fine, whatever! So you have to be a jerk to everyone?” He removed his hand so she could turn to face him. Her weapon, whatever it was, remained hidden.
“Why do you care what I think about
you
at all?” Her voice was barely louder than the surrounding music. Someone behind Jonathan was jumping up and down to the music so wildly, he bumped into them. They both ignored it.
“Because Liz is important to me,” he answered. “And you’re important to Liz. So you’re important to me.”
Her sharp nose crinkled in what was almost a smile.
No, wait—is that a sneer?
“That’s a sweet thing for an idiot like you to say.”
“Um, thanks. Coming from the Queen of Charm, that means a lot.”
She actually chuckled as she downed another swallow of beer.
Paralyzed by fear of saying something to ruin the détente they seemed to have reached, he grinned back.
For a few seconds, they listened to the relentless, plaster-shaking beat. He watched her lick a drop of beer off her lips with a small tongue and thought,
She’s cute.
Then she was suddenly upon him, kissing him and passing a long, delicate hand through his hair. Her breath was strong with alcohol, but the rest of her smelled like vanilla. Jonathan let the kiss last at least three seconds longer than he thought proper before breaking away.
“Wendy—”
She grabbed his chin with something between tenderness and authority. “Sorry if that freaked you out. I was just . . . doing an investigation.”
“What?”
There was no time to explain. Wendy glanced over his shoulder meaningfully, and Jonathan caught sight of Elizabeth coming back down the stairs. She was searching the crowd, but had not seen them.
“Tell me something,” Wendy whispered in his ear as he watched his girlfriend slowly make her way through the dancing crowd. Her fingernail traced a path down his throat. “Are you a man, or a monster?”
The question made his blood run cold. He made a concerted effort not to look at her. “What do you mean by a monster—that I’d hurt Liz by dumping her? Wendy,
you
kissed
me
. You already drunk?”
She began to titter, an unnatural sound from this woman. “On one beer?” Then her voice sobered. “You know what I mean by ‘monster.’ And you didn’t answer my question.”
Sharp cookie.
“Don’t lie to me,” she added. The fingernail on his throat dug in.
His brain roiling, Jonathan gave the only answer he thought would satisfy her.
“Yeah, sure,” he said casually, catching her finger with his hand and holding it. “I’m a big damn lizard, the kind your cult plots against at your supersecret meetings, where you all wear hoods or whips or whatever and then go out and chop up, well, dragons like me. I, um, breathe fire, right? And I fly around, and flap my wings, and poop big flaming turds all over the lands below. Mighty is my wrath. You should probably kill me before Liz and I get serious. Maybe you could pull out an ancient seashell horn and rally your troops to your side?” With his free hand he mimed a battle horn, a daring (and, he was fairly sure, dashing) smile on his face.
Biting her bottom lip, she looked him up and down.
“Conversational skills, eh? I don’t see it. Yours blow.”
Wendy shook her finger loose, shoved past him, and nearly knocked over a surprised Elizabeth.
“Hey, Wendy, where’re you—”
“Don’t bother.” Jonathan sighed with a grin as they watched the woman scramble up the steps. “She really, really doesn’t like me.”