Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light Read online

  A trio of large, exotic lizards emerged from the earth she had pounded—a black Yangtze Alligator with yellow crossbands, a Galapagos tortoise with moss hanging off of its dark olive shell, and an enormous black mamba that swept the ground under her wings and coiled gently around her left hind leg. Phoebe, up on the porch, whined through her muzzle but relaxed as Jonathan reached down to pet her.

  “You promised, Jennifer,” he murmured loud enough for all to hear. Jennifer breathed deeply and willed herself back into human form.

  Elizabeth looked over the animals and her daughter with an inscrutable nod. “Perhaps you’re right. You need to ditch that sword.”

  “Huh?” Jennifer was startled. “Really? I don’t have to use this anymore? Can I have yours?”

  “No.” Her mother’s voice was very stern, and Jennifer recalled last spring, when the two of them had killed Otto Saltin together. Werachnids like Otto were sworn enemies to weredragons, and Jennifer found their spider shapes terrifying. The werachnid champion had not completely died until she had taken her mother’s sword and chopped the sorcerous spider’s eight-eyed head off. Instead of congratulating her on a fine slicing technique, however, Elizabeth had snatched the sword away and yelled at her.

  There must be something about a beaststalker’s blade, Jennifer guessed, that’s quite special. Either that, or Mom has sharing issues dating back to childhood.

  “There’s something about a beaststalker’s blade that’s quite special,” Elizabeth said, walking to the porch.

  Ah-ha! “Really?” Jennifer asked casually.

  Jonathan reached under his lawn chair with his right hand (Geddy was now sleeping in his left), pulled out a long shoebox wrapped in foil paper with a glistening bow, and handed it to his wife.

  “Each weapon is unique to its owner,” her mother explained. “Over time, beaststalker and blade become almost like brother and sister. As an only child, you may not understand that analogy. Fortunately, I do have a brother. You remember your uncle Mike, who owns that butcher shop in Virginia? Bladesmithing’s a bit of a hobby for him. I contracted his services for this. He sends it with his compliments. Happy fifteenth birthday, dear.”

  Jennifer flushed and looked down as she kicked at the lawn. The mamba slid off her leg and sought a dark, cozy spot in the weeds by the porch, where its green-gray skin blended nicely. “Wow. I’m really sorry I wasn’t here earlier, Mom—”

  “Forget it. As you pointed out, it’s early yet, and you couldn’t have known. As for your father, he has paid his penance by baking an emergency birthday cake. Your grandfather’s inside now, putting on the candles. We’ll have it in a moment, but you should open this first.”

  Jennifer took the shiny gift and gave it a soft shake. It didn’t rattle much. With a single tear, the paper and bow were off the box and on the grass. Left in her hands was a slender but sturdy box of polished mahogany. The locking clasps were brass, and they made satisfying clacks as she popped them open and lifted the lid.

  Inside, nestled in black velvet-lined molds, were two long daggers. Their broad blades curved gently from precise steel tips, for well over a foot, to exquisite hilts gilded in bronze. One hilt was in the shape of an angelic woman in flowing robes whose arms hugged the base of the blade; the other was in the shape of a dragon with jaws open, as if devouring the rest of the weapon.

  She couldn’t say a word. Setting the box on the ground gently, she knelt, reached into the box with both hands, and pulled the weapons out. The hilts seemed to melt into her hands. Flashing the blades back and forth, Jennifer noted they were each longer than her arm from elbow to fingertip.

  “Mike made me my first sword as an apprentice when I was in college—this rusty nail you’ve been using all summer,” Elizabeth explained. Her daughter barely heard her. “When I told him last year it wouldn’t do for you, he offered to replace it for free. He worked on these for some time.”

  Jennifer still couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “As you can see, my brother’s technique has improved. I don’t think those will rust anytime soon. Now, let’s put them to the test.”

  Without any warning, she drew her own sword and brought it down at her daughter’s head.

  Jennifer was used to this—all summer long, her mother had tried to find ways to test her reflexes.

  But it was hard to surprise the child of a beaststalker and a weredragon. In a flash, the two knives were crossed in an X above their owner’s head, and the mother’s blow stopped cold at their junction.

  The knives twisted as Jennifer stood up and turned, and like that Elizabeth’s sword flew out of her hand.

  “Well, what do you know,” Jonathan said with a grin from the porch. “First time for everything.”

  On an adrenaline high, Jennifer smoothly swirled around with the knives’ points facing up. They blurred and traced a glowing silver halo over her head before she flipped them down and jammed them into the earth together.

  In a burst of black feathers, a modest but sturdy eagle with white and red markings arched out of the earth and made straight for the porch railing. The row of owls that had been perched there dissolved into a flurry of hoots and white feathers, and before long the larger raptor stood alone on the railing, cocking its bright crimson face at the serpentine shape that coiled just beneath it.

  “Bateleur eagle,” Elizabeth identified with an impressed look. “Member of the snake eagle family. Native to the African savannah. Incredibly large specimen, especially for a male of the species—that must be almost a seven-foot wingspan. Nicely done.”

  “Snake eagle?” Jennifer looked in alarm at her black mamba, which had felt the shadow of the bird on its back and was reared up in a warning hiss. The eagle flexed its claws and squawked menacingly. “Um, they wouldn’t happen to call them snake eagles because they’re really good friends with snakes, would they?”

  They had just finished separating the combatants when Grandpa Crawford came outside. His gray eyes were bright, but his smile was restrained as he observed the blades in Jennifer’s hands. “Hey, Niffer! Cake’s almost ready. You get your present?”

  She flipped up the knives with a grin. “Check it out, Grandpa!”

  “They’re nice,” she heard Crawford mutter to her mother. “Of course, it’s just one more thing to keep her from focusing on her dragon heritage.”

  “I’m terribly sorry my relationship with my own daughter has crowded your ego. Perhaps we should all leave?” Elizabeth’s voice was less dark than her look.

  Before Jennifer could react to the sudden tension, Jonathan cleared his throat. “How about that cake, Dad?”

  A few moments later, a birthday cake was on the patio table, with fifteen long and thin candles all poking out of a frosted dragon’s mouth. Jennifer looked around the table, spotted her mother and grandfather still eyeing each other, and made a silent wish: I wish they would get along better.

  Of course, she mused as she wiped out all fifteen tiny flames in one breath, they got along a lot better than most beaststalkers and weredragons. Dr. Georges-Scales was the only beaststalker anyone knew who had befriended, much less married, a weredragon. And according to her, Crawford Thomas Scales had softened considerably over the years. Maybe Jennifer had something to do with that.

  Crawford was smiling at his granddaughter now. “Good job on the candles, Niffer. Reminds me of your grandmother, before she passed on. I’m sure I’ve told you about the Barn Fire of ’52…?”

  Jennifer shook her head, a little warily. As a child she had loved Grandpa’s stories, but as a teenager she had grown a bit impatient with the way he could go on about family history and dragon legend.

  “This would be back in Eveningstar,” he started. “Before the werachnids came, of course. Grandma and I had a place on the edge of town. We used it a bit like we use this farm, as a gathering place for weredragons with nowhere else to go during the crescent moon.”

  “Like Joseph?” Joseph Skinner was a weredragon wi
thout any family in the area; Crawford had let him stay at the farm often last year and help out with the horses, bees, and sheep. Like all new weredragons, he was a couple of years older than Jennifer; but he had been kind to her and helped her with homework.

  “That’s right. Anyway, we used woodstoves back then, and we stored a bunch of wood in the basement and barn…”

  “Would you like a slice of cake, Crawford?”

  The old man shot an irritated look at his daughter-in-law, but Elizabeth kept a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth as she held out a paper plate with cake on it. Jennifer realized her mother knew full well how much Crawford hated interruptions, once he started a story.

  “No thanks, Lizzard. As I was saying, we had a wood-stove, and plenty of fuel all over the place. All it took was an oil lamp and a nervous horse by the name of—”

  “Jennifer, sweetheart, will you want a small piece or a large one? I’ve got a large one here.”

  Crawford hissed audibly and stared—not at the grinning woman holding out the piece of birthday cake, but at Jennifer herself. It was as if he was daring her to make a choice. Beaststalker cake or dragon story?

  Diplomacy was crucial. Slowly and gently, and without breaking eye contact with her grandfather, Jennifer reached out, took the cake from her mother, tried a bite, hummed appreciatively, and motioned for him to continue.

  He nodded and went on. “So the place is all ablaze, and your grandmother, who was always quite the talker—”

  “I always found her rather quiet,” observed Elizabeth.

  “Well, Doctor, maybe when you were around she couldn’t get a word in edgewise,” Crawford snapped. He eyed the woman’s leather training armor, as if seeking a vulnerable spot.

  “I think it’s because she didn’t care for me much.” The taunting smile never left the woman’s face. Surely, Jennifer thought, here stands a brave woman.

  Grandpa Crawford stood up and turned. “I can’t imagine why. Jennifer, perhaps we should continue this story inside—aw, hell, Jonathan!” This last remark was directed at his own son, who had appeared in the doorway at the least convenient time possible.

  Jennifer immediately saw something was wrong in her father’s expression. He was holding a phone and listening intently to whoever was on the other end.

  “What’s wrong?” Elizabeth stood up and opened the screen door for her husband.

  He stepped onto the porch and gave her a hug with his free arm. “Okay, Cheryl…yes, Cheryl…of course. We’ll be there tomorrow. I’m so sorry.”

  He hung up the phone and sighed. “Remember Jack Alder, Liz? From college? He died last night.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Best Man’s Funeral

  Jennifer hadn’t really known Jack Alder. According to her parents, he had served as best man at their wedding. He came across state to Winoka once a year or so to reconnect with old friends. Broad and tall, with short-clipped reddish-gold hair and a beard, he had reminded Jennifer of a Norse god—one that drank well and laughed plenty.

  Of course, during his visits, she had never talked to him much. He would say dumb things like, “You’re in seventh grade already?…Wow!” and “You’re in eighth grade already?…Wow!” but not much more than that. If the Alders stayed for dinner, Jennifer usually excused herself right after eating and retreated to her room.

  Although she didn’t tell her parents this, she felt bad—because she didn’t really feel so bad. She knew they would miss their friend, and she felt sorry for them. But he was their friend, not hers.

  During the drive to Roseford for the funeral, she wondered if thinking that made her a bad person.

  By the time they pulled into the generous Roseford Funeral Homes parking lot, with its neatly clipped lawns punctuated by friendly evergreen trees, she was no closer to an answer. But she forgot all of that when she saw another family walking across the lot.

  It was the Blacktooths.

  Eddie Blacktooth and his parents, Hank and Wendy, lived next door to the Scales, back in Winoka, on Pine Street East. Eddie and Jennifer had grown up together, and the Blacktooths were beaststalkers like Elizabeth, but the families were hardly friendly. While never exactly pleasant to begin with, Mr. and Mrs. Blacktooth had become positively hostile once they discovered what Jennifer and Jonathan were. At the point last spring when Jennifer most needed her childhood friend, Eddie had turned against her. The two had not seen or spoken to each other since.

  As soon as he caught sight of Jennifer, Eddie turned red and looked away. His brown hair was cut shorter, and Jennifer could make out a few scars on the back of his neck—training wounds, she guessed, since she also had a few. But he still looked an awful lot like a sparrow to her, with his gentle beak of a nose and his penchant for wearing brown—in today’s case, a chocolate suit that overwhelmed his modest frame.

  They walked by, and Hank and Wendy did not bother to hide their disgust when they saw the Scales. Hank looked like a larger, stockier, and angrier version of Eddie, and might have been ready to foam at the mouth on the spot. Wendy had a smooth, calm appearance not unlike Elizabeth, but with sapphire eyes that pierced from beneath shiny black hair. The two women held each other’s eyes, and Jennifer saw the mutual distaste. Then they were past, and the Scales all breathed out a bit.

  “What are they doing here?” Jennifer almost spat.

  “Ms. Blacktooth and I went to the same college as Jack. St. Mary’s, right down the street from here. The three of us were in the same dormitory our sophomore year.”

  “Really?” This seemed like a coincidence. Jennifer adjusted her dress, checked her hair in the minivan window, and decided to redo her hair clips. “How did that happen?”

  “Wendy and I were roommates, actually. Best friends.”

  “You’re kidding! Ugh, this hair is impossible…”

  “I don’t kid, honey. Here, let me fix that.” Her mother’s hands worked deftly at the platinum strands and black clips. “We were quite inseparable. Went to the same high school, too. Started our beaststalker training together.” Then she shifted subjects as if she hadn’t just admitted being best friends with the woman who had almost killed her daughter. “You know, Jack and I even dated once or twice. Didn’t last long after graduation, but we parted on good terms. A few years later, Jack introduced me to one of his new business associates in town…your father.”

  “Ewww! You dated the dead guy?”

  “When he was alive, dear. He was cute. Nice butt. Kissed like a dream.”

  Jonathan coughed. Jennifer groaned.

  “I so don’t need to hear about your past love life.”

  “Yes, well, believe it or not, the world did turn on its axis—several times, at least—before you were born. And people lived here, and did things. Without you.”

  “Funny, Mother.”

  “I just find it amusing that you never took an interest in your parents’ lives until this past year. There, all done.” Elizabeth’s hands stopped poking at the hair clips, and Jennifer checked her reflection in the window again. She looked suitably put together—and quite austere, in her black dress.

  “I can’t believe the Blacktooths have to be here. Is—I mean, was Jack also a beaststalker?”

  “No,” Jonathan replied. They were walking into the funeral home foyer, so he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Not a weredragon, either. He was a regular guy, a computer software sales manager. But I think he began to figure some of us out, after our enemies burned down Eveningstar and we moved to Winoka. As for Hank and Wendy, they didn’t really catch on to us dragons until last year, of course.”

  “I can’t believe you moved in next door to a beaststalker family back then, knowing what they were!” Jennifer tried to keep her voice down, but disbelief made it hard. “How dumb are you guys, anyway?”

  Her mother glared at her, but Jonathan breezily pulled his wife along. “Hey, you try to find good real estate value in a seller’s market someday.” That was all her father would say, si
nce they were entering the funeral home.

  After the ceremony and graveside service, Jack’s mother hosted a short wake at her house. Jennifer didn’t even know the elderly woman’s name, and there were virtually no people her age to talk to. In fact, the only other teenager there at all was Eddie. So she stayed close to her parents, waiting out their conversations with people she had never met.

  Only one person stood out—a gaunt, middle-aged woman with brilliant red hair and a sober gray dress. She approached Jonathan as if she had known him for years, turned him away from the other guests, and passed him a photograph. “From the crime scene investigator,” she said.

  “One of us?” Jonathan guessed.

  “One of us.” The woman glanced cautiously at Elizabeth. She’s a weredragon, Jennifer guessed. She also guessed this woman, like all weredragons outside of her own family, had no idea Jennifer’s mother was a beaststalker.

  She saw her father’s expression turn white when he scanned the photo, and she shifted position to get a look.

  It was the first time she had seen a photo of a murder victim, and she had to force her stomach to remain calm even though there was no blood apparent. Jack was lying faceup on the carpet of his apartment living room, staring just past the camera. Two details stood out to Jennifer. First, he looked thirty years older than she knew he actually was. How can someone age that fast? she wondered.

  The second detail was a phrase gouged by some sort of sharp implement into the carpet next to his blanched hair:

  No friends.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Jonathan mumbled. “No friends? Jack had plenty of friends. Women, especially. They gravitated to him. And he had us. And…”

  He stopped short with a painful expression, as if something unpleasant had stung him in the kidneys.

  “Dad?”

  He didn’t respond. His eyes did not leave the photo.

  “Honey?” Elizabeth peered over her husband’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”