Rise of the Poison Moon Read online

  CHAPTER 8

  Andi

  They were watching the town under Edmund Slider’s dome, the two of them, again. They hadn’t talked much in the last couple of days, since Skip had argued with Tavia. Tavia herself had disappeared—presumably to summon her “pathetic siblings,” as Skip had called them.

  Andi watched Skip carefully out of the corner of her eye. He kept his gaze locked on the bridge.

  “What do you think will happen at the rally?” she asked.

  “I don’t care,” he lied.

  “Why not go back to the restaurant, then?” The Cliffside Restaurant had been their primary home since last autumn—as a business it was abandoned earlier than the residences nearby, it had a generator that operated easily once grid repair crews stopped coming anywhere near the dome, it had everything from food to television, and only required small modifications to allow for comfortable sleeping quarters.

  “Maybe I will.” They both knew he wouldn’t.

  “Hank Blacktooth looked pretty gaunt in that video. Food must be pretty scarce.” She thought about what it would be like, to have to ration food and go a little more hungry every single day.

  “Susan looks fat enough.”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. We’re good enough friends, she and I.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she’s a huge fan.”

  “She let me feel her up in the back of a Ford Mustang, once.”

  Andi rolled her eyes. Was this supposed to make her jealous? Having been raised in a void for most of her formative years by the reclusive Dianna Wilson, she really didn’t know for sure. She didn’t feel jealous. Mostly, she felt pity for Susan Elmsmith, who probably let Skip touch her for the same reason Andi did: low self-esteem.

  “They’re starting,” she noticed with no small amount of relief.

  Outside Winoka City Hall, a crowd was forming. Some of the participants were coming out of the charming three-story domed brick building. More came out of the police station, which was directly across the street. They all wore white and black dress robes over their clothes, and a few of them sported ceremonial helms that reflected the morning sun.

  Then they saw a figure that made them both stand up straight.

  “What the fuck,” he said.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “I didn’t think she would.”

  He turned sharply. “You didn’t think she would what?”

  She motioned uselessly at the scene by city hall. “She said to summon her siblings, she needed to go back to your house and gather a few things. Her sorcery isn’t horribly powerful—you know that—and she needed little trinkets from each of them, to make it all work. I offered to help her, so she wouldn’t have to return, but she insisted, so—”

  “So you let her go into the town?”

  “She’s an adult! Cripes, Skip, it’s her house, she’s been living there, she knew the risks . . .” The words felt empty, and she crumbled into silence.

  “We’ve got to go down there.”

  She did not bother to protest. She simply followed.

  As they stepped onto the highway and turned toward the bridge, she saw that nearly three hundred people had gathered on the bridge. Someone had set up a makeshift gallows out of scaffolding and industrial supplies. Four people were standing on it: Hank Blacktooth, two helmeted guards . . . and Tavia Saltin.

  The woman’s hands were cuffed behind her back and a rag tied tightly over her eyes. Another rag was stuffed in her mouth, and she had bruises and welts all over her face.

  Hank, standing in front of her, saw them right away. He pointed and said something, and the crowd on the bridge turned and cheered.

  “Skip.” Andi pulled back on his shoulder before the boy could run ahead. “They want you in there more than anything. Don’t give them what they want.”

  They came closer, still more than a hundred yards from the edge of the barrier, which split the bridge in two. They could make out weapons on the mob around the gallows—handguns in holsters, swords in sheaths, even a chain saw tossed casually over someone’s shoulder.

  “They’re going to let her go,” he muttered so that only she could hear. “They’re going to let her go.”

  She didn’t dare answer. She brushed violet strands of hair off her face and thought about the sorcery her father had used to have her execute Glorianna Seabright.

  It had been a powerful feeling, tapping into the beaststalker within. Her father had known that, and what had compelled her to kill had been less a matter of possession than encouraging something that was already there.

  Beaststalkers, Andi now knew more than she ever wanted to, lived to kill. The blood in their bones ran warmer when they spilled others’ blood, broke others’ bones. Knowing that feeling firsthand made Andi absolutely certain of one thing: Tavia Saltin was about to die.

  “They come!” Hank Blacktooth called out through a bullhorn. “The mighty spider- folk! Chief of Police, let’s give them a formal welcome and salute!”

  About two dozen of the crowd, dressed in dark blue uniforms and well-shined black shoes that peeked out from under their robes, stepped forward.

  A small redheaded woman with an athletic body and soft eyes pulled out a Kel-Tec P-32 from her shoulder holster. She raised it, and the other police officers—for Andi could now see that they were indeed so—pulled out their own sidearms and pointed them west, away from the gently glowing barrier.

  “Prepare yourselves, or prepare your souls!” she cried out in a tinny voice, and two dozen firearms, mostly Beretta and Desert Eagle pistols, went off. The rest of the crowd hooted, and several more unseen guns fired.

  The closer they got, the more detail Andi could see: the modern body armor under some of the robes, the Ford pickup truck behind the scaffolding which was lined with modified vehicular armor, the M3 carbines with infrared scopes, the small blades that everyone carried as a secondary weapon—from hand axes to kitchen knives. The police chief herself sported a catlin, a long, slender, double-bladed knife used for amputations before oscillating saws came into vogue.

  She couldn’t help it: she admired the knife, and wondered where she could get one herself.

  Peering beyond the crowd to city hall, Andi was fairly certain she spotted two shapes patrolling in the tower window. Snipers, she guessed. In case everything else isn’t enough.

  It made some sense to be this well armed, of course. They had advertised the event, and dragons were out and about. Even the most powerful dragon would be lucky to get within spitting range without encountering lethal force.

  Thinking of powerful dragons made her think of Jennifer Scales. She glanced down the river, up into the beams of the bridge’s arch, anywhere she thought the girl might be. Would she be afraid of all of this, too?

  Well—she’s not here, is she? Question answered.

  Skip stopped inches short of the barrier, and Andi tried to hold his hand. He shook it off.

  Hank motioned to someone in the crowd with a video camera, then brought up the bullhorn again. “Ladies and gentlemen—and honored guests!—we are here today to celebrate the spirit of this amazing American community. Here in Winoka, we have what I like to call ‘town spirit.’ Y’all know what town spirit is?”

  The hoots and hollers suggested that yes, in fact they did know exactly what it was, but Hank continued anyway.

  “Town spirit is about pride in where you live. It’s about loving and looking out for your neighbor. It’s what keeps us up, when others try to bring us down. Which brings us to today’s guests.

  “Tavia Saltin,” he continued, as his other hand brought up a thick manila folder. “You are a resident of this town—or at least, you pretend to be one as you walk among us. In fact, you are not at all what you seem. According to the town files—files carefully created and maintained by the late, great Glorianna Seabright herself”—he added with a flourish, earning a new round of applause—“you are in fact a monster
. Specifically, the eight- legged sort, unnaturally large, unnaturally poisonous, unnaturally vicious.

  “While we would normally wait a few days for the waning crescent to present our case, in this case there is no need. Our evidence is legion: your disappearance from public during past crescent- moon phases; your associations with known arachnids like Edmund Slider and Otto Saltin, both implicated in the arachnid plot to destroy this universe and replace it with one overrun with monstrous things; and most recently, your attempt to use your own sorcery within city limits, not more than forty-eight hours ago.”

  Tavia, who had been working her lower jaw this entire time, finally managed to spit out the rag that had been stuffed there. “The attempt was successful, and my brothers and sisters are on their way. You will have them to answer to if you don’t release me at once!”

  With a vicious swing, the bullhorn smashed into her thin lips. “Silence her!” Hank snapped (unnecessarily, Andi thought) at the guards, before the bullhorn came back up. Then the Master of Ceremonies was back again, smiling and playing the crowd. “You say your brothers and sisters are coming—perhaps they are already here, watching from the woods? Perhaps they are plotting to save you?”

  Tavia, bleeding from her mouth, did not answer.

  “Or perhaps all the help we will see for you today stands before us. Here on the bridge we see Francis Wilson, a blood relation of yours, also documented by Glorianna Seabright as an enemy of the town.

  “Next to him, his whore, also known as Andeana, also known as the notorious assassin who killed our dear Glory.”

  Whore? Andi thought, puzzled. That’s a bit—

  “She proved that your kind can slip in and out of this barrier. She proved that you have power over it—power, we can only presume, that includes knowledge of how to end it.”

  He jumped down from the scaffolding and pushed past the police officers. He was almost touching the barrier now, and his glaring brown eyes tried to burn a hole through.

  “Tell me,” he continued through the bullhorn. “Would you like to demonstrate that power now, to save one of your own? Would you dare show the secrets of your sorcery, in front of our eyes, so that we may judge how powerful you truly are?”

  When they didn’t answer, he smiled grimly and extended the hand that held the bullhorn. It plunged into the barrier before Skip’s face, and then doubled back above Hank’s own arm, pointed at the crowd now. To someone unfamiliar with how the dome worked, it would almost appear as if Skip himself was holding the bullhorn.

  “Come on,” Hank encouraged them quietly with a wink. “Speak up. Share the secret of this barrier, and we will honor your aunt with a quick death. We can be merciful, even toward our enemies.”

  “Can you?” Skip didn’t sound worried, or upset, or anxious. Merely curious. For some reason, that made Andi more nervous than anything else that had happened in the last ten minutes.

  “Skip!” Tavia called out from the gallows, before a guard punched her in the stomach. The older woman doubled over, retching—as was the guard’s intention and besides that, as had been Hank’s intention.

  Andi didn’t dare touch Skip. She was certain he was going to go through, and was trying to decide how she would react when he did—defend him to the death, or retreat into the safety of the woods—when Skip actually laughed. Laughed.

  “Go ahead and kill her, Blacktooth. She doesn’t mean shit to me.”

  Hank frowned and withdrew the bullhorn. “I doubt that. She raised you.”

  “My mother raised me, you strutting, bullying dumb-ass. I’ve known my aunt for all of a year. She’s a clueless, whining, overbearing loser who needs to wax. A lot. Torture her, kill her, snap her bra strap, see if I care. I have better things to do.”

  Skip turned and walked away. Andi shuffled back, unsure once again of what to do.

  “Jannsen!”

  One of the two guards pulled out a bastard sword, held it high behind Tavia with the point straight down, and shoved it down her spine before withdrawing quickly.

  The woman collapsed, screaming. Andi grabbed Skip, who had already turned at the sound.

  Hank never took his eyes off them. “Again, Jannsen!”

  The sword came down a second time, this time cork-screwing through the nerve bundles it had already violated. The sound of metal scraping bone made Andi gasp.

  “Again!”

  Again the blade came down, and Tavia fell forward. The second guard grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back to her knees, so the hobbling could continue.

  The sword continued to rape her spine, eliciting a shriek with each plunge. Maybe there were still nerves tough enough to survive the first few thrusts; maybe Jannsen was finding new angles; maybe she was simply still screaming from the first stroke.

  Andi began to sob, but Skip stood like a statue. He and Hank stared at each other through the barrier with no facial movement, no signal that anything around them affected them at all.

  Skip was not upset about his aunt, and Hank was not enjoying the reaction he was getting from Andi. Not at all.

  Finally, the bullhorn came back up. “The rally is over, folks. Let’s put her back in her cell. Once the crescent moon is up, she’ll start feeling it again. That’s when we’ll start pulling those pretty feet and hands off.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Jennifer

  Jennifer Scales, born of two bloodlines—dragon and beaststalker—flicked back to her human shape while banking in to land on the hospital parking lot. She dropped the fifteen or so feet, caught the impact by flexing her knees, then walked through the front door, acknowledging the armed sentries flanking the west entrance.

  It was a measure of how much had changed in the last year that she had flown in as a dragon, switched to human in midair, dropped to the pavement with her swords carefully strapped, and no one blinked. Heck, the only ones who even noticed were the sentries.

  Both thirteen-year-olds were nodding back, Jim Tenny cradling a Hechler & Koch S—uh—an S-something-or-other . . . Jennifer had never known much about guns. Her mother was expert with any bladed weapon, and her father—well. ’Nuff said.

  His twin, Jana, was holding the stock of her .12-gauge in one hand, the shotgun barrel resting on her left shoulder. They looked weirdly alike, which was unsettling as they were fraternal, not identical, twins. In fact, except for the length of their hair, they really were identical. They even bore identical, slight smiles.

  Susan’s right. The Boy Scouts/Sniper Team are creepy. Especially when they drag their sisters into it.

  “Have you seen my dad?”

  In times of crisis, she knew her mother drew inward, while her father extended outward. Together, they were a formidable team. But what she needed now was the one who would talk with her and help her process what she had seen less than twenty minutes ago.

  Jim and Jana shrugged, so Jennifer went inside.

  The next person she ran across was Anna- Lisa, looking harassed as usual, barely flicking a glance her way as she walked by on the way to the supply room, talking to herself. “Oh, what do we need, oh, hi, Jennifer, okay, we need another case of lightbulbs—any kind, we’re going to have to check the storage space at Wal-Mart and Target . . . even Christmas lights would be okay. And also, um, yeah, Jennifer, your dad’s—flashlights! Yeah, we can wind Christmas lights around the poles out there to keep the place lit at night, but we—uh—”

  “My dad?” Jennifer prompted.

  “Right, hang on guys, um, Jennifer, I haven’t seen your dad. I know your mom’s checking on Bonnie’s new baby—premature, poor thing, I don’t think her lungs—lighter fluid!” This made Jennifer jump.

  Jennifer moved through the lobby, recognizing each of the faces there. They had become a sort of extended family, including several members who probably wished for a different heritage. Some of them still dropped their eyes when she passed—nurses her mom had worked with for years, EMTs who had come over to the house for barbecues since Jennifer wa
s four. A couple of PAs. Cooks. Physical therapists. An awful lot of them were carefully avoiding eye contact.

  Is it because of who and what I am . . . or did they catch a live feed?

  The hospital still smelled of antiseptic, blood, and floor wax. It even looked like one, sort of—the place was a mess, yeah, and more lights were burned-out (when they were even turned on) than not.

  Still, there were differences anyone would notice at once: staff were scarce; multiple rooms had been converted into “temporary” living quarters; the emergency fire boxes were all emptied of hoses and axes; nobody was asking anyone a damn thing about insurance information; nobody was “Midwestern plump” anymore; and everyone looked exhausted and scared.

  Winter’s coming again, she thought. We need a plan.

  But first, we’ve got to figure out how Skip will react to what Hank has done today.

  She heard her mother long before she saw her.

  “—dammit, dammit, dammit! How am I supposed to treat a preemie without bilirubin lights? Huh?”

  “You could try throwing a tantrum,” came her father’s voice, helping her breathe a sigh of relief as she rounded the corner.

  As always (these days, certainly) her mother looked exhausted and . . . well . . . old. Though Jennifer didn’t like to think about her mom as a, you know, real person and all (gross!), she had always known that Elizabeth Georges was seriously cute. She usually looked in her thirties; today (and yesterday and last week and last month and) she looked like she was on the far side of sixty.

  “I don’t have time for banter,” she shot back. She turned back to the man who looked ready for orders—her PA, Michael Donovan. “We’re low on ventilators and antibiotics. We’ve got to decide if baby Marshall here truly needs anything beyond a blanket and a bottle. By the sword of St. George, I swear—”

  Jennifer raised her eyebrows. That was a rare epithet indeed—one her mother, prior to Big Blue, took care never to repeat in mixed company.

  “Basically we’re down to freaking kangaroo care!”

  Now Jennifer tried to stifle a giggle. Her mom had explained once that in less-developed countries (or in cities that were, say, trapped beneath a dome) the best way for medical professionals to treat premature infants was skin-to-skin contact. And not only from the new moms. People all over town would be pressed into kangaroo-care service: male or female, trained or not, dragon or beaststalker or neither. Lactating or, uh, not.