The Dragon's Tooth Part 4

THE BEREAVED.

CYRUS OPENED HIS eyes-there was no point in having them shut-and rolled up onto his side, clawing at his forearm. But that meant he couldn't scratch his calf. Splaying his toes, he put them to work, too.

The lights were off, and his sister's breathing was even. The curtains were glowing, backlit by the Golden Lady-he wondered if Dan even knew how to turn her off. The air-conditioning was humming, and the bed squealed every time he moved. He had kicked all his blankets onto the floor at least two hours ago.

They had only watched Antigone's movie four times, but he hadn't been able to stop replaying it in his head. His sister's movies were always odd. The clicking, flas.h.i.+ng images made new things seem old and forgotten. They made his dark, smooth-skinned mother seem painted and imagined. Her sleeping face had somehow steadied the camera in Antigone's hands, and the picture had stopped bouncing and s.h.i.+fting and had become still. His mother's hair, almost invisibly white, had grown since their last visit, and Antigone had made an exception to her rule, as she always did on Mom days. She'd let Dan take the camera and had entered the frame herself, holding her mother's hand, brus.h.i.+ng her mother's hair.

Cyrus should have been there, sitting on the other side of the bed.

And then the movie had cut to the car, to the flooding winds.h.i.+eld, to Dan's stress, to the yellow truck, to Cyrus in the parking lot, to the rocking bolts of lightning.

Cyrus clawed at his calf and then sat up in bed, switching on the lamp between the beds. An old boxy phone with a tangled cord sat beside the lamp. The lightning bug gla.s.s stood on its side in front of it, catching the light. For a moment, Cyrus stared at his sister, breathing beneath a mound of blankets.

His dirty clothes were in a pile by the door. He stood up as quietly as the bed would let him and went over to fish in the pockets of his shorts. Out came the key ring. Out came the small paper card.

Antigone hadn't moved. "What are you doing?" she asked suddenly.

Cyrus sat back down on his bed. "You awake?"

"Take a guess."

"We never read the English," Cyrus said. "Do you want to hear it?"

Antigone didn't answer.

Cyrus fingered the key ring in the lamplight. He flipped open the silver sheath and rubbed his tingling thumb across the sharp, chilly tip of the tooth. The key ring had been in Skelton's pocket when the Lady had become golden. It had been in his own pocket when he'd touched the record player.

Antigone sighed loudly. "Tell me I'm not hearing keys. No. Don't tell me. Just turn off the light."

"Fine," Cyrus said. He dropped the keys on the bed. "But I'm reading the card first. Listen."

Antigone filled the room with a fake snore.

" 'Please declare aloud: I hereby undertake to tread the world, to garden the wild, and to saddle the seas, as did my brother Brendan. I will not turn away from shades in fear, nor avert my eyes from light. I shall do as my Keeper requires, and keep no secret from a Sage. May the stars guide me and my strength preserve me. And I will not smoke in the library.' " Cyrus looked up. " 'Translation approved, 1946.' "

Antigone flopped onto her face. "Now you've done it. No more smoking in the library." She pulled her blankets over her head. "Turn off the light."

Cyrus set down the card with the lightning bug, clicked the lamp off, and sat bouncing his knees in the dark.

"How can you sleep right now?" he asked.

"I can't," Antigone muttered.

Sighing, Cyrus rocked back onto his bed and stared at the dimly golden ceiling.

"Whatever it is you're tapping," Antigone said, "feel free to stop."

"What?" Cyrus asked. "I'm not tapping anything."

He held his breath and listened. Someone, something, was tapping. Faintly, beyond the window. Three taps. Sc.r.a.pe. Three more. Sc.r.a.pe.

Antigone sat up. "That's really not you?"

Cyrus shook his head. Both of them slipped out of their beds and crept toward the window. When they were on their knees, with noses above the sill, Cyrus hooked one finger in the curtain and peeled it back.

A large, dark shape was moving slowly through the parking lot, sweeping the white cane of a blind man in front of him. He reached the yellow truck, felt it with his hand, and then kept coming, finally stopping six feet from the pair of motel room doors. He was wearing an enormous coat and a heavy stocking cap pulled down snug around his scalp. Two large ears stuck out from the sides of his head like a pair of skin satellite dishes. His eyes weren't covered, but they were closed. He tapped the ground and turned his head from side to side, listening. Then he sniffed at the air with a flattened and crooked nose. His jaw was broad but uneven, visibly scarred even in the dim golden light. His long, slender cane was in his left hand, tip down, and he began bouncing it slowly beneath the weight of his arm.

"What's he doing?" Antigone whispered. "He's not really blind, is he?"

Cyrus put his finger to his lips.

"He can't be," Antigone said. "He walked right to Skelton's room." She nudged her brother. "Open the door. See what he wants."

Cyrus looked at her. "Yeah, right," he whispered. "You're crazy."

"He's blind. He might need help." Antigone tried to stand, but Cyrus grabbed on to her wrist. The blind man had pulled something out of his coat.

"Gun," Cyrus said. "Gun!" He forced Antigone back onto her knees. Four short, gaping barrels-two on top of two-all big enough to fire golf b.a.l.l.s. Pistol-gripped. Black. Ruthless. An extra handle stuck out to the side of the bundle of barrels. A small cylindrical tank was screwed into the back of the gun above the man's grip.

Cyrus's mind was frozen. His nails were digging into his sister's arm. Should he yell? Should he warn Skelton?

The man tapped his rod on the ground three times. Six inches from Cyrus's face, a shape slid past the window toward room 111. And another.

Antigone was trying to shake her arm free. Cyrus let go. He wasn't breathing. He wasn't blinking.

The blind man stepped forward, raised a heavy arm, and cracked the b.u.t.t of his gun against the door to 111.

"Bones!" the man yelled. "Friend Billy! Give it up. The good doctor doesn't take kindly to thieves."

Cyrus gasped, finally breathing. He pushed his sister away from the window. "Call the cops. Go!"

Antigone dropped to the carpet and crawled away.

Skelton's voice drifted through the wall. "That you, Pug? Maxi's letting you do the talking now? Come on in. I'll get the door."

The floor under Cyrus's knees s.h.i.+vered, a high-pitched whine vibrated the gla.s.s in front of him, and the door to 111 exploded off its hinges. The big man slammed into the nose of the truck before spinning up onto the roof of the wooden camper.

Smoke snaked out into the golden parking lot. For a moment, the world was still. The blind man's legs kicked slowly on the asphalt. His arms were draped on the old truck's b.u.mper and his head lolled against its grille, blood dripping from his nose and lips. His hat was gone. His cane was shattered.

Turning his back to the window, Cyrus slid down beneath the sill.

"Yes," Antigone said. Her eyes were on him, peering up between the beds. "An explosion. And guns. That's what I said. The Archer Motel, room one-eleven. No, I won't hold."

She hung up. For a moment, Cyrus, breathless, stared into his sister's frightened eyes, and then William Skelton's voice roared through the wall.

"Come kill the killer!" he shouted. Something heavy crashed to the floor. "Betray the traitor. Rob the thief! Who wants to die with Billy Bones?"

Antigone dropped to the carpet beside Cyrus and lifted the curtain.

"Is he dead?" she asked. "Did Skelton kill him?" Her voice was low, but her body was shaking.

Cyrus swallowed. "I don't know," he said. His sister was hanging on to his leg. He could barely feel it. "I don't know," he said again. "Don't know." Stop it. He blinked, trying to clear his head. He couldn't be like this. This was how animals became roadkill. He had to do something. Wake up. Should they get under the beds? Should they run?

"Come on now, lads!" Skelton bellowed. "I know you can take more than that. Or can't the doctor's puppets kill an old man?"

Cyrus pulled himself back up to the windowsill. The blind man was on the ground beneath the yellow truck's b.u.mper. He wasn't dead. His left arm still held a piece of his broken cane. His right hand still gripped his gun. He raised it slowly.

There was no sound of gunfire, no exploding black powder. Each of his barrels belched a burning white sphere, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g forward, braiding flame, tracing spirals in the air like racing sparklers.

Two tall shapes leapt into view, moving quickly, smoothly, more like animals than people. One vaulted easily over the truck. The other jumped onto the top of the camper, landing in a crouch. Both were wearing tinted goggles, both were hip-firing searing white flame. Another, shorter shape stepped out from behind the truck.

Four men, each with four barrels, filled the air with swirling magnesium and sulfur. Flaming spheres, infant meteors, exploded against the doorjamb, the wall, the window, and poured through the door into 111. White fire erupted into sizzling rings. The walls shook. The window in front of Cyrus warped and wobbled as pale rivers of flame raced across its surface.

Cyrus couldn't look away. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe in the sudden heat. He didn't feel Antigone's hands. He didn't hear her screaming at him to get down. Not until she threw an arm around his neck and slammed him onto his back.

Blinking, he watched his sister sprawl across him, covering her head with her arms, trying to cover him with her body.

He watched the ceiling boil and crack. The walls surged and split, and Antigone's shelves avalanched to the ground. The first flames crept into the room.

A high-pitched whine was building somewhere-piercing, painful. Cyrus pushed his sister off, grabbed her wrist, and tried to crawl toward the bathroom. The bathtub. They needed water. His sister's books were burning. Her photo alb.u.ms.

Boom.

The noise was simple enough, big enough, fundamental enough that all the other noises became part of it.

Cyrus felt his bones ripple like rubber as he fell. His gut twisted and flipped. The closet mirror ran down into the carpet. The gla.s.s in the big picture window liquefied and collapsed, splas.h.i.+ng on the sill.

A moment's slice later, the sound was gone and the window had refrozen, paralyzed in its fountain before hitting the floor.

Cyrus lay gasping, gripping his sister's tense arms, watching fire dance on the wall, listening to distant sirens.

No more shouting. No more belching guns. He pulled, crawling for water.

Antigone pulled back.

"No!" she yelled. "Up, Cy! Out!" Reaching her feet, she dragged him toward the door.

"Your stuff," Cyrus said. He tore his hands free and stood, hunching in the smoke. "Get your stuff."

"I will, I will," she said. The top third of the wall was in flames. "We have to get Skelton out!"

Cyrus forced his sister away from the room's door and pressed his eye against the peephole. The gla.s.s had dripped out.

"Are they gone?" Antigone whispered.

"Maybe," Cyrus said.

"Just go," Antigone said. "Go!"

Wrapping his hand in the hem of his s.h.i.+rt, Cyrus jerked quickly on the sizzling doork.n.o.b, and the two of them staggered into charred air. The blind man-limbs impossibly bent-lay motionless beneath the truck's b.u.mper. A second rag-dolled body drooped off the edge of the camper. A third was facedown behind the rear wheel.

Flames surrounded the doorway to 111 and were roaring on the walkway above. Inside 111, Cyrus's bed was on fire, the walls were scorched and flickering, and huge pieces of the ceiling had collapsed. Beneath one cracked slab of blackened drywall, they could see the bottoms of two cowboy boots.

Without saying anything, Cyrus and Antigone jumped through the doorway, kicked through the smoldering pile, and each grabbed a leg. The s.h.i.+ns bent easily.

Billy Bones groaned in pain. "No," he said. "Don't pull."

Cyrus dropped the boot.

"Tigs, let go," he said. "His legs are broken."

"Not broken," Billy said. "Not-"

Both kids tore into the pile, quickly clearing the old man's body. He was wearing a burnt and smoking blue jumpsuit, and his face was soot-covered around a pair of flight goggles. The gla.s.s lenses had melted and were hanging from the bottom rims like icicles. Two canisters were strapped on his shoulders and pinned beneath him. A cracked silver tube laced with copper wire stuck out from under his arm like the barrel of a leaf blower. Oil oozed out of its mouth.

The old man licked his charcoal lips and smiled. His teeth were gone. "Killed Pug," he said. "The others? Maxi? Where's Maxi? He won't die."

The ceiling was crackling like pinecones. Antigone coughed and pulled her s.h.i.+rt collar up over her mouth and nose.

Billy Bones looked at her, and then at Cyrus. "Didn't break-" He paused to breathe, and his eyes shut. "Not every promise. Your father-"

Antigone slid her hands under the old man's shoulder. "We have to get you out of here. Cy, try gripping under his arms."

"No," the old man said. "No! Listen! I have no secrets." His voice was fading, drowned out by the popping of burning shelves, the loud breathing of flames. "Cyrus, my hands. To my neck. Hurry." Cyrus looked at his sister. Antigone nodded. Cyrus grabbed Skelton's wrists in the rubble. His arms were soft, boneless, like socks full of mud. As Cyrus lifted, the old man groaned, and then sobbed. Cyrus hesitated.

"Don't stop. Don't." With a final motion, Cyrus forced Skelton's hands to his throat. The old man's fingers moved, and in the darkness, Cyrus saw a thick necklace come free. It was glowing silver. "Yours now," Skelton said.

Cyrus blinked, confused. Antigone leaned in and took over.

She raised the old man's hands to her brother's neck. The necklace-the thing-suddenly moved, twisting between Skelton's hands. "Use her," Skelton said. "She was your father's once."

Heat seared against Cyrus's skin and slithered tight around his neck. Yelping, gasping, he reached for it.

"No!" Skelton yelled. "No! Defend what I give you. With your souls." His voice died. The thing around Cyrus's neck was only warm now, metallic but soft, scaled, as thick as a small rope.

"Cyrus," Antigone said, leaning close to the old man's face. "Cyrus."

William Skelton's voice sank below a whisper. "Smiths. Beekeepers. Trust. Nolan."

"Brother Bones. So dramatic in life, so he should be in death, yes?"

A man, slight, dressed in close-fitting black, stepped through the charred doorway. His accented voice was smooth despite the smoke. A four-barreled gun dangled in his left hand. Flames from the wall licked his shoulder, but he didn't seem to notice.

"What does the dying man give to the little ones, eh?" he asked cheerfully. "William, what should their sweet souls be defending?" He c.o.c.ked his head, listening. "Has he met with friend Death already?"

Grabbing Antigone, Cyrus slid away on his knees. The man moved toward them through the rubble as Cyrus scrambled to his feet. A bright smile full of very tiny teeth sparkled in the man's soot-covered face. His eyes were ringed with a pair of empty goggles. His hair, an ashen tangle, stood out around his small head.

"Children, please remain," he said. "I cannot find what I need. Can it be that the famous Billy Bones no longer holds it?" He pointed his gun at Skelton's body. "If he was still keeping his charm, I would not expect to see him in such condition."