Rise of the Poison Moon (15 page)

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Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

Tags: #Magic, #Fantasy fiction, #Dragons, #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Spiders, #Shapeshifting, #Epic, #Good and evil

BOOK: Rise of the Poison Moon
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They approached Elizabeth first. Dianna shimmered until she was in the form of a woman nearly as tall as the doctor, with jet-black hair that framed a pale, freckled face and spilled down freckled shoulders. Her simple jade gown wrinkled as she bowed to the other woman.
“Dr. Georges-Scales. I’ve waited a long time to meet you.”
Jennifer watched her mother almost faint. “Dianna. I’m afraid I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I, for sure. But I will try by saying, I’m sorry for your loss. Jonathan was an extraordinary man.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”
Feeling like she had not so much to do here, Jennifer looked at Evangelina, who had changed into human form at the same time as Dianna. Evangelina was a dark mirror of her half-sister—they shared many of the same facial features as their father, but the older sibling’s hair and freckles were distinctly from her mother’s side.
“I—I don’t know how much time we have,” Elizabeth suddenly said. “Thank you for what you’ve done here. I don’t know how you stopped his sorcery, but it probably saved lives. My worry is that Skip may try again.”
“Evangelina can consume anything my son produces.”
“Are you sure? The last couple have come in rapid succession.”
“I am sure, for at least a while.” Dianna’s eyes were a reassuring cerulean—but Jennifer knew they would change color before long. “Skip has learned how to create servants who in turn can create more servants. A troubling development, to be sure; but we have at least some time to discuss how to stop him permanently.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and Jennifer felt a weight lift from her heart that she hadn’t realized she had been feeling.
It’s over. Dianna can make it all right. She can turn things back to normal, like she did before.
Elizabeth nodded again, less formally this time. “Thank you again. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a reason to hope for anything in this town.”
Dianna looked up at the shimmering shell above. “Yes. I can imagine. Edmund Slider has left quite a legacy.”
“I hope it’s not presumptuous to ask: is there anything you can do about it?”
The downcast eyes of the sorceress shifted to olive. “Ah, you get right to it. And there, I have less comforting news. I alone cannot reverse what Edmund Slider has done.”
The crowd murmured again, less encouragingly now. “But you’re Quadrivium,” Jennifer pointed out in exasperation. “Like Slider was. In fact, you’re more powerful, aren’t you? You travel through dimensions. You can’t help a single town?”
“Jennifer. They
have
helped this town.”
“Jennifer Scales.” Dianna’s smile returned under indigo eyes, and the warmth in her voice appeared genuine. “I am sorry for your father, but I am so pleased to see you still well.”
“I’m not well. Not at all. Let’s get to it, please—or did you come empty-handed?”
Evangelina frowned with distaste. Even in human form, she did not use her voice.
Time has passed, Mother—but she’s still a bitch. I don’t know why you like her.
Jennifer jumped. She’d never get used to telepathy. It was so sudden and intrusive.
“Oh, Evangelina. I don’t know why I like her, really. Maybe it’s the parts of Jonathan I see in her. Maybe it’s her ability to bite off more than she can chew, and swallow it anyway. And maybe it’s the fact you
don’t
like her that makes her so appealing to me.”
“Hello? Standing right here. So you were saying how despite your amazing multidimensional powers, you have no antidote to the sorcery of a dead arachnid.”
“Jennifer, please.”
“Let them answer, Mom.”
“The answer does not lie with us,” Dianna said mysteriously. “I can only presume that it lies with you.”
“Could you be more precise? We’ve tried a lot of shit on that wall.”
“I have nothing else for you—just my own knowledge of Edmund Slider. He was not the type to leave a town to die, with no way out. He wants something from you. You must give it to him.”
“He’s dead.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It seems relevant.”
“Come, Dr. Georges-Scales. Surely you’ve seen one or two things that manage to last beyond death.”
“The seraph,” Elizabeth whispered.
“The what?”
“A protective spirit left by my friend. It sacrificed itself at Jonathan’s funeral so that he could move on.”
Dianna thought about that. “Edmund enjoyed the idea of self-sacrifice. Has anyone tried to leave the dome since that day?”
“We have scouts attempt every day. They test with their hands, shoot weapons, we’ve even rolled cars into the thing. The day of Jonathan’s funeral, after everyone left that field, I tried to leave myself.”
Jennifer scrunched her face. “Mom?”
Elizabeth sighed. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky. I wanted to go with him, more than almost anything.” She turned back to Dianna. “No matter how hard I tried, or how little, it didn’t work.”
“Sacrifice could be necessary, but not sufficient.”
The doctor’s features hardened. “The sacrifices we’ve made, I would deem
more
than sufficient.”
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive.” Dianna tossed the remark out casually. “I mean that Edmund put up this wall for logical reasons. Everything he did was based in logic.”
Jennifer recalled Edmund Slider’s geometry classes, and his relentless focus on logic. “Where’s the logic in all the suffering?” She surprised herself by asking the question out loud.
“Don’t look for the logic in the results. Things happened that he clearly didn’t expect. Instead, look for the logic in his goal. What drove Edmund Slider?”
“We don’t know, exactly.”
“You will have to find out.”
Elizabeth rubbed her chin as the crowd absorbed this information. “Okay. The dome has been up for months; it can stay up a bit longer while we figure this out. Meanwhile, we’re left with the matter of Skip and the attacks. You imply that your defenses can’t hold forever.”
“Correct. The sorceries are getting stronger by the day.”
“So we need to stop them, the sooner the better.”
“Agreed. It is a difficult decision for me, but I am ready to carry out what must be done.”
Elizabeth paused. “What did you have in mind?”
Dianna tilted her freckled face. “Why, the only certain solution at our disposal. Death. As Evangelina and I are the only two inside or outside this dome powerful enough to stop a werachnid like this—all due respect to your dragon friends, Jennifer—the task falls to us. We will implement immediately.”
“Hold on!” Elizabeth almost grabbed the other woman before thinking better of it. “You’re going to resort to murder?”
With black irises, Dianna licked her lips. “I’m not looking forward to this, Dr. Georges-Scales. The responsibility is mine. I don’t see another choice.”
“I do. We should attempt a diplomatic solution.”
“Diplomacy?”
Dianna’s lips actually curled upward, and a less-than-friendly sparkle shone in her vermilion eyes. “Why, that’s absolutely
adorable
.”
Oh, here we go.
“My daughter and I will go out there, then; and instead of stopping the problem, we’ll begin a fireside chat; you can ask them nicely to stop sending lethal missiles through this prison wall of yours. Since you have absolutely no way to stop them and no leverage of any kind, I’m sure they will unilaterally decide to take up a different hobby, like quilting.”
“Anything sounds impossible when you use
that
tone,” Jennifer snapped, freshly annoyed because Dianna was right. “So, new plan, okay? Eddie could help. In fact, we were talking about that when—”
“Your bow-toting boyfriend will be the next target,” Dianna interrupted.
“He’s not—well, maybe in a different set of circumstances, we could—there’s really not a lot of dating going on since—”
“It only makes sense,” Dianna continued, and Jennifer decided not to notice the older woman’s eye-roll. “The first murder was your father, to hurt you. The next will be your
boyfriend
, while you watch helplessly. Whether they tear apart your mother immediately afterward or leave her for later is really a matter of personal style—”
“Never mind Eddie or me,” Elizabeth interjected quickly. “We have
you
to stop this. You’re our leverage.”
So why not stop him now, without the talking part?
Evangelina kicked the dirt and bit her pretty lip.
I told you, Mother. We should not have come here first. They have no power, no place in determining our actions.
“Bye, then!” Jennifer said with faux brightness.
“We came here to pay respect to your father,” the sorceress tersely reminded her daughter. “Part of that respect is discussing our next move with his wife and child. The last time you blundered into this dimension and decided to play judge and jury, you caused needless suffering. Let’s do better.”
Jennifer stirred at being called a child, but did not need the stern look from her own mother to stay quiet.
“Dianna. If you’re truly interested in what Jennifer and I think, then I’m asking you and Evangelina to help us do this right. For heaven’s sake, Skip is your son. I can’t imagine how I would—surely you want to consider alternatives to killing him.”
“I’m hoping we don’t need to kill
him
.” Dianna was almost smiling again. “This sorcery requires two people—one to give the creature life, and another to give them power. Remove his new girlfriend, and all Skip can do is send scribbles your way. For a while, anyhow.”
We kill Andeana, then. It will show my half-brother that we are serious.
Evangelina’s thought was briskly cheerful: they’d thought up a chore that wouldn’t be very hard, and would be helpful to all. Like raking leaves when it was nice out, and you wanted a little exercise anyway.
“We don’t need to kill her, do we?” Jennifer turned to Elizabeth. “We could talk to her. That’s our leverage. We find a way to talk to her, pull her away from Skip. Andi can’t be going along with this willingly. It makes no sense. She’s not violent.”
“She killed Mayor Seabright.” It was hard not to see the anger in the doctor’s eyes. “Matricide is violent.”
“Yeah, but . . . she was under a sorcery. She had no willpower.”
“She has little to begin with,” Dianna explained. “That is not how her father created her. She has always been a vessel—first for me to pour knowledge into, and now for Skip to pour his own purpose out of. She’s nothing more than a tool. Break the tool, save the town.”
“What is she, a faulty screwdriver?” Jennifer hissed. “You don’t need to break her. And she’s not a tool; she’s a human being who can make her own choices.”
Choices like, “Don’t kill your own mother”?
“Stop pretending to give a shit about anything.”
“Jennifer.”
“Mom, you can’t be seriously considering this! Why is it okay to kill Andi for what she did to Dad but not Skip?
We’re agreed, then. We kill them both.
“Why are you here? Why are we pretending to have a conversation like normal people when at least one of us is a proven murderous sociopath?”
“Honestly, pet. You could do more to help.” Dianna shook her head and thought a moment. “What if we found Andi and brought her here, alone? You could try to convince her to do . . . whatever it is you think she will do for you.”
This is useless.
“That might work,” Elizabeth agreed. “We’ve never considered pulling her away from Skip before, because it seemed impossible. She’s devoted to him, and Eddie reports they rotate through lairs unpredictably. Do you think you can find her?”
The answering smile nearly split the sorceress’s face open. “My dear Dr. Georges-Scales. I already have. We’ll be back momentarily.”
CHAPTER 24
Andi
“Skip, you have to talk with them! They’ve come all this way!”
“I don’t need to do any such thing.” They were in the kitchen, with only the swinging double doors between them and the six new arrivals. Everyone could hear them, and they both knew it.
“Tavia called them!”
“Tavia’s dead.”
“They’re a critical resource. Skip, it’s the natural instinct of our kind to act alone. But we are at our most powerful when we band together—like the Quadrivium did.

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