“Folks outside the dome need to see a little hope in here. You give people hope, and even people in this town want to know more about you. I figure maybe part of the reason we’re not hearing anything is because all we have to share is depressing . . . or boring.”
“You’re worried that we’re boring them.”
Susan swallowed and managed a smile. “Not that boring is bad, mind you! Except it is, in journalism.”
“You’d prefer a return to the daily killings, from a few months ago.”
“Geez, Dr. Georges-Scales, no! I’m not talking about being exciting that way. I was thinking of something more fun. For example”—she motioned to Gautierre, who faithfully raised the camera again—“some of our listeners may want to learn: what is it like to love a dragon?”
“Come again?”
“Loving a dragon. What is that like?”
Elizabeth stared at Susan, then the camera, then the boy holding the camera. “I . . . I don’t suppose it’s any different from loving anyone else. I’ve only had one love in my life, and that’s Jonathan Scales. He’s a wonderful man. I wouldn’t trade my life with him for anything.”
“That’s sweet. But our viewers’ concerns may be . . . more specific. More practical.”
The older woman shifted. “Such as?”
“What’s the experience like?
“The experience.”
“Yeah. The act.”
The doctor’s face paled. “Susan. I’m not talking about this on the Internet.”
“Don’t think of it as the Internet. Think of it as posterity. You’ve experienced something no other woman has, yet—a physical expression of passion with a man who could literally tear you apart. Surely, you have some tidbits you could share, some advice—”
“Susan . . . okay, first of all, I could just as easily tear
him
apart. And I might, if he put you up to this. Second, if you and Gautierre have questions for me, I am happy to answer them . . .
in private
.”
“Arrrgh! Gautierre, cut! We’ll have to edit that out, too.”
“Susan, maybe Dr. Georges-Scales is right . . .”
Susan didn’t blame her boyfriend for siding with the older woman. Even though he was a lovely boy who was utterly devoted to his perky and clever girlfriend, Dr. Elizabeth Georges-Scales could intimidate the heat away from a fire. Susan bit her lip and nodded as Elizabeth walked to Gautierre, seized the camera from him, handed it to Susan, and said, “This interview is over.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You should edit quickly and transmit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Electricity is at a premium, Susan. I support your use of hospital computers and power outlets because you are doing important work and because you’re usually good at it. But you need to stay focused on the crisis at hand.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lives depend on you, as much as they depend on me and my colleagues.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Elizabeth sighed as she walked away. “Oh—and, Susan.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“The ‘experience,’ as you call it, is absolutely outstanding. But it has nothing to do with what the man can do under a crescent moon. It has everything to do with his love for you, his depth of commitment, and his . . . willingness to learn.”
Susan grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
“One more thing. As far as Jennifer knows, you and I never had this conversation.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
CHAPTER 3
Jennifer
Jennifer Scales caught her mother as she was coming in from the hospital parking lot. Beyond her, Susan and Gautierre were smiling and fiddling with their electronic equipment.
“How’d the interview go?”
To Jennifer’s surprise, Elizabeth turned bright red. “It went well. What do you need?”
“What do you mean, what do I need? Watch shift. I’m headed up to the roof.”
“Ah. So where’s Catherine?”
“I think she’s already up there. She volunteered for last shift, too.”
“She’s been pulling an awful lot of shifts.”
“You’re complaining? She’s a quick study with that rifle.”
“I’m noting that as recently as two months ago, she was in daily rehab learning to walk again.”
“Yes, well, she’s fine now. You cleared her yourself.”
Elizabeth nodded. Catherine Brandfire, granddaughter of the late Winona Brandfire, had spent much of the last year in a hospital bed recovering from a vicious wound to her spinal cord. The cut had meant to hobble her out-of-dragon form and cripple her limbs, but Jennifer’s powers as the Ancient Furnace and Elizabeth’s skill as a surgeon had restored Catherine’s ability to walk and shift.
“I still wouldn’t suggest she try flying soon.”
“You and me both. She’s a trampler. She always sucked at that. Can’t even whomp worth a damn.”
“Sniper duty sounds about right, then.”
“Um, Dr. Georges?”
“Georges-Scales,” Elizabeth said automatically, looking over her daughter’s shoulder. Jennifer felt a surge of irritation—not at being interrupted, nor at the incomplete use of her mother’s name, but at the fact that the doctor never seemed to catch five minutes around here. Everybody looked for her.
Everybody found her.
“Right. Um. Hi, Jennifer.”
Jennifer nodded tersely at Anna-Lisa, formerly an administrative assistant in the administration wing, now a war scout. Anna-Lisa and her team of determined medical secretaries explored the town for medical supplies of any kind. It had become difficult work once the pharmacies were empty, because recognizing the most useful supplies required both basic medical knowledge (to avoid duplicative effort) and excellent reflexes (to avoid attacks from enemies).
Anna-Lisa turned to Elizabeth. “Dr. Georges-Scales? Um, we were thinking? That maybe we would try the homeopathic remedy store? In the strip mall by the cinema?”
Jennifer loathed it when women said things as questions? Because it was so annoying? Not to mention wishywashy? She had never heard a man talk like that.
She had mentioned it to her mother once, who had pointed out that Anna- Lisa was busting her ass with limited military medic training. If she talked like this? It wasn’t worth quibbling about.
Still, it was as irritating as a centipede navigating a groin rash?
“That sounds fine, Anna- Lisa. I doubt you’ll find much real medicine, but bring the homeopathics back. They may have a useful placebo effect in some situations.”
The petite brunette, who apparently grew new freckles across her nose and cheeks by the day, nodded.
“Okay, so, we’ll do that? But the reason I came out?”
“Someone needs me back inside.”
“Yeah. They do. And Dr. Paige thinks Mrs. Gremmel’s foot is going to have to come off.”
Elizabeth nodded grimly. Jennifer knew that expression. She also knew Mrs. Gremmel’s case—a nice sixty-eight-year-old woman who had suffered exactly zero attacks from any dragon, spider, beaststalker, or rogue raccoon in town. She was simply diabetic, with poor circulation. She’d received the town’s last known dose of insulin back in July. She now sported a gangrenous foot, and Dr. Georges-Scales had limited options. A few antibiotics. No propofol. No halothane. No nitrous oxide. No thiopental. Very little ketamine. Even fewer fentanyl. Maybe a little bit of etomidate.
Soon, Jennifer figured, they would all be reduced to hitting patients over the head.
Hey. Then I can be a surgeon, like Mom!
She had banished the inappropriate thought and was about to suggest to Anna-Lisa that she bludgeon Mrs. Gremmel so her own mother could get more than a minute’s rest herself, when she heard the air horn and cry outside.
“DRAGON! DRAGON! DRAGON!”
A rifle fired once, then again a few seconds later. Then there was a commotion on the roof—one thump as something landed, then another, then another, and another . . .
Catherine!
Jennifer was out the door and sprouting wings before the last of the dragons had landed on the roof. The watch-and-sniper’s structure built alongside a roof exit door was crude but sturdy: a ten-foot-high cylinder of balanced bricks and stones transported from ruined houses around town, dotted with plenty of sniper holes and covered with asbestos-lined sheet metal.
Except now, one of the walls had been torn down, and seven dragons were sticking their snouts into the opening and wrestling with the occupants. Flames sprouted from their mouths, ammunition exploded in a fierce staccato, and a man inside screamed.
The dragons were pulling someone else out with their jaws. It was Catherine—who thankfully had shifted into dragon form—but her fireproof scales would not prevent these monsters from tearing her apart.
In a blink, Jennifer was among them, smashing one dragon with her bulk, whipping another’s snout with her tail, and clawing at a third with an extended wing. The other four immediately dropped Catherine and backed up to assess the new threat. The largest was immediately recognizable—a middle-aged dasher, at seven feet no longer than the juveniles who surrounded her, but remarkable because her tail ended in two swollen stumps instead of the lethal spiked fork most dashers used.
“Ember Longtail!”
The raiding party’s leader straightened up, near-black scales glistening in the sun. The mere sight of Jennifer infuriated her. The peach markings on the undersides of her wings expanded and contracted violently, and a blast of fire came out.
“What is the point of
that
?” Jennifer asked, eyes closed and her head turned slightly. The flames felt ticklish and warm on her skin.
Ember answered with a charge, which caught the younger dragons by surprise and sent them in a somersault—half electric blue scales, half dark spines. Jennifer felt her adversary’s teeth dig into her neck, and she cursed herself for her carelessness as blood spilled over her throat.
She didn’t dare shift back into human form—it was far more fragile than this one. The only recourse she had was to bite back, and so she did. Ember’s left wing was available, albeit not very tasty.
The dasher grunted in pain, but her jaws remained fixed. Jennifer blinked, wondering why she was losing peripheral vision, then realized it was because her jugular was pouring her lifeblood into open air.
Get her off, get her OFF.
Her triple- forked tail swung around and smacked Ember on the back of her spiny head. Nothing. She tried again, harder. Sparks bounced off the other’s skull. Still, nothing.
Desperately wishing for a way to melt out of this death grip, she tried plunging a tail tip into Ember’s eye socket. A near miss—they were both still moving, and Jennifer’s aim was worsening as she lost more vision. She began to feel dizzy. Off in the distance, Catherine bravely fended off the others. Gautierre, thankfully not far away when the attack started, was next to her.
I hope that means Susan is inside and safe.
Now there were new voices—had more allies come out the exit door and worked their way through the rubble?
The answer came in the form of a brilliant shock wave, which took both Ember and Jennifer by surprise. The former unclenched her jaw with an exclamation of pain at the sudden flow of sound and light, and Jennifer squeezed her eyes and ears shut while shifting back into human form.
She wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss, or the beaststalker’s shout that had overwhelmed her dragon senses, or both. She blacked out.
CHAPTER 4
Jennifer
Jennifer woke up in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around her throat. Catherine, Susan, and Gautierre surrounded her in sea-green-cushioned visitor chairs.
Her thoughts went immediately to the dragons’ fire, the explosions, and the scream. “Who died?”
“Mark,” Catherine answered. Her dark- skinned face was covered in dried tears. “I tried to cover him after they punched through the shelter wall, but they kept pulling me off. There were seven of them, Jennifer! I couldn’t fight them all.”
Gautierre put a comforting arm around her.
“Anyone else?”
“No.” But Jennifer could hear it in Gautierre’s tone: Mark was enough. He was one of their sharpest eyes, and a brilliant lab tech to boot. It had been the eager, just-out-of-college Mark who had hit upon a critical countermeasure to enemy creepers in camouflage: converting digital infrared thermal-imaging machines that the hospital used for diagnostics, to portable equipment for recon sweeps. Dragons showed up beautifully on infrared. Because of Mark, Ember had no creepers left in her gang. His was a powerful loss.
“We get any of them?”
“Jack,” he replied.
“Jack?”
“You know—Jack-o’-Lantern? The orange trampler, roly-poly fellow, blasted the front lobby doors last spring? He managed to keep his feet after your mother’s shout, and he tried to take her down.”