Chapter 17
They made their way out, Gwen with the messenger bag over one shoulder, her personal kit for the well-prepared dragon slayer
packed into it once again. Robin opened one leaf of the tall wooden doors and held it while the others marched through.
It was late, and cool, and there was some damp in the air, but for all that it was warmer than it had been, and the snow had
shrunk to filthy piles under the trees. At the bottom of the stone steps, Tana hugged Allie goodbye—she was headed to the
cafeteria to return the coffee urn, while the rest of them made for their cars. Gwen thought Allie shut her eyes and let herself
be held a trifle longer than was necessary. She glanced at Robin, and Robin met her gaze with a raised eyebrow. Allie watched
Tana go, then turned and saw Gwen and Robin watching her.
“What?” she cried. Her cheeks began to burn. “What?”
“Tana and Allie, sitting in a tree,” Robin sang.
“Oh, stop it,” Allie said, and began to stalk swiftly away.
They followed at a leisurely pace. Somewhere, a pack of college kids laughed, a sound of hearty pleasure and ease. It was
as splendid an evening as Gwen could remember, the air fresh and sweet with the smell of wet pines, and she wondered if it
was her last good winter night.
She heard music coming from a white Shelby, old and battered, the tinted windows rolled down.
The wheel wells were lacy with rust. It was parked right behind Gwen’s pickup, and she frowned at it.
It was out of place on campus, wasn’t the sort of thing that might belong to a parent or a professor.
A student, maybe, who wanted to own something shabby and retro.
As Gwen approached, she could see a bumper sticker under the road filth.
She squinted to read it, but it was too far away.
“You think the conversation is over,” Allie said. She had slowed to let Gwen catch up, and now she affectionately bumped a
shoulder against hers. “But it isn’t, and I’m not letting you do this alone. I’ll change your mind. I can be very persuasive,
especially once I start crying.”
“I’ll give you something to cry about, bitch,” Donna said, putting her foot into the back of Allie’s knee and shoving, so
Allie’s leg folded and she went down, hard, with a shout.
Gwen turned as Donna stepped out of the dark, onto the path. She saw Donna cocking her foot back to kick Allie again—and then
Robin hit her with one shoulder in the small of the back in a rugby tackle and Donna stumbled over Allie. Gwen caught Donna’s
shoulders with both hands before she could sprawl face-first on the concrete.
“Let go of me,” Donna snarled.
“Okay,” Gwen said and dropped her. Donna went down onto her chin with an audible crack.
Robin was behind Donna, looked ready to drop onto her back with both knees. But Colin moved in first.
“Everyone take it easy,” he said, appearing out of the dark from beneath a big oak. He looked good, in his gray jeans and
his trademark white Henley, the buttons undone to show the hollow of his throat. Two fingers rubbed at a spot between his
collarbones. “Or we’re going to see the dragon tonight. I know you’re eager to arrange a visit, based on what I overheard
in the chapel. But since you haven’t had time to prepare for him, I’m guessing you’d rather avoid that. So let’s all cool
down.”
Robin was panting hard, her hair mussed. She looked from Gwen to Colin and back.
“Can he just—”
“Bring King Sorrow through from the Long Dark and kill us?” Gwen said. “Ayuh.”
“I wouldn’t like to,” Colin said. “Not here on campus. There’s kids around. Not to mention Allie! Someone could be hurt. I mean someone besides you, Gwen. I’m not a monster, you know.”
He reached out with one hand. Donna took it and got to her feet. She had scraped her chin.
Gwen said, “You should let me look at that. I’ve got an alcohol swab in the car and—”
“Stop it,” Donna said. “Stop playacting Mother Teresa. No one is buying it anymore. And I’ve heard all about the kind of medical treatment
you give. Hard pass.”
Donna offered her hand to Allie.
“Get up and get in the car,” she said. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Allie stared at her. Donna tightened her jaw and reached and grabbed Allie’s wrist.
“I said get up, goddamn it,” Donna said.
“Donna?” Allie asked.
“Yes?”
“Go fuck yourself.” And she pulled her hand free.
Donna looked as if she had been struck. Gwen herself twitched as if Allie had spat in Donna’s face. Gwen tried to think if
she had ever heard Allie swear before—this pretty girl raised in Texas who said frack instead of fuck and shoot instead of shit. She didn’t think she had.
Donna squeezed her lips together so tightly, all the color bled out of them. “I’ll drag you up by the hair.”
“The hell you will,” Robin said, and it was Robin who reached down and found Allie’s upper arm and helped her to her feet.
“This your thing now?” Donna asked. “You’re okay with dick as long as it’s jammed into a pair of panties?”
“What a horrible person you are, Donna,” Allie said, and took Robin’s hand in hers. Allie’s cheeks were blotchy, and she was
struggling not to cry.
Donna opened her mouth and closed it again.
Gwen said, “So what now, Colin?”
“Let’s go to The Briars,” Colin said. “It’ll be easier to talk there.”
“Easier to kill me there, you mean,” Gwen said.
Colin looked at her with something like fondness. “There’s about sixty acres of backyard. We’ve had plenty of bonfires out there. One more won’t bother anyone . . . and there wouldn’t be any casualties but you.”
“What if I won’t go?”
“If you don’t go,” Colin said, and two fingers caressed the space between his collarbones again, “we do it right now and maybe Robin and Allie die with you.” He took a step closer and said, gently, “It doesn’t have to be awful. You’ve got
the thermos. It could be like with Llewellyn. We could have a nice old Scotch, break out the good stuff. You could drink some
tears and float away. Isn’t it a nice night for it? To float away? Like rings of smoke?” He breathed deeply and looked around.
Gwen took a breath herself—of that sweet air, redolent with damp soil and blue spruce—and felt something go out of her. It
was like a cramped, clenched fist opening at last.
“Okay,” she said and she meant it. She was tired. Confronted with Colin’s cool logic, all their plans seemed like a lot of
ridiculous effort, and she was glad to be spared it. Maybe she would have a mouthful of tears and close her eyes. Maybe when she opened them, Arthur would be there to make things right.
They began to walk, the five of them, along a narrow path, under the spreading oaks, through the lovely night. A new song
started playing on the radio in that parked Shelby.
“Do you think it would’ve worked?” Gwen asked, strolling shoulder to shoulder with Colin, the others following behind.
“Pulling Arthur back from death in the form of a sword? Concealing yourself in the martyr’s robe to bring King Sorrow close?
Maybe. We’ll never know now.”
“Did you kill him? Did you kill my Arthur?”
“I guess I did.”
Her vision darkened for a moment, as if she had stood up too quickly. She had not known that hatred could make one lightheaded.
“For what it’s worth,” Colin said, “it didn’t hurt. Not much.”
“That thought brings me a real sense of peace, Colin.” He didn’t seem to hear the disgust in her voice.
“Personally, I think the easiest way to get rid of the dragon would’ve been to speak his true name, if you could figure out
how to pronounce it. It was about fifty damn syllables long, one of these words only Arthur could figure out how to say. I
almost remember the first bit of it. I should have written it down. It’s the only thing I regret about torching Bridget Fleming’s
town house and the Crane journal with it.”
“You—!” She stopped walking. “No. You . . . that was the day of the memorial for your grandfather. You were at the reception.”
They had stopped a few paces from the curb. An old woman in a man’s flannel shirt got out of the Shelby, slammed the door,
hitched up her jeans, began to walk toward them.
He smiled and stopped walking with her. “You forget. I left early. Remember? That loon, Sheldon Westerberg, the guy obsessed
with John Norman’s Gor novels . . . he saw me, you know. I stopped in that same café, for an espresso. Right after I lit the
fire. And he was there. I told him if he went around the corner, he’d see something that would make him glad. I’m not sure
why he never mentioned me to the cops. I’m still grateful to him for that . . . and even more grateful he was in the neighborhood
to take the fall for me.”
Donna, behind them, said, “Fuck sake, let’s go. My chin is killing me. I need to get iodine or some shit on it.”
The old woman stopped a foot shy of the curb, less than three yards from them, and reached behind her as if the small of her
back ached. She had a hard, bony face and the glittering eyes of a magpie.
“Colin Wren?” the old woman asked.
“Yes?” he said, putting on the smile he saved for photographers.
“Jayne Nighswander says goodbye,” Daphne Nighswander told him, and came around with the gun.
The Glock barked and a small black hole appeared in Colin Wren’s throat.
His head snapped back. His hand flew up in a defensive gesture—or perhaps to touch his tattoo.
He didn’t reach it in time. The next bullet took off his right middle finger, continued on into his right shoulder.
Flame leapt from the barrel. The next two bullets went into his chest and stomach, popping like firecrackers. His legs gave out and he collapsed.
Gwen turned and collided with Donna and they both fell as Daphne fired at them both. It was her only wild shot. The bullet
struck the blacktop path, somehow missing Gwen entirely, ricocheting to strike Donna in the foot. Donna roared, twisting away
and coming down on her stomach. Gwen spread herself on top of her, thinking she could cover Donna long enough for her to get
a hand on her tattoo. Waste this crazy bitch, Donna, Gwen thought. Only Donna’s arms were trapped beneath her and she couldn’t get them to the mark on her chest—either that,
or she had forgotten she had it, had, in the shock of the moment, forgotten King Sorrow was only a touch away.
Daphne Nighswander stood over them and put three bullets into Gwen’s back. Gwen coughed. It felt as if someone was stomping
on her. She felt the impacts more than any sense of pain.
Robin Fellows had her arms around Allie and carried her right off the path. Daphne swiveled, the gun outstretched in one hand,
and squeezed off another shot. A bullet blew a chunk of wood off the side of a king oak as Robin fell behind it, dragging
Allie with her. Gwen wanted to tell her to let Allie go; she had Allie’s arms trapped to her sides. Allie could end this bitch
in an instant, she just needed a free hand. Gwen drew in a rattling breath to call out, and when she exhaled, blew bubbles
of blood instead of shouting, which was how she knew one of the bullets had perforated a lung. She had blood in her nose,
making it hard to breathe.
Daphne stepped over Gwen and Donna and closed in on the tree to the left of the path, meaning to come around it and shoot
Robin and Allie. She was looking toward them . . . and so she didn’t see Tana coming out of the dark from the other side of
the path, the lid off that tall steel urn of hot coffee.
“Hey, Momma.”
Daphne turned toward the sound of her voice.
Tana said, “Drink up, you thirsty bitch,” and threw a few liters of hot coffee into her face.
Daphne screamed, turned her face away, and blindly pointed the gun toward Tana. Did she mean to shoot her own daughter? Gwen
never found out. Tana swung the urn down on the old woman’s arm. The gun flew. Daphne’s withered old face was already blistering
where it had been scalded by coffee.
The old woman growled and bent, clawing for the gun with her left hand, and Tana Nighswander brought the urn down again. This
time it connected with the back of her mother’s head. The urn made a low metal bong—a musical, almost playful sound that covered
the crunch of the old woman’s skull caving in. Daphne went down, her head turned so Gwen could see her face, which looked
like a half-melted rubber mask, covered in grotesque bubbles. Steam boiled off it.
From a great distance Gwen heard people shouting, screaming for help. She wasn’t in any pain, she was just wet, her clothes
sopping with blood. Donna shuddered beneath her, producing a series of hoarse, rough coughs that gradually resolved into sobs.
Gwen became aware that she was gently stroking Donna’s hair to soothe her.
“You’re all right,” Gwen said. “You’re all right now, Donna.”
Donna reached up blindly and found Gwen’s hand and squeezed it. Somehow, though, she didn’t seem comforted—if anything, Donna
was crying harder than ever.
Gwen didn’t want to look at the horror-movie mask of Daphne Nighswander’s face anymore. She struggled to lift her head and
was at last able to turn it away. She had fallen in such a way that she could see the rear bumper of the Shelby Boss Snake
now, was close enough to make out the bumper sticker. no free rides, it said. gas, grass, or ass.
“No free rides,” Gwen said to herself, and nodded. Truer words were never spoken, she thought, and closed her eyes.