Chapter 22
The three of them—Robin, Tana, and Allie—were waiting in the family lounge down the corridor from Gwen’s room when Donna appeared
in the hall. Even though she was prepared to see her, Allie felt all the breath shoot out of her at the first sight. She was
so rattled, it took her a moment to notice Donna was walking normally, had lost the crutch.
Robin tossed down the Good Housekeeping she had been browsing and got off the couch. Allie was already on her feet, too jittery to sit still. Tana had planted herself
on the wide windowsill with the sunlight at her back. In her jeans and cowboy boots she looked like a country musician who
had done a few decades of drinking and breaking hearts and was ready to sing about it.
“You wanted us here,” Robin said. “Say what you have to say and go.”
“Your plan,” Donna said, “to wipe King Sorrow out. Colin thought it might work, but I’ll be honest, it sounded like desperate
bullshit to me.”
Tana said, “I’ll have you know that desperate bullshit is the specialty of the house.”
Donna twitched—then laughed.
“You’re off the crutch,” Robin said. “And you’re in heels. How are you in heels after getting shot in the foot?”
Donna turned a watery glare upon her. “I want to see Gwen.”
“No,” Allie said. “And if you try to come to her funeral, Donna, I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you right there next to the grave,
with my fists and everything.”
Something, some gentle emotion, passed across Donna’s face, and Allie felt it like a physical blow. It was so rare to see anything gentle in her face.
“With your fists and everything,” Donna said.
“She won’t have to do that,” Tana said, and she slid off the windowsill to stand next to Allie. When she took Allie’s hand,
Allie almost jumped. It was as if Tana had placed a wire with live current running through it into her palm. “Because you
get anywhere near her, I’ll get you by the scruff of the neck and haul your scrawny ass to the curb.”
Donna struggled with a smile. She nodded and said to Allie, “Good. It’s about time you found someone who’d stand up for you.
I never did. Not once. Why you cared for me, I’ll never know. You were like Van. Something good that just fell in my path.
I saw him, you know. Van. Last week. We went to the beach. He gave me a sand dollar.” Donna held out one fist, then slowly
opened it and looked into it. Her palm was empty. “In a dream, anyway. It wasn’t real. Just an idea. But then I was thinking,
in a way, King Sorrow is also just an idea, and look at all he’s done. If King Sorrow can be imaginary but real, so can Van’s
sand dollar.”
“Have you been drinking?” Robin asked and arched an eyebrow.
“Oh yeah. You’d never guess what,” Donna said. She dropped her hand. “There isn’t going to be any funeral. Not for Gwen. Not
if you let me see her.” She dug in her Michael Kors purse and produced a dusty glass bottle. It had been sealed with wax,
but the wax had split and crumbled when someone had yanked the cork. Allie recalled it from the last time she opened the Cabinet.
“Colin took this from the troll’s cave.” Glancing now at Robin Fellows. “He’s used it for years to keep himself young and
fit. It’s the blood of a saint.”
“Thousand-year-old blood would be dry as clay,” Robin said.
“It should be, but it isn’t. Colin has a terror of being ill, of being weak, of being old. He was planning to live to be a
hundred and twenty. All the tech bros are planning to be a hundred and twenty, but Colin is the only one who might’ve pulled
it off. If he didn’t get shot first.”
“I don’t believe you. That’s poison. Same as dragon tears,” Allie said.
“Why would I poison her, Allie? She’s going to die in three weeks anyway.”
“Because you hate her. You hate her because she’s a good person and you aren’t.”
Donna sat on the coffee table and unstrapped her right heel and stuck her leg out. “Where was I shot? Show me where I was
shot, Allie.”
Allie didn’t want to look at Donna’s leg, at the line of white thigh disappearing into her skirt. She didn’t trust herself
to touch her ankle. It was Robin who lowered herself to one knee, took the foot in both hands, and considered it, moving it
this way and that.
“I don’t even see a scar.”
“I applied blood to the wound, three days ago. And had a small sip. At the time, my ankle was shattered and there were eight
stitches sealing the bullet hole. Forty-eight hours ago, the bone was healed, and the wound was an angry red scar, shaped
like a comma. By then I could put weight on it without pain. That scar was still there last night, when I went to bed, but
it looked at least twenty years old. It was gone this morning.”
“She’s lying,” Allie said. “Messing with us. I don’t know how or why, but I know what she’s like. That’s a bottle of some
evil magical strychnine.”
Tana gave Allie a sidelong look that was almost pleading. “I don’t think she’s lying, babe. Her foot is better.”
Donna stared into Allie’s face for a moment, then popped the cork. She held her thumb to the mouth of the bottle and turned
it upside down for an instant, then right side up again. When she lifted her thumb away, it was stamped with a red circle
of blood.
Donna licked it clean with one swipe of her tongue. “Satisfied?”
Allie squeezed herself, said nothing.
“Go on, Allie,” Donna held out the flask. “Take it. If you don’t want me to see Gwen, you give it to her. Splash it on the wounds and make her drink the rest.”
“That doesn’t seem very hygienic,” Robin said.
“You know what’s really unhygienic?” Donna asked. “The inside of a dragon’s mouth. Go on. Take it and make Gwen better. Let’s see if her plan is as good as Colin thinks.”
When Allie didn’t take it, Tana did.
Allie stared at the woman she had loved for twenty-five years, looked at her the way a woman might stare at a passing bus
that had nearly flattened her. “Why? Why would you help us now?”
“Because King Sorrow has killed a thousand people in our names,” Donna said, “and the world is still the world. Because no
matter how many people he kills, Cady Lewis goes right on being dead. Because we made three new killers with every person
we struck down. Because I read Gwen’s notes and I understand that we killed some people just so they wouldn’t make financial
or legal trouble for Colin. Because that bald-headed motherfucker has been working with the same people who tortured me, who
killed Van, for twenty years, because he admires their work. Because I’m sorry. Mostly because Van gave me a sand dollar in
a dream.”
“You read Gwen’s notes?” Robin asked.
“Yes. They were in her messenger bag. Remember? I took it off her shoulder outside the chapel? The police returned it two
days ago. They thought it was mine.”
Robin and Allie traded a look. Robin said, “The robe? The mirror?”
Donna nodded. “Got ’em. And her Bluetooth iPhone projector.”
“And the thermos,” Robin said.
“What thermos?” Donna asked.
“There was a green thermos in the bag,” Robin said.
Donna shook her head. “No.”
“It’s full of dragon tears,” Robin said. “Gwen thought she could use them to spit fire. It would only have cost her her life.”
Another shake of the head. “I don’t know what to tell you. The robe, the mirror, Arthur’s notes, that shitty little projector
from Sharper Image. That’s it. I didn’t see a thermos.”
“Christ,” Tana said. “You think it rolled out of the bag? I hope some kid doesn’t find it and drink it.”
Robin said, “I doubt it. The police will have gone over the whole crime scene. It must’ve rolled free and been collected separately.”
“I can ask,” Donna said. “Colin has contacts with the local PD. He bought them a couple SUVs. They love him.”
Robin hesitated and then said, “No, it’s better if it’s gone. Gwen was a little too in love with the idea of drinking some.
We’re not bringing her back from the edge of death just so she can kill herself at the end of the month.”
“Come on,” Tana said, and shook the bottle. “Let’s splash a little eau de holy gore on Gwen and see what happens.”
Allie quivered, still staring at Donna. She felt as if she had swallowed dragon tears herself, her insides incendiary.
“You are not forgiven,” Allie said. “Because you are unforgivable.”
Donna’s eyes met hers. They were clear and frank and untroubled. “You think I don’t know that? I’m not asking to be forgiven.”
“What are you asking for?” Robin asked.
“When it’s time to kill the fucking iguana?” Donna said. “I want in.”