Free The Dragon's Tooth by N. D. Wilson Page A

white corner of a Polaroid, he slid it out.
    The picture had been taken in the camper. Daniel’s head was lolling against the bottom row of skull photos. Blood had dried on his forehead.
    Slowly, stunned, Cyrus turned the image over in his hands. Someone had scrawled on the back.
    Ashes, ashes, you all fall down .
    “Cy!” Antigone’s voice jerked at him. Tugging down his father’s picture, he slid out of the dim camper and into the sunlight, eyes watering in the brightness. Antigone was storming toward him, fists clenched, mouth open.
    “Jeepers, Cy!” Flustered, relieved, Antigone brushed back her hair and then hit Cyrus in the chest. “No disappearing!” Blinking, he stepped backward. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. “If you disappear, too, I’ll take your scalp.”
    The sky seemed to slip out of place as Cyrus looked up, fighting to breathe, fighting to keep hot, angry eyes from overflowing. Fear, with all its enormous weight, pressed down on his chest and slid through his ribs, filling him, stifling his lungs. In his hands, the three photos felt as heavy as tombstones. His sister took them.
    “What?” Antigone asked. “What are these supposed—” She stopped. Cyrus turned away, numb, unwilling to watch his sister’s face. His legs somehow carried him to the waiting car.
    The drive was hardly quiet. It was a big car, with two backseats facing each other. Even though the seats were wider than some couches, Antigone was right next to Cyrus and she couldn’t hold still. She yelled at Horace. She demanded a phone. She demanded the police. But by the time the Archer had disappeared around a bend, Cyrus heard none of it and he ignored her thumping. His forehead was resting against his window, bouncing with the road. While his fingertips mindlessly tracked the blistered braille around his neck, his eyes were racing through the drainage ditch, skimming over gravel, faded soda cans, plastic jugs, and cattails and grass and scum-spotted puddles. Just like his life. He had no answers. He had no control. He couldn’t make anything happen, and he couldn’t stop anything from happening. And only one kind of anything ever happened. He was a paper cup in the surf, a bulb of kelp torn up and thrown onto the beach, thrown all the way to Wisconsin.
    Dan was gone. Why? There were people who would happily kill for the keys in Cyrus’s pocket. An old man—his godfather?—had been murdered for them in Cyrus’s room. Did those killers think Dan had them? That he knew where they were?
    Another home was gone.
    Lifting his head slightly, Cyrus let his skull thump back against the window. He shouldn’t have taken the keys. Skelton would be just as dead either way. The Archer would be just as burnt. But Dan would be stressing out about the motel and food and clothes and showers. He would be here, coming to breakfast.
    Straightening his leg, Cyrus dug the key ring out of his pocket. Antigone grew quiet. Horace, perched on his broad leather seat with his back to the driver, adjusted his glasses.
    Cyrus slid his finger through the center ring and let the weight dangle from his hand.
    “If these are what they want, who do I give them to?” he asked. “The guy called Maxi? Do you know how to find him?”
    Antigone looked at Horace. The little lawyer pursed his lips. The driver’s eyes flitted up in the rearview mirror.
    “Well?” Antigone said.
    Horace cleared his throat. “No, thank God. I do not.”
    Antigone turned to her brother. Cyrus was expecting anger in his sister’s eyes, but he didn’t find it. Her eyes were like he remembered his mother’s being whenever he’d gotten hurt—which had been often. She wasn’t angry. She was in pain.
    Blinking, Cyrus looked at the keys in his hand. “I’m sorry, Tigs. I didn’t know. I couldn’t.”
    “I know.” Antigone tucked back her hair and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I would have kept them, too, Cy. You know I would have.”
    Horace slid