Free Rise of the Poison Moon by MaryJanice Davidson Page B

don’t see—”
    “Quiet.”
    She hushed, more than a little annoyed. The sky was clear, it was a beautiful day, there wasn’t a soul in sight, and there was a can of pie filling right over on the blanket over there with her name on it. The pressure was definitely getting to Gautierre, who was now jumping at shadows and imagining his mother, then manhandling (dragon-handling?) her behind a tree, and—
    —and there were a dozen winged shapes on the horizon.
    She couldn’t get more precise than that. Whether they were dashers or dusters or smashers or crashers (or whatever the hell the classifications were), mattered less than whether they had sworn their lives to Jennifer Scales . . . or Ember Longtail.
    These dozen seemed to dance in the air for a bit, doing reconnaissance circles around each other. Then they rose together about a half mile from where Susan and Gautierre hid, and . . .
    “Holy shit !”
    Twelve fireballs crashed into the tree line a few hundred yards away. The blaze was immediate and immense.
    “They’ve seen us! We’ve got to go!”
    Susan followed him without argument, but she wasn’t so sure. Surely they would have gotten closer had they discovered enemies on the ground.
    She looked longingly at the abandoned picnic site as he dragged her by the hand into a denser copse. More explosions rocked the earth behind them—some closer, some more distant.
    “Gautierre, I don’t think—”
    “Sshh. Hang on.”
    Biting her lip, she waited for him to figure out what she already had: the destruction was random. That was the good news. The bad news was, they were sitting in the middle of a heap of kindling.
    “Gautierre, we can’t stay—”
    “I can’t fight them, Susan! There are twelve of them—maybe more. It’s almost her entire gang! We’ve got to hold out and wait—”
    “You don’t wait out a forest fire! Gautierre, dammit, get me out of here!”
    He blinked, then nodded, then shifted into dragon shape. Climbing onto his back, she shook her head. Dr. Georges-Scales is right. Dragons are dreamy and sexy. But they’re horrible, horrible planners.

CHAPTER 14

    Susan

    “Ember did what ?”
    Susan nodded. She and Gautierre were both resting against the wall near the hospital entrance—him from fatigue (though he tried not to show it, bless him), her from anxiety.
    “That makes no sense.”
    It didn’t matter how incredulous Jennifer and Jonathan Scales were. Off to the south, the first wisps of smoke were rising into visibility.
    “There’s nothing of strategic value there,” Jonathan continued. “No buildings. No hideouts—in fact, we were all pretty sure that was where Ember herself kept her gang hidden.”
    “Defending against an invasion?” Jennifer guessed.
    “Possibly. Christopher,” he called out to a pizza delivery boy who had been promoted to emergency team dispatcher. The kid was taking what would have been a cigarette break, back before the last pack was nervously smoked away. “Any word from our scouts on Hank Blacktooth’s people? Are they in the southern woods?”
    “Haven’t heard anything as of fifteen minutes. I’ll get back in to check in with the team.”
    “Thanks.” Jonathan turned back to Jennifer. “If it’s not Hank, there may be a new threat in town.”
    “There’s a new threat regardless,” Susan pointed out. “The forest is on fire!”
    “It’s far away from any neighborhoods, and there are wetlands in between. If Ember wanted to attack the town, there are more direct ways. She’s taken them, in fact.” He turned to Jennifer. “Maybe she wants us to waste water fighting it?”
    “Mom says water’s the one thing we still have in this town, at least as long as the rain keeps falling and the well pumps keep working.” Jennifer rubbed her chin. Unlike her father, she chose to be in human form this afternoon. “Maybe she’s being a brat. Running drills. Showing her gang who’s boss. Y’know. Stumpy-getting-grumpy kind of