Chapter 40

I vault toward Dalia with my hands outstretched. I grab her, forcing her to the bridge’s snow-covered planks. She falls, screaming, and lets out an oof on impact. I pin her while the bridge wobbles as if caught in a cyclone. I wrap one arm around her and snatch a heavy gauge steel wire to keep us from toppling from the span.

Mark Cassidy barrels toward us in skaag form, mouth agape to reveal hooked fangs dripping with saliva and a coarse blood-red tongue. Electricity crackles over his sleek black body that bulges against the steel cables supporting the bridge. Once again, Mother chose the perfect time to abandon me.

The sleeper stirs inside me, ready to fight to the death. I fear that in a second I’ll transform into a skaag and crush Dalia beneath me. Mark Cassidy is nearly atop us. A support cable snaps with a resounding twang, and the bridge lurches to the left. Dalia screams, and I gasp, my arms straining to keep us from sliding off the planks.

The trumpeting roars of the dragons pierce the air loud enough to set my ears ringing. Mark Cassidy changes his trajectory, soaring upward to engage his sworn enemies. There’s another snap. This time the bridge pitches right. We slide across the snow. Only the stout cabling keeps us from falling into the icy water below.

I scramble to my feet, pulling Dalia along. “Run!”

The bridge jitters as we charge through the snow toward the safety of the grove. More cables snap, one shooting past my cheek, only missing me by inches. The bridge twists right, throwing us off balance. I regain my balance first and snatch Dalia around the waist. My physical prowess is upon me, and I hurl Dalia the remaining twenty feet to the safety of the trail. I take two long bounds, then leap and hear loud snaps followed by a resounding crash. I land hard in the snow, rolling into a crouch to absorb the impact. Still, twin lances of pain shoot from the soles of my feet up to my hips. I wince and blink back tears.

I sit next to Dalia in the snow. She’s breathing hard and staring at the dogfight overhead. All three dragons battle Mark Cassidy, but even outnumbered, the skaag is far from overmatched. His long body entwines Dr. Radcliffe’s golden torso, and his mouth clamps down on Tanis’s shoulder. Mauve rakes his body with her claws, but with no discernable effect. Their shrieks and roars boom like thunderclaps.

“Never throw me like that again,” Dalia says.

I gesture to where the bridge had stood but no longer does.

“I was running. I didn’t need you to throw me.”

Mark Cassidy’s jaw unclenches from Tanis’s shoulder, and the slender white dragon tumbles from the sky to thud to the streambed. His mouth misses closing around Mauve’s neck, instead snapping air.

“We need to find the gateway,” I say. “Can you walk?”

Dalia nods.

We stagger to our feet and tramp along the trail into the grove. I pause at the tree line and glance skyward to watch flames crackle from Dr. Radcliffe’s maw. The jet of fire rakes Mark Cassidy’s oily black body. The skaag screeches and releases Dr. Radcliffe to escape the flames. With great flaps of their wings, Dr. Radcliffe and Mauve pursue Mark Cassidy.

“Are they winning?” Dalia asks.

“I don’t know. Skaags are made to kill dragons. That is our purpose.”

“You’re not one of them. You’re my best friend. My sister.”

Dalia takes my hand.

“They’re doing their part. Now I must do mine,” I say.

“Don’t do it. You heard what the dragons said. You’ll die.”

I face Dalia. She stares at me entreatingly, eyes moist. I remember her reaction when she saw me as a skaag. She will never accept me, not really. She can’t because I’m not human. I’m a monster. I don’t blame her for that.

“I’ll sacrifice myself to keep you safe,” I say and smile.

****

“I can’t see anything,” Dalia says.

“Hold my hand.” I reach for her.

Dalia takes my hand. Underneath the trees, it is dark, even peaceful if it weren’t for the shrieks and roars of the monsters battling in the sky. I guide Dalia along a path blanketed by snow. Soon the path becomes a boardwalk, looping around towering conifers. Interspersed along the walkway are benches laden with snow and signs with words and pictures obscured by white quilts.

Dalia keeps up a constant stream of talk. I’m not paying much attention; I’m searching for the telltale light of the gateway. The gist of her speech is an attempt to convince me not to collapse the gateway, not to sacrifice myself, not to commit suicide. She doesn’t understand. I’m walking toward a destiny that I choose. I’m the only one who can destroy the portal. Even outnumbered two or three to one, Mark Cassidy might win.

Ahead of us is a tree with a gargantuan trunk. The boardwalk encircles it. Around the edges of the trunk, I see a yellowish glow.

“There it is,” I say and redouble my pace.

Dalia pulls on my hand, trying to slow me, but I tug free.

“Don’t go,” Dalia cries. “We can find the dragons. Show them the gateway. Let one of them destroy it.”

“They’re still fighting.”

“They’ll win.”

I stop next to the tree, observing the eerie glow. A few more steps, and I will face my destiny.

“You think you have to do this, but you don’t,” Dalia says between sobs. “Don’t leave me. You’re my best friend in the world. I love you.”

“I love you too. That’s why I must do this. To protect you. To protect everyone. The expeditionary force might arrive at any minute,” I say, not facing my BFF. I’m afraid if I do I won’t have the strength to do what must be done. “Tell Haji I’m sorry I didn’t kiss him sooner. Tell him I want him to be happy.”

I stride toward the glow. Dalia screams and grabs my arm, yanking hard.

“Let go,” I say, not breaking my stride despite having to pull her along. “This is what I want. Didn’t you hear my mother? I’m just an experiment. I’m not meant to be alive. This way my death will count for something.”

“No!” Dalia screams.

I wrench my arm free and continue along the boardwalk until I’m facing a tall, jagged gash in the tree trunk from which the yellowish light spills out. I reach a hand toward the portal. When my hand crosses the threshold, it is lost in the light. I withdraw my hand and look at it in the glow. My appendage is unharmed by the passage in and out of the realm between universes. Full of wonder, I enter the slipstream.

I’m floating in a passage of light. Rushing air buffets me, neither warm nor cold, without moving me overmuch, and fills my ears with a deafening roar. Beyond the light is only blackness in every direction like a night sky bereft of stars. The passage is circular in shape, wide enough to drive a semi through, and it seems to continue forever as infinite as the nothingness surrounding it. At the very edge of my vision down the pathway, I spy black serpentine shapes swimming toward me like gargantuan eels through water.

I transform, bones cracking and muscles tearing and organs rearranging. I scream, the sound morphing into an animalistic shriek as my vocal cords elongate. Then I’m the sleeper, the half-skaag, staring down the expeditionary force. I know I don’t have long, but I’m not sure how long. I try to produce an electrical discharge but can’t. What can I do? If those monsters reach Earth, everyone I love will die. Humanity will end. I quiver, and electricity tingles over my body, but no matter how loudly I scream in my mind for my body to unleash an electrical discharge nothing happens.

I sense a disturbance in the passageway and see a faint ripple in the light emanating from behind me. I twist until my head faces the gateway. A human arm reaches into the passageway. No, Dalia. My innards turn to water, and my body aches so much I feel like I’m going to explode. I try to scream at Dalia to remove her arm, but my tongue and lengthened vocal cords can’t make the sounds.

The tingling running over my body builds. It’s happening. It’s happening. Electricity arcs over my body, crackles in my ears, and a bolt shoots from me into the yellow light. It strikes something with a boom, and lightning flashes along the passage. The collapse begins, and Dalia still reaches into the portal, her arm inside up to the shoulder. No, if she enters, she will die. Only I’m supposed to die. Only I need to make the sacrifice. I rush toward her as the light collapses in on me, the passage growing narrower and the blackness closing in.

Without consciously willing myself to do so, I transform. The pain is incredible, as always. I reach for Dalia’s hand as the gateway shrinks, barely wider than a human is tall. I mean to push her away, but she grabs me and pulls.

I tumble out into biting cold and Dalia’s arms. We fall onto the snow-covered boardwalk. Dalia is crying and hugs me to her.

“What did you do?” I yell at her, trying to break free of her grip, but all the prowess has left me. “The gateway—”

“It’s gone. It’s gone,” Dalia says.

It’s then I realize the eerie yellow light no longer illuminates the snow. I look over my shoulder. The gash in the tree trunk is no longer there, leaving behind blackened bark in the shape of the portal.

“I did it. I did it.” I face my friend. “You saved me. Thank you.”

Dalia smiles. “I told you I can help.”

Dalia pulls me to my feet, and we stand, clutching each other for a long time. My heart pounds in my chest, and my stomach growls with hunger, and my legs are so weak I’d crumple without Dalia’s support.

“We need to find you some clothes before you freeze to death,” Dalia says.

“I’m okay. Whatever Dr. Radcliffe did to save my toes is keeping me warm,” I say.

I listen for the din of battle. I don’t hear anything.

“The dragons?”

Dalia shakes her head. “I don’t know. The noise stopped after you entered the portal.”

“We need to go. They might need our help.”

“Mark Cassidy might be out there.”

“If he is, we’re dead.”

Dalia chuckles mirthlessly. “And I thought I was the optimist.”

Dalia supports me at the edge of the grove next to the remnants of the bridge. Snow falls from the dark sky and melts as it lands upon the dragons gorging themselves on the eviscerated body of Mark Cassidy. Despite my ambivalence toward the beasts, I’m relieved that they all live. Tanis moves gingerly, and it looks like her left foreleg is broken. Dr. Radcliffe and Mauve are both injured, purple blood oozing from numerous wounds.

“They’re eating him?” Dalia says. “Why didn’t they come to the gateway?”

“They no longer detect it. They know I was successful.”

The dragons pause in their feeding frenzy. First, Dr. Radcliffe, then the others lift their long serpentine necks skyward and twist their heads to face me. If they are surprised to see me alive, they give no indication as far as I can tell. Dr. Radcliffe growls and bobs his head. I need no translation. He is telling me job well done.