Burn(26)

We know you are a peaceful man, the letter—which he’d now read countless times—began. We know you want nothing more than to provide for your daughter. We know that this has not been easy for you since the death of your wife.

We also know, it further said, of your distinguished War record. You are a man of action, Gareth Dewhurst, especially your noted exploits in France.

How did they know any of this? And who were “they”? The letter had no name, no postmark, nothing but a simple sheet of paper with clear, printed handwriting.

We do not believe we are asking this of a man who would perform this action cavalierly or with any pleasure. We believe this is why you are the right man to ask. We certainly understand that you will hesitate and that there is a good chance you will refuse us. We would, however, implore you not to.

This imploring had taken the shape of five hundred of the five thousand dollars showing up in his bank account, free and clear, the letter told him, regardless of his final choice. It was an outrageous windfall, and even though the farm was so far in debt it wouldn’t even come close to saving it, five thousand might. Might even be enough to have a little left over to buy his daughter a damn jacket that would fit her. It filled him with shame to see how badly he was failing to keep her even properly dressed.

The letter said the death of the claw should look like an accident. Dragons were protected by the same treaty that protected humans. If one side could just go around killing the other, then war was inevitable, and mutual annihilation followed.

We will not reveal ourselves to you, Mr. Dewhurst, not even after the action is finished. The balance of the money will simply appear in your account. You may explain it to the authorities as you see fit. We will never resurface to contradict you.

Were they Believers? Gareth didn’t know much about the religion, but everyone knew the death of a dragon was the worst sort of blasphemy to a Believer. They’d sooner kill themselves, and occasionally had. But who else had the kind of money in this postwar decade besides churches and the government?

Know, sir, that this is a bad dragon. We do not say this lightly. Nor do we say it in the way that people often speak negatively of dragons—of their supposed indolence, of their pettiness and greed, of their dangerous superiority. We mean that this specific dragon will act in a way that will bring danger, not just to the world in general, Mr. Dewhurst—though it will—but to you and to your daughter, personally.

This sounded like prophecy, which he knew Believers trafficked in, but again, no Believer would ever even conceive of harming a dragon. This had to be some sort of bizarre con, though a very expensive one, even if the five hundred dollars was all that came from it.

You must do this before February’s third Sunday. If you do not, so much more will be lost than you ever thought possible, Mr. Dewhurst. We suspect you are not a man to be convinced by an anonymous letter and a little bit of money in your bank, so we ask you to watch for the signs. Does the dragon take an interest in your daughter? Does she take an interest in the dragon? Does she begin to keep secrets from you?

It had, she had, and she obviously did, but so what? How was any of that not to be expected between a curious girl and an unexpected beast? For all that humans resented dragons, it was ninety percent sheer jealousy at their power. No wonder there were religions around them. No wonder Sarah’s school friends would sometimes argue about what dragon they’d like to be. Adults did it, too, just more discreetly. All of that was normal. But then came the question that moved this whole thing from baffling speculation into something else altogether.

Does she ever come to mysterious harm?

How could they know? Unless they were the ones who hurt her and had always planned to? Unless they scared her so badly she would refuse to tell him the truth, even when he threatened Jason, who a blind man could see she was fond of?

Either whoever wrote the letter could see the future, which was absurd, no matter what the Believers claimed, or this letter and offer wasn’t a bribe.

It was blackmail.

Someone was offering him a huge amount of money to kill a dragon.

Someone was (possibly) threatening his daughter if he did not.

Gareth Dewhurst hadn’t felt this much impotent rage since the death of his wife.

Through the window, he watched the dragon breathe fire on the day’s toppled lumber. A controlled stream of heat and light and flame, like a welder’s arc, too bright to look at directly for long. That was supposedly how they died. A rupturing of that organ. The main reason their skin was so hard to pierce, to protect this part of them that made the impossible, horrible miracle they breathed.

But there were ways. Ways that could be made to look like an accident.

And then what? Gareth Dewhurst wondered.

A question he’d found no answer to in the past weeks and days. A question he still had no answer to when Sheriff Lopez came driving onto his farm, his daughter in the passenger seat.

“I am armed, dragon,” Sheriff Lopez said. “I have bullets that will harm you.”

Kazimir looked, as always, slightly amused. The sheriff, Sarah, and her father stood about twenty feet away from where he rested at the edge of the field. Smoke still twined in the air from the burnt lumber.

“Are we declaring weapons?” Kazimir said. “For my list is long.”

“It’s a courtesy,” said the sheriff. “My state of being armed is implied to all humans, but I declare it to dragons so that there are no surprises.”