Burn(43)

“I do.”

“And you believe that if you don’t do this—”

“Everyone will die. Everyone.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How will everyone die? Exactly?”

Malcolm turned to him, though taking his eyes off the road even for a moment was hazardous. “In fire.”

“I’ve seen men who were dragons, you know,” Nelson said, after another half hour of silence. “Under their skin.”

“That metaphor is a little blasphemous,” Malcolm said, uncomfortable.

“I don’t care. Everyone’s got a little dragon in them, that’s what my grandfather says. We all want to be dragons so much that’s probably what created them.”

“No, there was—a Goddess—”

“He also said some people are more dragon than others. Some people, you just give them a scratch, and underneath, they’re pure dragon.”

He glared at Malcolm as if he were “some people.” Malcolm concentrated on the road. “We can talk about something else—”

“Your beliefs have killed two cops and destroyed my life. I have a right to insult them.”

“There’s a greater plan.”

“You’ve read it? You’ve approved every word? Know your entire role in it?”

Malcolm drove on. The roads were ever clearer. The sun itself might even show (the moon definitely would, it was foretold).

“You haven’t, have you?” Nelson asked, not even taunting, just asking.

“Faith is belief without proof,” Malcolm said. “It’s a leap, an act of bravery. If I had proof, I would have no reason to Believe. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reaped the benefit of that faith.”

“You really believe this Thea person watches over you?”

“She sent a dragon,” he said, remembering the woods on his first day. “No human has been able to do that with a red for fifty years or more.” He also remembered the kindness of the lady at the drugstore when he was injured. He remembered finding Nelson (his heart panged) just in time to get away from the agents that hunted him. And of course, the Mitera Thea herself in the motel room at the moment all was lost.

He had been saved. He had—despite his own words—what he considered ample proof.

He had no doubts.

He had few doubts.

“I have no doubts,” he said.

Nelson looked back out the window as they picked up speed, heading southwest now, toward the end. “My parents didn’t have any doubts either,” Nelson said.

As they passed through Tacoma, then through a much smaller town with an unpronounceable name, Malcolm reflected how little walking he’d ended up having to do. His bag—with the item still in it, the item without which all was lost—sat in the space behind the truck seat, almost as if it had been planned this way.

She must have known. He had enough days allotted to walk the whole journey, but he’d found Nelson and the truck and then been informed he was running out of time, that the day had been moved forward.

She must have known. Must have seen it all, arranged it all.

She hadn’t said what he should do with Nelson or how long to keep him as a companion. She had only said to take him, so presumably she must know of a purpose Nelson would serve.

At the end.

I’ll protect him, he vowed to himself, though again wondering how much power he would have to keep that promise.

He shook his head. There was the mission to think about. There was the world to save. If he didn’t succeed, Nelson wouldn’t be saved either.

He must focus. He must re-focus.

He had a job ahead of him.

They found the town easily, the farm as well. He had been told where to go, told where the blue dragon would be working, where the girl and her father were living.

If the dragon is still there, Mitera Thea had told him, for the hundredth time, over so many years and months and weeks of training, as it will be, for the father will not be able to send him away like we ask, no matter how much we offer. Then the day will come, the hour, the moment. And you will act.

“Who are these people?” Nelson asked, after they parked on a side road, watching the farm as the skies cleared and the farm’s two inhabitants—three, Malcolm corrected himself—the farm’s three inhabitants went about their daily business, as if nothing were going to be different from any other snowy day. They had watched for hours; Malcolm prepared to follow the girl to school if need be, but she had made no appearance on the main road. He had fed Nelson on the rations from his bag, and they’d warmed themselves in the extra clothes he had remaining. He didn’t want to move unless he had to. He had waited all day. Dusk was coming. The moment was growing so very near.

“They’re no one, really,” Malcolm answered. “An accident of geography. It might have been anyone. It had to be someone. It was them.”

“What was? What’s going to happen here? Why can’t you just tell me?”

Why couldn’t he? He had been forbidden discussion of the mission—for so many, many obvious reasons—with anyone outside their Cell, and even within, only Malcolm and the Mitera Thea knew all the ins and outs. Most of the Cell thought he was on an evangelical mission, trying to recruit more Believers to the cause. All young Believers did at some point, so it wasn’t beyond possibility.