Burn(49)

She moved toward her trained assassin. The boy who had traveled with Malcolm moved away from her, behind the truck. He would need taking care of after Malcolm. She doubted anyone would believe whatever he might say about what he’d seen, but why leave a loose end?

“Malcolm,” she said, stepping forward.

“Yes, Mitera Thea,” he said, his hand still on the Spur.

She stopped herself, curious. “Why did you stay with the name Malcolm above all the others?”

“I grew accustomed to it,” he said, still not looking back at her.

“It’s dangerous to grow accustomed to things,” she said. “You find them harder and harder to discard with each passing day.”

“But there will be no more passing days for me,” he said, finally turning, “will there?”

The boy was clever. Which, of course, was why he had been chosen so young, selected out of all the orphaned children at the Cell, the ones even now innocently knocking on doors, collecting money and secondhand clothes for a cause they would never know the full purpose of.

“And why do you say that?” she said, to his question.

“You have not saved us,” he said, and she didn’t know what he meant. “I accept my ending,” he said, turning back to the Spur. “I have killed, Mitera Thea.”

“It was needed. It was what you were trained for.”

He didn’t answer that right away and finally just repeated himself. “I have killed.”

“It’s a burden,” she said, softening her voice, not out of sympathy but because she knew softness would aid her approach, help her in dispatching what was, after all, an exceptionally trained assassin. “One that I’ve had to share.”

Malcolm looked around. At the bodies of the sheriff, the young man, still visible under the swirling aura that had taken the girl, and then her father, face down on a road, no longer moving as the blood pooled around him. “Why?” Malcolm asked.

“You ask your Mitera Thea why?” she said, affronted.

Without turning around again, he said, “I do.”

She would have to be careful now. Very careful indeed. There was doubt there. It was probably only knowledge of the end; no matter how much he may say he had accepted it, it was only human to struggle. He probably couldn’t help himself. She wondered if she could outfight him. She had trained him after all.

“They cannot see into the hearts of dragons,” she said now, taking another slow step behind him, her hand returning to her gun. “They wish to. They’ve tried for centuries. And even when some of them knew better, even when some of us worshipped dragons, worked to protect them, they still wanted to know, to look into their hearts.”

“The satellite,” Malcolm said.

“It is only the beginning.” She took another step. “They will not stop.”

There was a dangerous pause. “But you have stopped them.”

“I have. You have.” With every sentence she took a step. “You will go to glory, Malcolm. It awaits you.”

“No, it doesn’t. You told me this mission would bring peace. That it would stop war between men and dragons.”

Again, troubling. “And so it shall. Forever. A lasting peace for the dragons without any humans to bother them again. It was the only way. Listen to your Mitera Thea. She knows.”

“I have killed, Mitera Thea.”

“In a just cause—”

“And I have harmed one who might have loved me, given time.”

Ah, there it was. The other boy. One who had clearly turned Malcolm’s head away from his purpose. “You wouldn’t have arrived here had you not met him,” she said, “even with my help.”

“He’s more than a circumstance, Mitera Thea. He’s whole and complete on his own.”

“I’m sorry your heart’s been bruised. Your capacity for caring only shows how right we were to choose you.”

“And how were you chosen, I wonder,” he said.

Now, Agent Woolf felt real danger. This wasn’t just insubordination, this was heresy, as impossible for Malcolm to do as breathing fire. It was time to end this.

“I won’t harm you,” he said, still not turning back, his hand still on the Spur. “You may shoot me as I know you intend to. Though I don’t know why.”

“Because humans are weak, no matter how much they profess their love for dragons. You would eventually talk, which might stop the world ending in fire.”

“And you? You won’t talk?”

“I will not be here.”

He turned at that. A full understanding was dawning, of how thoroughly he had been betrayed. She saw it, tumbling across his features like an explosion underwater. She had the gun pointed directly at him, no more than three feet away. She would have shot him already, but his hand was still on the Spur. “Did you try to have the blue killed?” Malcolm asked her. “You said you would just drive him away.”

“Sometimes one must commit even the vilest blasphemy for the greater good, my child.”

“How can a Believer say that? How can a Believer believe that and still call themselves a Believer?”

“You must let go of the Spur of the Goddess, Malcolm,” she said. “You must do it now.”