Burn(60)

He felt all bound up in words. Kazimir had told him to keep quiet about Kazimir being a dragon and about his suspicions of the Mitera Thea, but maybe he shouldn’t even say her title. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything at all. Malcolm felt as if all his purpose was gone, all of it. Because it was, wasn’t it? If it had all been a lie, and it seemed it had, then the Mountie he had killed had been for nothing. And the agent Mother had shot in the motel room. And a whole war started because of . . . what?

Nelson had been right to be horrified—

“Nelson,” he said out loud, remembering again what the girl had said. Nelson, in the other world, standing alone in the road, surrounded by bodies. “My God, I’ve killed him, too.”

The grown man gripped his shotgun. “You killed someone?”

Malcolm looked at the girl. “It was going to be her. It was going to be you.”

“I know,” she said, crisply. “And Jason got shot—”

“What?” Jason said.

“And my father. For what? What were you hoping to accomplish?”

“I did accomplish it,” Malcolm said, feeling a grief so deep it made him dizzy.

“You started a war. If bombs aren’t falling already, they will be soon.”

“She’ll do the same here,” Malcolm said. “She’ll do it all again.”

“By herself?” the girl asked.

“You really have no idea how much damage a single dragon can do,” Kazimir said.

“Is this some kind of code you’re all using?” Hisao said. “What did we really see?”

“Something code-named dragon and Michael Thayer,” Jason said.

“Not code names,” Kazimir said. “Well, Mitera Thea might be somewhat of one, but it is more a title, like guru or saint.”

“What are you talking about?” the man said. “I’m beginning to lose my patience—”

“It’s my house, Hisao,” the woman said. “I’ll be the one who gets to lose her patience.”

“Okay, so you obviously have Russia here, right?” the girl said.

“Of course we do,” said the man.

“Well, in our world, they launched a satellite.”

There was another silence at this, but not, Malcolm thought, about the satellite.

“Your world?” said the man.

“Another universe,” the girl said, clearly not expecting to be believed. “I wouldn’t have believed it either before this morning, yet here I sit, in the kitchen of my mother who died two years ago when she insists that I’m the one who’s dead.” The girl glanced at the woman. “Though she never said how.”

“Cancer,” the boy who’d driven up in the truck said. “In your stomach.”

The girl looked stunned. Sarah, Malcolm corrected himself. He knew her name now. He should use it.

“You’re trying to say you’re from another world?” the man said.

“You saw a huge red dragon fly across this farm,” Sarah snapped. “Surely another world isn’t that hard to add on.”

“I don’t know what I saw,” the man said.

“It was a dragon,” said his son.

“It was not a dragon,” the man insisted.

“Yes, it was, Hisao,” the woman said, sounding exhausted. “And I think you know it, too.”

The man did not relent, but he didn’t contradict her either. He merely frowned and kept his own counsel.

“So what I’m hearing,” the woman said, now looking at Malcolm, “is that you brought it here.”

“Not exactly,” Kazimir started.

“Yes,” Malcolm said. “That’s true. And I have to stop her.” He looked back at the girl. At Sarah. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re sorry?” she said, not sounding pleased.

“I’m sorry for coming to kill you.”

“Oh, well, that makes it all right then.”

“I . . . was misled, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. I’m sorry. To you. And everyone.”

“I don’t accept,” she said. “Your apology is wasted breath. People died. More are going to.” Her voice was breaking again now. “What does ‘I’m sorry’ mean?”

“It means nothing,” Malcolm said, “until I can make it right.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I’ll stop her. Then I’ll find a way to help Nelson.”

“Who in Sam Hill is Nelson?” Darlene said.

“Who is Sam Hill?” Kazimir asked.

“And then,” Malcolm continued, directly to Sarah, “if you wish it, you can come back with me. That’s how I’ll make it right.”

“You don’t know if you can do any of that.”

“I was taught,” Malcolm said, calmly, evenly, “that I can do anything I set my will toward. Unfortunately, it’s proven quite true.”

He wanted her to see the sincerity of his promise. Believers could deceive in the carrying out of sacred duties—he had done so many times, riding the Believer reputation for honesty—but they believed in the fundamental truth of promises. Dragons held them sacred and scorned men who didn’t. He would keep his promise. He didn’t know how just yet, but that didn’t bother him. He would find a way. At the same time, he silently reaffirmed his earlier promise to Nelson.