The Dragon's Tooth

two. BILLY BONES

THE SHOTGUN KICKED and spat forked fire. Mrs. Eldridge staggered back against the wall and slid down onto the walkway.

Steam crept out of the yellow truck’s dingy grille. The driver’s door opened slowly.

“No!” Mrs. Eldridge yelled. “Don’t make me do it, William Skelton! You know I will.” Still sitting, she levered open the shotgun and forced in two more shells.

Heavy drops slapped onto Cyrus’s bare shoulders as he looked from Mrs. Eldridge to the truck and back again. The sweet smell of rain on warm asphalt was mingling with the harsh taint of gunpowder. He took a step toward the stairs.

“Mrs. Eldridge!”

The old woman grabbed the rail and pulled herself up.

“Mrs. Eldridge?” Cyrus said again. One slow step at a time, he climbed up to the old woman’s side, glancing back at the truck. “Hey,” he said. “Maybe put down the gun. You’re going to kill someone.”

“Not that lucky,” she said. “But I’ll try.”

A lean, white-haired man in an ancient leather jacket and gloves stepped out of the truck and into the rain. He was old, skeletal, and his weathered face looked too small for his skull. Cupping his gloves around his mouth, he lit a cigarette and stepped backward toward the Pale Lady’s pole. Exhaling smoke into the rain, he leaned against the pole and dropped his hands to his hips.

“Eleanor Eldridge,” he said. “What exactly are you trying to pull?”

Mrs. Eldridge snorted. “Get out of here, Billy. Move along. You’re not wanted.”

The old man grinned. “Can’t keep me out, Eleanor, you old hen. But you know that already. Fire away.”

Cyrus focused on the man’s face. This was the guy. Room 111.

Electricity buzzed as long-dead neon chattered through forgotten veins. Above the old man, the Lady no longer slept on her pole. She was golden and dripping golden rain — her limbs, her bow, her arrow, all humming and flickering in front of the dark and drifting clouds. The Lady was alive.

The man patted the pole and stepped forward. “Let me on in, Eleanor. You know I’m not a body to fear.”

The rain surged. Raindrops slapped down in crowds, and the wind broke into a run. Cyrus tore his eyes off the Lady, blinking away streams, shivering. He was directly beside Mrs. Eldridge now. He could grab her gun if he needed to.

Mrs. Eldridge shook her head. Gray strands of hair were rain-glued to her cheeks.

“I made a promise, William Skelton. I promised Katie. You remember. You did, too, but only one of us would care about a thing like that.”

Cyrus glanced at Mrs. Eldridge. “Katie?” he asked. “Katie, like my mom, Katie?”

Eleanor Eldridge didn’t look at him. She sniffed loudly, and then pushed her dripping hair back from her face.

The rain had doused the old man’s cigarette. Flicking it away, he stepped forward. “That’s right, boy — your mother. At least if you’re one of the Smith mutts, and with that skin and that hair, I’m saying you are.” He laughed. “I wouldn’t be bragging about promise keeping, Eleanor, not with this Raggedy Andy beside you, shirtless and filthy in the rain. Maybe I’m here to keep a promise myself.”

Cyrus squinted through the rain at the old man, at the truck, at the crackling Golden Lady. What was going on? None of this seemed real. But it was. The rain on his skin. The soggy waffle and drooping napkins. The smell of gunpowder.

Mrs. Eldridge coughed. “One more step, Skelton, and you’ll get two barrels’ worth of shot in the gut.”

The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick, clear square of glass, holding it up between his gloved forefinger and thumb. Cyrus could see something dark and round in its center.

“You’re bluffing!” Mrs. Eldridge yelled, but her voice wavered. “It’s not real. We put them all in the collection!”

The old man’s eyebrows climbed. “Go ahead and shoot me, Eleanor. But only if you want this place to burn.” His white hair drooped on his spotted scalp. “Last call,” he said. “Going, going, and already gone!”

William Skelton raised his arm to throw. Eleanor Eldridge cocked two hammers and braced herself.

“Hold on!” Cyrus yelled. “Hold on! I don’t know what the fight is, but it doesn’t matter.” Still holding the waffle with one hand, he reached over and pushed the gun barrels to the side. “He can stay. It’s fine.” He turned to the old man. “You want a room, right? We can give you a room. Not a problem. Nobody needs to get shot, and nothing has to burn down.”

The old man grinned. “Listen to the boy, Eleanor. Nobody needs to get shot.”

“You’ve got no say here, Cyrus Smith.” Mrs. Eldridge clamped her wrinkled jaw, but her eyes were worried. “I made a promise to your mother and that’s that. Now get inside.”

“I don’t think he’s leaving,” Cyrus said. “And I own one-third of this motel, and I’m going to let him in.”

The old man laughed and slid his glass cube back into his pocket.

Mrs. Eldridge didn’t move. Potholes were overflowing now. The motel’s gutters rattled. Cyrus looked down at the waffle in his hands. Half-sponge, half-dough, it was swamping on the plastic plate. Hooking one finger into its side to keep it from falling, Cyrus tipped the plate and dumped the water. Then he held it out to Mrs. Eldridge.

“Your waffle,” he said. “It was done before the power went out.”

The old woman lowered her gun and took the plate. She didn’t look at it. Her veined eyes were searching Cyrus’s. “Me or him?” she asked. “I told Katie I’d keep you safe. If he stays, I can’t do that. Not from what’s coming. I leave. No more protection. Not from anything.”

“Protection?” Cyrus looked at the thin old woman, at her bone-white fingers on the black barrels of the shotgun. “No,” he said. “No more protection. But you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”

Mrs. Eldridge seemed to deflate. She looked at the plate in her hand, and her lips were tight. Scowling, she turned back into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Cyrus hurried down the stairs and moved slowly toward the man called William Skelton. He stopped a car’s length away.

“How did you do that?” Cyrus pointed up at the Golden Lady. The wet asphalt warped and spattered her reflected light.

“The sign?” The old man shrugged. “The lightning, maybe. I didn’t do anything.”

“It came on after you touched it.”

William Skelton smiled. “Did it? Well, it wasn’t me, exactly.”

Cyrus licked rainwater off his lips and wiped it out of his eyes. “What was the glass thing?”

The old man blinked slowly. Up close, his skin was the color of caramel, freckled with patches of paper white and bone gray. He smiled, once again reaching into his jacket. “Boy, you ever seen a lightning bug?”

“Every summer,” Cyrus said. “Why?”

“Not fireflies, son.” The old man held out the glass square. “I’m talking lightning bugs.” The glass was rippled and warped — homemade somehow. Frozen in its center, with six legs folded against its belly and black armor that glistened with blue, there was a heavy beetle. The glass was drip-free and dry. The rain didn’t seem to touch it.

Cyrus stepped closer, squinting. “A beetle?” In glass. Like for a microscope. He wasn’t sure what to say. What could be frightening about a beetle, even one the size of his big toe? But Mrs. Eldridge had definitely been scared, even with a shotgun.

Cyrus looked into Skelton’s eyes and nodded at the Golden Lady. “This did that?”

The old man shook his head. “Nope. This didn’t do anything. But you asked to see it.”

Cyrus inched closer, watching the old man.

Water ran down around Skelton’s eyes, dripping off sparse and antique lashes. He didn’t blink. Instead, slowly, he looked down at Cyrus’s bare shoulders, at his hands, at his feet.

The sky groaned, rolling thunder in its throat.

Cyrus reached for the old man’s extended arm, his cracked glove, the glass square and its prisoner beetle.

“Careful, she’s hot,” Skelton said, and Cyrus closed his fingers around the glass.

Electricity shot up his arm, buzzing in his joints, tingling in his teeth. He staggered backward and swung his arm down, shaking himself loose from the current. Glass shattered on the asphalt at his feet, and the heavy beetle tumbled free.

Skelton hadn’t moved. Hadn’t flinched. Gasping, Cyrus watched the beetle right itself and lever up its wing casings. The wings beneath them were much too small to do anything, especially in the rain.

William Skelton whistled between his teeth. Blinking, Cyrus tore his eyes off the beetle and looked at the old man.

“If I were you,” the man said, “and I wanted to stay alive, I’d get those bare feet off the wet ground and inside. Fast. She’s ready to lay her eggs, and she’s been waiting in that glass a long, long time.”

Cyrus’s feet began to tingle. With a pop and a crackle, the lightning bug launched and landed and launched again. Blue electric arcs trailed from its abdomen and flicked between its wings as it circled, bumblebee-heavy.

Cyrus spun away, asphalt tearing at the balls of his feet as he scrambled toward the motel. Four strides. Five, and he was in the courtyard. Ten, and he’d reached the front door. He jerked it open.

Thunder knocked him forward.

Antigone Smith yawned. She hated riding in the car. She hated it more than waffles. More than the Archer Motel and its wood paneling. More than the foul-smelling reception area. Of course, she only ever rode in the ancient red station wagon — the Red Baron — and she was sure that riding in the station wagon was less comfortable than riding in a wheelbarrow. It wasn’t as bad when Cyrus came along. He always sat in the permanently reclining front passenger seat like it was some kind of throne. While Dan fretted over traffic or fuel or strange sounds behind the dash, Cyrus would cross his arms like a mummy and give cool commands, refusing to call Dan anything but Driver.

If it weren’t for the mold on the seat belts, or the bloodred velveteen upholstery, Antigone wouldn’t have minded the backseat. At least it wasn’t angled like a dentist’s chair. But Dan never let her sit in the back when it was just the two of them, and so she was stuck staring at the fabric bubbles on the ceiling, kinking her neck trying to watch the road, or perching on the front edge of the seat and crossing her arms on the dash with her face inches from the glass — which made her feel like a bobble-head. If she were just a couple of inches taller, as tall as her lanky little brother, she might have been able to lean back comfortably in the broken seat. But she wasn’t tall by any standard, not for thirteen and a half, and feeling like a bobble-head was better than feeling like the seat was swallowing her whole.

Antigone sighed, adjusted the two worn camera cases that hung around her neck, ran her fingers through her cropped black hair, and then stretched her arms back until she touched the ceiling.

Rain chattered on the roof above her, and the station wagon’s badly timed wipers flailed uselessly at the water on the windshield. She couldn’t blame them. It was tough to wipe water off both sides of the glass. She dropped her hands into her lap and watched her older brother. His hands were tense on the wheel, and his jaw was grinding. Two years ago, he’d been a laid-back, sun-baked eighteen-year-old surfer thinking about college. Now he was thin and pale, eyes hollowed by stress, twenty going on forty.

“Dan?” Her brother didn’t answer her. “Dan, relax. We’ll be fine. We’re close.”

Lightning flickered silently in the distance. Dan twitched.

“Breathe, brother. Breathe,” Antigone said.

Dan shot her a glance. “What will breathing do?”

A train of small drips fell from the roof, spotting Antigone’s jeans. She watched the spots merge and grow. “Well,” she said, pitching her voice up like she was talking to a sulky five-year-old, “breathing puts oxygen in your blood, enabling your brain to function. It keeps you alive. Which is a good thing, Daniel Smith.”

“You know,” Dan said, “sometimes you’re worse than Cyrus.”

Antigone smiled. “At no time in my life have I ever been worse than Cyrus. Maybe—maybe—when I fed him your goldfish family, but I was only four.”

A heavy drip caught Dan’s ear and he flinched, quickly grinding it dry on his shoulder. “Cy skipped out of school today, didn’t he?”

Antigone scrunched her face and looked away.

“I should know,” Dan continued. “If I were halfway good at my job, I already would. But we both know that I’m not, and I don’t.” He looked over at his sister. “Just tell me. Did Cyrus ditch? Why would anyone skip the last day of school?”

“You’re not bad at your job,” Antigone said quietly. She knew she was deflecting, but it was true. “It’s not even your job. You should be off at college, not stuck with us in a rotten motel.”

Dan’s jaw retightened. Antigone straightened, brushed back her hair, and popped open one of the cases around her neck. Carefully, like she was handling some fragile newborn creature, she pulled out her ancient silent-movie camera. The camera was small, mostly brown, and textured like leather. Three generations of Smiths had worn silver smooth finger tracks around its skin. Rotating the heavy little box in her hands, Antigone pinched a lever on the side and wound it tight. Then she leaned forward and pointed the small lens at her brother.

“Smile, Danny,” she said. “I’m putting you at the end of the reel with Mom.” She flipped another lever, and invisible gears chattered, spooling eight-millimeter film.

“You need a new camera,” Dan said.

“You need a new car.” Antigone slowly panned across the windshield. The wipers were so out of sync, they were bound to tangle soon. But it didn’t matter. She knew the road, and they were in the final bend. One more corner and they’d see the Archer in the distance.

“Home again,” Antigone said.

Blurry through the storm, she could just make out something bright and golden. Squinting, she leaned even closer to the windshield. It was the Lady on her pole, the Archer Motel squatting behind her.

Dan nearly drifted into the other lane. “What’s going on? She’s lit. Is that a truck? Someone’s parked in the entrance. How is she lit?”

The front of the truck was yellow, but anything wet would have looked yellow beneath the glowing Lady. The truck’s bed was dominated by an awkward wooden camper.

As the station wagon slowed, Antigone could just make out two shapes in the parking lot. One of them began hopping.

“Tell me that’s not Cyrus,” Dan said, stopping the car. “What’s he doing out in this?”

Antigone pointed her camera toward her younger brother, shirtless in the rain. He was running. And something was sparking in the air behind him.

Antigone leaned forward. “Maybe he’s—”

Snarled lightning ripped the world in half. Thunder shook the car. Deaf, blinking, Antigone slammed back into her door, banged her head against the window, and dropped her camera. Dan yelped, punching the gas and the brake at the same time. The station wagon rocked and smoked in the quivering air.

Rain drummed on the roof. Antigone’s hands were shaking, and her eyes were seared with jagged white light. She could hear Dan breathing hard beside her. The world came slowly back into focus. The two wipers had grabbed on to each other. Now they twitched in place. Through the distorting streams on the windshield, Antigone watched a blurry man in the parking lot pull a small bag out of the truck and walk slowly toward the motel.

Dan sat up. “Is Cyrus okay?”

Antigone squinted. “Don’t know,” she said. She cranked down her window. Cool rain spattered on her face, but she hardly noticed.

The old man looked back at the golden sign. He nodded. Then he waved at the station wagon and disappeared into the courtyard.

Antigone kicked open her door and stepped into the road.

Cyrus lay panting on his stomach just inside the motel’s glass doors. Grit from the doormat was clinging to his skin, but he didn’t care. The world was swirling.

Cyrus tried to lift his head, then dropped it back to the ground. He couldn’t move, not just yet. Even lying on the floor, his body felt wobbly in the adrenaline aftermath of the lightning strike.

Slow, even breaths. In … out. His ears were ringing. Not ringing. More than that. They were crowded with a thousand screaming ants. He hadn’t known how high-pitched an ant’s screaming could be.

He shoved his knuckles into his ears. Opening and closing his jaw almost helped. False yawns.

Behind him, the front door opened. Footsteps, and a moment later, Cyrus was staring at a pair of very creased, very greased cowboy boots dotted with beads of water. One of them tapped his shoulder with its blunt toe.

“You dead or alive? I need the key to my room.”

Cyrus tried to stand up but only managed to roll onto his back. He couldn’t even bring himself to brush the clinging hair and gravel and poly fibers off his wet chest.

“Dead,” he said. His voice was distant, slurring. “Pretty sure.”

William Skelton grinned down at him. From the floor, the man’s nostrils looked large enough to house bats. “I need my room.” His voice was all breath, and his breath was all glass and grit.

Cyrus closed his eyes. He might throw up.

A bag dropped onto Cyrus’s stomach. “Room one-eleven. Fetch the key, or I’ll open the door myself.”

Coughing, Cyrus shoved the bag onto the floor and elbowed himself up.

“What—” He swallowed. “What just happened? The bug … thing …” Cyrus stopped, blinking. He didn’t even know what to ask.

The man slowly lowered himself into a crouch. Water beaded off his leather jacket and gloves. Cyrus cocked his head and squinted at him out of one eye, trying to focus. The man’s skin had moved beyond the wrinkles of age, beyond scruff and widened pores and spider veins. His face was smooth and polished with use, like the seat of an old wooden stool. He smiled, and somehow his cheeks didn’t crack.

“Kid,” he said, and he reached out and squeezed Cyrus’s shoulder. “You’ll see stranger than that soon enough. Now, I didn’t come this far and watch you burn a lightning bug to ask twice. Do you want this little roadside dive to come on down around your ears? Room one-eleven.”

Cyrus knocked the man’s hand off his shoulder, rolled onto his knees, and managed to stand. The room was spinning, but he squared his feet, crossed his arms, and tried to look stable.

“Taken,” he said. “One-eleven is taken. I’d tell you to come back later, but it will be taken then, too. We have lots of rooms. Pick another one. My brother will make you a waffle in the morning.”

“Your brother,” the man said. “Daniel. The most like your father? The one I should have been talking to on the phone?”

Aluminum scraped and the front door let in the sound of slapping rain.

“Cy?” Antigone squeezed in. “You okay? What’s going on?”

Dan slipped in behind her.

Cyrus looked at his sister. “You should have waited for me. I wasn’t that late.” He looked at Dan’s dripping brown hair. “At least you’re wet, too.”

“Not as wet as you,” Dan said. “Get a shirt on.” He turned toward the old man and stuck out his hand. “Sorry about my brother,” he said. “He gets primitive when we’re not around. I’m Daniel. You need a room?”

The old man grinned as they shook hands. “Daniel Smith. We’ve met before.”

Dan stood perfectly still, his eyes careening around the old man’s face. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember …” His voice cracked and trailed away.

The man shrugged. “You were young. Your father called me Bones; your mother called me Billy.”

Cyrus watched his brother’s Adam’s apple bounce and his eyebrows crash together.

“What are you doing here?” Dan’s voice had tightened. “What do you want?”

Billy or Bones or Billy Bones laughed. “Just a room. All I need is a room. One room in particular. Passing through and thought I’d say hello to the old place.”

“It’s my room, Dan.” Cyrus pointed at his brother. “He wants my room. Don’t give it to him.”

While Dan moved awkwardly behind the desk, the old man turned to Cyrus. Digging a key ring from his pocket, he held up a long gold key between his fingers.

“I’ll more than pay for the night. Park my truck. There’s something for you on the seat.”

The old man’s face was pained but smiling. Once more, Cyrus stretched out his hand to take something from him. This time, Skelton seemed less willing. His eyes were hard and nervous. His breathing had stopped.

He dropped the keys onto Cyrus’s palm, winked awkwardly, and turned away. The old man’s back was suddenly more bowed. His skin had grown pale.

Dan nodded, and Cyrus moved slowly toward the door.

“I’ll park the Baron,” Antigone said. “The keys in it?”

Dan nodded again, all the while keeping nervous eyes on the old man.

Cyrus forced the door open and stepped to the side to let his sister through. He pointed at Dan. “Don’t even think about giving him my room.”

Turning away before his brother could answer, he shivered out into the rain.

“Where’s your shirt, Tarzan?” Antigone asked. She wrapped the hem of her own shirt around her camera cases while they walked. The rain was fading.

Cyrus grunted.

“That lightning was crazy.” Antigone pointed at a new pothole. “It melted a hole in the parking lot.”

Cyrus didn’t answer. He was staring at the Golden Lady. She looked better than he would have thought possible — glowing, buzzing, hunting the sky.

Antigone followed his eyes. “When did that happen?” she asked. “Was it the lightning?”

“No.” Cyrus shook his head. “She came on when he leaned against her pole. Tigs, that lightning wasn’t normal.”

“Lightning never is. If it weren’t still raining, I’d film the Lady.” Antigone moved forward. “She looks amazing.”

Cyrus wiped the rain off his nose. Antigone shifted into a jog. “Hurry up. I want to look in his truck.”

Cyrus followed his sister, scanning the parking lot as he went. Lightning flickered silently behind distant clouds, and he felt his body tense. Everything had been moving so quickly, too quickly to understand. Mrs. Eldridge wasn’t just a half-cracked guest; she was all the way cracked. William Skelton had known his parents.

And he’d had a beetle that could call down lightning.

Antigone reached the truck.

“I wouldn’t open that!” Cyrus yelled.

She pulled open the door. “Why not?”

Cyrus caught up to his sister and stared into the cab. The seat was covered with old sheepskin, now worn down to flat wool. The passenger’s side was crowded with grease-dotted paper bags, ripped and folded atlases, paper cups, and a large metallic box that was probably a cooler. In the center of the driver’s seat, there was a small square of thick, rippled glass. Embedded inside, on its back with six legs folded in against its belly, there lay a single beetle.

“That’s a fat beetle,” Antigone said. “Is that what he meant? That’s your tip?” She reached for it.

“Don’t touch it!” Cyrus knocked away her arm.

Antigone faced him, raised her eyebrows, then reached up to flick her brother’s ear.

“Seriously, Tigs,” Cyrus said. “Don’t.” Antigone flicked, and Cyrus yelped, grabbing her wrist. “You don’t know what happened. Just listen for a second and don’t ask any questions. I have to get my head straight.”

Antigone pulled back her arm. “Your head?”

“My ears are still ringing, and I’m not sure how to say … nothing seems true right now. You’re not going to believe me.”

“Mr. Mouth can’t find his words,” Antigone said. “Should I take a picture?”

“Promise you’ll believe me,” Cyrus said.

“Maybe I will,” said Antigone. “There’s a first for everything.”

“Oh, shut up. You saw the lightning, right?”

“I did. Did you skip school today? And why were you late? I made Dan wait for half an hour.”

“Come on!” Cyrus slapped both hands onto his head, dragging them down his face. “Why now? I’m trying to tell you something.”

“No,” Antigone said. She pushed her short, wet hair straight back and then crossed her arms. “You’re trying to get me to believe something. That’s different. You want me to believe you? Hit me with the truth about school. And Mom. You never miss a Mom day.”

“Fine,” Cyrus said. “I skipped out of school today. Why wouldn’t I? And then I lost my watch in a stream and got back late. You should have waited for me anyway. Now will you please listen?”

Antigone refolded her shirt over her camera. “Why would anyone skip the last day of school? That’s what Dan wanted to know, and I think it’s a good question. All we did was mess around in class and clean out our lockers.”

“Exactly,” said Cyrus. “I glued my locker shut three months ago, and I actually skipped out early this entire week. Mrs. Testy Teal called to talk to Dan about it a couple days ago, but she got me instead. Is that enough truth for you?”

Antigone blew rainwater off her lips. Cyrus knew how this went. A lecture was coming. He watched his older, smaller sister try to look angry. They only ever fought, really fought, when she tried to be his mother, which she seemed to think meant never believing a word he said and hugging him in public.

A pair of headlights approached, slowed, and looped out around the station wagon.

“Cyrus Lawrence Smith,” Antigone began. Cyrus braced himself, but his sister’s eyes had changed. Her wide smile took over. “I can’t believe you glued your locker shut. Will they ever be able to get it open? They’ll probably have to buy a new one. What kind of glue?”

“Not important,” Cyrus said. It was hard not to smile, too. “I didn’t use a lot. It’ll pop open. Now listen to me, Tigs.” He pointed at the glass on the seat. “That’s a lightning bug. I swear it is. Not like a firefly. If you break the glass, it wakes up and then the lightning comes.”

Antigone’s hair fell forward. She brushed it back and scrunched her face. “You were right,” she said. “I don’t believe you. You’re worrying me, Rus. Did you get struck? Seriously. And if you hadn’t skipped school—”

“Seriously yourself,” Cyrus said. “Don’t start in on school again. And don’t call me Rus.” He watched his sister’s face. “You have to believe me.”

“No,” Antigone said. “I don’t. I don’t even believe that you believe you. You’re delusional. And shirtless. Probably concussed.”

“Fine,” Cyrus said. Leaning into the truck, he poked at the glass. No current. At least at first touch. Folding up a rag on the dashboard, he used it like a pot holder to pick up the glass. “Watch.”

“Not yours, Cy. Put the poor dead thing back.”

“It is mine. He said it was. It’ll come alive when I break it open.”

Antigone raised her eyebrows. “Like a cursed pharaoh?”

“Ha,” Cyrus said. “Keep talking.”

“Cy! Tigs!” Dan’s yell came from the courtyard. “What are you doing? C’mon! The Baron should be out of the road!”

William Skelton stepped beside him. Cyrus whipped the rag behind his back.

“Careful there,” the old man said. “Don’t waste another perfectly good bug. It took your father weeks to catch it.” He walked out into the parking lot and then down along the front of the motel, stopping at Cyrus’s battered white door.

“When you’ve finished, bring that key ring back to one-eleven.”

“No!” Cyrus yelled. “Dan! What? You gave him my room?”

Skelton opened the door. Saluting Cyrus with two fingers, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.