Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

Now, many hours later, the component parts had been disassembled and notated, placed in their separate receptacles of glass and metal and plastic. Young and old, accomplished and callow, hardened and untried, the observers had found themselves hushed and wide-eyed…and finally, one by one, had drifted away to pursuits less gaudy and brutal.

Until Doc, alone and sure now, summoned his friends.

He gestured at the enormous fretwork of the skeleton atop the joined tables. “Truly a remarkable structure, an edifice as elegant and durable as a Gothic cathedral.”

“Yeah,” Colleen said, “but a cathedral rarely tries to bite your head off and swallow you whole.”

“Only some of the clergy within do,” Goldie commented, but no one rose to the barb.

“So what have you got for us?” Cal asked Doc.

“Some preliminary data, Calvin, and some educated guesses. Upon close inspection, I verified several long-standing suspicions. See this structure, and this one here? They are human in their lineage, undeniably so. Oh, amended and built upon and added to; in some cases to an astonishing degree. But any knowledgeable scrutiny reveals that this is, in fact, a man-changed, most assuredly, capable of much a normal human being could not do. But still a man.”

Doc leaned back against the wall and rubbed weary eyes. “The organs bear this out, too. And I feel certain the DNA resequencing I’m having performed will again verify these findings, down to the molecular level…. It confirms what we ourselves have seen firsthand, and although one must be cautious when drawing conclusions from only one sample, I would express a conviction that were we to cross-section another dragon, or any of the grunters”-and here Doc’s voice dropped down and grew more gentle, eyeing Cal-“or the flares, they would all be clearly derived from human beings; would, in the truest sense, still be human.”

None of them spoke for a long moment, then Colleen said, “Okay, so that’s reasonably creepy…. Where does it get us?”

“Do you recall the devices set into the ground at the edge of town? The ones we encountered when we returned and found Mr. Shango and his lady companion? They told me of their belief that these were the instruments that projected the appalling false landscape of corpses and plague.”

Colleen shuddered, remembering the ghastly landscape that had nearly driven them away from this place before they had learned the wonders it held (which, of course, had been the whole idea); and she thought of her amulet, the dragon scale she wore, that had allowed her to pierce the illusion and behold the truth.

“Dr. Waxman was kind enough to substantiate that this was indeed their purpose, and that there was a spare apparatus being stored at a facility nearby. A new friend of mine, an intern named Lewis, was good enough to fetch it back here. And I removed this from it.” He opened a drawer and withdrew a dark object, held it out in his open palm.

Colleen recognized it instantly, knew it as well as she knew the feel of what rested on its chain against the soft place at the base of her throat.

It was a dragon scale.

“Dr. Waxman tells me that each of the devices has one of these scales embedded in it,” Doc continued, “along with the gemstones that focus its power.” He glanced at Colleen, and there was tenderness there. “I have examined it under the electron microscope, and it appears a match with the one you wear around your neck. Again, DNA analysis would confirm this.”

Cal’s face was grave. “If I understand you correctly, Doc, you’re saying that the scale that saved us back in Chicago, and the ones in the devices here…are from the same dragon.”

“Yes, that’s a strong likelihood.” He nodded at the dragon bones on the tables. “And a different individual from this gentleman here.”

Colleen had only known one dragon up close and personal (where they’d actually had a word or two, between the bastard’s attempts to incinerate her), and that was Ely Stern. She herself had seen Cal put a sword clean through him, seen the monstrous lizard plummet a thousand feet to the New York pavement, to an almost certain and grisly end.

But Mama Diamond had told them only yesterday that Stern had not stayed put. He’d survived and hit the road….

“It’s Stern,” Cal said coolly, and Colleen somehow knew in her bones it was so. “Shango and Mama Diamond followed him here. He stole her gems and brought them to Atherton.” Cal took the leather scale from Doc, weighed it in his hand. “It’s a reasonable bet he left these behind, too.”

“Yes,” Doc agreed. “But then, that would mean-”

Cal finished it. “That he tried to kill us in New York, then saved our lives in Chicago.”

They fell silent, meditating on the imponderable flow of events. Like so many things down these crazy long days, it was impossible…but that didn’t mean it wasn’t so.

And how did Papa Sky fit into all this? Colleen wondered. The mysterious jazzman who had given her the scale in the smoky thick atmosphere of the Legends club in Chicago. Where might that old blind man be, if he wasn’t dead by now?

Still hanging with dragons, or one dragon in particular…?

“But why would Stern do that?” Colleen asked. “I mean, I can’t see him particularly giving two rats’ asses about saving our bacon. So was it to bring down Primal, so the Source could get at all those flares he was protecting?”

“I don’t know,” Cal said simply. “It’s possible he was serving the Source there, and here, too.”

“Lovely,” Colleen said. And yet, something didn’t sit right. Stern was a rotter through and through, it didn’t take a degree in advanced physics to figure that out, but she hadn’t gotten that vibe off Papa Sky, not at all. And for all her flaws, Colleen prided herself that she usually read people pretty right (despite her choices in men).

So why would Papa Sky be helping Stern?

Questions, with no answers…

What else was new?

Cal handed the scale back to Doc. “Tell me everything you’ve learned about this.”

That was the lawyer part of him, the pragmatist, Colleen thought admiringly. File away what you can’t deal with now, and get on with business.

“It would appear to have several unique properties,” Doc noted, “whether on the living dragon or not. First, as we witnessed when Colleen utilized it against Clayton Devine in Primal’s palace, it has the capability of repelling both the flares and the powers they wield.

“Secondly, given the way Colleen’s charm allowed her to pierce the illusory tableau outside of town, I would venture that the dragon scales have the power both to project an illusion…and let one see through it.”

“Any notions on how we might apply this knowledge?” Cal asked.

“I thought to design this.” From the same drawer, Doc pulled out a strip of yellowish, translucent material, about the thickness and texture of parchment.

“I will not tell you which part of our friend here I obtained this from.” Doc held it up before his face; Colleen could make out his eyes blurry behind it. “I tested it myself on the loathsome panorama. It dissolved like a tissue of lies in a cleansing flood.”

Cal pondered it solemnly. “So you think we might be able to avail ourselves of that ability, and the other properties, too-”

“Yes, exactly,” Doc responded. He strolled over to a big vat immediately adjacent to the skeleton. “Although it will require us to set aside any qualms we might have.”

Walking after him, Colleen saw that its label read EPI-DERMAL TISSUE. Oh brother…

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Colleen said, facing Doc. “You’ve just said this monster on the slab is actually a human being…then you’re proposing we cut him up and use his skin.”