But Tom shook his head, black curls tossing in the light of the morning. He frowned. He walked all the way to the front of the Great Sky Dragon and stood, feet planted apart, arms crossed on his chest. "I've come," he said.
Edward had the impression the giant creature holding him laughed, though there was no sound. "It is good that you come," he said. "And now, what do you want to do?"
"I want you to let my father go," Tom said, casting his voice so that, normally low as it was, it could be heard all over the vast parking lot.
"Or?" the Great Sky Dragon asked.
"I don't think there's any or," Tom said. "You're much bigger than I am, and we're surrounded by all your minions. I'll fight you, if you want me to, but I don't think there would be any contest."
"No," the Great Sky Dragon said. "There wouldn't."
"So, I'm here. You do whatever you have to do, but you let my father go first."
"Tom, no," Edward said. "Don't do this. I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for me. I was a horrible father."
At that something like amusement flickered over Tom's face, which, from where Edward was looking at it, looked like a terrible, pale mask incapable of human movement. For just a moment, Tom blinked, and looked up at his father, and his eyelids fluttered, and his lips pinched upward in an almost smile, "No shit, Sherlock. Did you have to consult many experts to come to this conclusion?" He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter, because I've always been an even worse son, and—" As Edward opened his mouth, Tom held up a hand to silence him. "What's more, I brought this final situation on by my own actions. I'm not stupid. I wasn't a baby when I stole the Pearl of Heaven. Nor were my impulses uncontrollable. I knew what I was doing. I knew whom I was messing with. And I did it anyway. So, you see, it's my doing, and who but I should suffer for it?"
Tom looked away from his father. "Let my father go," he told the dragon. "And promise me that all my friends will be able to leave safely. And then do whatever you think you have to do to even the score."
Edward felt himself being lowered, slowly, until his feet touched the pavement. He put out a hand and grabbed at Tom's shoulder. "Tom, no. Please. I can't live knowing—"
But the dragon flicked a toe at Edward's back. Just, flicked it. And Edward went flying, backward, head over heels, to land bruised and stunned at Kyrie's and Keith's feet.
* * *
Tom watched the dragon flick his father out of the way and send him flying. A look back over his shoulder showed him that his father was alive and well. He turned back to the dragon.
Having no illusions about how long—or how little—remained for him to live seemed to make everything around him very bright and sharp. The dragon glittering in the light of the morning was a thing of beauty, golden and scintillating. And the sun coming up over the Three Luck Dragon painted the sky a delicate pink like the inside of certain roses when they're just opening to the light of morning.
As for the morning air, it smelled of flowers and it felt cool to the skin, with only a hint of warmth to indicate the scorcher the day would later become.
I'll never see another sunrise, Tom thought. Yesterday was my last sunset. That meal eaten with Kyrie, hastily, in my father's hotel room, was my last meal. Worse, I'll never kiss a girl, beyond the half-hearted kisses and gropes I got back before I knew I was a dragon. I'll never kiss Kyrie.
Weirdly, none of this seemed startling. It was as though all his life he'd been hastening toward this. Or rather, as if all his life he'd been worried about how he was going to die and what would put an end to his life. Now he need worry no more. He knew exactly where he would end and how.
A brief thought of whether there was anything after flickered through his mind. His parents were Catholic—or at least Catholic of the sort that didn't believe in God but believed that Mary was His mother. They went to mass sometimes. Certainly for big occasions and momentous parties, like weddings and baptisms and funerals. And Tom had attended catechism lessons in the faraway days of his childhood. Well, at least he'd been present while dreaming up ways to trip up the catechist, or look up her skirt.
He had no objections to the idea of an afterlife. But he also couldn't believe in it. Not really believe. If there was anything on the other side of this, he sensed it would be so different that who he was and what he thought on this side would make no difference at all. For all intents and purposes, Tom Ormson would stop existing.
He wanted—desperately wanted—to look over his shoulder at Kyrie. He heard her back there, her voice muffled, as though someone held a hand over her mouth. She was yelling, "Tom, no."