And All the Stars

Chapter Fifteen

Sinuous bodies wove a mid-air ballet, so beautiful and strange that Madeleine could not help but sit spellbound as the pair of dandelion dragons twined a pas de deux between bridges and skyscrapers.

Machine gun fire rose, a rat-tat accompaniment which sparked a new form of dance. Dipping, twisting, wildly joyous: driven by countless wings in a madcap obstacle race mere handbreadths above rooftops, from air-conditioning plant to scaffolding and fire escape. It was so obviously a gleeful game, exultant and playful, that its culmination in a tumbling human figure made her gasp in protest.

"Where is it this time?"

Madeleine started. At nearly two in the morning, she still had an hour to go on intruder watch. Judging by his hair-on-end, rumpled and cross appearance, Min had simply given up trying to sleep.

"Pittsburgh," she said, as a rifle began firing.

"Pointless." Min sniffed disparagingly at the gunshot punctuation.

"They did hurt one once."

"And what did that achieve? A glowing thing spitting up its load of dust in the middle of the street." He shook his head, then crossed to the patio door and slid it open despite the chill, kneeling in the entrance to light incense before the statue he’d placed just outside.

The reprimand had begun the day after the Rio de Janeiro challenge, late night Sydney time, and dawn on the east coast of the United States. The many-winged flying serpents which served as air transport for Mothed Blues had appeared in numbers, and flown riderless to the non-Spire towns and cities nearest to Washington. The first sighting had been at a large hall housing Washington refugees, where one dandelion dragon simply thrust its enormous head through upper windows and vomited a great gout of dust over hundreds of sleeping families.

Two weeks after the appearance of the Spires, small outbreaks of stain had occurred in countless non-Spire towns and cities, and breathing masks were ubiquitous, some even managing to sleep in them. But it had been established that the Conversion could infect through contact with eyes, and masks could only do so much for those who woke coated in dust. Even when people stayed home, when there were no convenient large groups for the dragons to target, the increased concentration of dust had soon led to thousands of new cases of Blue-Green. The sheer manoeuvrability of the dragons, and their relative indifference to sprays of bullets, made them almost impossible to stop.

"I think we can safely say that the chances of anyone else trying to shoot a Spire have dropped into the not worth betting on range," Min said, standing and sliding the door shut. "There been any let-up in numbers?"

"No." Almost thirty hours in, a new attack was still being reported roughly every hour.

"Coffee? Damn, this milk is still solid." Min thumped down the carton Madeleine had taken out of the freezer an hour ago, making dishes rattle, then sighed. "Green tea?"

"No thanks. I guess I should go to bed," Madeleine said, but didn’t move, wondering if she should be worried. Min was usually very even-tempered. "Would it offend you if I asked what you pray for each morning?"

"Mostly for my brothers to be reborn as slugs in a salt mine," Min said flatly. "Oh, they deserve it, don’t worry. I’m virtuous by comparison. Normal." He gave her a sardonic look. "The contrast works the other way here, among you would-be heroes trying to do the right thing, all caution and common sense. No-one’s even gotten into the liquor cabinet. Noi’s planning this surprise birthday party for Pan, yet thinks it’s a bad idea for us to cut loose."

"Alien invasions aren’t exactly the time to get drunk."

"If there was ever a time to get drunk, alien invasions are it. We could lock ourselves in the study first, and let Millie play lookout. But you all insist on being so dull and supportive with your musketeers and your stick-together attitude. I keep expecting to find the lot of you sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya."

"You’ve been singing along with us, Porthos," Madeleine pointed out, relieved because Min’s tone had lightened, growing amused rather than acidic.

"Just humouring the natives," he said, but smiled. "I started at Rushies with no interest whatsoever in acting. But it’s hard not to get caught up, and a little addicting playing Spy, Turncoat, Hero. Very elaborate lies, just my kind of thing. You, however, are totally transparent, especially when trying to cheer people up. Go to bed."

Uncurling, she headed upstairs to the lamp-lit library. Fisher’s favourite place was the window seat, and she wasn’t surprised to see him still awake, but it was unusual for him to be gazing steadily out the window instead of reading.

"Is there something out there?"

He turned his head, making one of his unhurried studies of her.

"Take a look."

It was an unremarkable exchange, but Madeleine instantly filled with a total awareness of him, tucked snugly in a corner of the seat, a book set on one raised knee, posture relaxed, weary smudges beneath his glasses. She would have to lean across him to see in the direction he’d been looking, and the way he kept his attention on her as she hesitated, and then slowly approached, made her extraordinarily conscious of her hair falling loose from its usual knot, and the cheap, rumpled tracksuit hiding almost all her stars.

One knee on the edge of the seat, she rested a hand on the sill, leaned forward and saw…light. A pathway dancing across the black sheet of the bay, leading to a low, heavy moon sinking into the horizon.

"Beautiful."

"Very."

There was a hint of laughter to the word, and she turned her head to see the scene reflected in his glasses, twin moons which obscured but did not hide eyes focused on her face. A charged moment, chained lightning. Then Madeleine decided she was tired of small steps and took a big one, dropping her head to press her mouth to his.

Barely a kiss, simple contact. He exhaled as she drew back, and she felt the feather-touch of his breath. They stared at each other, then uncertainty turned into forward motion, and this time they both moved, found lips, discovered the tingle of tongues entwined.

Technicalities. What felt right, what didn’t. A stop-start exploration of reaction, then relaxation into sheer enjoyment. Madeleine shifted her hand from the sill to his shoulder, and Fisher moved his to her waist. As their kisses grew deeper, he pulled her forward, and she slid into his lap.

Like all Blues, Fisher’s palms were covered with stain, though most of his fingers were free of it. Breath coming faster, he slid both hands from her waist to the small of her back, where her tracksuit top and the shirt below had ridden up. The contrast of sensation, velvet and flesh, made her shiver and tighten arms around his neck. Encouraged, he moved further up her back.

Sitting as she was, Madeleine was completely clear about the effect she was having on him. This was no longer merely a big step, was becoming an outright leap, and she found she was fine with that, though maybe not on the library window seat. She slowed her kisses, then drew back, and the small noise he made was all about her weight shifting.

She had to smile, because his glasses had steamed up, and he looked ruffled and owl-like, but when she lifted them carefully away his cinnamon-brown gaze transfixed her. He took the glasses, put them on the windowsill, then, slowly, constantly monitoring her reaction, reached for the zipper-pull of her tracksuit top, and drew it down.

Her shirt, form-fitting and dark green, had been rucked up by his exploration of her back, and the very tips of his fingers brushed glimmering skin.

Moth song.

They both leapt as if struck, Fisher so violently that Madeleine would have been propelled into a nosedive if he hadn’t caught at her arm. She staggered to her feet, ready to run, to hide, and was turning toward the study when she recognised a quality of distance.

"It’s the Spire."

Only the second time the Spire had sung. The Moths mightn’t be near, but this suggested a change, perhaps new instructions for the Greens. Muffled, hurried footsteps on the floor below revealed Min’s reaction, and down the hall the door to the Wonder Woman room was wrenched open, though Noi had slowed to a less urgent place by the time she reached the library.

"Well that was better than an alarm clock," she said, looking at them both standing by the window. "Do we dive for the study yet again?"

Fisher was frowning ferociously, head cocked to one side, but responded after a pause with a quick headshake. "Prepare for it, perhaps. I’ll see if I can spot anything on the city webcams." He went into the study, mouth set in a grim line.

"I was feeling peckish anyway," Noi remarked, and tugged Madeleine’s shirt down.

Most of Sydney’s webcams were set in uselessly scenic places. They had two views of the skyline, three of the Bridge, one of Bondi, a couple in Circular Quay, but around Hyde Park where the Moths were most active, only the hastily-rigged cam pointing at the Spire. At night, that didn’t tell them anything.

Dawn added little.

When the Spire stopped singing mid-morning, Madeleine went to bed, too tired to care anymore. She woke sour-mouthed and headachy in the late afternoon, feeling cheated of something she’d wanted. A long shower eased her temper, and she dressed with care, nothing out of the ordinary, but neatly. The Spire’s interruption had thoroughly shattered the moment for her and Fisher, but the step had still been taken. As often as she’d looked at him since, she’d found him looking back, and Madeleine was surprised at the comfortable acceptance she felt. Mutual liking thoroughly acknowledged, action postponed.

She had tried to think about the situation in wider terms, with words like love and belonging. But it was difficult to look beyond the now of allies facing an incredible situation. Too soon and too strange to be sure of more than wanting there to be another moment.

Stomach rumbling, she headed downstairs. The buzz of a newsreader’s voice was the only sound, and everyone was gathered around the television. No surprise – it was around the time when, if they stuck to schedule, the Moths announced the details of the next challenge. Which city would be their next plaything.

Everyone was so still. Statues, faces stiff with shock, staring at the screen. Only Emily looked around, and she jumped to her a feet with a cry and rushed to throw her arms around Madeleine’s waist. But by then Madeleine had joined the others in being frozen, staring at the newsreader, and the over the shoulder graphic clearly labelled "SYDNEY CHALLENGE".

The image was the figure of a girl, cut off at neck level. A noodle-like figure in short shorts and a crochet halter neck top, and all the rest of her, stars.