Rise of the Poison Moon by MaryJanice Davidson

while we all try to figure out a way through this. If they didn’t have to keep Hank from hunting you down, as you burn away the precious resources remaining. If they could count on you as an ally looking for a solution instead of an enemy adding to their problems.”
    Ember chuckled and raised her head to the sky. “Ah, Uncle. If you could only hear yourself today. Whatever drugs that murderous Georges bitch has fed you, I wouldn’t mind a gram or two of, for recreational purposes.
    “You want me to make life easier for her, now that her husband’s dead? Now that her daughter is in this skinny-ass spider’s sights? Now that her legacy of murder is nearly over—you want me to show her mercy?”
    “Show your son mercy, then.”
    “He’ll have it. The moment he picks the right side. He can even bring his boring little whore.” Ember winked at Susan and motioned to the purse. “Make sure you don’t edit that line out, for your next news report.”
    Before Gautierre could launch himself at her, she was up in the air and rocketing away.

CHAPTER 18

    Jennifer

    “Y’know, Mom, I’ve been sitting here for about forty minutes, waiting for the irony to get a little less thick.”
    “I hear you.” She looked around the basement of police headquarters, which had become the new city hall since Skip Wilson destroyed the old one. “At least we’re outside the holding cells and not in them.”
    Jennifer eyed her watch again. She kept a bland smile on her face; her mother did the same.
    “So how’s Mrs. Gremmel feeling?”
    “Diabetic patient? She’s sleeping better since we found a new store of drugs. I don’t know how much longer I can keep that going.”
    “And baby Marshall?”
    “Better. By a small miracle, he hasn’t needed much in the way of pharmaceuticals. We keep him warm with kangaroo care.”
    “God bless the marsupials.”
    This earned a smile—the first Jennifer had seen on her mother’s face since before the funeral. “I suppose I’m at least glad to be away from the hospital for the afternoon. Your father thinks”—she swallowed—“your father thought I’ve been running myself pretty ragged in there.”
    “You’ve been doing awesome things, Mom.”
    “And now, for a reward, I get to talk to Hank Blacktooth.”
    Jennifer glanced around the shitty chairs, the dim room, the desk sergeant’s desk, now manned by a petite woman with short, carrot-colored hair slicked down like a helmet. Her dark eyes were enormous; she looked more like a child than one of Hank’s goons. She was pretending to flip through a fourteen-month-old issue of Newsweek while listening to every word. “He’ll listen, Mom.”
    “I hope so,” her mother murmured, settling back more comfortably in the hideously uncomfortable plastic chair. “But he’s never struck me as the listening type.”
    Jennifer noticed Carrot Helmet frown at the magazine.
    Hank Blacktooth, what a stoop.
    (Stoop (n): abbreviated version of Stupnagel. Origin: an Elmsmithism for “big stupid moron who thinks he’s subtle but ain’t.” e.g.: Hank Blacktooth was a stoop for making them wait outside his crappy makeshift office .)
    They both knew Hank would agree to her mother’s request for a meeting. He would know about her husband’s death, and he would see it as (a) an opportunity to learn how to kill a dragon and (b) gloat.
    They were okay with that (well, Elizabeth was okay with that); in return, they hoped to make him aware of the real threat in town.
    Just as Gautierre, Susan, and Catherine were trying to talk sense into Ember Longtail across town, so she and her mother were trying to talk sense into Hank.
    She hoped they were having more success.
    “Maybe I should have gone with them,” she mused aloud. “Ember’s pretty vicious. It’s not like you need me here—you can take on any number of these idiots.”
    “It’s important for you to be here.”
    “Why? Hank hates me. All I can do is piss him off. Which I’m happy to