Page 94 of Magdalene Nox

The cat had indeed run barreling into them and was now twisting and turning around Magdalene’s ankles, circling in place as if hurrying them up, clearly set to lead them through the smoke.

They made their way along the same route they had crawled before, guided by Willoughby, who was darting back and forth. It was on the stairs, half dragging Amanda with them, that they heard something above them collapse.

Magdalene had never witnessed death. Plenty of people she knew had died, but somehow she had reached forty six years on this earth without ever personally being present for it. It seemed the universe had decided that, if she was to finally be there for a demise, it would be something truly horrifying.

The death rattle she had heard earlier, the floors caving in on the Amber and Viridescent wings, was now directly above her as the flames consumed the upper levels of the Main Hall and were tearing them down, collapsing the wooden beams supporting the attic and the third floor on top of the marble and granite of the one below.

The mansion no longer moaned around her. Dragons screamed, a torturous, gory death, and Magdalene knew the tears streaming down her cheeks were not entirely from smoke, the emptiness in her chest, the remnants of an age-old wound, was filling with that acrid air, as if desperate to keep the final transformation of Dragons safe inside her. That it might also kill her seemed irrelevant now. And so Magdalene did not wipe her eyes. Someone had to weep for the dying, magnificent creature, and that someone might as well be her, even if it was trying to take her to hell with it.

In hindsight, perhaps she should have felt less sympathy for the beast, after all. Because no creature was more dangerous than one in the throes of perishing.

As she spearheaded the group down the stairs and towards the gaping wound where the main entrance had once been—the firefighters having torn it off its hinges to create a larger entrance—she could feel the old wooden steps vibrate under her feet and silently prayed that they’d hold just a few seconds longer, just long enough for her and Sam to shepherd the girls out.

Magdalene heard it when her feet hit the dark granite of the ground floor and Amanda and Lily were almost abreast with her.

Dragons’ last breath.

The entire building shook, as if the three dragons were making their way from under the foundation and taking flight, escaping the confines of the fiery inferno that was consuming their prison.

Her heart stopped and in front of her eyes, the staircase that Sam and Willoughby were descending, taking the last few steps on a run, collapsed.

In slow motion, Magdalene saw Sam push Lily and Amanda away and safely into her arms as the immense, hand-carved redwood railing and the stone plates it rested on buried her lover and her cat beneath their weight.

She must have screamed. She could feel her throat burning from the strain of the sound that was surely emanating from her, except she could not hear it. Magdalene heard nothing. Not Lily’s pleas, not Amanda’s calls for help directed towards the outside, nor the cry of Joanne who suddenly appeared at her side.

Nothing. Her entire existence narrowed to the pile of stone and wood in front of her and her vision blurred. She shook it off, in an instant running back towards the fire, her hands already grabbing at the fragments of the balustrade as someone tried to pull her back.

Later, she would be told that it was the Fire Chief who tried to carry her out of the building, only to be backhanded and cursed out before Magdalene proceeded to dig into the debris with her bare hands.

Magdalene didn’t recall any of this. She didn’t remember hysterically screaming for the firefighters to “fucking do their job.” All she had known was that she had to get Sam from under the rubble.

The stone shards were hot, burning her, and the splinters from the wood cut at her skin, but she heeded none of it. Her blood seeping down her fingers was making her efforts more difficult, her hands now slippery and clumsy from the pain, but she did not stop.

Time stood still, and it was just her and the ruin that was holding her entire life underneath its debris. And all she could think of, the only thought burning worse than the blood being scorched into her skin, was that she had not told Sam that she loved her. How many times had she had the chance to do so? How many times had she been one breath away from confessing that she was, in fact, the first to fall, the first to know that this warmth in her chest, this feeling of being whole for once in her life, was because she loved?

And the horror of having kept the enormity of this feeling, the life-changing importance of it, from Sam? It stabbed at her. Even as the dust and smoke engulfed her, Magdalene knew it wasn’t what she was choking from.

The tears she had shed for Dragons were now blinding her. They fell for her own carelessness, for her own impotence, because she could accomplish so much, and had power over so many, yet she couldn’t turn back time to give voice to everything that had sustained her these past months, everything that had made her whole and everything that had given her hope.

Her eyes burned from the soot and the tears, and as she shoved her hand under a large chunk of wall, trying to lift it up, the precarious support the slab was resting on cracked. Magdalene expected to feel her wrist crushed by the hundred pound marble, yet all she heard was the crack of metal and glass, and while the pain in her forearm was considerable, she knew her bones weren’t broken.

Slowly, biting her lip as to not scream in pain, Magdalene peered into the dust-covered opening only to realize that her salvation from having her forearm crushed, was the one piece of Dragons she had hated and worn as penance her entire life. The quarter of a million dollar Vacheron, glass smashed, was turned sideways on her wrist, as it usually was, since it was so large for her, and the wedge it thus formed was holding up the piece of th school’s wall.

She wiggled her fingers, and when the pain did not increase, tried to pull her hand out only to realize that Dragons would likely demand a sacrifice for it. Magdalene braced herself then wrenched her arm, her wrist coming out of the cuff that was the crushed watch, abraded and bloody.

Joanne screamed as Magdalene freed herself and tried to grab her injured appendage.

“Oh my god, Magdalene, oh my god, you’re hurt, stop! Stop! Chief! Chief!”

“Dorsea, I don’t have time for this, Sam is still there!” Magdalene growled as she turned to the older woman.

As she struggled against Joanne’s hold, exhausted, her lungs still burning with every breath, the firefighters finally did something worthy of their profession, and as they lifted the larger part of the wall and balustrade, Sam’s motionless shape was revealed with Willoughby sheltered in the safety of her arms, hissing bloody murder at everyone who was reaching for them, for his savior.

Magdalene’s heart hammered in her chest as she finally freed herself, falling to her knees in front of Sam. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she noticed Willoughby’s head butt and pitiful meows, but she couldn’t...

Please, Sam, please!

Shoving aside the hands of the men around her, she reached for Sam. When her blackened fingers finally felt a pulse fluttering under Sam’s skin, only then did she allow them to pull her back.

---