by Tim Akers
This is what I liked about coming home. Every one of these ridiculous models was dusted, and the bookshelves that lined the walls were straightened and clean. Mom maintained the space of my childhood better than I ever did. I owed my parents a lot. It couldn’t have been easy raising a knight aspirant, while the rest of the parents were grooming future doctors or firefighters or...whatever it is that people dream about becoming that ends up with going to business school. Rich, I suppose. They had never questioned my imagination, never restrained my creativity, never balked, even when that meant fitting their son for a suit of armor and sending him off to jousting camp. And even though I hadn’t been home all that often since I left for college, all of this stuff was still here. Waiting.
Birdsong drifted in through the window. I swung my feet out of bed and went to the sill, kneeling to stick my head outside. The gray asphalt tiles of the porch roof stretched out ahead of me, covered in acorns and twigs. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then crawled out the window to crouch on the eaves. The porch creaked under my heels. When I was a kid, I made frequent escapes across this roof, shimmying down the oak tree at the far end of the roof and away to the yard, or just lying out here and staring up at the stars peeking through the branches. The tree had grown, but I could still see glimpses of blue sky and puffy clouds. Mom’s voice carried through the house, followed by Dad’s rumbling response. I settled against the asphalt tiles and sighed contentedly.
The sky rumbled. Thunder, I thought at first, but then it continued to get closer. A shadow passed over the house, and my heart jumped into my throat. The gentle breeze shifted into a sharp wind, then a gust that whipped the branches of the oak against the house, showering me with acorns. I shielded my eyes from the sudden wind and squinted into the sky.
One of the clouds was descending, its swirling wall forming into a stone tower before my eyes, white marble with a blue slate roof, like a castle out of Disney’s pristine imagination. There was a balcony just beneath the tower’s eaves, and a woman dressed in lightning, with hair that twisted in the wind. She was holding a travel mug in one hand, and a glowing sword in the other. Even at this distance, I could see the hatred in her eyes.
She was staring right at me. The sky rumbled again, and the sun disappeared behind the descending cloud. A tornado siren sounded down the street, and heavy drops of rain mixed with hail splatted against the roof. The wind blew hard, thrashing the oak and rattling the house. The woman jumped sword first from the balcony.
“So much for Thursday,” I muttered, then scrambled inside and slammed the window. The walls groaned as the winds rose. Downstairs, my mother was yelling. I grabbed Gabrielle’s card from my dresser and started punching her number into my phone.
The phone came apart in my hands. A tarot deck again, the cards shuffling out of my shaking fingers. I threw them against the wall and screamed.
The wind answered. I threw open my bedroom door and ran.
The walls shuddered as I ran down the hallway, and lightning flashed through the open windows. I slammed them shut one at a time, battered by hail and wind. At the top of the stairs, I paused to look out the bay window that dominated the landing. Debris rolled through the backyard, and the dozen ornamental fruit trees from my mother’s garden whipped back and forth like whitecaps. A small woman bounced past, her arms folded, wings wrapped tight against her back. She looked supremely inconvenienced. I stared at her passage, then shook my head and ran down the steps. My mother’s urgent voice met me by the front door.
“Your father is already in the basement,” she yelled from the kitchen. “Grab the storm bag and get downstairs.”
“One moment. I need to...” I peered out the front windows, squinting through the sheet of rain cascading off the porch roof. The lightning-clad woman touched down at the base of our driveway. She took a dainty sip from her mug, like a soccer mom waiting for her kids to finish practice, then strolled toward the house. As she walked past the Volvo, she casually lifted her sword and buried it in the hood. Lightning arced through the metal frame, scorching the paint and setting the interior on fire. “Damn it, how am I supposed to explain that?” I muttered to myself. My mom appeared from the kitchen.
“John! This is no time to dawdle!”
“I just need a second,” I said, scooping my boots up from beside the door and twisting them onto my feet. “Go downstairs. I’ll be fine.”
“John!” she shouted again, but then I was out the door, and the wind stole the rest of her protest.
I hit the curtain of falling rain, jumping down the stairs and sliding across the hail-slick walkway that led to the drive. The woman was still involved with the Volvo, wiggling the sword loose and plunging it into the engine time and time again, each blow bringing a cascade of sparks and peeling paint. The shifting stones of the tower dangled over her head, thirty feet off the ground and shimmering slightly, depending from a dark cloud that didn’t extend beyond the immediate area. Blue skies stretched from horizon to horizon, interrupted only by my personal tornado.
“Hey!” I shouted, shielding my face from the battering hail and screaming wind. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. Eyes the color of blue flame passed over me, barely registering my presence before turning back to the car. Thoughtfully, she set her travel mug on the driveway, then took the sword in both hands and lifted it high over her head. With a look of supreme concentration, the lightning lady took stock of what remained of the car, then buried the blade in the hood. The front of the car peeled open, lightning strokes traveling down the length of the vehicle, turning the whole thing into rubbish. A teeth-rattling clap of thunder rolled across the yard.
“I said, what the hell—” I reached out to grab her shoulder. The instant my fingers brushed the sun bright cloth of her robes, the whole world lit up. I felt a sharp hum go through my bones, and my brain crackled in my skull. Next thing I knew, I was staring up at the swirling clouds of the storm, flat on my back, with every inch of skin on fire. “Uhhhrruh...uh, uh...ah. Ow...”
“Holy hotcakes, can you see me?” The woman’s voice rang like a church bell. I lifted my head to see that she was leaning against the wreckage of my mom’s car, sword resting at her side, both hands wrapped around her travel mug. Her eyes were narrowed in concern. “You’re not just an idiot or something, out in the storm?”
“I think maybe I am,” I said through gritted teeth. The pain was really settling into my nerves. My entire body buzzed. I sat up, blinking against the rain running down my face. “What are you, anyway?”
“You can see me, but you don’t know what I am.” She carefully balanced her mug on the ruin of the hood, then snatched up her blade and strode quickly to loom over me. “So it’s probably safe to kill you. No one’s going to miss a delusional idiot.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I covered my face with one arm, trying to scramble back with the other. “Lots of folks are going to miss me. I’m going to miss me!”
“So no one important, then.” She closed the distance again and pressed the point of her sword into my chest, flattening me. She drew back the blade. “Time to feed the worms, mortal!”
“Esther MacRae will miss me!” I shouted. The woman hesitated for half a breath, long enough for me to roll away and scramble toward the front porch. She screamed in rage.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who killed my husband!” she howled. I glanced over my shoulder. A nimbus of burning light surrounded her, trailing arcs of lightning like a wedding gown as she marched toward me. “Kracek, King of the Outlands, did not deserve to die at the hands of a coward!”
“He was an asshole, lady!” I shouted, taking the three steps to the porch twelve at a time, stumbling as I hit the landing and going shoulder first into the front door. Her travel mug slammed into the wall next to me, splintering the siding and spraying scalding coffee in my face. I turned to face her. She swept toward the house like a squall line.
“You will pay for your crimes, mortal! Death is too good for someone who has dared to touch the divine. They will tell tales of your misery in the halls of hell, devils trembling as they recount your suffering. Mothers will scare their children with the legend of...of...” she stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What is your name, child-of-dust?”
“I don’t feel like this is the time for introductions.” I wrenched the door open, straining against the howling wind that washed off the storm goddess on my porch. I screamed into the gale. “We can discuss this when you’re in a better mood!”
I stepped inside, slamming the door on her response. Inside the house, the sounds of the storm were strangely muted. My mother was still standing in the kitchen door, apparently frozen in place. She held a wooden spoon in her hand, as though she meant to paddle me for misbehaving. I backed away from the door. Outside, the wind howled, sending sheets of hail against the windows.
“John?” Mom asked quietly. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But I think we’re safe now. I think there’s some kind of rule about invitations, and what they’re allowed to do. It’s going to be okay.”
The entire house groaned, and the old oak tree in the front yard splintered into a thousand pieces. The sound was like a punch in the chest. Seconds later, the grinding roar of the tornado filled our heads. I turned and ran, scooping up my mom and carrying her into the kitchen.
The windows of the front room exploded, showering glass across the furniture and shredding the curtains. A second later, the door disintegrated in a blinding flash of light. The woman, now barely more than the sketch of a figure drawn in lightning and hail, stood in the open doorway. I hit the ground and rolled, sheltering my mom’s frail form, wincing as I heard her scream out in pain. I got back on my feet, carrying her to the basement door.
“Get downstairs,” I said, balancing her gingerly on the top step. “And don’t open this door for anyone. Not even me.”
“What...what...”
“I’ll explain later,” I said, then slammed the door. Part of me hoped that I wouldn’t have to, but that would mean one or the other of us was dead. “Later,” I muttered to myself, “If there is a later.” Then I turned to face the front room.
The woman stepped through the door, bringing the storm with her. Newspapers and photographs swirled through the room, along with couch cushions and the remnants of my mother’s best plates, torn from their place in the china cabinet. Her eyes flashed like gold coins, and sparks traveled the length of her sword. When she saw me, her face twisted in rage.
“I warned your petty little circle of upstarts to stay away from him. The rule of dragons is not to be tampered with by the likes of you! You shall pay for your impertinence!”
“And you’re going to learn how to knock,” I said. I reached up and grabbed the little four-ten shotgun Dad kept over the sill of the kitchen door, thumbed the hammer, and put both barrels of rock salt into her face. It splattered across her skin like raindrops on stone. She laughed.
“At least you are brave. That’s good. I find no joy in killing cowards.”
“That’s hardly comforting,” I said, backpedaling away. She stalked after me, leaving destruction in her wake. When she reached the kitchen, the drawers flew open, and a shimmering cloud of cutlery joined the cyclone that was tearing my parents’ house apart. A fork buried itself in my knee. The back door was already destroyed, so I rolled through its ruin and limped across the backyard toward the shed. Outside, the skies were maddeningly clear in the distance, though dark clouds swirled directly overhead. As I reached the shed, the woman emerged from the house. Immediately, a heavy downpour slammed down on me, whipped by ferocious wind and the crackle of lightning. I kicked in the side door to the shed and collapsed inside.
The interior smelled like gasoline and yard clippings. Dragging my injured leg, I made my way around the pile of lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, rusted-out grills, and discarded sleds that dominated the center of the shed. I kicked over a can of gasoline, filling the shed with heady fumes and the added risk of immolation. Briefly, I wondered what story my parents would make up to explain my inevitable death. Somehow, I didn’t think “He tried to kill a storm” was going to make the cut.
The walls of the shed started to shake, and sheets of rain battered the grimy window behind me. I hunkered down behind a lawnmower. The concrete floor was sticky with oil and grass clippings. Through the open door I could see windswept grass and rivulets of rain pockmarked with hail. There was a loud boom, and suddenly the yard was full of tattered asphalt roofing tiles cartwheeling past. A significant portion of my parents’ house pulled free of its foundation and scattered into the storm. I gritted my jaw.
The shaking got worse, and the racks of tools overhead clattered back and forth, threatening to fall. I stared up at Dad’s collection of hedgewhackers, grass-annihilators, buzzsaws, hammer-guns, pole-splitters, and lawncare artillery with apprehension.
“Probably not the best place to hide,” I said. “No good hiding from the storm only to have a maul fall on my...head...”
A splitting maul. It dangled on the end of a leather thong, the only non-gasoline powered device in the entire shed. Even Dad’s hedge trimmer looked like a weapon from a post-apocalyptic gladiatorial arena. But not the maul. It was just an oversized iron head on a wooden shaft, like the lovechild of a sledgehammer and an axe. Nothing fancy about the maul. It was perfectly medieval.
“I don’t know what mythos you come from, lady, but I’m pretty sure they had something like this.” I stood up and slipped the maul from its hook. It was heavy, I mean, seriously heavy, and about as graceful to wield as a sandbag. I hefted it in my hands a couple of times, trying to figure out how I’d swing it without tearing my shoulder off. Outside, the wind dropped off, and the woman stepped into view.
She hadn’t seen me yet, or at least, she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were narrowed in the direction of my neighbor’s house. I could hear sirens in the distance. She held the sword loosely in one hand, spinning the hilt in her palm and squinting against the rain. She looked more human, for some reason. Her dress was soaked through, and her hair hung in damp rings across her face. She might even have been crying. Another gust of wind flattened my mom’s gazebo and sent the deck chairs spinning into the air.
No time for sympathy. I leapt over the lawnmower, drawing the maul over my head and screaming. Suffice to say I hadn’t figured out how to use this thing yet. The maul’s head snagged the shed’s low-slung roof, stopping me mid leap and nearly jerking the thing out of my hands. I came down on the lawnmower, slipped on its oil-slick cowling, and stumbled forward, twisting my ankle as I came down heavily in a collection of paint cans and discarded cigar boxes. The whole collection came tumbling down, taking me with it. I took one wobbly step, my leg collapsed, and I slammed into the frame of the door then spun back into the yard. The maul dangled in my hand like a carnival ride out of control.
The storm goddess just stared at me. Confusion and despair mingled in her eyes. When I finally stopped spinning and sat down in my mother’s flowerbed, she wiped the hair from her face and shouldered her glimmering sword.
“How...the hell...did a man like you strike down the great dragon Kracek?” she asked, fury dripping from her lips with every word. “I have seen champions, and witnessed great battles between mortals, but you are no champion. You’re a jester, a clown...a damned imbecile!”
“I’ll take that as flattery from someone married to that oaf,” I said. I stood up, squared my shoulders, and held the maul in front of me. Cold mud dripped down the back of my shirt. “Now. Are we going to fight, or are you all out of tears?”
She shouted, a primeval, mad scream, and charged forward. There was a lot of Kracek in her style, but I guess you don’t expect nuance from a tornado. I kept my fist tight against the head of the maul, using its iron bulk to deflect her blade. Static coursed through my arm as steel met iron, but si
nce my choices were to either hang on or die, I held my ground. Her sword sang off the maul and buried itself in the ground at my feet. Still holding the maul’s head close, I whipped the handle around and cracked it into her jaw. Her head whipped to the side, but as she spun back to face me, I simply jabbed her in the throat with the butt end of the maul, then swung the head down onto her toes.
The bones of storm goddesses make the same satisfying crunch as normal bones when they break. The timbre of her scream changed, and she stumbled back, losing her grip on the sword. As soon as her fingers left the hilt, it sizzled out of existence, burning a sword-shaped hole in the brick pavers of the back porch. She limped away from me. The winds subsided, but the sky grew darker.
“You have made a mistake, mortal. An enemy beyond reckoning. I will hunt you until your last day, and haunt your every—”
“Still talking,” I snapped, then muscled the blunt end of the maul into her temple. She fell back flat against the ground. Immediately the storm let up. A ray of sunshine peaked through the clouds. When I looked up, I saw that her tower was rapidly descending.
“Oh, that’s nice. Coming down to take mama home, are you? Well, you better hurry, because—”
What I forgot was that the tower was just a metaphor, the false reality of an actual tornado. The wind shrieked around my head, and the shed blew into a thousand pieces. I was thrown into the garden. The sound of the tornado was deafening. I tried to look up, but all I could see was rain and a dark cloud that rippled with lightning. The woman’s limp form lifted into the air, carried up with the funnel cloud. I thought I saw feathers pressed damp against her legs, and feet clawed and scaly, one of them bent at an awkward angle. She disappeared into the clouds and was gone.
Chapter FIFTEEN