by Jim Stein
As I spoke, I snaked a bit of power into my palm and let a flicker of flame dance to a simple beat. Fire didn’t like being summoned with nothing to consume, so I kept the demonstration brief. Chilblains made my fingers itch after the flame winked out. Vance’s gaze traveled from my raised hand, to Ralph, and then to Pina. Dots connected behind his eyes, and I was certain the sprite’s magic was all that kept him from freaking. But he looked none too happy.
“So how do we let HQ know what’s going on? The police need to get things moving on the other side.”
“That’s a problem,” I said. “We’re hemmed in against the river. Once we cross, we could send someone around the long way through old Wilmington. Public Works would know if the bridge there is passable.”
“Might work, but sand’s stacking up fast along the riverfront. When he disappeared, the sheriff had a small team down there trying to figure out if the dunes looped up behind us. It would help if the damned radios worked.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Piper unwrapped a candy bar and handed it down to Ralph, which was ridiculous. The little guy was more than capable of opening his own treats. “You should send Anna or one of the other Brights over to the north side. It might not be perfect, but firespeak would give us a way to coordinate.”
Anna was the first half-sibling I’d met on the road. Her sunny five-foot-three frame hid a mountain of magical potential. In one particularly harrowing situation, she’d flown into a rage and unleashed a devastating Spirit spell that had saved our butts. Since then I’d been working to refine her control, but we couldn’t come close to the level of power she’d released by accident.
At sixteen, Anna was among the youngest of Kokopelli’s children. We called ourselves Brights in honor of the group’s carefree attitudes and outrageously colorful outfits—characteristics that fit Anna perfectly. But as the first of Kokopelli’s kids, I tended to fall outside their norm. For me the name was simply a reminder we were the good guys. Anna and a few others had followed the band’s tour all the way back to New Philadelphia. She’d kept in touch with her family back in California, more of a wandering free spirit than a runaway.
We’d experimented with a number of new spells among the Brights that were left.. Having Kokopelli as a father gave most a bit of magic and we’d figured out how to use what power each had to best effect. For the Fire element that meant making a lot of smoke for those who couldn’t summon flame and sending terse communications across the ethereal plane the element traveled, firespeak. The technique was by no means perfected. We’d only managed a few yes and no exchanges, plus we didn’t have any Brights across town. I said as much to Piper.
“What if you use candle halves that were once joined, or wood from the same log—that sort of thing. Fuel from a common source should focus the flames and connect them better.”
“Interesting. Fire certainly has a mind of its own. Common fuel just might focus things enough to get whole messages through.”
Lack of magic didn’t hamper my sister. Her lifetime of occult study and recent delving into true magic let her puzzle out problems with astounding clarity. Piper saw connections I couldn’t—either because I was too close to the problem or my limited instruction from Koko and Pina predisposed me to think of spells a certain way.
Sometime during our discussion Ralph jumped up onto the couch. I blinked at our odd audience. The three shared a bowl of cereal Piper had added to the array of food for our guest—dry cereal because my sister had something against milk. Pina picked out the little sweet bits for the imp. In the end, we worked out something that just might work. Vance and I headed downtown to round up the Brights for a practice session—just like old times.
“I didn’t want to get Ralph’s hopes up back at the house,” I said as we pulled out of the drive. “But tell me about the imps you saw in the desert.”
“Ed, you know this is Mondo weird right?” Vance didn’t quite blanch, but it was clear he no longer had Pina’s calming influence. “Magic and monsters from another dimension?”
“Ralph isn’t a monster.” My voice came out sharper than I meant, and I sucked in a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t know what he was at first, but after a while…well, he’s just one of the gang now, a person. He’s separated from his own kind. If there are people like him out on the sand, maybe it’s a way to get him home. Tell me what they were like.”
“Wild and naked is what they were like!” He paused then rushed on at my scowl. “Seriously, Ed. Your…friend back there may be all civilized, but if what I saw were his people, they acted more like a rabid pack than a social group. They carried stone knives and swarmed the things shambling around in there on at least two occasions. Never attacked me, but I was booking along and didn’t wait to see what they were up to.”
“Are you sure they were imps?”
“Hey, all I can tell you is they looked like carbon copies of your little gray man there, devil tail and all.”
I turned down Garnet Street, and we cruised past empty houses. Manny and Quinn hadn’t needed to evacuate the area. This neighborhood was deserted and under township maintenance, awaiting the day people might want to occupy the luxury homes—a day that would never come. As we drew closer to downtown and the studio, the homes shrank in size, if not extravagance.
“Watch out!”
I had been about to turn onto Delaware, but a wall of sand forced me to swerve right even as Vance called out his warning—as if I could miss that! But it wasn’t the ill-placed dune he’d been worried about. A half dozen brown tumbleweeds thundered down the sandy slope.
“Hang on!” I swung left in the loose sand flowing across the street, intending to gun down a side street, but the damned things actually turned to intercept us like a pack of self-guided bowling balls. They came on the cresting wave of sand as it smashed into a bank, cutting us off.
I jerked the wheel and slammed my poor car into reverse, turning into the skid, slewing away from the creatures, and steering by frantic glances over my shoulder. And they were creatures. Through the patchwork of curled branches, boney claws raked at the loose surface to direct each ball’s motion. Yellow teeth flashed inside the lacy exterior where a solid entity of some sort managed to glare at us despite rolling at break-neck speed.
Five of the balls tracked low around the turn created by the sand piled against the building. The last took the turn too high, slid off the dune, and slammed into the brickwork with a sickening thud. Bricks and broken bits of what looked like bleeding sticks rained down and lay still.
“There!” Vance pointed at the open alley ahead on our left.
We looped behind a stone building that had once been a quaint church. The sand stretched and flowed in pursuit, impossibly fast. I spun us around and shot out of the far side of the parking lot. The damned tumbles had taken the short route around the building. The closest creature swelled in the rearview, and the rear fender sank under a heavy blow.
The double yellow line shone clear beneath thinning sand as another tag on my bumper had the rear wheels skidding left and right. Woody mandibles gaped wide in the rearview, a two by five inch horror show as the tumble dropped back then put on a burst of speed. I braced for the impact.
It never came. I glanced in the mirror. A spill of sand marking the edge of the dune dropped behind. Three creatures still pursued us coming on full speed, but each winked out as it hit the line where sand gave way to blacktop.
“Where’d they go?” Vance asked.
“Not sure.” I shook my head and stopped at an angle so we could see the street behind us. “I get that they can’t leave the sand, but those things had momentum. They must have gone…somewhere.”
The church and houses were gone too, replaced by a sandy mound that buried the drives to either side of the road in foot-deep drifts as it stretched toward us. Wind swirled gritty clouds across the dune, but even these dust devils disappeared at the blacktop.
“I guess anywhere but here is good
.” Vance shrugged. “But I see what you mean about the sand accelerating.”
We scanned our surroundings. Nothing stirred so I let out the breath straining against my ribs and drove on to the studio. Accelerating was one thing, but the desert had pursued us with deliberate intelligence.
4. Firespeak
A
NNA’S PALMS turned clammy, and she couldn’t catch her breath as she swept a stray lock of blond from her eyes. Too many people packed the small room. Ed and Mr. Conti stood at the map marked with ever shrinking safe zones, listening to the team leads finish their reports.
“This leaves us little time,” Mr. Conti told the group crowded into the radio station. “Quinn, Blue Team’s sector is clear, yes?”
“Everyone’s settled into the shelters by the bridge.” Quinn nodded and gave Anna a wink.
Anna liked the woman, especially the way she made Ed think things through. He didn’t need the help as much anymore, but on the road there’d definitely been a repeating dynamic between the two. Anna shivered. Gaps riddled her memory, but what she retained sent chills up her spine. The worst was supposed to be behind them; coming back to New Philadelphia was supposed to mark a new beginning.
The people scattered around the room each handled something important. Ed’s request for her to attend the meeting came as a surprise. She stood back against the wall as the senior Bright manned the maps and added his perspectives to the report from Deputy Cochran. More strange creatures were bad news, but the thought of an intelligence behind the desert made her sick. She clasped her hands to keep them from shaking.
“Manny?” Mr. Conti turned to the band’s handsome manager.
“One neighborhood left for Red Team to clear. This new wave of sand makes it difficult. The major roads have been cut, isolating about thirty people. We’ll have to go in on foot to get them out and hope the sand holds back long enough. If all goes well, we’ll have everyone safe by noon.”
Safe? Anna suppressed a bitter laugh. None of this felt safe. If it was safe, they wouldn’t be about to flee across to New Jersey. Her hands just wouldn’t stop shaking, and she hugged herself tight. She wouldn’t trade her experiences with the A-Chords for anything, but this wasn’t the carefree life she’d left California to find.
The Brights were wonderful and Ed’s training so very helpful, but she wanted to go back to just being happy. And with the phones out, her parents back in Bakersfield would be worried to death. What good was this rogue magic power if she couldn’t even let them know she was okay?
An arm snaked around her shoulders, and Anna leaned into Piper’s half-hug. She’d spent plenty of time with Ed’s sister. The confident redhead always maintained control and acted so grown up. Piper knew gobs more about magic than anyone else and probably knew why Ed had invited her to the evacuation planning session. After the meeting would be a good time to pick Piper’s brain.
“Mr. C, we should get the buses loaded and ready to move as soon as Manny’s team returns.” Ed’s shoulders sagged. “Things are too unpredictable. If we caravan down to Wilmington, we can find temporary shelter, make a long-term plan, and get a team back across to check for survivors on the north side of town.
“We’ve worked out a way to communicate when the radios are down. Even if the main group needs to move on, we can stay in touch and bring the rest to the permanent location.”
“Make that happen.” Mr. Conti pointed at Meg who bobbed her head. “Plan on setting out at 2 p.m. Crossing the old bridge will not take long, but finding a stopping place and ironing out sleeping and cooking arrangements could be challenging. Make sure everyone knows the schedule.”
The meeting droned on. They talked about getting the rest of New Philadelphia’s people out before heading for New York or south to Baltimore. If radios and phones worked on the far side of the river, Mr. Conti’s contacts would help them find a new home.
The thought of home brought a pang of longing for her soft bed and the scent of almond blossoms drifting through the curtains on dry air. But the Brights were her family on the road. She’d grown close to Ed and Piper during her recovery from the strange ailment Pina had helped her shake. Then there was cute little Ralph and the ever-present warm weight of Max laying across her lap, keeping her calm when the world spun out of control.
Her breath caught, and she swallowed an ache thinking of Ed’s beautiful doggie. So many nights he’d calmed her. But Max was gone, leaving a hole in her heart like when she’d left her parents’ farm to follow the music. That the music had power—she had power—had come as a shock. Her illness made much of the time in Milwaukee fuzzy, but the Spirit element rising to do her bidding had felt glorious and empowering, even if she’d collapsed from the effort. She hadn’t been able to recreate that spell, but Ed worked with her as time allowed, helping focus her talent with the Spirit and Fire elements.
“What’s Ed want me to do in Wilmington?” Anna asked Piper after the meeting broke up.
“Fill in as a radio.” Piper’s lopsided grin made her green eyes sparkle. At five eleven, the woman was better than half a foot taller and towered over Anna as they hunted through the supplies spilling from the back of the big black SUV. Ed’s sister could be intimidating, especially when at odds with her brother, but she’d always been kind to Anna. “Ah, here they are!”
Piper pulled a box from the jumble, flipped open the lid, and withdrew a fat candle made of dark yellow wax. The cylinder was scored in the middle. Piper snapped it in two and handed her half. A wide wooden wick sat amid the wood shavings molded into the wax, and the scent of lavender made her smile.
“Candles?”
“Yep, to help with the communication spell you all have been working on.” Piper waved at the box of candles. “My theory is that using common fuel when you call Fire will provide a binding to help us get more than just single syllables through. These are made from the same batch of wax with maple wicks and ash chips to aid in communication—again from the same branches. You’re one of the strongest Brights. Ed wants you and a few others to test these out so the main group and the ones heading back to New Philly can talk.”
“This is all crazy, right?”
“As nutsy as it gets.” Piper nodded, but her eyes shone with excitement.
It wasn’t her fault. Ed’s sister was a self-proclaimed lover of all things occult. The biggest mystery Anna had ever contemplated was why Da’s honeybees kept disappearing. It was bad enough that people were dying out, now some evil force came after her friends.
“Why can’t they just leave us alone? We’re not a threat.”
“Good question,” Ed said as he crossed from the back door to join them. “The more I see here, the less I think this is the work of the Dark Court. Their prior attacks targeted those of us with the most power. The dark can’t stand the thought of Koko’s kids repopulating the planet. Heck, even the Neutral Council doesn’t want anything to interfere with the ‘natural order’—as if the C-12 virus was some god-sent punishment and not manmade birth control gone rampant.
“But this is different. The sand swept in while we were gone. As far as I know there’re no other Brights in New Philly. The desert isn’t focused on us; it’s claiming normal humans minding their own business. Something’s definitely changed.”
“Maybe they aren’t satisfied waiting for us to die out,” Piper said.
“All I know is we need to get out of here.” Ed looked tired and older. “Much as I hate to abandon our hometown, we just don’t have the resources to fight this thing.”
He took the other half of the candle from Piper and flowed Fire magic into it. The wood wick crackled to life. Anna took the hint and did the same for her half, using the chorus of the A-Chords’ “Live for Tomorrow” to fuel her spell. Fire was still tricky to handle. It wiggled and squirmed, wanting to eat the entire candle. She throttled it down, only letting a trickle through—so much harder than using Spirit.
“Fire is always too eager, but you’re managing.”
Ed’s voice held a strange echoing quality, and…
“Your lips didn’t move!” Her eyes went wide.
“So you heard that. Good, you try.”
“Uh, hello? Testing one, two, three.” Anna found it hard to think with Jinx’s lyrics running through her head so clung to the instrumental portions, which made it easier to focus on the flame. “What did you say into a spell like this? She could talk about her problems adjusting in New Philadelphia, how she missed poor Max, or even her desire to…”
“Okay, a little too much there,” Ed thought into her mind. “That’s all coming through loud and clear. Don’t let all your thoughts merge with the music, just the ones you want to send out.”
“Oh, sorry.” Her face grew warm. What a stupid mistake. Ed must think she was such a child. Her hands flew to her mouth—a totally unreasonable action given they spoke silently. She reviewed her thoughts, looked to Ed, and decided she hadn’t broadcasted the last bit.
“Piper, you’re a genius,” Ed said aloud. “We’ll have to practice more, but these work brilliantly!”
5. Dreamspeak
“T
OMORROW’S THE DAY.” I threw another pebble into my fountain.
My feet dangled above the clear water. Ralph sat to my left clutching Mr. Rabbit and mimed a throw. The dog toy had been Max’s favorite, and showed up when our imp grew melancholy. I blinked when a small splash sent ripples out to intersect the ones from my rock. Very little surprised me lately, especially when it came to the imp or my other guests.
“Yep, sad times.” Pete sat on the far side of the gushing guitar sculpture. “Wish I could see the farm once more.”
My stocky friend had the square jaw, stormy eyes, and straw-colored hair characteristic of his family. Generations of Eastons had grown up on the farm outside of town. Unfortunately, the sand hit hardest out on his homestead. I’d spent a fair amount of time there before the tour, helping level boulders and later dealing with a weird insect infestation.