And she wasn’t sure what the answer should be.
She pulled the gate closed and looked for Selda. Behind Zel, footsteps slammed against the sidewalk and suddenly people surrounded Zel. In uniforms—white with medical patches on the side.
It took her a moment to realize that the two men and two women around her were paramedics, and they thought she was injured.
“Come with us,” one of the women said. “You’re bleeding.”
Zel looked down at herself, and suddenly understood the reason for their controlled alarm. Her clothes were shredded. The insides of her arms and legs were covered with bloody scratches. Her skin was coated with black. She had no idea what her face looked like, but her skull was probably a nightmare of blood and scrapes as well from the loss of the hair.
Still, she wanted to see Selda. She needed to talk to Selda, before anything else.
“I’m all right,” Zel said. She didn’t want them to work on her. She didn’t want them near her right now, even though she appreciated their concern.
“No, you’re not,” the paramedic closest to her—a woman—said. “We need to clean you off, see how badly you’re injured. It looks like you’ve been hit with the blast wave, and there could be internal damage—”
“I’m fine,” Zel said, feeling slightly annoyed, even though she knew the woman was doing her job.
Strangely, Zel was the one who was calm here. The paramedics seemed a bit charged, as if they were unnerved by what they were seeing.
Zel scanned the neighborhood. The magical had managed to contain the scene to her yard and some rooftops. There wasn’t much out of the ordinary here.
Except for the burning crater, the gushing smoke, and the hole where her house had been.
Maybe her calm wasn’t the real thing. Maybe it was shock setting in.
It probably was. Not that it mattered. She needed to find Selda.
“Miss—Ma’am—Sir—um, please,” the paramedic said, “let us help you.”
Zel almost smiled at the woman’s confusion as to her gender. The bald head, the way she was holding herself, the fact that this was Los Angeles, probably added to the confusion.
And if any of the paramedics knew Sonny in his Greater World persona, that would add as well. Sonny brought home a lot of people who were gender neutral.
“I’m fine,” Zel said again, not wanting to argue and really, not wanting to find out what was going on internally at the moment. “Let me settle this, and I’ll be right back.”
Whether she would or not, she had no idea. Because there were some injuries that the magical were better at treating than the medics of the Greater World were. Not all. Actual technical physical injuries were often best left to heal the non-magical way. Too many magical repairs, and the body would collapse with the wrong kind of magical pressure on it.
Sonny had stressed that over and over again. He had seen it, he said, and he made sure Zel knew that the medics of the Greater World could help her too.
Right now, though, she didn’t want their help. She smiled at them, actually patted the woman on the arm (leaving a sooty handprint on the woman’s white uniform sleeve), and walked past them toward the people milling in the street.
The woman shouted after her, but Zel ignored it.
She finally saw Selda, standing in the middle of a scrum of first responders. Police officers, firefighters, and two men in white uniforms Zel didn’t recognize.
Selda’s clothes were torn as well, but she wasn’t as covered in smoky soot as Zel was.
“…wasn’t inside the house when it exploded,” Selda was saying, and her tone was slightly annoyed. “I’m familiar with the whole when you smell rotten eggs thing. I had been inside just a moment before, and I hadn’t smelled anything like that…”
That was right: the house smelled of rancid grape bubble gum and burning sugar, not rotten eggs. But Zel knew where Selda was going with this. Natural gas, which was odorless, was treated with a rotten egg smell so that when the gas leaked, the stench made it immediately noticeable.
“…never seen a natural gas explosion,” Selda was saying, “and I doubt this was one, but it wouldn’t hurt to shut down the lines near the neighborhood.”
What was she thinking? It wasn’t a natural gas explosion. There was no need to inconvenience everyone.
“…still burning in there,” Selda was saying, “and who knows what might ignite.”
Oh, that was what she was doing. She was trying to prevent a real world explosion around the magical one.
Zel shivered ever so slightly. She had forgotten that magic could have Greater World consequences.
It felt like her brain was wrapped in cotton, her thought processes a little slower than she wanted them to be.
Then she saw movement on the other side of the fence. Henry came around it, and paramedics swarmed toward him, exclaiming something about burns.
He tried to wave them off as if they were flies. (And that, considering that he was the Frog Prince, was probably not the best analogy.)
His gaze met hers over the swarm of paramedics and he mouthed, You okay?
No, she thought. My house has been blown up. My husband and best friend is missing and I might be injured.
But she mouthed back, Yes, and resisted the urge to add, I’m fine.
Oh, wow. Maybe she really was in shock. But she didn’t dare let that thought in deep. Because if she did, she might collapse right here on the street.
She couldn’t do that. Too much was at stake.
She stopped just outside the scrum of first responders around Selda.
“Oh, Zel,” Selda said with more relief in her voice than Zel expected.
The mortals turned toward Zel. They looked stunned, and one of the firefighters waved the paramedics forward.
Apparently her appearance was a lot worse than she thought.
“I thought you were inside,” Selda said. Her voice was actually shaking.
“I was in the doorway,” Zel said. Or maybe she had been just out of the doorway. The exact second of the explosion was something she couldn’t quite recall—just that sensation of sailing through the air, before slamming into that tree.
“You didn’t smell rotten eggs, did you?” one of the men in the unfamiliar uniforms asked. The logo on his shirt identified him as an employee of SoCalGas.
Zel wasn’t sure how to answer. Her gaze met Selda’s. Selda gave her the tiniest of nods.
“I think so,” Zel said. “Something was wrong. I was trying to get out of the house when it exploded.”
“That’s all we need,” the man said. He brought his cell up to his face and spoke into the little device. “Shut her down.”
Then he walked away, giving more instructions.
Her? Who was her? Then Zel understood. He meant shut off the gas. Oh, wow, her brain really was sluggish. She needed to corral it, and make it work for her instead of fighting her.
The firefighters had hurried away as well. Zel finally understood that they hadn’t been standing around because of magic. None of the magical had prevented them from going in. They were waiting until the scene was secure before they brought in equipment that could spark and ignite even more explosions.
The police officers nodded at Selda, then headed to the edges of the street, so that they could block more cars. News vans had shown up, and above a helicopter thrummed.
Selda looked up at that as if she wanted to freeze it in the sky. Clearly no one had thought to protect the space above the burning house.
“Don’t worry,” Zel said softly. “A helicopter like that one can’t fly into smoke.”
And the smoke plume was still rising, a large increasing cloud of inky blackness. That stench of rancid grape gum and burnt sugar had leached into the street.
One of the mortals in a yard nearby started to sneeze.
Zel licked her lips—or tried to. They were chapped and her tongue was dry. She needed water.
She really needed to sit do
wn.
But not yet.
She moved closer to Selda, who was still staring at that helicopter. Zel touched Selda’s arm. Selda looked at her, the lines in her face lightly coated with soot. She didn’t look as bad as Zel probably (definitely) did, but she didn’t look good either.
“There’s still magical in the yard,” Zel said. “No mortal should go in there.”
“I know,” Selda said. “But I don’t think we should use magic to get them out.”
“Then go in and carry them out, for god’s sake,” Zel said. She hated it when the magical thought there was no way to do something because magic wouldn’t work. “We have to get them out of there before things get worse.”
“Of course,” Selda said, shaking her head slightly. She seemed appalled at herself. She spun on one foot and headed toward the side of the fence where Zel had stood a moment ago.
Zel started to follow, but her knees wobbled. She really needed some water. She needed to sit down. And she needed to go with Selda, rescue the last of the magical trapped in the yard. Zel needed to…
Her legs collapsed beneath her, and suddenly her butt was on the concrete. There was blood in her mouth from the jarring landing, and her buttocks probably hurt, but she didn’t really feel it. Nor did she feel her leg which was twisted awkwardly.
She straightened the leg out, glad that it worked, and rubbed her hands together. The palms were covered in gravel and with prickly palm tree bits. She needed to get up. She needed to use her hair magic to get the people out of the yard.
Oh, heck, she just needed to close her eyes for a minute, and then she would be all right.
Chapter 17
Zel collapsed onto the street. She landed in an awkward sitting position, straightened one leg, and then toppled backwards.
Henry shoved aside the paramedics who were threatening him with bottles of some kind of burn cream, and sprinted toward her side.
He didn’t quite arrive before she fell backwards. Even with all the noise around, he heard her head smack against the pavement, and he winced. He had no idea what that would do to her.
And no one else seemed to notice. They were all involved with their own part of the crisis. He skated to a stop behind her, terrified he would see a blood pool growing on the pavement.
He didn’t, but she was clearly unconscious. Up close, she looked even worse than she had from afar. Her face was covered in dirt and blood, her scalp looked like someone had poked holes in it, and her eyes were sunken into her face.
He couldn’t pick her up. He knew that much about head injuries and trauma. He wasn’t sure if she passed out from something physical—something that would affect mortals as well as the magical—but he couldn’t rule out magic either. Which meant he didn’t dare let the paramedics carry her away.
The three paramedics who had been tending him were hurrying over to her as well. Henry didn’t think hard about what to do next: he just did it.
He put a barrier over Zel—one that made it look like she wasn’t on the street at all, but one that made it impossible for anyone to drive or walk over her.
The paramedics running toward Zel stopped, and frowned at Henry.
“I’m okay,” he said, as if they had been coming for him. “You need to help some of the others.”
And he put just a little magical force behind that last sentence—charm magic, something he hadn’t used in a long, long time. The paramedics raised their heads in unison and scanned the area, looking for more injured.
He didn’t have a lot of time. He hadn’t put a lot of force into that spell, and it wouldn’t last much longer than the suggestion itself.
Besides, he hadn’t wanted to use much magic, even though he was outside of the yard. That dark magic seemed to be encroaching ever outward, with the smoke and the smell. He didn’t want to trigger something even worse.
He stood, his knees cracking, and looked for help. Selda was organizing a group of leprechauns who had shown up, late as usual. He hoped they weren’t drunk. A few other magical had shown up as well, slipping in around the police barrier. He recognized Ramon McQueen, who worked for Jodi Walters. McQueen didn’t believe he was among the magical, but he worked with the magical and had come into the Archetype Place a few times.
McQueen was dressed down in jeans and a black shirt, something Henry had never seen before. Some muscular men stood beside him, and it took Henry a half second to realize where he knew them from. Sonny had brought them to the Archetype Place shortly after each one had arrived from the various Kingdoms.
He had helped them start their lives in the Greater World.
They were crowding toward Selda, and were probably going to offer their help. Farther back, near the police cars, a red Mercedes had just parked haphazardly. Jodi Walters was getting out of the driver’s side, and her partner—lover?—fiancé?—Blue who was one of the Charmings (which annoyed the heck out of Henry, because Blue had been the most obnoxious man on the planet), got out of the passenger side. Blue had some strong magic, and Jodi was one of the magical fixers, whom Henry had relied on to help with some of the more difficult tasks for the Archetype Place.
Seeing both of them relieved him just a little.
But that didn’t help with Zel.
She was still unconscious. The paramedics he had sent away were treating other people, but a different group of paramedics was now looking at him, as if they could see Zel.
He wasn’t sure they could see Zel. They shouldn’t have been able to see Zel, but he never knew which mortals had just a touch of magical power and which ones didn’t. Someone like that might have been working with emergency services.
He looked over his shoulder, saw one of the Very Serious Witches rummaging in the cloth bag she had brought.
“Hey, Polly!” he yelled. Usually her name made him smile (inwardly, anyway). He had teased her mercilessly about her name when he was in his frog form, implying (okay, saying) that she should change it because only parrots were named Polly. In fact, when he was having a particularly bad day, he would greet her by asking her if she wanted a cracker.
She raised her head. Her face was round, her eyes gray-green, and her lips bow-shaped. But she was built like a bouncer at a bar (which she had been once)—short, squat, and muscular. Underneath the gray clothes she usually wore to crime scenes, she had a wealth of tattoos.
When she realized he was the one calling her, her frown was magnificent.
“I need help here,” he said. Then, worried that she wouldn’t help him at all, he swept his hand over Zel.
She still wasn’t waking up. Shouldn’t people who hit their heads wake up?
Polly blinked, and he realized she had to work to see Zel. Then Polly’s frown grew even deeper. She slung her bag over her shoulder, grabbed her pointed witch’s hat from the ground beside her, and crumpled the hat in one hand.
Then she marched over.
“What did you do?” she snapped as she crouched beside him.
“I set up a barrier,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if any work the mortals did—”
“To Rapunzel,” Polly said, with a bit of fury in her voice.
She had the right not to trust him. He had treated her badly. He had treated a lot of the magical badly. He wasn’t sure why Selda had kept him on for all those years.
He licked his lips, then wished he hadn’t. They were painfully cracked, and his tongue was a lot drier than it should have been.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “She toppled on her own. She’s clearly injured, but I’m not sure if the injuries are magical or if they’re real or if they’re a combination of both.”
“I’m not a healer,” Polly said.
“Neither am I,” Henry said. “But I need to get her to one. I need to get her out of here, but I’m afraid with all of that magic going on—”
He swept his hand toward the smoke, which was forming a large cloud over the neighborhood.
“—that the magic will make matters worse.�
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“We’ve been using some magic outside of the fence,” Polly said, not looking up at the smoke. “We have to take some risks.”
Her frown had grown less fierce. She understood what he needed now.
“Still,” Polly said, “since this is her house, any magic used on or around her might backfire. We need to take her somewhere safe.”
The we relieved him. He was glad for the help.
“We can’t take her to the Archetype Place,” he said. “If this is some kind of magical attack, we don’t want to lead whoever is behind this there.”
“Yeah,” Polly said. “We need somewhere local. I’m not familiar with the neighborhood, though, and I noted as we flew here—”
(The Very Serious Witches used broomsticks, and didn’t care who saw them. Selda had been deeply irritated about that for years.)
“—that we’re near schools and a lot of hardcore mortal areas.”
Hardcore mortal areas were areas where mortals gathered and went about their business. Those areas were often off-limits to the magical—schools, places of worship, government buildings—because use of magic around there might create a whole different kind of danger.
She was right: there were a lot of hardcore mortal areas. The magical needed to contain this right now. Not only was the neighborhood threatened, so was everyone in the entire area.
“I live near here,” he said. “We can take her to my place.”
Messy as it was. Although messy didn’t even describe it. It was a pigsty and he was embarrassed to bring anyone into it.
He couldn’t even send a magic spell ahead to clean the area up, because he was afraid of using that kind of magic so near to the open burning pit behind the fence.
“All right,” Polly said. “Give me the address. I’ll bubble us, get us there, and then you get her comfortable while I bring in a healer.”
Bubbling was exactly what it sounded like. They would be put in a protective bubble and flown that way to Henry’s house. Once inside, the bubble would dissipate. If anyone tried to trace the magic, they would end up tracing the bits of the dispersed bubble rather than the magical beings inside of the bubble.
Hidden Charm Page 13