Forecast

by Rinda Elliott

  Hammer? I mouthed, lifting an eyebrow.

  He nodded, the blush climbing into his cheeks.

  “What’s going on there, Coral? Is everything really okay?”

  It took effort to tear my gaze off Taran. I turned away so I could focus. “No, but if I’m right about your spell, you don’t have time to worry about me. Did you smell anything else? Something kind of bitter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Myrrh.” I rolled my eyes though she couldn’t see. “And I can’t believe you don’t remember those smells from that campground in Kansas. Remember that old Deadhead groupie?”

  She went silent and I could almost hear her mind working over old memories. “But that was a seduction spell. Coral, trust me, the people in this parking lot aren’t interested in hooking up.”

  “It’s gotta be Mom. Sounds like a command spell and it will make people do whatever she wants. She’s used one before. All she has to do is get enough of it into space, make a suggestion and it’ll spread as long as the oil is a little wet. It can even dry and be pretty powerful.”

  “Suggestion.” She trailed off as if she was trying to remember the spell. “She must have sprayed it on the carts. But why? Makes no sense.”

  “Sounds like she wants a fight.”

  “A diversion!” There were noises—the slam of a door, then more voices. “Is there an antidote?” she yelled.

  “I’m sorry—I don’t know! It will fade soon anyway. But you can’t worry about all those people. All you can do is—”

  “Protect Vanir,” she interrupted. “Thanks, Coral. I have to go.”

  I set my phone back on the small table just as the power in the hotel shut off.

  “Crap!” Taran strode to the window, pushed the curtains all the way open. Not that it helped much with it being overcast and storming.

  I joined him, still wrapped in the blanket, still freezing. The water hadn’t receded yet. Debris floated along with it as it moved. Snow fell onto trees and buildings and melted into the water. There were cars, chairs and...I squinted, knowing I didn’t want to know for sure, but my heart already did. I choked as hot tears flooded my eyes. “Gods,” I whispered. “There are still people in that.”

  “Don’t look.” Taran turned me away from the window and wrapped his arms around me—blanket and all. “It’s going to get cold in here fast. We should probably get under more blankets.”

  There were voices in the hall and I thought about the other people. “We have to open up the room so some of the other people can come in and get warm, too.”

  “We should.” He nodded. “Just give me a couple of minutes first.” He took my hands and had me open the blanket so he could step in close against my body again.

  “Oh, you’re so warm,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his back. The movement cocooned us together, and his body heat felt so nice, I pressed my cheek against his chest as I had earlier. “So... a couple of minutes to cuddle?” I smiled against his skin.

  “Yeah. Something good after...just after.”

  I knew what he meant. The devastation of the town—of a lot of towns by now—made me feel shredded. I couldn’t imagine how many people hadn’t gotten out of the water’s way. Tightening my arms around Taran, I breathed him in.

  “You’re something else,” he said, his voice so husky, it sent shivers up my back.

  “So are you.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad you decided to find me to protect me.”

  I knew he still thought it was funny. “I didn’t expect all this.”

  “Which part? The storm surge, or whatever it is I’m starting to think we both feel?”

  “Neither. No, both.” I shook my head slowly. “You’ve got my brain firing a little off.”

  “Good, because you’ve got my entire body firing off.” This time, his groan sounded more embarrassed. “Wait, scratch that—didn’t come out right.”

  Heat filled my cheeks and I knew my blush would be highly visible, even in the low light. “I’m glad I mess you up.”

  “Me, too.” He rested his forehead on mine, then sighed. “We should let people in. But I’d rather be alone with you.”

  I looked at the bed, then back at him. “It’s going to get even colder. We can sit under the covers together. Keep each other warm.”

  “Works for me.” He cupped my face, stared at me another long moment then dropped a light kiss on my lips before sighing and walking to the door.

  The moment he opened it and invited them in, a bunch of people filed into the room. They all had blankets so I figured the hotel staff had passed them out.

  There were lost, terrified expressions on every single person who settled in. People sat on the floor against walls. A group huddled on the other bed. Taran crawled under the covers with me and we sat against the headboard—our sides plastered to each other. Two teens and an older woman sat on the edges of our bed. They talked about what they’d seen on the news—the last thing heard was storms had hit halfway up the coast, too.

  “I heard Cuba is gone,” a woman on the other bed said. “Just gone.”

  Taran threaded our fingers together under the covers, and I sat kind of stunned as people talked around us. The end of the world was really happening and all these people had no idea exactly what was going on—they just knew it was awful and scary as hell. I felt Taran’s heat against me, leaned closer. The responsibility I felt in that instant nearly crushed me, and I selfishly needed some of his strength. We had to stop this somehow.

  But what could we—a bunch of kids carrying god souls—do?

  “How long until the water goes away?” A girl about my age threw the question out into the room.

  “Looks like it’s lower already,” a man said as he stared out of the window. “It’s going to be bad. The town started evacuations too late. If we had this much water here, it had to have gone inland pretty far.”

  I picked up my cell phone but it had no signal. It was so strange having no access to information. All we could do was wait this out.

  “I hope my dad is okay,” Taran whispered.

  “Me, too.” I turned, laid my forehead on his shoulder.

  Everyone kept talking, but I started to tune them out. Taran shifted us until I could actually rest my cheek on his chest again and he could put his arm around me. His warmth and the drone of voices lulled me into a sort of stupor where I thought about the people who hadn’t made it, worried about my sisters. Were they going through something just as bad? I got the feeling there was more than just a fight in a Walmart parking lot for Raven. And I should have called Kat. Bossiness aside, she’d be frantic. If there was anything I knew for sure, it was that she loved me even when her mouth got away from her.

  With plans to call her as soon as my phone worked, my body took the decision of whether to stay awake or not right out of my hands entirely. I fell asleep to the sound of Taran’s heartbeat.

  * * *

  “Hey, wake up.” Someone nudged me and I blinked to find Taran staring down at me. I blinked harder to clear my vision, not sure I liked his worried, exhausted half smile. “It’s been hours and I think we should try to find my dad. The water receded.”

  A few people still milled about the room. Taran handed me the sweatpants he’d been wearing. I looked down to see he’d put the wet jeans back on. He grimaced. “Trust me, you want the dry pants. The guy who gave them to us came by the room and said to keep them.”

  “Thanks,” I said, clearing my throat when it came out scratchy. I didn’t remember ever being this tired. Wiggling into the pants under the covers, I frowned when Taran handed me damp socks.

  “Sorry. I guess it’s too cold for things to dry out. I should have thought to turn on the heater in the bathroom before the power went out. It’s a good thing you have t
hose orange boots. My shoes will be worse.”

  It took a long time to get out of the hotel. The debris—chunks of soaked drywall; broken, jagged pieces of wood; and twisted fragments of metal—started in the stairwell. Picking over it while keeping my balance was harder than I expected. The first floor lobby made both Taran and me stop and stare. Broken wood from furniture and possibly boats lay in haphazard piles, pieces of walls and appliances mixed with overturned chairs and soggy paper. Puddles stood all over the place and anything with any sort of indentation was filled with water—including an open suitcase on top of part of a table. A woman knelt in front of what was left of the front desk, crying, digging through debris.

  “There’s a boot there,” I whispered to Taran, pointing.

  He quickly climbed over debris and helped the woman pull rubble off the person attached to that boot. Her sobs grew louder, and Taran laid a gentle hand on her shoulder as she crouched over the fallen man. One who’d obviously not made it out of the water in time.

  Blinking back tears, I watched Taran pick his way back to me.

  Cold wind swept through an opening in the wall and I shivered. Hard.

  Taran cursed, took my hand and helped me over some chairs. Some of the water on the floor looked as if it was beginning to freeze. That scared me enough to walk faster toward the front of the lobby. The door had been washed out completely, but the opening was covered by what looked like half a boat. Taran growled and shoved it hard. It creaked and crashed over, sending up splats of water and snow. When we got outside, I stared at the huge thing—no ordinary person would have been able to budge that. The shocked look on a man’s face on the other side of it proved that. Even Taran looked startled, but he pulled me to the left—away from the crowds gathering and standing around shell-shocked as they took in the ruins of the town. We had to walk around what was probably the other half of that boat.

  “We’ll cut through yards—or what’s left of them—to get to Hollywood Boulevard,” he said, and I actually heard his teeth chatter. “I really want to find my dad. I need to know he’s okay.”

  While the wind had slowed a little, the snow now fell hard, though it melted on the wet ground. The temperature had dropped even more. “This is going to start turning to ice soon,” I said as we skirted around a car on its side. There was a pink teddy bear sprawled next to it. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I tightened my fingers around Taran’s. I was terrified we were going to see bodies. There was no way we wouldn’t. Swallowing the thick lump in my throat, I squared my shoulders and stepped carefully over chunks of broken concrete.

  Then I saw them.

  The water had come too fast and too hard. People always thought they could wade through. Four bodies were in a pile against a wall. The wave must have pushed them into it. One of them had been younger than me.

  A shadow fell over us and I looked up to see swarms of ravens splitting into groups. Some swooped toward the bodies and horror swamped me. I sucked back sobs and frantically ran at the birds, waving my arms and yelling, trying to scare them away. I started to slip and grabbed onto part of a fence.

  Taran knelt next to the bodies and reached for the first one’s neck to check for a pulse.

  I let go, got my footing and continued to scream at the birds even as I watched others descending—knowing more bodies were out there.

  The ravens come early to battle. Ready to feed upon the dead.

  It’s why they’d come to Florida. The knowledge threatened to send me to my knees.

  Taran stood and met my eyes.

  I stopped yelling as he sadly shook his head.

  “We can’t just leave them there for the birds to...for the birds to—” I broke off, one of my sobs tearing loose.

  A man who must have heard me screaming walked toward us dragging a tarp. Taran ran to help and together they covered the bodies. Taran thanked him before coming back to pull me close to his side. He had to be as miserable as I was in the wet clothes, but his expression showed only determination.

  “Damn.” He started shivering. “We’re going to have to find warmer clothes very soon. And I really want to find Josh and Grim, too.”

  So did I. I’d grown attached to the twins pretty fast.

  Taran and I had to go around deep puddles, and I tripped on more broken concrete by a small boatyard across from some condominiums as we went north. Most of the boats had been smashed into pieces—the condos were missing doors and windows. We saw people crouched on roofs under blankets. We passed mangled fences and overturned cars as the loud chop of helicopters filled the sky.

  My exhaustion grew until it felt like I had weights strapped to my ankles and wrists, like my bones had been filled with metal. Parts of my clothes had started to freeze and the icy material chafed. I wanted to lie down more than I wanted anything. But we couldn’t stop.

  A pileup of vehicles blocked the entrance to the police station, including fire engines—some on their sides. It was hard to imagine the power of the water that had surged through here. And so far north. We cut across the grass. My snow boots kept slipping on the ice-coated blades. Taran never let me fall. He held on to my arm and when I’d start to slip, his other hand would come up to steady me. I noticed how careful he was not to squeeze. Like overly careful. But I’d also noticed something since he’d pushed the boat off the front of the hotel. “Is it me, or does it seem like you’re getting stronger?” I asked

  His lips tightened. “It’s not you. Something is going on inside me, something weird. I feel like I could pick up one of those fire engines. It’s freaking me out.” He started to let go of my hand. “I shouldn’t be holding on to you. What if I pull your arm out of its socket or something?”

  “If you hadn’t been holding me, I would have hit the ground by now.” I glanced at him. “You hurt a girl before, didn’t you?”

  His lips tightened even more as he looked away from me.

  “That other stuff Billy said at the seafood place—that’s what he was talking about, right?”

  He didn’t answer right away, frowning at a pile of tree trunks. He carefully picked me up and carried me over them, moving slowly so he didn’t slip on the ice forming on their surfaces. Loud voices caught my attention and I turned my head to see that huge crowds of people had gathered outside the police station.

  He put me down. We were still semihidden behind a car that had been turned onto its side. “About what you asked. Yeah, I had a girlfriend. She um...we um...” His cheeks were so red already with cold, his flush didn’t show, but I knew it was there just from his expression. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  I waited for him to go on and could figure out why he hesitated. “During sex?” I whispered before tugging his hand to get him to walk. I wanted out of this cold.

  “We didn’t get quite that far. But I got excited, grabbed her arms too hard. The bruises were so huge. It was an accident, but it’s made me...worry since. I felt rotten about it.”

  “So around here, you really are the bad boy.”

  “Yeah, maybe you should rethink hanging out with me.”

  “I’ve been with you for days now and you haven’t hurt me. You’ve gone out of your way not to.” The crowd grew noisier—there had to be hundreds of people here. They took up most of the lawn and parking lot.

  He stopped. “It’s not going to be easy to find my dad in this. Come on.” He took my hand, paused. “Tell me if I’m holding on too hard, okay?”

  I nodded.

  He pulled me toward the station, still making sure to help me find my balance when I slipped, but obviously in a hurry. When Taran suddenly stopped, I ran into him.

  “Officer Warner!” He yelled, then glanced over his shoulder at me. “Hold on to my coat. I don’t want to lose you in this crowd like I did Josh and Grim.”

  I didn’t want to get lost in it,
either. People filled the area in front of the police station. Shivering, huddled in groups or wandering around, their expressions ranging from scared, to tired, to lost. Yelling, crying and angry shouts filled the air—the noise hurt my ears. Everything and everyone was wet. If this had happened in true summer, already the smell of mildew would be in the air.

  “Officer Warner, have you seen my dad?” Taran yelled.

  “Yes.” The policeman pushed out of the crowd, patted the hand of an older woman who wouldn’t let go of his arm. She clung to him. He grimaced and it was obvious he was trying not to drag her along. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He tried to hug Taran, but the woman wouldn’t let go. “Your dad is looking for you. He’s really worried. Headed south, said your house had been badly damaged. The Tanner boys are around here somewhere, too.” He cleared his throat, his mouth turning down. “Their house is mostly gone.”

  I closed my eyes, grief a hard lump in my throat.

  “Your dad could be anywhere and the cells aren’t working.” He pointed toward the station. “The water didn’t go much farther past this building, so getting around north of here is easier. You have a place you and the Tanner boys can go so we know where to find you?”

  I cleared my throat. “I do. They can come to my house. I live north so my house should be okay. And I grew up in campgrounds, so I have supplies we’ll need.”

  The woman clinging to his arm whimpered, and the cop looked down at her. “We’re going to find your son, Mrs. Durbin. He was at the station working earlier.” He put his hand over hers on his arm and looked back at me. “Do you have something to write on so you can give me the address?”

  I reached toward my back pocket only to find it empty, then grabbed Taran’s arm. He turned concerned eyes my way.

  “I don’t have my notebook,” I whispered through gritted teeth.