by Sara Snow
“Holy shit, Clarence, crank the A/C! It’s hotter than Salem in 1692 in here!”
“Sure thing, Goody Proctor,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
Georgia burst into laughter, and the change was immediate, the air returning to its normally imperceptible temperature without me having touched a single button or dial. Olympia made a confused little “hmph” as she looked around.
“Was I imagining things or did it get hot as hell for a minute in here?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Georgia said. “Are you hitting menopause already? I would’ve thought there was a spell for that too.”
“Ha ha ha,” Olympia mocked. “You are so beyond hilarious Georgia. But really though, back me up here Jacob, you felt something, right?”
I usually was pretty hesitant to share half-baked ideas, but it seemed relevant enough that it could be useful, and I thought it would be worth sharing, even if I ended up being wrong.
“I think that was Georgia,” I said, only to be met with two confused and simultaneous “What?”s from the girls. “I noticed when it started to get hot was when Georgia was beginning to tell Eli and Jose about my father. I’m assuming what Jose and Eli said about Carter worried her, and then it got even hotter.”
“It’s just like when you first discovered your powers,” Olympia said. “Your emotions manifested them outside of your control until you learned how to handle them.”
Georgia’s eyes flicked back and forth between us. “So… what does that mean?”
“I think it means you’re getting stronger. It seems like an added aspect to your pyrokinesis,” I said.
Everyone settled back into their seats, though I could tell the worry hadn’t left Georgia’s mind. Before I knew what I was doing, I was reaching over, taking her hand in mine and giving it a comforting squeeze.
“Just focus on Chicago,” I said. “We’ll get there soon and we can plan our attack. Don’t worry, Georgia. It’s all gonna be alright.”
She looked at me and smiled, and I could tell the comfort was needed, but for the sake of the mission and ensuring that we could focus on Carter, I withdrew my hand before it overstayed its welcome.
She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was grateful.
We drove for a long time after that in mostly silence while Georgia and Olympia dozed in their seats. I could feel myself starting to get tired after a few hours behind the wheel and started thinking about where to start keeping my eyes open for hotels. I jumped off the highway at the next exit, assuming I’d see somewhere to go shortly. It quickly became apparent, though, as the car pushed on down the road that we were getting further and further from society, our surroundings slowly becoming more and more lacking in buildings and increasingly filled with corn. Lots of corn. As far as the eye could see—corn.
Just as I thought about making a U-turn at the next cross street, I heard a loud pop before feeling the car rock and pull to the right, the motion jolting everyone awake. I let off the gas and pulled us off to the side of the road with a groan. This was just perfect. We had no time to lose and then this.
“What’s going on?” Georgia asked.
“Feels like a blowout. Sit tight, I’ll check,” I said, already climbing out of the car.
As I came around to the passenger side, it was clear as day. The front tire’s tread had completely split, leaving only the sidewall attached around the rim, everything else hanging loosely in place. Georgia seemed to pick up on my exasperated groan and stepped out, followed quickly by Olympia.
“I hope vampires know enough about cars to keep tools in the back,” I joked, twirling the keyring as I walked around to open up the trunk. Georgia glowered.
“I’m sure Carter will have what you need. He’s not stupid,” she said.
I held my hands up, relenting. Ok, bad joke, obviously. The slightly jealous side of me hoped she was wrong and there was nothing in Carter’s trunk besides a foldable coffin and a roadmap to Transylvania, but I had to ignore that part of myself for now just hope he had everything I’d need to fix the tire. As I threw open the trunk, I saw my necessary tools tucked neatly to the side.
Damn. Well, at least this car problem was going to be easily fixable.
Something about it seemed strange to me, though. The mechanic in El Paso had done a pretty decent amount of work on the car and he’d made a point to check our tires for us, saying the pressure seemed good in all of them. They’d not given any indication of needing work, and I didn’t see anything stuck in the rubber that would have shown cause for a burst like this.
I looked around, trying to see or sense anything out of the ordinary, but for the most part it just seemed to be dirt road and corn for miles around.
“I think we should keep our guard up,” I said, hoping that I was wrong. I hefted the equipment from the trunk and made my way back over to the tire. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”
“You think demons?” Olympia asked.
“I don’t know what I think, but whatever it is, it isn’t good. Georgia, come here and help me with this tire so we can get it fixed and get out of here. Grab the spare from the trunk.”
She did as I said while Olympia kept her eyes on our surroundings, seeming ready to jump if she needed to fight off some demons, though I could tell that none of us were particularly up to the task at the moment.
I jacked up the car as quickly as I could and set to work on removing the lug nuts. We’d nearly managed to get the new tire completely on when something whizzed past my face. I wasn’t usually hyper-averse to bugs, but it sure was jarring, and it flew with a buzz that I hardly noticed until I managed to move out of its way. Georgia and I both tried to follow it with our eyes.
“What the hell was that? A cicada?” I asked.
“It looked big,” Georgia remarked. “I know cicadas are big, but that was almost bird-sized!”
Georgia turned to Olympia, likely to ask her if she’d seen it, but when another one made a beeline for her face this time. She just barely managed to block it by pulling the car door open between them before it hit her between the eyes. With a loud crack, the bug smashed into the door, dropping to the ground. Georgia immediately shoved the door closed and leapt away.
“EW!” she shrieked. “What the FUCK!?”
I crouched down, trying to get a better look at the bug that had just torpedoed itself straight at us, finding it twitching on the ground where it landed. It seemed dead enough to me, but when I saw it straight on, I had a hard time not recoiling. For the sake of the girls, though, I kept my cool the best that I could.
The stinger was a pretty jarring part of that thing, curled under it in death like a scorpion, though it seemed that the pointed tip was much larger and seemed to be practically leaking a green, acidic goop that I could only assume was deadly. The rest of it looked like a standard flying insect, somewhere between a roach and a cicada, its body long and flat and surrounded by an iridescent black exoskeleton with six little legs curled above it.
The part that really freaked me out was the human-like face on it. Its eyes were closed, but the nose and the mouth curled into a grimace exposing prickly little teeth that seemed far too humanoid to be any sort of bug I’d ever seen.
I had no clue what the hell could be going on, but when another and then another came for us, which we quickly dodged, it became more and more apparent that this wasn’t just some random few insects. The only thing that ran through my mind then was some sort of biblical plague straight out of the Book of Exodus. Before I could communicate my thoughts, I heard a deep, rumbling buzz, similar to that of the bugs but amplified by a thousand, the sound shortly pierced by Olympia’s shrill scream. I whipped around, narrowly missing another bug coming for me, to see that a whole swarm was nearing like black clouds.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was onto something with my previous line of thought—a biblical plague. The human face should’ve been a tipoff right away, but to be fair, the existence of
human-faced bugs was pretty fucking jarring and didn’t offer much room for rational thought as I processed that initially. But if God could call plagues down on Egypt, then the Tenebris could probably summon these hellish little things, right?
As I stood while dodging the bugs, I hoped I was right. “By all the seraphim of Heaven, I banish you to Hell!” I called out.
The sheer volume of demonic insects made their shrieking cries almost unbearable to hear, but as they were swallowed by a cloud of black smoke, the noise was worth it. We took a deep breath of relief.
“Demon bugs,” I said with a candid shrug. “Who knew?”
“Oh my fucking God,” Georgia said. “Let’s never do that again, please.”
“Very much seconded,” Olympia echoed.
Aside from the disturbance of the bugs, the air had been still and calm since we stopped. That still seemed to be true, but as the stalks of corn around us had begun rustling. It was hardly noticeable at first, but as the leaves began to shake louder and louder, it became clear that there was something more to this.
That was when an enormous black cloud slowly rose out of the field. The sound the first swarm had made was nothing compared to the deep, resounding buzz of this cloud. I prepared to use my invocation to banish the demons again, but before I could even prepare to say the words, Georgia had straightened angrily, the air around us getting warmer and warmer by the second.
“Oh hell no!” she cried. “I have had enough! No more bugs! No! More! Fucking! BUGS!!”
With her final word, an explosion erupted. Suddenly the sky went from black to orange, the swarm set ablaze in just an instant, cooking every bug from the ground up in a sizable radius around us, though none of the flames came close to us. I could only watch in amazement for a moment before the heat began to get to me, sweat beading on my hairline. The buzzing had been replaced with the crackle of fire ravaging the corn field around us.
“Georgia!” I called. “The fire! That’s enough!”
For a moment, she looked panicked, as if she hadn’t thought ahead to this point or even thought at all. She drew in her focus, closing her eyes for a moment, and after only a few moments, there was a loud whoosh and the fire vanished, leaving millions of crispy little bug corpses to rain down over the torched field.
We all stood wide-eyed. Georgia shot a look of complete shock at me.
“Holy shit,” she said.
Holy shit, indeed.
Olympia
Ew. Ew. EW! Did I mention EW?
I had seen a lot of things in my time, but that was supremely fucked up. I’d always loved all living animals and was strongly bonded with the natural world, but I did not love bugs. That was too much for me. Too many legs.
Aside from the nastiest bug-like demons I’d ever seen in my life, it turned out that Georgia’s fire powers went way beyond what I had originally anticipated. So there was a lot going on during this little road trip. As the last of the bugs fell back into the field, I noticed one bouncing out of the grass, dangerously close to my foot.
It was still surprisingly uncharred, but it didn’t seem familiar to me. As much as I hated bugs, I was overly familiar with them because of my magical ties to the Earth, and this bug looked strange. I knelt down to get a little closer look at it, careful to keep my distance just in case it wanted to jump up and surprise me by not actually being dead.
It seemed to be a sort of locust, though it wasn’t like any locust I’d ever seen before. Its color seemed wrong, with streaks of flame red tracing its sides. Half of the head was burnt, but the eye that I could see seemed to be larger and more pronounced than most locusts I knew of. After that swarm of human-faced nightmares, the possibility of these being of demonic origin seemed particularly high. A shiver went down my spine, and I wasn’t sure if it was the locust giving me the heebie-jeebies or if it was the locust’s potential devilishness, but either way, it wasn’t sitting right with me.
I thought for a moment that maybe I should say something, but I didn’t want anyone to worry. Jacob and Georgia had started working on the tire again after all that insanity and if I derailed their progress with bug discussions now, I’d only be distracting us and putting us even further behind. For the sake of the group, I knew I needed to stay calm. There was no point in stressing people out unnecessarily, and with the fact that Georgia’s power was even stronger than we knew, I didn’t want to risk setting her off again before she was able to control it fully, though there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of time for that when we got back to Chicago.
Either way, I kept my cool and watched patiently as they worked on the car, keeping an eye out around us, hoping like hell I didn’t have to see a third swarm of bugs descending upon us. Luckily, they seemed to finish before that opportunity presented itself. I was kind of impressed with Georgia. She took Jacob’s directions easily and adapted quickly to the task. I didn’t really get cars, and I didn’t think she did either, but she rose to the task and I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of her.
Something in me had started to feel incredibly protective of her, almost like a younger sister, especially now that Kingston and Carter were both gone. They’d always done their best to look after her, even if I didn’t always like Carter or agree with him, I knew he wanted what was best for Georgia. And Kingston… Well, we were all going to be lost without Kingston. My heart ached at the thought.
It was a crucial time in Georgia’s life with the veritatem growing closer and closer, and I knew she needed a guide. Kingston had left some big shoes to fill, but I wasn’t sure that Jacob or Carter would be able to fill them. I thought that they were too interested in her romantically and would be blinded by that love or lust or whatever kind of attraction they were fighting over. But with my own wisdom bestowed on me by the Trikoni, maybe I could be that person for her. I was no Kingston, but there was something to be said for the accumulation of knowledge and guidance I’d received in my journey and maybe, just maybe, I could pass some of that guidance along to Georgia. She almost felt like a little sister to me by this point, and whatever I could do to help, I would. As long as I was around, she wouldn’t have to figure out the next step on her path alone.
I knew she could do this. But if I could help her on her way, then it was my duty to do so, not only as a Venandi and a Trikoni, but as a friend.
3
Georgia
When we pulled up to the warehouse, I wished I felt more relieved. After a long road trip, I usually would’ve been dying to jump into my bed and take a long nap in a familiar place, but with our current predicament, there was no chance of taking time to decompress and be grateful to be home. There was barely even time to think. It had already been 48 hours since our last communication with Paimon, which left only 24 hours for us to find and rescue Carter, and that didn’t feel like a lot. We still had no idea where he was or where Paimon was intending to do the exchange, so we were still frustratingly in the dark.
We all stretched as we got out of the car and made our way inside, heading first up to the game room where I was sure we’d find Jose and Eli shooting pool. I was right in that I’d found them in the game room, but instead of being hunched over pool cues atop the table, they were hunched over rows and rows of stakes and other weapons laid out on a white sheet atop the table, seeming to be fixing up some older ones and crafting some new stakes. As soon as they noticed us enter, they came over and gave each of us a long hug. Eli held me at arm’s length when we separated and he looked me over.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I mean, I’ve been better, but what’s new?” I laughed, but we all knew it wasn’t funny. Eli seemed like he was holding back.
“What is it?” I asked.
“How was… I mean, Paimon showed up, so you must have found your mom, right?”
Ah. That. I wasn’t really sure why I was more concerned about cushioning someone else’s feelings when telling them the news about my dead mom, but there I was, trying to le
t him down easy.
“She’s… gone,” I said finally.
Eli nodded knowingly, pulling me back in for another hug. I assume he knew, or at least had suspected that that was the case, but needed confirmation before he could lay his sympathies on me. When he and I pulled back again, he pivoted to Jacob, planting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“And Jacob, I’m sorry. You must have a lot on your mind right now too,” he said.
Jacob clenched his jaw, a hard line forming between his eyebrows in a look that didn’t seem like it’d be going away any time soon. His voice was filled with bitterness and a sort of resigned grief.
“Well, turns out sometimes sacrifices are part of the job, I guess,” he remarked with a sigh. “Never really thought about it before, but from what my dad had told me about this group, I guess I should have expected something like this sooner or later. But thank you.”
Jose stepped in and wrapped his arms around me tightly. “I’m sorry, Georgia. About your mom.”
I returned his grip just as tight. “Thank you, Jose. It’s okay, I haven’t really considered her my mom for a long time anyway. Wasn’t much to lose.”
His shoulders shrank a bit and he pulled back. “I think that just makes it sadder.”
Well, I tried to let him down easy and I guess in his sweet naivete, he decided to let me down hard, because that struck a chord with me for some reason. I could feel myself choke up a bit, though I tried not to show it.
“Maybe it does, Jose,” I said. “Maybe it does.”
I wouldn’t let him know how right he was. As we all caught each other up on the events we’d missed, the hole Kingston had left in the group became increasingly apparent. Every pause in our dialogue seemed like an opportunity for some encouragement or instruction from him, and every time he wasn’t there to give it, we all seemed to feel it.