A hundred miles an hour on the back roads just wasn't fast enough. Not only that, the curves and turns slowed his progress considerably. Every time he wanted to pull over and travel the rest of the way by Rift, there were other vehicles or houses that prevented him.
Witnesses, he didn't want.
Finally, twelve minutes from Larissa's house, he came upon a stretch of road with no homes on either side and no cars ahead or behind.
Perfect.
He yanked the wheel and pulled from asphalt to gravel. Cutting the engine, he tucked the keys under the floor mat and got out. It wasn't like half the town (or probably the whole town) didn't know the Mercedes belonged to Larissa.
Someone would see it and call in.
Overhead, the sky had turned an ominous slate gray. In the distance he saw lightning, heard thunder, and warning bells went off in his head.
That was the direction of Henson's farm.
Emerson glanced along the road; no cars in sight. He scanned the flatlands for signs of life and saw no one. Opening a Rift in broad daylight, without any kind of cover, was risky. Just because he couldn't see anyone didn't mean someone couldn't see him.
There wasn't even a tree within fifty yards to hide behind.
Emerson 'parted' the air with his hands, as if time and space were merely a physical thing to be moved aside so he could travel from one place to another more expediently. Through the crevice, he saw rain. Rain and lightning and Henson's Farmhouse as a hazy silhouette through the downpour.
Stepping through was like stepping from one part of the world to another; he left a dry, cloudy day behind and encountered a lashing, furious storm in the blink of an eye.
Arriving not far from the garage, he had a view of the back and left side of the farmhouse. A streak of lightning hit a tree, and the post of a fence. These were not random strikes of nature; they were Chaotically enhanced. Emerson could feel the ozone on the air, taste the work of his brethren in the atmosphere.
Another Weaver was on the property.
From around the corner of the house, a man stalked into view. He wore dark clothing, that was all Emerson could discern from this distance through the rain.
Peeling off his overcoat, he let it fall into the mud. He wanted his arms and hands as unrestricted as they could be. Emerson didn't know what kind of power this man—Rowley he guessed—had. According to Driscoll, Rowley was unpredictable, which made him more dangerous than usual.
Among the brotherhood, Weavers did not attack each other for no reason. There was an unspoken code that they leave their differences aside and walk away from confrontation if it sparked up between them. Their edgy natures made them either the best of friends or wary acquaintances, with a select few ostracizing themselves from the brotherhood as a whole.
Rowley wouldn't adhere to any code now that he had been stripped of brotherhood status.
The knowledge didn't deter Emerson in the slightest.
Rowley made another circuit of the house, apparently unaware of Emerson out near the garage. Following the porch, he walked in circles, a steady pace as if he needed to burn off excess energy.
Emerson wasn't fooled. Rowley was Weaving Chaos. Not only the storm raging overhead, but some other sinister plan that he couldn't immediately figure out.
Drenched from head to toe, Emerson took stock and decided on his best course of action while he was still undetected. The way Rowley circled the home suggested that the girls were inside. It was almost as if Rowley was making the home a target with his incessant circles, guiding the Chaos to the place he needed it to be.
So far, it didn't appear that the lightning had struck the home directly. Several trees sported obvious damage as well as a few black spots on the ground.
He would have to be careful himself lest any Chaos he conjured accidentally affect the house when he was trying to take down Rowley. Stepping away from the garage when Rowley disappeared around the far side of the house, Emerson broke into a jog. He was now all the way in the open, directly in Rowley's line of sight whenever the Weaver completed his current circuit.
The temperature in Emerson's immediate vicinity plunged without warning. On the heels of that, before he could even take another two steps, hail the size of softballs rained down from the sky. One bounced off his shoulder, another nailed him in the back. It was a concentrated area the hail targeted—his area to be exact. Emerson didn't see any hail pounding the roof of the house.
Ducking down, a chant flying from his lips, he leveled his arms to the side, palms toward the sky. Another three hailstones cracked against his back, all but knocking the breath from his lungs.
A moment later, a hurricane force gust of wind blew the stones off their lethal trajectory, making them bounce off the air a foot from his body. He could see the balls of ice flying off in different directions as if they'd struck concrete instead of wind shear. Lightning struck thirty-five feet to his right and thunder clapped overhead like a bomb.
Emerson saw Rowley come around the side of the house. This time, Rowley stared straight at him. There wasn't any pretending that they didn't know what the other was, or what each man wanted.
Rowley was here to finish what Emerson started.
The other Weaver loped off the porch at a dead run, heading for Emerson with bloodlust in his eyes.
Using the cover he'd wrought from the lashing wind, Emerson lurched forward out of his crouch. His hands came forward, palms facing Rowley; the wind behind and above him split apart. One shear kept the stones from caving in his skull, the other raced toward Rowley, hitting him so hard in the chest that he stumbled before falling back.
The hailstones stopped falling at the same time the thunder went silent.
Emerson knew he only had a few seconds to act before Rowley recovered and called down some other sort of Chaos to defend himself. With a burst of speed, Emerson closed the gap and, with a new chant rolling from his tongue, tackled Rowley on the ground.
They traded punches, wrestling for a position of power. Emerson took a set of knuckles to his jaw and another to his ribs. In return, he pounded Rowley's chin and cheek.
A Rift split along the ground in time to another crash of thunder. Emerson grappled with Rowley, struggling not to fall through the Rift himself and onto an island far, far from here in the Caribbean.
Chapter Twenty-One
A cold chill rode Farris' spine all the way up the staircase. She went as fast as she could without tripping, expecting to hear one of the doors or windows crash open on the first floor. Beelah, right behind her, panted not because she was out of breath, but from panic.
Farris recognized the difference. Fingers clenched tight around the hilt of a butcher knife, she hit the top of the landing and jogged toward the master bedroom. Henson's door was wide open.
“In here,” Farris said. “He keeps them in a trunk at the base of the bed.”
“Go, I'm right behind you.”
The master bedroom looked almost forlorn with its drabby curtains, heavy furniture and hand woven rugs that should have been replaced twenty-odd years ago. A green, ivory and burgundy quilt that Missus Henson made was still on the queen bed, frayed at the corners but beloved nevertheless.
Henson had refused to get rid of it for something 'fancy'.
Sitting at the foot of the bed was a trunk. Straps of leather wrapped the box and buckles at the front held it closed.
Farris dropped to her knees, set the knife on a rug, and manipulated the buckles as fast as she could get her fingers to work. Beelah helped her push up the lid.
Inside, several rifles and shotguns were situated side by side in a special holder Henson had built himself. Three handguns with boxes of ammo lined the perimeter.
“I think we should--” Beelah's remark got drowned out by a boom of thunder and other thump-thumping sounds that drew both girls away from the guns.
“What is that,” Farris asked. She went to the window overlooking the back part of the yard and garage. Through
the downpour, she saw Emerson—it had to be Emerson—ducking down to avoid a strange cone of large hail.
“...Farris, is that Emerson?”
“Yes, yes, I think so. It's hard to see but he's the same build.”
“Why isn't the hail hitting the house? Look how it's just coming down right there around him.” Bee's voice took on a tone of frightened awe.
Farris gripped the window sill. The end of her scarf, somehow, clung to the side of her throat. Even though it tickled her skin, she was too distracted to reach up and remove it.
Suddenly, the hailstones looked as if they started bouncing off...nothing at all. They weren't hitting Emerson any longer, they were hitting something two feet above his back. Farris couldn't understand what she was seeing.
Beelah reached past and with the sleeve of her shirt, rubbed it over the window as if it might help them see better. No fog had accumulated on the pane, yet Beelah wiped it down anyway.
The hail still bounced off the air. Or...something.
“What the...” Beelah whispered.
A sharp flash of lightning struck so close to Emerson that Farris yelped. Blinking away the blinding sensation from her eyes, she leaned closer to the window. Her nose was an inch from it, no more.
“What is he doing? He's got his arms out and--”
“Look!”
Someone, the man in the dark clothing, darted out from the back porch toward Emerson.
Farris sucked in a breath.
Emerson brought his hands together in front and then, then, Farris would have sworn she saw the very air shift. It was easier to see up here, with the rain as a backdrop to the event. Part of the rain fell straight, the other sprayed out in the direction of the advancing menace, as if a giant fan blew it that way.
The intruder went down hard when it hit him.
Farris covered her lips with her finger tips. It didn't take a genius to see that somehow, some way, Emerson had caused the rain—the wind—to do that.
“Oh my. Oh...oh my,” Beelah said half under her breath.
Farris didn't know what to say. What to think. Emerson burst forward, coming down over the fallen intruder with his fists already flying. The fight looked vicious, both men hammering away at the other. It seemed like a scene out of a movie, surreal and unbelievable.
Emerson was, undoubtedly, fighting to help the girls. To remove the threat, get rid of the danger. His aid left Farris with more questions than answers. On top of the scene in town, she now had this to consider.
Just what in the world was going on, here?
It was so overwhelming that she didn't know whether to drag Beelah out of the house and escape or stay there to see what happened next. Emerson, thus far, had only ever done right by her. He'd saved her, looked out for her and Beelah both.
But something was wrong. This was wrong. It wasn't normal, wasn't usual, and she didn't need anyone else to tell her that she probably wasn't going to like whatever explanation Emerson gave her.
Below, the earth seemed to shimmer. Farris stared down. Beelah crowded closer.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don't know.
What appeared to be a crack in the ground opened up under the intruder's shoulders. Emerson struggled, throwing punches and alternately grappling with the man. They flipped over and Farris cried out—Emerson looked like he was falling into the crevice.
At the last possible second, Emerson wrenched his body to the right, throwing the intruder into the hole. He scrambled to save himself from going in, too, pulling back just in time.
What stunned Farris was the fact that she thought she could see blue sky and a bluer ocean through the crack in the ground instead of blackness. She blinked.
It was still there. But only for a moment more. It zipped closed and then it was only the rain spattered ground again, filled in and plain looking.
Farris glanced at Beelah. Beelah looked at her.
“Did you see that?” Bee asked.
“Yes.”
“What...happened?”
“I don't know.”
“What is he?”
“I don't know that either. Something is so wrong. So wrong.”
Farris glanced down in time to see Emerson shove to his feet. He disappeared under the awning to the back porch.
Thunderous knocking drifted up from downstairs along with Emerson's shouts.
“FARRIS! Open the door!”
. . .
Dripping wet, Emerson pounded on the door with his fist. He knew Farris at least, was inside. Behind him, the lightning waned, the thunder growled to a halt, and the hail stopped. Heavy clouds lingered, filling the sky from one horizon to the other.
“Farris!” He tried the knob. Locked. Just when he stepped back with the intent of kicking the door in, he heard a faint scrape on the other side. “Open the door, Farris. It's me, Emerson.”
Another scrape. Almost timid.
Emerson wondered if Farris had seen his fight with Rowley in the yard. He also wondered exactly what he needed to say. There was no denying now that something strange was going on. He wouldn't be able to hide it from her. If he told her, however, that she had to die tomorrow—well. He thought that was cruel. If she knew, she would do everything in her power to change her Destiny, which meant it could possibly affect the outcome.
People had the capacity to alter their Destiny, though sometimes the consequences were not always what they might seem to be. He wanted her to live a long time, and that meant she had to die first.
All he could do was be there for her. Stay close, help her through it and make sure no one tried to bring her back before she was ready. He couldn't believe this was the situation he found himself in.
The door cracked open two inches, disrupting his internal monologue. Farris stared out, one eye visible, the other not.
“Let me in,” he said, flattening his palm against the door. After a moment, he added, “Please.”
Farris hesitated. Finally, with a wary look at the day beyond, she stepped back and swung the door open. It was her silence that alerted him all was not right. Shaking stray droplets of rain from his hair, he closed the door himself and engaged the lock.
“What is it?” he asked, getting right to the point. With his coat off, the shirt beneath, a midnight blue button down, stuck to his body like a second skin. The jeans weren't as bad in the clingy department, but they were heavier and more annoying. He noticed she was as wet as he was. The scarf around her throat sucked up against her flesh like a living thing and her hair, a lustrous brown with tiny gold highlights, lay plastered against her scalp. She seemed bedraggled yet slightly defiant.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Beelah piped up from her spot near the bottom of the staircase.
“We saw you outside. You and that...that...man. What are you, Emerson? I know Farris and I both didn't imagine what we witnessed.” Accusation and curiosity vied for dominance in Bee's voice.
Emerson planted his hands on his hips and stared down at the toes of his boots. Rain dripped from the ends of his hair to the floor.
So, they had seen him after all.
“Emerson?” Farris pleaded with him, quietly, to explain.
Spinning away on the sole of his boot, he raked a hand through his hair and paced through the gloomy kitchen. He had to be careful. It was, for all intents and purposes, against the 'rules' to tell people who—and what—he was. Driscoll wouldn't be happy with him when he found out.
And he would find out. From Emerson rather than a third party.
How was he going to explain this to the girls without taking the next obvious step, and telling them about Farris? He couldn't even be consoled that Farris had apparently forgotten that Devon had accused him of arson.
On the other side of the tile covered island, he stopped and braced his hands against the edge. This gave him a view of Farris and Beelah both. They regarded him with expectant, wide eyes.
“It's complicated. I'm not suppose
d to be telling you this, understand, but I need you to believe me.” He stared at Farris for the latter part of his statement. There were no promises in her gaze.
Opposed to the armageddon-like ferocity of the storm ten minutes ago, it was now almost crypt silent outside. It added an eerie weight to the kitchen of the farmhouse.
Farris said nothing. Beelah crept closer to Farris' side and stood shoulder to shoulder with her.
For the first time, Emerson realized Beelah had a butcher knife in her fist.
Tense, they waited for him to continue.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was one of those times in her life when Farris knew something profound was about to happen. She could feel it in the air, see it in Emerson's eyes. The whole earth seemed to pause in that moment; time stood still. No matter what had come before—the tornado, the blast at the diner, the possessed truck—nothing would compare to this.
Beelah must have felt it too. She hovered protectively close, nudging up the glasses on her nose.
Emerson let go of the island and locked his hands behind his head, elbows askew. The wet shirt stretched across his muscular chest and around his biceps, enhancing his physique. She noticed it in the way a woman does when she's distracted by other things—distantly.
“I'm a Weaver of Chaos. Rather than go into a huge, in depth explanation—let me just say that I can control many aspects of nature. Of weather. If you saw what happened outside, then you understand a little of what I'm telling you.”
Farris tried to absorb that. It made sense, and it didn't.
“How did you become this...thing?” she asked.
He tipped his head back while he paced and stared at the ceiling. “It's a really long story. I can tell you all about it later, when I'm sure you're both...safe.”
“Safe?” Farris and Beelah spoke over each other.
Emerson dropped his arms but kept pacing. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his damp jeans and glanced out the windows when he passed them.
“Yeah. Safe. You weren't that far off thinking something was going on, Farris. You're being targeted.”
The Fate of Destiny (Fates #1) Page 19