Destruction: The December People, Book One

by Sharon Bayliss

  He heard his mother’s voice in her bedroom and shot up from where he sat. Evangeline and Xavier had gone to bed a couple hours ago, and Mom didn’t usually talk to herself, at least not in full sentences. He went into her room without knocking. Sure enough, she spoke into her phone. She put her hand over the receiver and whispered, “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to… it’s not them.”

  She waved for him to come in.

  “Thank you so much. Okay. You, too. I will,” she said and hung up.

  “Who were you talking to? Grandma?”

  “Actually, it was Lydia Armstrong, you know, from church. She’s the one who always wears those gaudy pins on her blouse.”

  “Why were you talking to her in the middle of the night?”

  “She’s in my prayer circle.”

  “You mean, they’re praying… for us? For this situation?”

  Mom smiled a little. “They don’t know all the details. Just that Emmy is missing. As nice as it is to think I can cast a spell and protect my family on my own… I feel safer knowing I’ve consulted an expert.”

  “You mean God?”

  “Yes, I mean God.”

  “Yeah. I prayed for her, too.”

  “Thank you, Patrick. You know, I should say it more often. You’re a good person. I’m proud of you.”

  That made him mad. Basically, she meant, I’m glad you’re not pure evil like your brother. He didn’t do anything more special than not rape anybody. Yeah, he should get a medal for that.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Have you picked up on anything?” Apparently, she knew what he had been trying to do.

  “No.”

  She squinted at him. “Are you lying?”

  “No,” he said again.

  “All right. Come here and give me a hug.”

  He did as he was asked. She looked calm, but she shook slightly.

  “I should tell you to go to sleep,” she said. “But I know it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  She smiled at him warmly, but her eyes stayed sad.

  When Patrick went back into the family room, Samantha sat up with her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “I’m sorry. Did our talking wake you up?”

  “No. I woke up when you left the couch. I liked being able to feel you with my feet. It helped me sleep.”

  “Oh.” He sat back down and picked up her feet and put them back on his leg. “There you go.”

  “Can I ask you something?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad at you?”

  She shrugged and didn’t look him in the eye. “I want things to go back the way they were.”

  “Me, too, but I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  She stared at her knees. Her shoulders slumped as if her arms suddenly became too heavy.

  “But… I suppose there is no impossible for a spring witch,” he said. “You can break through ice with flowers.”

  She flashed him her green eyes.

  “Do you want to go dancing?” he asked.

  “Dancing?”

  “Maybe not right now… but you know, sometime soon. Would it make you feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just so you know, I don’t know how to dance at all.”

  She smiled, but the smile faded quickly and she looked back at her toes. “Patrick, with everything that happened with Emmy, I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”

  Patrick felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t have much experience with dating, but still knew that tone. The “we need to talk” tone.

  “What?” he asked, his throat dry.

  “Would you still want to be with me, if I left?”

  “Left?”

  “After the summer wizards came, your mom called my Aunt Charlotte. She’s going to come get me.”

  “Well, that’s good, right?” He didn’t really think it was good. He wanted her to live here with him. He didn’t care that fifteen-year-olds generally didn’t get to live with their girlfriend. He felt like his throat had filled with cement that rapidly hardened. He waited for the axe to fall.

  “She lives in New Orleans. I’m going to live there.” Her throat sounded like it had hardened too, or she suddenly got a cold. “I don’t want to. I know I can’t stay here. But I don’t want to leave Houston, or you.”

  “When is she coming to get you?”

  “New Year’s Day.”

  “That’s soon.”

  “But I’m not leaving if Emmy’s not safe by then. I won’t leave if she’s not home. I won’t leave my friend. I’ll lock myself in the bathroom when Aunt Charlotte comes; I don’t care what I have to do.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be back before then.” Patrick didn’t know if she would be, but that was just what he had to say. “You asked if I still wanted to be with you if you left. Do you mean that?”

  She nodded again. “I don’t want to break up. Besides, I need someone to text about my crazy aunt. Her house always smells like barbecue, but she’s a vegetarian. It’s very unsettling.”

  Patrick didn’t know if she meant it as a joke, but he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I don’t want to break up either. So, I don’t think we should.”

  She leaned in and kissed him, but for once, Patrick couldn’t concentrate on it. He just felt like he had started the countdown of last kisses.

  he dawn sky turned a dusty purple, and then the clouds caught the first rays of the sun and erupted into blankets of fire. It looked like a painting. It looked like Heaven might look. Some people might call it “breathtaking”, but David didn’t give a damn what the sky looked like. His delirious mind couldn’t help but think about how Amanda’s war between dark magic and Christmas had ended badly for jolly St. Nick. It had been a slaughter. On Christmas morning, he walked down Route 67 looking for cell coverage… because his car’s battery had gone dead and they were stranded.

  He couldn’t remember ever feeling so uncomfortable in his life. No sleep. No food. No water. The cold, dry wind chapped his face. He probably looked twenty years older, and he felt about fifty years older. Jude probably felt the same but didn’t complain, and David knew him to complain about much less. He didn’t act like himself anymore.

  To punctuate this thought, Jude turned and ran straight out into the flats, hurdling a thicket of bush. He acted as if he had an urgent appointment out there that he’d forgotten to mention. Part of David wanted to shrug and continue his walk down the road as if nothing had happened. But then he saw what Jude had seen. Among the interminable expanse of brown grass and stout yellow bushes, something reflected the fiery sky. David thought he might pass out. He saw the Expedition.

  Unlike Jude, he didn’t want to run to it. There was always room for some hope when a child was missing… but when they’re found, the truth must be faced one way or another. David ran anyway. Distances were misleading in the desert, and the car didn’t seem to get much closer as he went. But when Jude arrived, David could tell what he found by his body language.

  Jude ran a few circles around the car, opening the doors, and then he continued to move circles away from the car, darting his head from side to side. He must not see her. When David finally arrived, Jude had climbed on a rock to get a better view of the surrounding area. David examined the car. She had hit the rock, but the collision had been mild, just a scrape. She left the keys in the ignition. That fact made dread creep down his neck. If she had walked back to the road looking for help, she would have taken the keys… and her purse and cell phone… which sat on the floor on the passenger side. He picked up her jacket, desperate to feel some part of her, wanting it to still have her warmth. The jacket dripped all over his shoes. Everything had been soaked. Then, it made sense. She had gotten caught in a flash flood. Most of the water had receded, but the thick mud around the tires remained.

  He turned to his
son. The longer Jude stayed silent, the more terrified David became. Jude had proven he did have the power to find Emmy. Emmy had a light inside her that Jude had followed across six hundred miles. And now they had to be closer than ever. So, if he couldn’t feel it now… maybe the light had gone out.

  “Jude, where is she? Jude?”

  He pointed. “I think I see something over there.”

  His tone sounded flat. The something was bad news.

  At first, David’s eyes refused to let him look, but he managed to get them to focus. He saw it several hundred yards away, hard to distinguish among the brush, but it looked like clothes on the ground. Maybe a person.

  David ran this time. He heard Jude at his heels over the sound of his heartbeat pummeling in his ears. As they got closer, David slowed and approached the prone figure. He grabbed Jude’s arm to hold him back.

  “Is that him?” Jude asked.

  “Be careful,” David said.

  “Why? He looks dead to me.”

  David prodded the man with his foot. He was face down in the dirt with his mouth and nose pressed against the earth. If he hadn’t already died, he would suffocate soon. David used his foot to flip him over.

  “Is that him?” Jude asked again.

  “I don’t know what he looks like.”

  His unkempt hair was pitch black, like his sister’s, although his had strands of gray. He wore jeans that had the thin and grimy look of jeans worn every day. His skin was tanned and aged a decade or so past his years. He looked as Whitman Colter should, but it still didn’t seem quite right. David had hunted a monster and found only a man.

  “I definitely think he’s dead,” Jude said. “He’s hasn’t been dead long though, he’s not all rotten or anything. Holy shit… he’s dead. He’s fucking dead. She did it.”

  “How?”

  He didn’t have any blood on him, or any evidence of injury.

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask her,” Jude said.

  “What?”

  “She’s over there.” He pointed.

  David didn’t see her, but he did see a tiny travel trailer so coated with dirt it blended into the scenery. Colter’s home.

  David ran again. Then he saw her, so dirty she blended in with the scenery, too. She sat in the open doorway of the trailer. She had rolled up one jean leg and pressed a dirty cloth to her shin.

  She smiled. “You found me.”

  David kneeled at her feet and gingerly touched each of her arms and legs like as if one might be missing. He wanted to count all her toes like he did when she was first born. She had bloody scrapes on her face and arms. A deep bruise covered her leg.

  She must have read his mind, or he might have literally glowed with rage.

  “Dad, you’re freaking out. Calm down. It’s not like that. I tripped and fell real bad.”

  He gathered her in his arms and wept into her hair. She felt warm, and soft, and alive. He hadn’t appreciated the miracle of a beating heart so much since he had seen Jude’s for the first time on an ultrasound inside Amanda.

  “Dad… really, I’m fine.” She put her arms around him and squeezed him back. “I want to go home.”

  “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too, Dad. And… while you’re still happy to see me… you should know I wrecked the car.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Can I get that in writing?”

  “How did you do it?” Jude asked her.

  She had acted as if she couldn’t see him there, and David didn’t know if she would respond.

  After a moment, she did but kept her eyes on David. “I didn’t kill him, but I was able to fight him. I thought he had won, and it was over. So, I prayed. And then I heard God tell me, keep fighting. It made me angry at first. I couldn’t fight. He had done something to me, and I couldn’t even move. But I didn’t want to give up, and I think God was telling me I didn’t have to. So, I listened. I decided I was going to be okay. He wasn’t going to hurt me. I kept thinking it over and over, trying as hard as I could to really, really believe it. That was the hardest part. But God said I could, so I believed. I kind of hoped I could get myself to shoot fire at him or something, but that’s not how it worked. He just kept getting confused. He would walk away like he forgot I was there, and I’d creep away and it would take him a while to find me again. And it was like his depth perception was off. He would be way off when he tried to grab me. Somehow, I messed with his head. But all it did was slow everything down. I don’t think it would have held him off forever. That’s when the black angel came.”

  “What did you say?” David asked.

  “Well, that’s what she seemed like. Her magic made air ripple, and it looked like wings. It was really cool. She was the one who killed him. She wouldn’t tell me how she did it. They shouted nonsense at each other and then he died.”

  “I don’t understand… do you know who she was? Is she still here?”

  “Yes. The woman who gave you the envelope. And yes, she’s here. She gave me food and water from his trailer and has been sitting by herself for hours.”

  David’s heart sank. For a moment, he had thought… well, that would have been impossible.

  “Is it okay if I leave you with him while I go talk to her?”

  Emmy looked at her brother for the first time. “Yes.”

  “See if there’s more food and water,” David told Jude. “You need to drink some water.”

  David headed in the direction Emmy had pointed. Rachel perched on a rock, watching him approach.

  “I thought I felt your presence. David, honey, you look awful.”

  It’s not something you say to a lady, but she looked worse. He hardly recognized her as the fashionable New York businesswoman who had rung his doorbell less than a week ago. She looked as unwashed and unkempt as her brother. A layer of dirt lightened her black hair, and it looked as if she had left her hairbrush in Manhattan.

  “So you got my message?” she asked.

  “Uh… no.”

  “Oh… well, then, color me impressed.”

  “Why didn’t you pick up the phone? Where were you?”

  She cocked her head to the side as if she tried to remember. “On Sabbatical. But when I went into town, I got all the texts you had sent me. I replied back, but you didn’t respond. I was worried. So, I came here myself.”

  “Did you drive?”

  “Of course, David. How were you imagining it? By broomstick, with my flying monkeys? I parked up the road.”

  “Do you happen to have jumper cables?”

  “I think so. Ask the monkeys to help you.”

  “Rachel… I don’t know how to thank you. I owe you everything.”

  “No. Maybe I just owe you a little less now.”

  “I’m sorry… you know… for your loss.”

  She chuckled darkly. “That’s cruel, David. You don’t mean it in the least. Why did you say it?”

  “I meant it. I’m not sorry he’s dead, but I’m sorry for you. I can’t imagine having to kill someone you love, even if they really deserve it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at her toes while she wiggled them. It made her look like a little girl. “Can I see your hands?”

  David hesitated at the odd request but walked closer to her and held out his hands. She took his right one and moved her finger along the lines of his palm, then drew a line from nail to knuckle of each of his fingers and then down each of his finger bones. Then she followed the vein that went from his wrist up his forearm. Her eyes looked glazed and unfocused.

  “You have nice hands.”

  “Are you all right?” He gently extricated himself from her grasp.

  “Do you think Verity will have a scar?”

  He paused. “Do you mean Emmy?”

  “Who?”

  “Uh… if she does, I’m sure we can get it fixed. The scrape on her face doesn’t look very deep, if that’s what you me
an.”

  “That’s good.”

  “How about I help you get home safely. You can ride with us.”

  “You should be careful. You have two of them,” she mumbled.

  “Okay… it’s going to be fine. Just come with me.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “I can’t just leave you here… like this.”

  “I’m a grown woman.”

  “I know you’re a very capable person. But right now… I think you need someone to help you.”

  “No, thank you. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine. But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.” She took his hand back and kissed his palm.

  When they got back to Marfa, David called Amanda and she demanded they get a hotel and sleep before driving back. David said he didn’t want to spend another moment away from home and away from her. She said it would be stupid for them to go through all that to die in a fiery car crash because he fell asleep at the wheel.

  She won the argument, of course.

  So, the next morning, David dropped Jude off at James’s house in Austin on the way back to Houston. David needed to buy some time before he figured out what to do with him. He doubted he had much time before his brother called and demanded that David take his son back. Even on Jude’s best days, David didn’t think they would get along very well.

  After Amanda had finished her own inspection of Emmy and gotten her own “Mom, stop freaking out” speech, she fell into David’s arms.