by Horn, J. D.
“Please. I know she’s a monster. I am so sorry for what she’s done to you. Please, let me take you to Oliver. Let Ellen heal you.”
He continued to shake his head. “I know you mean well. I do. I know you aren’t like your mother . . .”
“Please then. Stay here and let me get Uncle Oliver,” I said, but Adam just shook his head.
“No. I know what’s in you Taylors now. I’ve seen it.” His good eye searched my face, as if he were trying to see through a disguise, but then he turned away. “I know what y’all are now, and I can’t bear it.”
Beneath the crashing surf, I heard that same growling I’d heard in the stone hall. At the edge of the line of trees, a retreating moon illuminated the wolf form that Joe had once again assumed. The beast padded up within yards of us and settled down, waiting for us to move so that it could give chase. Adam’s body vibrated, shivering from cold, quivering from adrenaline. “Don’t move,” I said, but my words came too late. Adam took off in a full sprint, heading in the direction of the lighthouse. The wolf looked up at me, glee in its amber eyes. Its right front paw shimmered and stretched out into a furry, human-shaped hand. I watched as each of the five fingers Joe showed me bent in toward the palm. He was counting down, giving Adam a head start. The hand shrunk back into a wolf’s pad, and Joe howled into the night, then leapt into the air and took off in pursuit.
I ran after them, ignoring the protest of my feet as the soft sand gave way to wood planks and then asphalt. I stopped on the road to get my bearings, but Adam and the wolf had already vanished from my sight. I turned in a circle, trying to hear some sign of them, but any external sounds were drowned out by the beating of my own heart. I was about to send out a psychic ping to see if I could get a fix on Adam when a beam shot out of the decommissioned lighthouse, illuminating the world around me. I saw my mother’s figure standing in silhouette on the external catwalk near the black-painted top of the beacon. Praying that Adam had managed to escape and find shelter, I closed my eyes and slid to the lighthouse’s white base.
I knew this place by heart, having climbed to the tower’s top many times over the years. Tonight, its entranceway stood wide open, and light—every bit as bright as what was shining from the beacon’s focal plane—poured out the black doorframe and reflected off the gold “1873” that adorned it. I put my foot on the first step, pulling it away again when I felt a sticky wetness. I looked down. It was blood. More had dribbled down on the next step and the next. I stepped up gingerly, trying to avoid further contact. I entered the tower, only to find more blood inside, much more, a puddle of it having formed at the base of the circular stairs that led up to the external railing where I’d seen Emily. Another drop of blood fell from above and splashed into the puddle. I looked up, but the brightness of the light and the curve of the stairs, combined with the way the tower narrowed as it went up, prevented me from seeing its source.
The silence in the tower was absolute, and the sound of my foot touching the iron mesh of the first of the winding steps echoed as loudly as if I’d hit it with a sledgehammer. “Come on up, darling,” Emily’s voice rang out in my mind. “We are all waiting for you.” I closed my eyes, focusing my thoughts on the ninth landing. When I opened them again, Joe stood there before me in his human form, completely naked. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Adam,” I said, feeling my knees start to buckle.
“Relax,” Joe said. “I only took a little taste.” He squinted and licked his lips.
“Where is he? What have you done with him?”
“He’s hanging out with your mother,” he said and opened the door that led to the external circular catwalk. “After you.”
“No, you first.” I would not turn my back on Josef. He shrugged and smiled, then stepped out the door, letting the wind slam it shut in my face. I grabbed the handle and pulled it open, a whistling sound coming through the crack. I peeked through, but could see nothing, so I opened it wider and poked my head out. Adam hung in midair, his head lolling down, his arms being whipped about in the wind. I forced the door fully open and stepped out onto the catwalk.
“Call them. Call them to you.” Emily said to me, making me jump even though I had known her to be there. “I want the whole dear family here for this event.” I considered a quick slide. Go out. Grab Adam. Get anywhere the hell away from here. Emily floated over to face me. “Don’t even consider it, darling. I’ll make sure he hits the ground before you can even blink. Now call them.”
“Do as your mother tells you. Call them, sister. Call your aunts. Call the ape’s lover.”
“You are mighty brave when you are hiding behind her skirt,” I said, my anger overtaking my fear. “You’d better hope I never catch you out alone. I will rip your big bad wolf costume right off you.”
He took a step toward me, straining so that his muscles would pop. “I am much more adept at using magic than you are.”
“I ain’t talking about using magic, little brother.”
“Enough, children,” Emily said. Josef’s taut muscles were still twitching even as he took a step closer to Emily. She ran her fingers through his hair and then trailed them down his naked back. “Shhh . . .” She soothed him and then turned toward the sea and leaned against the metal railing. She whistled three discordant notes, then repeated the sequence twice.
From out near the horizon, where by now I knew the sun should soon rise, a furious shrieking came in response to her call. The awakening sky lost all light, fading to a deep purple, the shade of Adam’s bruised skin, and then any hope of color was lost, repelled by storm clouds that had arisen from nowhere.
“A few simple sounds,” Emily said. “And not much power at all. Just enough to encourage nature to do what it already wanted to do anyway. The water was already so warm, aching for a touch to arouse it. So easy to start, so hard to end.” The winds began to whip up whitecaps. “What do you think, Josef?”
“At this rate, it will only make it to a category four by the time it hits Savannah,” he said, jutting out his head over the railing to assess the growing storm. “I want a five.”
“And so you shall have it,” she said. She whistled again, and this time the notes came more quickly, sounding shriller. She kept it up until I thought my eardrums would burst, but then the sound mercifully stopped.
“It’s building on its own now,” Emily said. “Remember, I tried to avoid this, but you left me with no choice.”
“A hurricane with no warning. No time for alerts. No evacuation,” Joe said. “The destruction will be spectacular.”
The clouds continued to thicken and blacken, and the first flash of lightening shocked the sky. “You have to stop this.”
“Oh, no, my daughter. If you want this stopped, you will have to be the one to stop it.” She smiled at me. “I know that you can . . . that is, if you are allowed.”
“What do you mean if I am allowed?”
“Ask the Duvals. They could have turned Katrina away from New Orleans, directing it to a less populated area. Or they could have used their magic to help the levees hold. But the anchors wouldn’t allow your cousins to save their home, just as they will not allow you to save yours.”
“That’s ridiculous. The storm was too powerful. If they could have done—”
“Oh, they could have done,” Emily interrupted me. “And they would have done too, but the anchors said that diverting that much power from the line would weaken it. They commanded the Duvals to step down, and they did.”
“Well, I am a Taylor, not a Duval,” I said, and another flash of lightning punctuated my words, the clap of thunder so near it caused the metal catwalk to sing beneath my feet.
“Oh, my dear, I’m counting on that. Now go ahead. Call your family. I want you to do your best to turn this destruction you’ve forced me to call upon Savannah back out to sea. My sisters and broth
er will give you all the help you need.” She closed her eyes and raised her hands toward the sea. “Now, I’ll give it the slightest nudge.” Her lips moved silently, and the horrible monstrosity on the horizon began to move closer to us, toward her outstretched hands. “My work here is done,” she said and reached out for Joe’s hand.
“Wait. Is it true? Is this just another trick to get me to endanger the line? Will the energy I use weaken it?”
“That’s what the Duvals believed. Tell me, do you?” A flash of lightning enveloped them, and they vanished. The world around me stopped as Adam fell.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I reached out my magic toward Adam, but he slipped from my grasp. His body plummeted, limp, but bending in the wind. If I couldn’t stop his fall, I could at least cushion it. I envisioned the air between him and the ground condensing, slowing his descent. I watched from above as his fall slowed and he was eased onto the ground. From my height, I couldn’t tell if he was still alive. I concentrated on him, and in the next instant, I was kneeling by his side. I felt for a pulse. “Thank you.” I sighed a prayer of thanks to the universe.
The howl of the wind reminded me that Adam wasn’t my only worry. I needed to find my family, and together we needed to find a way to deal with the storm before the winds found their way to land. Not even counting the damage it could do to Savannah, countless innocent lives lay in its path. It would certainly claim Parris Island and Hilton Head, ravaging on until it had destroyed Daufuskie Island. Didn’t Jilo have family there, as well as on Sapelo?
Oliver had closed on his new house yesterday, and today the winds would wipe it from the map. My own house, where Iris and Ellen were probably still sleeping, would be destroyed if I didn’t make it there to wake them. I wrapped my arms around Adam and focused, but I didn’t feel the tingling sensation that usually hit me before I made one of my leaps. Was Savannah too far away? The usual sliding feeling did not come. Rain began to pelt me like grapeshot. Could the storm be interfering? I opened my eyes. “No,” was all I could say. We were still at the base of the lighthouse. We hadn’t moved an inch, but the storm had. I closed my eyes again. Come on. Come on, I screamed in my own mind.
“What in the hell is goin’ on here?” Jilo’s voice spat into my ear. I felt her cold hand reach out and spin me around. She stood there before me on the beach, dressed in a fuchsia polyester nightgown, a yellow scarf tied around her head. I lunged forward and pulled her into my arms.
“Adam,” I heard Oliver say with a gasp, and looked up to see him drawing near too. He ran up to us, bare chested and wearing drawstring pajama bottoms. He took Adam from me and rolled him over, cradling him in his arms. Iris approached from the opposite direction, wearing a housecoat, and Ellen stumbled a few feet behind her, moving groggily.
“You’ve brought us here?” Ellen asked. She had arrived fully dressed, wearing the same outfit she’d had on yesterday. I knew instantly that she hadn’t slept. She had passed out drunk. Perhaps she was still a bit drunk now. Okay, one disaster at a time. That one would have to wait.
“I hadn’t intended to, but . . .” I said and motioned out toward the approaching storm. “Emily,” I said before emotion choked me. I swallowed hard. “It is heading straight for Savannah. Oh my God”—I remembered Adam—“Adam’s been hurt.”
“Let me have him,” Ellen said to Oliver. She had been shocked sober by the sight of the two men. Oliver laid Adam’s head down gently and slid back to give her room. “They’ve been bleeding him,” she mumbled or maybe said. The wind made it hard to hear without screaming. Either way, the rest of her words were lost.
“We need to do something, push this back out,” I said, “but Emily said the anchors won’t let us.”
Jilo spat on the ground. “The hell you say . . .”
“It’s true,” another voice came, this one totally unexpected. It was sharper. Northern. “The others would stop us. That,” Rivkah said, her dark hair whipping around her face, “is why we have to act now before they register what we are doing.”
“How did you find us?”
“From whom do you think Emmet inherited his tracking skills? I spent two years in the Israel Defense Forces. I sensed you were in trouble, so I came. That’s why I’m here,” she said, anticipating a question I hadn’t even had time to consider. “Now do you want to talk, or do you want to turn this storm around?”
“Of course we want to turn the storm,” Iris said. “But you can’t take part in this. A Taylor caused this. The Taylors will act alone and shoulder the responsibility. This is not your fight.”
“I am not going to stand by and let innocent people die. You let me worry about the consequences.” The blowing wet sand bit at my ankles. Lightning ripped a seam in the sky and thunder shook us.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“How’d she start it?” Jilo asked.
“I don’t know. She just whistled.”
Iris nodded. “Well, the classics are always the best. We need to pull the storm back and then bend its course. I will have to descend into its eye to do that.” She shed her housecoat, the light silk of her nightgown instantly ravaged by the rain. “Jilo, honey, I am so glad you are here.”
“Well, that make one of us.” Jilo’s frail form shivered.
“If any of us knows how to collect and transmit power, it’s you,” Iris said. “It’s going to take all of us and all of our power to stop this storm. We need someone who can borrow everyone’s magic and loan it to me.” The two women looked at each other, an unspoken pact forming between them.
Ellen stood and stepped away from Adam. She looked at her brother and shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetie, I’ve done what I can . . . We’ll just have to wait and see.” Oliver shuddered at the words. “I’m sorry. I caught his essence just in time, but I don’t know. He’s lost so much . . .”
The wind howled even more loudly around us, drowning out the rest of her words. Iris raised her head to the sky and lifted her arms. Amid the flashes of lightening, she spun up into the air, turning her face into the driving wind. I watched in amazement as her body took to the wind, her flight against it a testimony to her strength.
We all pulled closer, huddling around Jilo. Oliver spoke first. “Jilo Wills, I grant you my magic. All of it. It is my power to give, and I give it to you of my own free will.” He paused. “I’m counting on you, you old buzzard. You fix this.”
More surprising than watching Iris take to the sky was witnessing Jilo’s gnarled hand as she reached out and pulled Oliver into her grasp. She pulled him to her and planted a kiss on his forehead. “She do her best.”
Ellen came next. “Jilo Wills, I grant you all of my magic. It is my power to give, and I give it to you of my own free will.” Jilo began to glow, the sole point of light now that dark clouds had devoured the sky.
I stepped forward, but Rivkah grabbed my arm. “Not you, Mercy. We need you as Plan B,” she said and then turned to Jilo. “Jilo Wills. I grant you all my magic. It is my power to give, and I give it to you of my own free will.” Lightning tore at us from the four corners of the sky, merging into a single bolt and striking Jilo as one. At first, I thought she must have been killed, but the old woman of the crossroads shot up and hovered a few feet off the ground. Clasping her hands together, she shot a single blinding arc of energy across the water, transferring what she had collected to Iris.
The wind lessened. The rain eased. Iris was succeeding, I just knew it. Then, the next instant later, she was thrown face down in the surf. Oliver jumped up from Adam’s side and ran toward her, but after a couple of steps, he too collapsed. I used my power to slide over to her and pull her out of the water. I knelt over her and felt for a pulse. I couldn’t find one. I looked up and called for Ellen, only to witness her weave and collapse.
“We’ve been found out,” Rivkah said, falling to her knees, and then onto her side, her left arm
sprawling over her head.
A moment of total silence descended upon us, and then wind roared and snapped back onto its original path. The world around us flashed, and Jilo collapsed to the ground as all the magic was drained out of her.
“Sons of bitches,” she screamed and shook her hand at the sky. “You sons of bitches.” She looked at me. “Yo’ other anchors done cut off the magic. They done worked a binding on yo’ family and the Yankee woman. I think they done killed ’em, girl.”
I ran like mad from one to the next. No pulses, but I sensed they weren’t dead. They had been suspended, frozen. “You stop this,” I screamed, knowing full well even a whisper would be heard. They must be observing us after all. “You don’t have the right.” Feeling a sharp pain in my chest, I fell to my knees. The wind lashed stinging sand across my face, and another, sharper pain stabbed into my solar plexus.
Jilo tread toward me across the wet sand. “They workin’ you now. Don’t you let them, Mercy. You give your power to them, you ain’t never gonna get it back. They take yo’ magic. They take you family. Don’t you let them. You fight, girl.” She knelt before me and grasped my hands.
The pain was excruciating, and I almost gave into the waves of darkness that rolled over me, but then I thought of Colin, and I found the strength to fight back. I screamed, not out of pain, not even out of anger, but out of a mother’s primal sense to protect her child. No more. I would be weak no longer. I was no one’s victim, and neither was my child. “I reclaim my magic,” I shouted into the wind. “It is mine, and you may no longer have it. I revoke any permission I granted you.”
As the anchors channeled their combined power together to try to control the magic that belonged to me, my witch’s eyes witnessed multiple vistas, different worlds, encapsulating us, as one reality pressed in against another, competing for supremacy. Beyond them all, a pair of monstrous eyes, as large as moons, as large as planets, closed for eons, winked open, and turned toward us. Not yet fully awake, they still reflected the hunger of hibernation. Were the other anchors really so desperate for me to back down? They had risked everything in their attempt to control me. The fools were playing chicken with the line and stirring up the demons.