I started to realize this could be the end of the road for me. It was possible Phaola might kill me at any moment. Mother Earth would surely cast another avatar, but my particular human form would be eliminated.
I made one last try to save myself, barely stirring a nearby pile of gravel. Then, as Phaola raised her arms, and a blazing charge of power flared around her hands, I gulped in a deep, deep breath and held it, awaiting my end.
The charge burned brighter. Phaola clenched her teeth. I saw the muscles flex in her arms as she got ready to fire.
Then, without warning, something swooped out of nowhere and collided with her, blowing into her upper body.
Howling, Phaola dropped, plunging into the mud below. The spherical object that had bowled her over looped around and hurtled down for another strike, clipping her so hard in the head that she flopped unconscious into the mud. The hailstones stopped falling immediately, and the thunder and lightning ceased.
Only then did the object unfurl, revealing it had been a person all along—someone curled up into a ball. A woman.
It wasn’t Ashanti, and it wasn’t Rune, either. It was someone completely unexpected, someone who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the EarthSave site.
“Gaia!” She zipped down to my side with a look of deep concern on her face. “Are you all right?”
I frowned up at her as she reached out a hand to help me. “I am, thanks,” I told her. “But what the hell are you doing here, Luna?”
17
A boom like a bomb going off echoed through the drill site, tearing my attention off Luna. Looking toward it, I saw Blue Knob Mountain rocketing over the field, propelled by an awesome blast from Ashanti, and crashing into the injector/drill apparatus. The impact was so great, the spire buckled and snapped, toppling in pieces into the muck at its base. As it came down, a jet of black oil sprang up from the hole it had straddled, pouring up into the sky.
Finally, all three of our opponents were down—but it brought me no joy. Possessed or brainwashed, they were still my good friends, and I hated that we’d hurt them. Also, I realized that taking them down was just the start of our worries.
“Sorry, Gaia.” Luna helped me to my feet and compulsively brushed mud off my leather jacket. “I had a feeling you were going to need help, and I couldn’t just stay behind at the office while you—”
“Stop.” I had some big questions for her, but now was not the time. Our little expedition had gone about as far sideways as it possibly could, and the clock was ticking on how much worse it was going to get. “We don’t have time for this.”
Pushing her away, I fought through my pounding headache—so much worse since the fight—and tried to think. We could not have landed in a bigger mess if we’d tried.
“Rune!” I looked around and spotted her standing by a shed, staring. “I need your help!”
Rune’s eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you people, anyway? What’s with all the flying and shooting energy beams and—”
“Cameras,” I snapped. “Where are the security cameras?”
Rune shrugged. “Every shed and trailer has one. They’re networked wirelessly and upload their feeds to a cloud server via web app.”
I slumped. “So the video of all this has already gone out. No way to erase it.”
“Correct,” said Rune. “There’s no onsite server we can scrub, if that’s what you’re getting at. The web app’s hackable, though, so maybe later we can—”
“Okay. Next order of business. We need to get out of here, and we need to take them with us.” I pointed in the direction of Phaola, then Blue Knob and Prince Gallitzin State Park. “And we need to keep them unconscious.” Having them wake up in their current states without restraint could be a true disaster.
“Gaia?” Luna tapped me on the shoulder.
I brushed her aside. “We need a tranquilizer or something, but—”
This time, Luna was the one cutting me off. “Gaia!” Instead of tapping, she shook my shoulder roughly.
“What?” I swung around to face her, annoyed.
“I can help!” said Luna. “I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
Before I could duck out of the way, she shot out a hand and touched the palm of it to my forehead. Suddenly, everything went black.
The next thing I knew, my eyes were fluttering open, and the blackness was gone. I felt someone holding on to me, keeping me from dropping in the slop underfoot.
And that someone was Luna.
“See what I mean?” She smiled. “I can keep them under or knock them back out with a touch.”
I stood up and straightened my clothes, then jogged through the mud to where Phaola had fallen. Why she could do what she did, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t worry about it just then. All that mattered was, she was the solution to our problem.
“Ashanti!” I shouted to the woman hovering nearby. “Can you carry one of them?”
“Absolutely, Miss Glow.” Ashanti drifted over to the inert form of Prince Gallitzin State Park. She extended both hands, suffused with golden glow, and slowly raised them. A flickering radiance surrounded Prince Gallitzin State Park, and he floated up from the mud, arms hanging limp at his sides.
“Rune and Luna, carry the other one!” I yelled over my shoulder. “If you can.”
Crouching beside Phaola then, I put my arms around her shoulders and the backs of her knees. Grunting, I scooped her out of the mud and straightened, adjusting my grip.
Turning, I saw Luna hefting Blue Knob Mountain and slinging him over her shoulder like he weighed nothing at all. Rune tried to help, but Luna just waved her off with a smile.
As dire as our situation was, I couldn’t wait to get to the truth about that platinum-haired mystery woman.
“Let’s go!” I shouted, trudging through the slop toward the treeline from which we’d first emerged. “We need to get back to the car and get rolling ASAP.”
“What about the Sheriff?” asked Luna, who’d quickly caught up to me in spite of the weight on her shoulder. “Couldn’t he just take care of all this?”
I stopped and looked back at the wreckage of the drill site. “I’m not sure I’d bet the farm on that,” I told her. “We just demolished a ton of private property.”
“Fighting super-powered, brainwashed kidnap victims,” said Luna.
“I’m not hanging around to find out how that plays, and I suggest you don’t, either.” Phaola’s body was heavy, and I followed Luna’s example by shifting it to my shoulder. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem to raise up a layer of rock or stones from the ground and use that to levitate the burden with my Mother Earth powers. This time, though, as hard as I tried, the substance of the world refused to cooperate. Lugging Phaola by hand was the best I could manage.
“But if cameras caught everything, EarthSave already knows it was us,” said Luna. “They can already track us down based on the video.”
“Let’s not make it easy for them,” I said, and then I resumed course for the woods. The border of Shawnee State Park wasn’t far once we crossed the treeline. Then it was a matter of getting to the Highlander and making like a bat out of hell.
18
I was as surprised as anyone when we rolled into the alley behind Cruel World Travel/Charmer Investigations, all in one piece. Even burdened by the dead weight of unconscious friends, we’d made it to the Highlander, driven out of Shawnee State Park, dropped off Rune at her apartment (promising to get back to her later), and gotten back to Confluence without any mishaps.
Hopping out, I made sure the alley was empty, then unlocked the building’s back door. Luna and Ashanti helped me quickly unload the three bodies and haul them into the back room, where we laid them on the floor. Then, alone, I hurried back out to move the Highlander to its parking spot on Casselman Street in front of the place.
Only then, with the Highlander parked and the engine off, did I allow myself to relax the slight
est bit. Slumping forward, I rested my forehead against the wheel and took deep breaths, fighting to calm myself.
Even though I knew my freedom could still end at any moment. Security cameras at EarthSave’s drill site had captured my performance and beamed it to the cloud. How long would it be until EarthSave identified me and tracked me down?
And how much good would I be when they got here if my powers didn’t return in full? Even here, far from the ultra-fracking apparatus, I was still out of touch with the source of my strength, the Earth itself.
Would Phaola say it served me right? After all, I’d been slacking off in my role as Mother Earth for a long time. I’d already been out of touch with the Earth before losing my connection in the fight. Phaola had been the one who’d chided me about it again and again, but I’d been too busy with my life as a private eye and travel agent to pay much attention.
Now she had paid the price. I should’ve been watching more closely, guarding over my charges, and I’d failed them instead.
Pull yourself together, Gaia.
Leaning back, I took one more deep breath, let it out slowly, and got out of the Highlander. The day wasn’t going to get any less difficult if I put off what I had to do next.
I unlocked the front door of the offices, stepped inside, and locked it again behind me. The window blinds were down, and I left the lights off to discourage passersby from taking interest. It was 7:30 in the evening, well after closing time, but folks had a way of stopping by if they thought we were still open.
When I entered the back room, I found Ashanti and Luna standing over the three bodies on the floor, looking grim.
“You can definitely keep them asleep?” I asked Luna. “Without hurting them?”
She nodded. “You bet your ass, boss.”
“I wish we had some cots in this place,” I said. “Or some blankets and pillows, at least.”
“Can’t help you there.” Luna gestured at the bodies. “If I don’t stay close, they might wake up.”
“I’ll run and get them,” I told her. “Plus whatever else we need.”
“Clean clothes would help.” Ashanti was right. Phaola, Prince Gallitzin, and Blue Knob were muddy and bloody from the fight at the drill site, and so were we. Then there was the upholstery in my Highlander, which I tried not to think about.
“Other than that, what’s next?” Luna looked expectantly at me. “Now that we have your friends back, what do we do with them?”
I leaned against the wall and folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s been done to them.”
“Was the same thing done to me?” Ashanti gazed down at Phaola, her expression grave. “That’s what I keep asking myself.”
“You didn’t turn into a killing machine,” I said.
“Maybe I was supposed to,” said Ashanti. “Maybe it didn’t take, or they didn’t finish the process.”
“We need to get to the truth, whatever it is,” I told her. “For your sake as well as theirs.”
“But how do we do that, Miss Glow?” asked Ashanti.
I thought for a long moment, considering the situation. Thankfully, my headache was finally letting up, so at least I could think clearly.
“We bring in a specialist,” I said. “If we can find one in time, that is.”
“What kind of specialist?” asked Ashanti.
“The good kind,” I said. “One who can help you with your issue, too, hopefully.”
Ashanti got a funny look on her face, as if she wasn’t sure that would be a good thing or not.
With that, I pushed away from the wall and headed through the doorway to the front office, gesturing for Luna to follow. She joined me at the coffee maker on the counter, where I went to work starting a fresh pot of java.
“So tell me,” I said, keeping my voice low as I poured coffee grounds into a white paper filter. “What’s your story, office manager?”
Luna already had a pot full of water set aside from before and poured it into the top of the coffeemaker. “Isn’t it enough that I’m here to help you?”
“Not a chance.” I slid out the plastic filter basket and stuck the filter in it. “Who are you really? What’s with the powers?”
Luna sighed and leaned against the counter. “I didn’t plan to have this discussion yet,” she said. “I’m not ready. It’s not time.”
I shot her a glare. “Do I look like I give a shit?” I slid the filter basket into its slot in the coffeemaker with extreme prejudice, and Luna jumped. “You need to tell me. I’ve got enough unknowns to deal with as it is.”
Luna met my gaze nervously. “I’m not an unknown to you,” she said. “In your heart, I think you already know who I am.”
“I don’t.” I shook my head. “The first time I met you was three days ago.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” She looked sad. “Your memory’s no better than Ashanti’s, is it?”
I flipped the switch on the coffeemaker, and it started percolating. “Just tell me,” I said firmly. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Luna smiled then, sweetly, sadly. She reached out a hand and lightly touched my arm, then drew it back.
“Oh, Gaia,” she said. “Don’t you recognize your own little sister, even after all this time?”
19
I gaped at Luna as the coffee bubbled and hissed down into the pot. The words she’d just said seemed utterly unreal to me, like some kind of gibberish in a dream.
“Sister?” I scowled at her. “But I don’t have a sister.”
“You’ve always had one,” said Luna. “We’ve just been—distant—for a while.”
My scowl deepened. “I don’t remember having a sister.”
“I know,” said Luna. “I think there’s something wrong with your memory.”
The coffeemaker bubbled louder as it neared the end of its cycle. “Your powers.” Things were coming together in my mind. “Are they...are you...like me?”
Luna nodded. “You’re of the Earth. I’m of...somewhere else.”
I frowned. “You’re Landkind, then?”
“No,” said Luna. “I’m the manifestation of a world, as you are. A different world.” She smiled and pointed upward. “Your sister world, in so very many ways.”
“The moon?” I stared at her in disbelief—though what she was telling me was no more incredible than so much else in my life. “You’re trying to tell me you’re the moon?”
She nodded. “The one and only.”
My frown deepened. If what she was telling me was true, I should have remembered it. Between Luna and the Ellie Grenoble’s scrapbooks, I was starting to think my memories had been tampered with. “So what happened? Why have you only come back to me now?”
“We grew apart.” She shrugged. “We had a falling out. I came back because I needed you...only now I realize you need me more.”
Mystified, I gazed at her, searching for some kind of sisterly feeling that might be lost deep inside me. But I found nothing. If we shared the connection she was talking about, I had no recollection of it on any level.
But that didn’t mean everyone in my orbit was just as in the dark about it.
“Duke knew, didn’t he?” I asked. “That’s why he hired you.”
Luna nodded. “We share a special bond. In his way, he’s a moon of yours, too.”
Talking about Duke brought me back to the emergency at hand. “Where is he, anyway? We need all hands on deck right now.”
“I can’t say.”
“We need him here, Luna,” I insisted. “We are way past the point of the proverbial shit hitting the fan.”
“But he asked me not to tell anyone. I have to respect his privacy.”
“Can you call him?”
Luna winced. “No phone, he said.”
“Uh-huh.” I moved closer and slid an arm around her shoulders. “So tell me, did I ever bully you when we were growing up? I forget.”
“Not really.”<
br />
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” I squeezed her shoulders just hard enough to make her take notice. “Where the hell is he, sis?”
Music filled the night, emanating from the old gray barn as I approached it. Not just any music, either, but the great stuff, sweet and familiar as it flowed into my ears.
Big band music.
If only my situation had been less dire, I might have enjoyed it. Instead, as I walked from my Highlander, all I felt was dark urgency. Driving fifteen minutes into the woods outside town had already taken too long in a time of crisis. I had to get Duke back on deck with no further delay.
Face it, he’s my rock. And yes, I’m aware of the irony, since rock is what he’s made of.
I reached for the handle of the barn door, and then I paused. The song playing inside was one of my favorites, “Jeep’s Blues,” and the lovely, gliding saxophone solo was in progress.
Yes, I know and love everything Duke Ellington and his band ever wrote. It probably helped that I learned it from the best possible source—Duke himself.
Pulling the big door open, I finally saw where my personal moon had gone. A full-size big band was playing on risers along the far wall, their brass instruments gleaming in the bright light of bulbs swinging from the rafters.
There in the middle of it all, with his back to me, Duke was conducting the orchestra with graceful, looping sweeps of a baton.
The musicians were a mix of ages, races, and genders. There were fifteen of them, all dressed casually in everything from polos and khakis to t-shirts and shorts. Without fail, they played with the smooth precision of a well-oiled group, as if they’d been together for many years.
I let the song play a little longer, though I knew I shouldn’t—savored the bluesy swing and slow build of the horns, the hiss of the high-hat cymbals, the tinkling of the keys. For a moment, it could have been 1956, with Duke in his comeback prime and the whole world purring at his doorstep, begging for more.
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