by Tara West
A gust nearly knocked Abby backward. She would have fallen if Gabriel hadn’t caught her elbow. He held out his hands, and amazingly, the storm seemed to circumvent them. Lydia’s family wasn’t so lucky. Flying debris battered the wagon. Lydia and her family screamed as Irene toppled out of the back of the wagon and into the raging water. Irene didn’t make a sound as she went under, a trail of crimson following her floating fingertips with the current, and then she disappeared completely. Lydia’s father looked over his shoulder once but pressed the horse forward.
Abby’s stomach twisted and roiled as she scanned the water for Irene, but it was so murky and littered with debris, she could see no sign of her.
Gabriel stepped forward, looking ready to dive in.
Safina grabbed his waist, jerking him back. “We can’t do anything for her!” she hollered. “We need to save Charlotte before the house goes.”
Gabriel helped Abby and Safina climb to the porch. Chests heaving, they tumbled inside the house. Gabriel fought to shut the door and then fell against it, mopping his brow.
“Charlotte!” Abby called as she moved through the hall. Her skirt puddled the floor, but she didn’t care. Soon the house would be lost to the flood.
She found Charlotte in the kitchen, sobbing as she hunched over the table, clutching her round stomach. The howling winds shook the house so violently, Abby feared the structure would fall apart at any moment.
Abby fell to her knees, grasping her friend’s hands. “Charlotte, what are you still doing here?”
She sat up and gasped. “Abby? Is it you, or am I dreaming?”
“It’s me, dearest.” Abby motioned to her friends, who’d followed her. “Safi and Gabriel have come to help. Are you all right?”
Charlotte’s lower lip trembled as fresh tears sprang from her eyes. “Oh, Abby, they left me! They wouldn’t wait with me.” She waved at the back door before leaning toward Abby, squeezing her hands tight. “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m so very sorry.”
Abby patted Charlotte’s knee and abruptly stood. “There’s no time for apologies. We need to get you out of this house now.”
Charlotte’s mouth fell open. “But I can’t leave. Teddy is coming for me. He won’t know where I’ve gone.”
Abby did her best to keep an impassive face, but if Teddy hadn’t come for Charlotte by now, he was not coming. She didn’t want to think of what had happened to him, for she knew he’d never willingly abandon his wife and unborn child. She straightened her shoulders and did her best to put images of Teddy drowning out of her mind. Charlotte needed her to be strong.
Abby sucked in a hiss when she saw water rush in under the doorway. “This house and everything in it is going to wash away. Believe me, Charlotte, Teddy would not want you to stay. You have to leave now,” she pleaded.
Charlotte grabbed the table, pulling herself up. “All right.”
“Time to go!” Gabriel boomed before latching onto Charlotte’s elbow and pulling her behind him.
Abby followed on limbs that were numb with fear. If the water had reached the floor, that meant the flood was at least chest high. How were they supposed to cross the torrent?
Gabriel opened the front door, and it flew out of his hand, slamming against the wall with a crack. The wind barreled through the house, knocking Abby and Safina against the back wall.
“Gabriel!” Safina yelled as water rushed into the house. “It’s too high. We’ll never cross.”
Gabriel bit his lower lip and stared at the water. “Let me try. I think I can push it back!”
“Push it back?” Abby asked, but nobody paid her any heed.
Gabriel delivered Charlotte into Abby’s arms and then faced the onslaught of wind head-on. He sliced the air with his hands, as if he were a conductor leading an orchestra. Abby watched with fascination as the wind and water retreated out the door.
“How did you do that?” Abby rasped.
But he didn’t answer. He kept walking forward, hands outstretched as if he were pushing on an invisible barrier.
Abby shot Safina a look, and Safina answered with a knowing smile.
“Do you believe in magic?” Safina asked.
Abby swallowed hard. Water continued to move back from his feet. “I do now,” she said.
Just as Gabriel reached the threshold, a shadow moved past the doorway. Gabriel staggered, clutching his stomach and falling to the floor. The water rushed back into the room.
“Gabriel! Oh, my love!” Safina fell to the floor beside him. Blood turned his white shirt red. “What happened?” she cried. “We have to get you to my mother.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” came a familiar, sinister rumble as the shadow filled the doorway. “How about we get your mother to come to us?”
Abby gasped when Dr. Straw stepped into the room, brandishing a cane with a blade protruding from the tip.
Abby instinctively jumped in front of Charlotte while Safina screamed like a wild animal, clawing at Dr. Straw’s face and chest as if she were a lioness defending her cub. Dr. Straw ducked and stepped around her, banging the cane across the back of her head with a sickening thud.
Abby trembled when Safina fell on top of her husband. Dr. Straw snarled as he hoisted Safina’s limp body across his shoulders with surprising ease.
When his beady snake eyes focused on Abby, she thought she’d faint from fright. “Tell the witch if she wishes to see her daughter alive, she must give me the ingredients to her elixir. I will meet her on the corner of Broadway and 30th at half past six. She is not to alert the authorities or her daughter dies.” Abby gaped at the man. “Nod that you understand me,” he barked as the wind whipped Safina’s hair around his shoulders. Shadows darkened his face, making him look like a demon on fire.
Abby knew not where she found the strength to overpower her numbing panic, but she slowly nodded her agreement.
“Good girl.” He sneered. “Nice to see you do as you’re told for once.”
“Safina, mi amor. Do not take her!” Gabriel feebly moaned, rolling onto his side.
Dr. Straw answered with a kick to Gabriel’s ribcage, so hard Abby heard his bones crack over the din of the storm. Gabriel curled up in agony before turning face-down into the water.
“Stop it!” Abby cried as she lurched forward, ignoring Gabriel’s grunts as she pulled him into a sitting position.
Abby froze and spun around when Charlotte cried out. Charlotte had fallen to the floor, clutching her stomach, tears streaming down her face.
“It appears your friend is about to deliver her baby. You might want to find her a doctor.” Straw laughed before disappearing, leaving Abby alone with a dying man and a woman in labor.
Chapter Twenty
Fiona held tight to Duncan’s belt, trudging across the fast-moving current while dodging flying debris. Her hair whipped wildly around her with the slaps of a thousand tiny whips. Slate shingles from the rooftops flew through the air like possessed daggers, knocking people into the water with sickening cracks. She watched in horror as one man’s face was ripped off by a projectile. Clutching the bloody mass that was once his nose, he tumbled into the flood. Fiona fought the urge to race after the man and save him, but the water was moving too fast.
More than once she’d thought about transforming into a dragon, using her strength and size to cut through the rapids with ease while her scales deflected airborne projectiles. The skies around them had darkened enough that people might mistake her for a boat or a whale, but she blindly followed Duncan instead, and she couldn’t understand why.
Then she remembered Duncan’s words to Mrs. Jenkens: “There isn’t a force of nature strong enough to keep me from finding my daughter.”
Fiona felt humbled and ashamed as she realized Duncan truly loved Safina, the dragoness daughter he hardly knew. Had she been wrong, keeping him from her all these years? A new wave of guilt washed over her when she reminded herself he was the dragonslayer who’d killed her mother. E
ither way, she knew her heart and conscience were doomed. For how could she not love the man who would risk his life to save their child? Yet how could she love the man who’d taken the life of her mother?
When her dragon-touched senses saw a plank spinning through the air, heading right toward them, she screamed as she tried to push him out of the way. “Look out, Duncan!”
He spun her around, shielding her body right before the board smacked Duncan with a sickening thud. Duncan grunted, hunching over and clutching his chest, and then he proceeded to move forward, despite his injury. Fiona knew he’d been hit hard, for her fingers itched to heal the bruising pain radiating off him.
Then he stiffened before pushing through the current at almost a run. “Safina!” The echo of his scream was lost in the din of the vortex swirling around them.
“What is it, Duncan?” Fiona fought to keep up with him. When he did not answer, her head spun with fear, for she knew without a doubt Duncan had seen something happen to their child.
* * *
“Gabriel, stay awake. Keep pressure on the wound.”
Abby shook Gabriel, whose head lolled to the side. His hand dropped in the water that swirled around his legs. She picked up his hand, forcibly pressing it against the bulging, bloody mess protruding from his stomach. Though she tried not to look at it, she’d seen enough to know Gabriel had been gutted like a fish.
Abby had no idea where she found the strength to take control of the situation. Her best friend was in labor, Gabriel was dying, and the very walls that shielded them from disaster were on the verge of toppling as the wind and water shook the house like a lone ship being tossed about in a gale. Thunderous, dark rumbling and an incessant howling filled her ears, along with a cacophony of cries from lost souls swept into the maelstrom. Abby didn’t want to think that soon, she and her friends would join them.
Charlotte leaned back on the stairs, her feet precariously close to the rising waters. She panted heavily in-between grunts. “Teddy never came for me. He has to be dead,” she wailed.
“Charlotte, keep the faith, please.” Abby squeezed her friend’s hand tight. “He has to be alive. I just know it.” She stood, squinting down at both of them, mustering her most stern expression. “Now listen, you two. The water is coming in too fast. We need to get upstairs. I can’t carry you both. You will need to walk.”
Abby nervously eyed the large bay window. Though she’d managed to stack furniture in front of it, she knew the glass wouldn’t hold much longer. She did not wish to be downstairs when it shattered.
“Help her,” Gabriel groaned. “Leave me.”
Abby planted her hands on her hips. “I’m not leaving you.”
Gabriel looked feebly down at his wound. “I can’t move.”
“You can and you will,” Abby commanded, “or else Safina will kill us both.”
“Abby, I don’t want my baby to grow up in an orphanage.” Light flickering from a nearby candle cast long shadows across Charlotte’s face, but even in the low light, Abby saw the agony in Charlotte’s features as she pushed and panted like a wounded animal breathing her last breaths.
“She won’t, Charlotte.” Abby screwed up her face as she held her hand out. “Now get up.”
Charlotte screamed, buckling. And then much to Abby’s horror, blood gushed between Charlotte’s legs.
“Charlotte!” Abby cried, falling beside her friend.
Charlotte’s red face paled to a ghostly shade of white as more blood poured from her. Her eyes glassed over, and she grasped Abby’s wrist with a trembling hand. “Abby, I’m dying.”
“Listen to me, Charlotte,” Abby said in the sternest voice she could manage, fighting to hold back the dam of tears that threatened to rival the flood outside. “You are not dying. You are not leaving Teddy and your child behind.”
“Teddy is already gone,” Charlotte whimpered. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
Abby screamed when she heard a giant crash. Instinctively, she threw herself on top of Charlotte as they were sprayed with glass from the shattered parlor window. Furniture toppled as wind barreled into the room like a herd of wild horses.
“Oh, Lord have mercy!” she screamed. “Someone save us!”
* * *
“Safina!” Fiona rushed into the room, her gaze tunneling on the two girls on the staircase. “Where’s Safina?”
Abby looked at her with wild eyes. “Dr. Straw took her!” she yelled, though the wind seemed to throw back her every word. “Please,” she begged as she shook glass out of her hair and motioned to Charlotte. “She’s dying.” She nodded to Gabriel. “And the doctor stabbed him in the gut.”
Fiona’s heart clenched and then hammered. If she went after Safina, Gabriel and Charlotte would surely die, but if she didn’t hurry, she prolonged Safina’s danger. Fiona knew she’d have no choice but to heal Gabriel and Charlotte, for Safina would never forgive her if she didn’t, and Fiona wouldn’t forgive herself if she allowed them to die.
The water was rushing into the house at an alarming rate, and the wind from the open window threatened to flatten them all. She and Duncan busted the back doors and windows to allow better air flow, and then she helped him carry the injured upstairs.
Duncan pulled a mattress out of one of the bedrooms and laid it in the hallway, settling Charlotte on top of it while Fiona huddled over Gabriel in the corner. Using only the light from a flickering candle as a guide, she worked her hands over his wound. She winced when she saw his guts pouring out of his stomach and knew he wouldn’t have lived much longer. Already, his dark skin had turned a sickly shade of grey.
At the same time, Charlotte was moaning in agony. Even though the pregnant woman was at the other end of the hall, Fiona could feel the pain rolling through the girl as her lifeblood poured out of her body. She focused again on Gabriel. He had to be healed first, so he could prevent the house from collapsing.
Duncan stood over her, breaking her concentration. “I have to leave you with them, lass. I must find Safina.”
Fiona reluctantly nodded her agreement. She didn’t want Duncan going without her. The storm was worsening. What if Duncan or Safina were injured and needed her care?
Abby left Charlotte’s side and tugged on Duncan’s shirtsleeve. “Mr. MacQuoid, Dr. Straw said to meet him at Broadway and 30th at half past six.”
Duncan shook his head. “I need not wait that long.”
Fiona rose and wiped her bloody hands on her dress. “Duncan, please be careful,” she said in the most even tone she could manage. After all, she wanted him to survive so he ensured the safety of their child. There was an intensity in his eyes that rivaled the winds that howled all around them. “Heal Gabriel. You must get him back downstairs to protect the house.” He grabbed her shoulders, squeezing hard as he beseechingly searched her gaze. “And if this house should crumble, for God’s sake, Fiona, do not stay in your mortal state.”
She froze. He was telling her to transform into a dragon and risk all of Galveston discovering her secret? “People will see.”
“I don’t care what they see.” His voice broke, shattering like the glass that littered the stairwell. “I only care that you live.”
At that moment, Fiona wanted nothing more than to kiss Duncan MacQuoid. She leaned into him, and he leaned into her, both swaying as tree branches bending in the wind. But then her breath caught in her throat, the image of her mother with a spear protruding from her chest flashing in her mind. No, she couldn’t willingly kiss the man who’d murdered her mother. She stepped back, needing to put as much distance between herself and his alluring, pale eyes and seductive, full lips as possible.
He flinched as if he’d been slapped. Turning on his heel, he raced down the stairs.
Fiona knew not what propelled her foolish feet forward, but she couldn’t help but follow him, feeling the pull of her heartstrings as he ran away. She did not like the way things stood between them, and damn her for wanting to make amends. Besides, s
he knew if she didn’t speak to him now, she might never get another chance.
“Duncan!” she cried.
He turned on the bottom step, looking impatiently up at her. “What is it, lass?”
There was so much she wanted to say to him, but so much she knew she could never say. Besides, she was wasting precious time keeping him here. She twisted the frayed hem of her shirtsleeve while chewing her lower lip. “Bring back our child please,” she said, not trusting herself to say more.
The wind plastered his wet shirt to his body, revealing a finely sculpted chest and arms. “I will,” he said with finality, the fine lines framing his eyes and mouth hardening. “Or I will die trying.”
* * *
Josef had never before weathered a force of nature so severe. The wind howled and the waters raged, threatening to tear apart their little home, while all other houses around them splintered and crumbled into the surge. As they neared the heart of the hurricane, becoming one with the wind was no longer enough. Josef had to surrender himself to the storm, his skin cracking and his old bones splintering as the fury raged around him.
Sometime during the night, he heard Mrs. Jenkens cry out and fall over. His grandsons and the colored servant had called to him to help as they struggled to breathe life back into her body, but he’d gone too far now, caught up in the storm’s clutches. If he tried to release himself, it would mean certain death for all within the house.
As his arteries strained to keep blood pumping through a weakened heart, he knew his end was near as well. His only hope was to stay alive long enough to weather the storm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Abby cried tears of joy when Miss Fiona handed Charlotte’s crying infant to her. She held the swaddled baby tightly to her chest, rocking her from side to side and praying to God the storm would not claim this precious child’s life.
“Charlotte is hemorrhaging. I must stop the blood loss,” the healer said as she wiped her brow with the back of a bloody hand. Candlelight flickered across her face, casting long shadows on the walls.