Crimson Wind

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  “See for youself.” Alexander pointed behind them.

  Max rolled the window down so Holt could stick his head out and see behind. A moment later, he pulled back in.

  “If you can go faster, you should,” he told Max.

  “What is that stuff?”

  “Magic. Wild magic,” he amended.

  “That’s what Scooter called it,” Max said. “What’s it mean?”

  “You can’t control it. It’s like—” Holt broke off and rubbed his mouth with his bound hands. “Witches—most of us, anyhow—deal in elemental magic: earth, water, flesh, hex, air, fire. Caramaras witches deal in other kinds of magic,” he said with a nod at Alexander. “But the elemental magic that we draw on is tempered—it’s already chosen what it will be. Wild magic hasn’t. It plants itself and grows. It is extraordinarily fertile, even primordial. Who knows why or what it will become? Think of the enchanted forests of the fairy tales. Think of crystal mountains, rivers of milk and blood, giant bean stalks—it can be anything and turn anyone into anything. The only things safe from its effects are those things that have already been claimed or tamed by magic. So you and Alexander and I are safe enough.”

  “Why did you pass out?” Alexander asked.

  “The shock wave. So much magic erupting back into the world …..” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “It is overwhelming. Even the witch chain couldn’t completely protect me from it. My guess is that any witches within a couple hundred miles passed out cold and won’t be waking for a while.”

  Max veered around a car stopped on the side of the road, blaring her horn at the couple standing behind it, staring openmouthed at the sky. “Idiots,” she muttered. “They are going to get themselves killed. Or worse.”

  Suddenly she slammed on the brakes and thrust the truck into reverse. She floored it, and they swerved back and forth before she straightened up and came flying back. She squealed to a halt beside the gray sedan.

  Alexander leaned out his window. “Are you all right? Do you need help? You cannot stay here.”

  The man had his arm around the woman, who looked wilted and dazed. They could not have been much older than twenty-two or twenty-three. They were dressed in button-up shirts tucked into their khaki pants, with carefully styled hair and almost-new hiking boots. They looked at Alexander as if he was a ghost.

  “What’s happening?” the man asked. Husband, Alexander realized, seeing the gold band on his left hand.

  “Does your car work?”

  The man looked vaguely behind him at the sedan and back at Alexander. “Yeah, I think— I don’t—” He looked at Alexander as if he couldn’t remember the question. Then his wife moaned and swayed. He pulled her tight against his chest. “Amanda? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  “She’s a latent witch,” Holt murmured inside the truck, eyeing the couple with narrowed eyes. “Probably just starting to come into her powers. She’s lucky. It protected her from the full weight of the blast.”

  Just then, there was a sudden squall from the back of the car. Max started at the sound. “Is that a baby?” she asked.

  Alexander caught sight of the baby carrier in the backseat. He nodded. “It is.”

  “Shit.”

  He knew what she was thinking. That her family was under attack and there was no time to waste.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, get on it,” Holt said. He was leaning out the window, peering back the way they’d come.

  Alexander followed suit, pulling himself up onto the sill to get a broader view. His stomach clenched. A fine mist of red was slowly falling behind them. It drifted and swirled like ash as it descended, hanging a crimson curtain across the valley. He could no longer see Mount Shasta. As he watched, bits from the leading edge settled on the road no more than two hundred yards behind them. Instantly, the ground buckled and twisted. Orange tentacles that could have been plants or something else entirely shot twenty feet into the air. A second later, the mist thickened so he could see no more.

  He dropped back inside. “We have to go. Now.”

  “We aren’t leaving them. Load them in the back.”

  Alexander did not argue. It would only waste time, and the stubborn thrust of Max’s jaw told him she was not going to change her mind.

  He snatched up Amanda first. She was feverish, her cheeks flushed splotchy red. Her head rolled back to dangle over his arm, and her body went limp as he swung her up. Alexander carried her around to the back of the truck. The father of the two boys was already pushing open the tailgate. Alexander set his burden down and went to drag her husband to the rear. The man struggled.

  “My daughter! I can’t leave her!”

  Alexander picked the kicking man up and tossed him over his shoulder, dumping him in the back with the others. Without a word, he went to get the baby. He leaned in through the window and yanked out the seat. Plastic snapped, and the seat belt uprooted as he pulled the baby free. He handed the crying baby to her distraught father and shut the tailgate and shell before jumping back in the truck.

  Max gunned the motor before he shut his door, and they squealed away up the freeway, back toward Weed.

  Alexander looked behind them. A clump of crimson fell to the left, only a hundred yards away now.

  “How far can this magic go?” he asked Holt.

  The mage shrugged. “It took a lot of effort to pull it into this world. I doubt the Guardians have much strength left to push it very far. Using a volcano was smart—made it easier to disperse. That’s probably how they’re doing it everywhere. From here, they can shove it down the valley and cover most of the state. I wouldn’t bother to go north where hardly anyone lives. Not that it will matter. Eventually it will fall into rivers and drain to the ocean and spread everywhere. Water is the one thing that doesn’t transform.”

  “Will the mountains contain it?” Max asked. She had gone cold again and seemed almost relaxed as she raced ahead of the falling wild magic.

  “For now. If the Guardians have any strength to push it, they’ll use what wind they can find and the summer heat to keep it aloft as long as possible. It takes less effort. Forcing it over the mountains is a lot of work for little purpose. You have the ocean on one side and desert on the other. They get more bang for their buck by staying in the valley and letting the rivers take care of spread.”

  “All right. Then once it stops coming at us, we can turn west to the coast and see if we can beat it to Winters,” Max said.

  Neither man answered. It was a long shot, and Alexander knew it. As fast as the mist was overtaking them, they could not go fast enough south to get around it.

  Max swerved to miss a downed motorcycle, jamming on the brakes and sliding sideways as she did. Alexander leaped out before the truck skidded to a halt and ran to pick up the man struggling to walk down the shoulder of the road.

  “Leg’s broke,” he told Alexander. “Hey! I’m too heavy for you!”

  But Alexander swung him up easily and trotted him back to the truck, shoving him in beside Holt. The back was stuffed full already.

  The big man groaned and swore. “Goddamn that hurts!” A couple of minutes later, he recovered enough to examine his companions. “What’s going on here?” he asked, staring at the tape binding Holt.

  “He is dangerous,” Alexander answered.

  “And you’re not? I weigh two fifty, and you picked me up like I was a rag doll.”

  Alexander smiled. “Maybe I am dangerous, too. But I just saved you, so that should offer you some comfort.”

  “What the hell is that stuff coming out of Shasta? That’s no regular volcanic eruption.”

  “You don’t want to know,” Max said. “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Baker,” he said. He grimaced and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was dressed in a black leather jacket and pants, and he wore a green bandanna tied around his head. The leather was scarred from where he’d slid across the blacktop. The stubble on his jaw was a mix of gray and
brown, and his face was weathered and tan. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “The end of the world,” Max said. “Hold on.”

  She veered off into the median, hardly slowing down. The truck jolted and bumped, spewing dust behind it in a long plume. A pileup of six cars blocked the road, and a dozen others had stopped to help. They jounced over a rise, and a loud crack sounded beneath them. The truck slewed from side to side and finally rolled to a stop. The smell of burning oil filled the cab.

  “End of the line,” Max said. She looked at Alexander. “Get the others out. I’ll help Baker and Holt.”

  He went around to the rear. The curtain of wild magic was only fifty or sixty feet away. They were not going to outrun it. He opened the shell and the tailgate, waving everyone out. “Come on. Let’s go!” His passengers were pale and breathless with fear. Each sported new bumps and bruises from the rough ride. “You have to hurry. It is coming on quick.”

  The father who’d been pulling the boat and his two sons scrambled out and pulled the still unconscious Amanda out with them. Her husband crawled forward, clutching his daughter’s car seat to his stomach. Alexander took it from him and lifted him out before passing the baby back. Ignoring their questions and rising panic, he swung around to the side of the truck where Max was helping Baker and Holt.

  He stopped dead. She had ripped the tape from Holt’s wrists and was unwinding the chain from his neck. She pulled it free. Her eyes met Alexander’s, reading his shock and anger. She held the chain up.

  “This is the best chance these people have to come out of this. We can’t waste it on Holt.”

  She was right. With luck, the witch chain would counter the wild magic and keep their passengers safe. He nodded shortly. She flipped up the backseat and pulled out a second chain. She looked at the mage. “Can you do anything about Baker’s leg? He’ll only slow us down.”

  Holt eyed her, scrutinizing her from head to foot like she was an alien from another planet. Alexander sympathized. Max never did the expected.

  “You want me to help you?” Holt asked incredulously.

  “I want you to help him,” she said, jerking her chin at Baker, who was biting his lips, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. “After that, if you’ve got a few minutes before you start stalking the woman who’s been trying to ditch you for the last few years, I want you to help us take these people to safety.”

  Holt crossed his arms. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you don’t. But if these people get fucked because you didn’t bother to help, then I’d probably take it personally. I’d probably make a point of getting revenge. We’re out of time. What are you going to do?”

  He smiled. “You know, your threats don’t scare me.”

  “That’s because you don’t know me very well yet, Zippy.”

  Holt smiled wider. “What’s in it for me?” He turned a speculative glance at a seething Alexander. “I might be willing if you tell me where Valery went.”

  Alexander looked at Max. If she demanded it of him, would he do it? He couldn’t. But if Max asked—

  His stomach turned to cold lead as he silently begged her not to make him choose.

  “The only thing in it for you is the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you do a good deed,” she told Holt. “And since you’ve probably never experienced it in your entire sorry life, you might get a real high out of it. So what’s it going to be?”

  “You’re a real bitch on wheels, aren’t you? All right. We’re headed in the same direction anyhow. Might as well give you a hand.”

  “What a prince,” she said. “Help Baker.”

  She handed one of the witch chains to Alexander. “Put a loop around everybody’s wrist. Hopefully the magic isn’t stronger than the chains. Oh, and one more thing—Holt’s right. I am a bitch. But did you really think I’d tell you to sell out your sister, Slick?”

  There was a wealth of fury and hurt in her voice. Before he could answer, she walked away.

  Holt followed his glance. “That’s one hell of a woman,” he murmured appreciatively.

  “Keep your damned hands to yourself,” Alexander snapped, and was rewarded with a gloating laugh. He started to put the chain around the baby’s wrist, but Holt stopped him.

  “Better take the baby out of that seat. It might turn into something that will eat her,” Holt said.

  “What?” Baker exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”

  Alexander blew out a harsh breath and started to unbuckle the seat, pushing aside the father’s resistant hands. “Unfortunately, things do not get more serious.”

  Chapter 10

  MAX APPROACHED THE FATHER OF THE TWO teenage boys, anger sizzling inside her. She didn’t throw innocent people under the bus for any reason. Alexander ought to know that about her, if nothing else.

  “Give me your arms.”

  The man glowered at her, unmoving. He was probably around forty years old, slim and fit, with brown hair clipped close over the ears. His sons were lanky, with torn jeans and faded T-shirts. One had hair dyed solid black and combed over his eyes, and the older one wore the short bleached tips of his brown hair pushed up in a ridge down the middle of his head. They stood just behind their father, hands jammed into their pockets, looking terrified. Amanda was lying on the ground, unconscious.

  “Tell me what the hell is going on,” the father demanded. “Who are you, and what is that?”

  He pointed at the nearing curtain of wild magic. It was like the leading edge of a rainstorm, except this rain fell in swirling, twisting clumps and droplets. It was so thick it was difficult to see more than twenty feet or so inside.

  How did she tell this ordinary man that it was magic? That fairy tales were true and that he was about to walk into the worst one ever? No happily ever afters, just wild magic that could do just about anything, if Holt was telling the truth. Max didn’t think he was lying. The ground continued to shudder and buckle with the force of what was happening inside the growing magical storm, and what she could see inside the leading edge had lumped and writhed before vanishing behind the fall of crimson.

  Still, she had to say something, or they would stand here like idiot deer and get butchered. She scraped her fingers through her hair.

  “All right. All of you, listen to me. I’m only going to say this once, and you don’t get to ask questions. We don’t have time. Here’s the nutshell version, and as much as you aren’t going to want to believe it, there’s your proof.”

  She pointed at the closing curtain of red. Except it really wasn’t a curtain. The leading edge dropped the red seeds of magic like embers from fireworks. The mist closed in behind it, or rose up from it—Max had no idea.

  “What you’re looking at is pure magic straight out of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. This chain should protect you from it. Let go, and you might turn into goblins or trolls or rocks. We’re going to try to lead you to safety. There’s a good chance it won’t extend too far north.”

  “Who are you?” Baker asked, staring down at Holt, who was chanting, his hands clasped around the other man’s thigh.

  The mage’s hex marks writhed, and coppery light twined around the injured man’s leg.

  “I’m Max, that’s Alexander,” she said, pointing to him, “and the man healing your leg is Holt.”

  “What are you?” asked the baby’s father, his voice low and breathless.

  “We’re what is going to keep you safe, if you let us. Now, let us fasten this chain on you before it’s too late.”

  The father of the two teenage boys held his arm out reluctantly.

  “What are your names?” Max asked as she tied the chain firmly to his wrist. Witch chain tied like twine and yet ran through her hands with the liquid heaviness of finely worked metal.

  “I’m Geoff Brewer. These are my sons, Josh and David.”

  She finished tying them together. “No matter what you see, don’t pull loose of this chain for any reason. It might be the last
thing you do.”

  Alexander was finishing with Matthew, the father of the baby. “What about Amanda?” he asked, his voice rising in panic as Alexander skipped her and chained up Baker.

  “She doesn’t need the chain to protect her,” Holt said, straightening from his crouch.

  Baker took a tentative step, shock making his mouth drop open. “How did you do that? I couldn’t walk—the pain—it’s all gone!”

  “I’m a mage,” Holt said smugly.

  “What do you mean, she doesn’t need it?” Matthew was struggling against his bonds. Alexander had tied a length of chain around the man’s waist and looped it around both of the baby’s legs before tying in Baker.

  “Witches don’t need protection,” Max said bluntly.

  Matthew’s mouth gaped.

  “Witch?” one of the boys repeated, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

  Holt bent over the prone woman, brushing his fingers over her forehead. He straightened and nodded. “No doubt about it.”

  “I will carry her,” Alexander said, picking her up and slinging her over his shoulders. One arm wrapped her thighs, and the other held one of her arms. He looked at Max. “I’ll take the lead.”

  She nodded. “Holt and I will watch our flanks. If trouble comes, don’t stop. Get them out of here.”

  He nodded and turned away without arguing about her taking risks or admonishing her to be careful. She’d braced herself for both, expecting to have to remind him of her capabilities and that she was a Shadowblade Prime. She let out a small sigh, her anger toward him cooling. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did, either.

  He took the lead, holding on to the end of the chain tying Matthew and his daughter to Baker. Max tied off the end of her chain to Baker’s as well, and she and Holt walked on either side of the small column as guards.

  She glanced back. The creeping mist was maybe twenty feet away. Inside it, she could see shadows, some as tall as skyscrapers. Shapes twisted and moved, sprawling over the ground and rising like waves hitting a rocky headland. It was like the world inside was rearranging itself.