The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller

by J. E. Hopkins

  It was early morning. To clear his mind from the night’s terrors, he’d gone for a walk into the mountains that surrounded his Kalash tribal home in northwest Pakistan’s Birir Valley. He’d come upon the rut of a small stream and had been using it as a meandering path upward, through the surrounding fragrant pines.

  The stream bed disappeared at the foot of a five-meter cliff. He stood for a minute, catching his breath, trying to decide if he wanted to go on or to return home. His grumbling stomach reminded him that he’d left without eating. He turned and headed down the mountain, then flinched and ducked at the sound of rockfall behind him.

  Not so much as a pebble rolled past him. Embarrassed, he turned toward the source of the noise and was engulfed by a lavender fog that obscured his vision. His first thought was to flee, but he could see some sort of pattern on the rock face. Heart pounding, he walked toward the outcrop and brushed the swirling mist away from his face. Something had been scratched into the rock, but the murk from the fog was in his way. He stepped closer.

  The impossibility that stood before him was carved from stone, as everlasting as the mountain that rose around him. Tareef cried out and sank to the ground.

  RETURN TO THE CITY WHERE YOUR FATHER’S SPIRIT DEPARTED. SEEK THE MAN WHO ONCE SOUGHT YOU. JOHN PAYNE BENOIT.

  22

  Washington, DC

  For the second time in less than a month, John found himself in the White House, this time at a working lunch in the ground floor situation room. A thirty-foot-long mahogany table and its associated black leather chairs stuffed the long, skinny room. The accommodations were tight, but apparently much improved over what the New York Times had called the “low-tech dungeon,” before the nerve center’s 2006 renovation.

  The president sat at the head of the table, the vice-president to his right. Martin Lewis, the Director of National Intelligence and Akina’s boss, had called in from the US embassy in Mexico City. The Chief of Staff, the head of the National Security Council, the head of the CDC, and the National Science Advisor fidgeted in their seats to the president’s left.

  Akina stood behind a podium at the far end of the room, opposite the president, and John sat in a nearby chair.

  If you believe the rumors that kick around the beltway, none of these guys would toss one of the others a life preserver. Must be great to work in such a supportive environment.

  John had returned to DC from New York late the evening before and spent the morning with Akina and the T-Plague task force, briefing them on his findings in Ticonderoga and New York city. His conclusion: adults were the hosts of the disease and the only visible manifestation of the infection was a brief period of severely inflamed eyes. Their meeting had been interrupted by a call from the president, demanding an update on the rapidly expanding crisis.

  He and Akina had jumped into her car for the forty-minute drive to the White House. She’d just finished telling the president and his advisors what had transpired in New York and John’s conclusions.

  She wrapped up with an update on the spread of the disease—sick kids in five US states and six other countries; fifteen children dead, 238 confirmed ill.

  The president’s affect while Akina talked puzzled John. In the handful of times that John had been in his presence, the president was always intensely focused. Now he appeared bored and restless, unlike someone in a hurry to hear the latest news. He stared at the table and fiddled with his fountain pen, like he couldn’t wait for the briefing to end and didn’t much care what was being said.

  “Agent Benoit will present our recommendations,” Akina said.

  She sat and John stood, moving behind the podium. He surveyed his dour audience. No one had said anything since Akina had started talking. No questions, nothing, which was unusual.

  These guys are world class pros at concealing what they’re thinking. Maybe I just can’t read them.

  “Mr. President, the brief eye inflammation among adult carriers gives us an opportunity to slow the spread of the T-Plague.” He noticed Akina straighten in her chair and the president’s flicker of distaste at his use of the word “plague.”

  That’s right, folks. No bullshit acronym that offers false reassurance.

  “The DTS recommends public release of the facts about the disease, including this telltale symptom. The only exception would be any information related to the affected children’s ability to use magic, which should remain classified. This release should be accompanied by a comprehensive national campaign to increase awareness of the symptom and to encourage reporting and sheltering in place when it’s observed.”

  The room was silent for nearly a minute, the only noise the DNI’s breathing, transmitted with crystal clarity by the secure telecommunications link.

  “What facts?” the president asked.

  “Sir?”

  “All I’ve heard is a bunch of supposition on very little data. Where are your so-called facts?”

  John started to recap the findings from New York, but was cut short. “Bullshit, agent Benoit. You have the memories of two people who work in a dusty paper plant. And one more man from New York city who maybe remembers something about having scratchy eyes. That’s all you have.”

  In true Washington form, the president’s chief of staff decided that now was an appropriate moment to hop onto the bandwagon the president was trying to construct. “You’re willing to risk a global panic based on three cases? Just how incompetent are you?”

  Akina rose and stepped next to John.

  The DNI’s disembodied voice jumped in before John had a chance to respond. “Hang on, now. Honest men can disagree without resorting to personal attacks. John and Akina are giving you the best information they—”

  “How long does an adult carry the disease?” the president asked.

  “We don’t know,” Akina said.

  “How is an adult infected? How is it spread to children?”

  “Most likely by physical contact,” John said. “We’re—”

  The Science Advisor smirked and piled on. “Most likely.”

  The president was on a roll. “What’s the origin of the disease?”

  Akina sighed, her patience obviously strained to the breaking point. “We are contacting each of the people in New York who had an interaction with the parents of the initial—”

  “Which means you don’t know.” The president’s sarcasm was a well-honed weapon, designed to maim its target. “Tell me this, what can we do to stop it?”

  John stepped out from behind the podium, walked to the table and leaned forward, bracing his wiry body on his hands. “You want facts?” His voice was a low growl. “Two hundred kids sick and dying. That’s a fact.”

  The president looked down at the table and began doodling on a yellow legal pad that he’d carried into the room with him.

  “Want another fact?” John asked. “How about some historical perspective?”

  “Agent Benoit, that’s enough! Get yourself under control.” The DNI’s voice sliced through the room.

  “I couldn’t be more under control,” John said. “Five hundred million people got the flu in 1918 and thirty million died. That’s a six percent mortality rate, primarily affecting young adults. T-Plague may be just as virulent as that flu and its mortality rate is 100%. If we don’t slow this thing down and buy some time for us to figure out how to stop it, humanity’s children will reach Transition and die. No more human race.”

  John sat down and stared at the opposite end of the table, thinking of a 1950’s Pulitzer-winning novel, Profiles in Courage, which told the stories of eight US senators who risked their careers by doing what was right in spite of controversy and criticism.

  Is this president that kind of leader?

  “We’ve given you the best advice we can.” John’s voice was a soft plea for understanding. “Our knowledge isn’t perfect. It never will be. Our recommendations fit the facts and each passing day brings us further, terrible confirmation.”

  Th
e president looked up from his legal pad, his eyes calm, his face composed. He didn’t look like someone who’d just been surprised by what he’d heard, but more like a person who’d watched a movie he knew the end to.

  Of course.

  John’s heart sank.

  He knew what he was going to do before he walked into this room.

  “I’m not asking for perfection, Agent Benoit. You and your agency simply don’t know enough to risk the global panic that would inevitably follow if word of this contagion were to go public.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President, but this needs to be said and apparently no one else in the room has the balls to say it.” The vice president’s interjection visibly startled the president. His glare in her direction seemed to be a warning, one that she ignored. “It’s clear to me from our private discussions that you’re letting fear dominate your good sense. You’re about to embark on a course of action that will cost you your presidency. I can only pray that it doesn’t also cost millions of American lives.”

  John had never had an interaction with Elizabeth Gaines. The media was obsessed with her because she was the country’s first female vice president, but their focus was exclusively on her gender. The former governor had apparently been put on the ticket to deliver Florida during the last election and had been ignored since.

  The president purpled and stood, everyone around the table rising with him.

  “All information related to the T-Plague will remain classified. If this gets leaked, I will use the full power of this government to hunt the source down and have him or her terminated as a threat to national security. Don’t cross me on this.” He stabbed a finger in John’s direction. “Bring me a solution to this horror or I will get someone who can.”

  He turned and stalked from the room.

  John and Akina left the West Wing, strode silently to the northwest gate, and left the White House grounds. When she turned toward the garage where she’d parked, he stopped and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you back in your office in a couple of hours. I need a little time away.”

  Akina gazed at him for a moment, nodded, and continued toward the garage.

  John caught a cab for the fifteen-minute ride to Rock Creek Cemetery at the intersection of Church and Webster. He paid the driver, got out of the cab, and walked under the black iron archway entrance into the three-hundred-year-old burial ground.

  Deep in the park, he settled onto a granite seat that was part of a semi-circular bench facing a bronze sculpture by August Saint-Gaudens, called the Adams Memorial for the historian who had commissioned the work in 1891. The piece was dedicated to Adams’ wife, who’d committed suicide after a life-long battle with depression.

  John contemplated the seated, life-size androgynous figure that leaned against a granite wall, eyes closed. The shrouded figure’s expression asked questions and offered no answers. The cool scent of pine wafting from the surrounding evergreens and the plaintive coo of a distant mourning dove reinforced the blissful solitude.

  His mind was in turmoil. Self-doubt warred with righteous anger, neither willing to give ground.

  Did I just goad the president into a colossal error?

  He reconsidered the telltale signals that led him to believe the president had decided on a course of action before the meeting began.

  Did I get it wrong?

  Calm and a measure of clarity returned as he stared into the figure’s enigmatic face. A grieving woman, he decided.

  No, I had it right. The real purpose of the meeting was to make sure we understood the consequences of violating secrecy.

  Another thought pushed its way to the front of his mind.

  And maybe to lay the groundwork for some sort of future action.

  He recalled an earlier comment from Akina, something about the Internet going down.

  Do we have the capability to do something like that? Would he do that, if he could?

  John’s contemplation was shattered when a low fog crawled around the sides of the statue and slid across the ground to the granite bench where he was seated. He looked up. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky on a warm summer day.

  What the hell?

  The sunlight dimmed when the mist rose higher, over John’s head. The statue was an indistinct shape in the lavender gloom.

  Lavender?

  It was cold, freezing cold.

  JOHN PAYNE BENOIT

  The booming voice startled him so badly that he thought his heart would slam against his chest, shiver, and give up the ghost.

  YOU SEEK TO STOP THE ANCIENT EVIL THAT SLAUGHTERS EARTH’S CHILDREN. TRANSITION’S CORRUPTION CAN BE DEFEATED BY TWO ACTING AS ONE. ONE, TAREEF KAHN, A CHILD WHOSE LAVENDER EYES PERSIST. THE OTHER, A CHILD GROWN WITH TRANSITION FORESTALLED.

  TOGETHER THE TWO CAN RETURN THIS EVIL TO THE PITS OF—

  The voice ceased. John slumped against the stone back of the granite bench, trying to absorb what he’d heard. The fog strengthened, but now seemed to be a whirling mix of lavender and ebony. Flecks of scarlet flared and died.

  THE CORRUPTION SEEKS TO OBSTRUCT—

  Again, the voice fell silent for several moments. The flecks of scarlet intensified, then faded.

  TIME IS SHORT. YOU ONCE SOUGHT THE POWER OF MAGIC. A PROMISE WAS GIVEN RATHER THAN THE DEATH THAT WAS YOUR DUE. A MEMORY OF THAT PROMISE WILL SOON BE RESTORED. AND LAVENDER EYES TO MARK YOUR SECOND TRANSITION

  The mist and freezing cold vanished, leaving John staring at the bronze figure of despair. He felt dazed.

  Did I just have a seizure?

  He removed his phone from his pocket and recorded everything he could recall, trying to recapture the exact words as accurately as he could.

  Lavender fog, mixed with something darker.

  He thought about Shin’s description of the dark fog that had surrounded him when he used magic to change the birds.

  An image of Tareef flashed into his mind. Tareef had used a verse from an ancient Transition codex to stop Pakistan’s secret police from using magic. The power that rules Transition had marked the boy with permanently lavender eyes as a sign of his uniqueness.

  My mind is messing with me. I’m over-amped about this T-Plague mess, so I have a waking dream about good and evil going to war.

  That analysis, even if it was the most likely explanation of what had just happened, left him feeling unsettled.

  I never tried Transition. I know I didn’t.

  He shook his head.

  Time for a neurological workup.

  His phone, lying on the bench at his side, buzzed and popped Akina’s name onto the display. He took a deep breath and answered the call. “What’s up?”

  No way I’m telling her that I was visited by Transition’s spirit, which lost a fog fight to the power that rules T-plague.

  “I have you booked on a flight to Toledo,” Akina said. “Actually, two flights, because you can’t get there from here without a little extra effort.”

  The return to the mundane world of the DTS agent was jarring. “Frog Town” or “The City of Three Cultures?”

  Akina hesitated. What the hell are you—“

  “Ohio or Spain?”

  “Ohio. Why is it called Frog—never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  “There was a big swamp near the original settlement. Why am I going to Ohio?”

  “Stony will fill you in on the details, but she tracked the guy who threatened to use T-Plague magic on the president—his name is Robert E. Lee Wells, if you can believe it—to some sort of survivalist’s bunker near Denton, Texas.”

  “She was in Pecos where she’d interviewed the guy’s wife, so she called and got Denton local law enforcement officers to pick Wells up. He was gone by the time the local LEOs got to the bunker, but the survivalist guy gave them a lead. She and the secret service team are in the air.”

  “She’s sure the lead is solid?” John asked. “Doomsday prepper types aren’t known for helping the police.”

 
Akina laughed. “She’s pretty sure. The LEOs threatened to confiscate the guy’s guns—seems several were of the automatic variety, plus a couple of grenade launchers. Apparently he would have given up his mother to keep the guns.”

  “They let him keep grenade launchers?”

  “It’s Texas, John. Of course they let him keep them. The survivalist’s tip led first to Wells’ con buddy who’s still in Telford. Prison officials rousted the buddy and he tipped them to his sister, who lives in Toledo. She apparently has a crush on Wells. They’d talked about getting married, but it didn’t come to anything.”

  “Jesus. What a twisted mess. When’s my flight?”

  “Seventy minutes,” Akina said. “Even so, you might not make it to Toledo before they bust the guy. Worst case, you’ll be in on the questioning.”

  He left the monument and marched back toward Webster Avenue.

  “And Stony is okay with me parachuting into her investigation?”

  “Why would that matter, John?”

  “You’re right. It never has. One last question. We haven’t talked about the meeting with the president, plus I thought you wanted me here to take control of the task force.”

  “That’s two non-questions. There isn’t much to say about the meeting. It didn’t change anything we’re doing. And I’ve got the T-Plague team until you two get Wells.”

  “Why all of a sudden are you so twitchy about him?”

  “He apparently told the prepper that he and the kid were going to have a ringside seat to something the world had never seen before. That makes me nervous.”

  23