Waiting for Magic

by Susan Squires

  “It’s probably all just an act,” Devin agreed.

  “When I call him, he’ll just say he didn’t find anything we could use.” Kemble gave a big sigh as he peered through the windshield. “If only we had something he wanted.”

  “Hey, I think you missed the exit for the Harbor South,” Kee said, peering at the sign for the next off ramp.

  “Did I?” Kemble looked around.

  “I didn’t even see the sign,” Devin said. “You could take the 10. Have we passed it too?”

  “I don’t know the names of the exits down here very well,” Kemble said. “I’ll take the next exit and turn around.”

  A green sign loomed ahead. “Alameda,” Kee read.

  “Alameda it is.” Kemble took the exit and they eased off the freeway into an eerie land of old brick buildings and decrepit warehouses with blank, staring windows. The rain gave everything a soggy look. Kemble took the next left. Logical. Go under the freeway and there’d be an onramp on the other side for the 101 North.

  But there wasn’t. And no street lights either. The street dead-ended in a chain-link fence festooned with piles of sopping trash in the dark.

  Devin could feel Kee’s tension ramp up. “It’s okay,” he said to reassure her.

  “We just tried to get under the freeway too soon,” Kemble said, as though he wasn’t concerned.

  They turned around then went left at the stop sign. There were no stoplights here. Cardboard tents huddled among some abandoned gas pumps under a corrugated metal roof. Tonight was not the night to be homeless, as if there were ever a night to be homeless.

  They sloshed slowly down the street, peering down each possible left turn to see if the street went under the freeway. Kemble made one more false start and had to turn around when there was a surprise building blocking the way. “We’ve got to be east of downtown,” he muttered. “I’ll take a right to go south and a right at the first major street we find. That’ll get us back into familiar territory.” Devin knew he was trying to sound sure of himself for Kee.

  They bumped over several train tracks. Then they had no choice but to turn right. The SUV’s lights hit a chain-link fence that blocked their way ahead. They made their way down the narrow asphalt street, pocked with potholes, between the fence and the train tracks.

  “Why the fence?” Kee asked anxiously.

  Devin knew. He could feel the water. “L.A. River.”

  The road narrowed even further as it climbed up what amounted to a levee right beside the fence. It had turned into little more than a rutted asphalt trail along the shoulder as three-story warehouses rose on the other side of the tracks. The headlights bobbled over a wide expanse of turbulent muddy water through the sheeting rain. The L.A. River was in full flood. It was nearly up to the bank.

  “Whoa.” Kemble probably didn’t realize he’d picked that expression up from Maggie.

  “That looks like it’s coming over the edge any minute,” Kee whispered.

  “Did the Sepulveda Dam break?” Devin asked.

  “They let water into the flood basin last week to control the level. Looks like it didn’t do much good.” Kemble hunched over the steering wheel, looking for any way off the little road. The slope down to the tracks on the right was now too steep to consider an exit. It was an accident waiting to happen. Beyond the tracks, a couple of parking lots sat next to the warehouses, but it was clear from this angle they didn’t lead anywhere.

  Kee sounded frightened as she said, “Maybe we should go back.…”

  The SUV jerked under them so hard their heads snapped. It practically leaped sideways into the fence. “Shit,” Devin yelled as Kee screamed. The left fender pushed the chain link out. Kemble threw the transmission into reverse.

  Devin swung around in his seat. “What was that?”

  The SUV got hit again. It slammed into the badly bowed fence, bending the nearest metal posts in toward the churning maelstrom of the river. Its back end was now swung out across the road, heading them straight into the fence and the river beyond.

  “Damn it!” Kemble yelled. He never swore. The tires squealed as he threw it into reverse and hit the accelerator.

  No car was near enough to hit them. Through the downpour Devin saw the wavering outline of a guy standing near a dark-colored car parked next to one of the warehouses. The figure held his hand up, palm out. He pushed his palm out. Their SUV slammed back into the fence again, as if Kemble wasn’t in reverse at all. Their heads all snapped with the impact.

  “There’s a guy,” Devin yelled. But the guy now held up both hands, popping his palms forward alternately. The SUV banged against the fence again and again like a battering ram. The metal posts groaned and squealed over the clattering of the rain as they bent toward the water.

  Bang. Bang, bang.

  Kee was making little keening noises as she braced herself against the dash. The SUV began to tilt up in the rear. The windshield filled with a view of swirling, muddy water.

  “Everybody out,” Kemble yelled, fumbling with his seatbelt.

  Devin was already on it. The constant banging made it tough to find the release. Kee seemed paralyzed, her body jerking with every slam. “Kee, open the door! Get out!” he yelled. His seatbelt snapped free. He had to get Kee. The car was tilted almost perpendicular. The fence was almost totally collapsed, its protection gone. Kemble got his door open, but he didn’t bail. He turned around for Kee. Devin slammed his door open and.…

  The SUV went over. It tipped upside down, throwing Devin back into the car and slamming his door shut. Kemble’s door too. They hit the roof, except Kee, who was still held in by her seatbelt. She hung in midair as the windows were obscured and the headlights showed only dirty water ahead. The car slowly sank and drifted into the river, pounded by water and the occasional hulking lump of debris. Kemble was trying to get his door open, but the weight of the water against it was already too much. They tilted and banged from side to side as they were pushed downstream. Water poured into the cab around Kemble’s door. It must have closed improperly on the seatbelt or something. Water came in from under the dash and through the heater vents. The car was filling up fast.

  They were safe for about two minutes and then they’d drown. If they could wait until the car almost completely filled with water, the pressure on the doors would equalize and they could open them. Maybe. If the water outside wasn’t too turbulent. If they didn’t drown first. And even if they did get out, they had to face the fury of the river. All those stories of people drowning in the L.A. River because they couldn’t get a purchase on the cement sides or were beaten to death by debris seemed ludicrous when the water was no more than knee deep in the channel during drought years. But it was very real now.

  Kee, hanging upside down from her seatbelt, pulled herself up to keep her head out of the water. She yelled and sputtered. Kemble crouched on the ceiling of the SUV and scrabbled at Kee’s seatbelt, freezing water now creeping up his chest. The look in his eyes said he thought they were dead. Water, dreadful, killing water surrounded them, attacking them as though it were alive, seeping in to suffocate them with its fury.

  He couldn’t let Kee die here in a watery grave.

  Calm seemed to invade Devin’s body. Everything started to move in slow motion. He had to stop the pressure on the doors so they could get out. There was no other way. And he had to stop the water from pounding them to death. It would be okay.

  He reached up and unlatched Kee’s seatbelt. She sank into the water in a tumble of wet red silk. He heaved her up. Less than a foot of airspace was left near the floorboards over their heads. They all thrust themselves up, trying to keep their heads above water.

  Devin sucked in air from the little that remained in the car. It was drifting downriver, pushed by the flood, but that didn’t matter either. His mind felt incredibly clear. He thought he heard singing, somewhere, just a tune with nonsense syllables. The smile started from somewhere in his belly. He felt strong. But he would be stron
ger. He could do this.

  But before he could do anything, a huge submerged log butted the windshield. It cracked, and the pressure burst the glass apart before the log moved on. Brown, angry turbulence gushed in. The cab was filled in moments. Kee screamed before the water engulfed her. Kemble fumbled, submerged, and kicked at his door with his feet. Kee’s hair floated around her. Hungry water devoured the last of the air pocket. Bubbles issued from Kee’s mouth and were gone.

  Devin scrambled between the front seats toward the shattered windshield and pushed his hand out into the torrent. The water receded.

  The feeling of power in his core swelled up and radiated out. He pushed out again. The icy torrent seeped out through the windshield, through the leaks in the doors, retreating. It drained away. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Kee in a sodden heap. Kemble was coughing.

  He pushed again. “River,” he thought. “Cousin to the lake, child of the rain, obey me now. I am yours. You are mine.” The water rolled away from the car. “You must return to Mother Ocean, as must we all. But tonight we stay behind. Our time is not yet.”

  The car dropped with a jarring thunk into the muddy bed of the river. Water rose on all sides, a wall of turbulence crashing around them about three feet from the doors.

  “Get out of the car now,” Devin said to Kemble. His voice resonated as though he were speaking through a church organ and echoed like a cave. He wasn’t surprised though. Nothing could reach through his calm. This was right. This was who he was. “I’ll get Kee.”

  He heard the car door open behind him. Some remaining water sloshed onto the mud. Kemble scrambled out. Devin opened his door and stood. His feet sank into the mud. He wanted to be naked in the presence of that wall of water, but there was no time. He turned. The headlights of the car cut the darkness of the hole he’d made in the water. They played across the mad scramble of the water around them, highlighting a cacophony of debris in the swirl. Kemble’s eyes were wide and blinking slowly. Devin smiled to reassure him and opened Kee’s door. He gathered her into his arms. She had water in her lungs. He could feel it.

  He laid her in the mud as the water swirled around them. It was raining on them now. Kneeling beside her, he opened her mouth and motioned the water out. She coughed and sputtered as the water gurgled between her lips. Her head lolled. She’d passed out, but she was breathing. Good. He hoped she wouldn’t remember the pain and the fear she’d felt tonight. He gathered her up again and held her to his chest. Her skin was cold.

  “Come on,” he said to Kemble in that voice that was more than his voice. It was the voice of the water in him and in the world. He laughed. We’re all made of water. That was funny.

  He didn’t have to push with his hand. He just walked forward, carrying Kee, and the water parted in front of him, leaving a slimy path of mud and sodden grasses. He stalked through the muck to the riverbank. Slick and black and covered with muck, concrete slanted up to the fence maybe twenty feet above them. He was never going to be able to climb that carrying Kee.

  “Can you get her up there?” Kemble called over the noise of the rushing water. He came up to stand beside Devin.

  Devin turned his head. Kemble started, as if he’d seen a ghost. “You try climbing,” Devin said. Could Kemble reach down for Kee? It was too far. But at least one sibling would be safe.

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  Kemble scrambled up the slope, slid back and scrabbled up again, only to slide again. No use. Kemble looked back at Devin, his expression one of sadness. He thought they were still going to die. He thought Devin would get tired of holding the water back and they’d be overwhelmed. Didn’t he understand? Devin was the water.

  He smiled in reassurance but Kemble didn’t look reassured. “Come stand by me,” he said, his voice echoing.

  Kemble stalked over to him, muck pulling at every step. “What have you got in mind?”

  “You can float, can’t you?”

  Kemble nodded, wary.

  “That’s good.”

  Devin let water begin to fill their space.

  “What are you doing?” Kemble said, panicking as the water quickly rose to his knees.

  “Don’t worry. It’s calm. Like me.”

  And it was. The water filled the hollow tube in the flood like a swimming pool, a still center in the turmoil around them. They were soon treading water. The iciness of it seeped into Devin’s bones. He looked down to Kee in his arms. She might well freeze to death. So he called to the water. Warm her, he thought. The water glowed around them with heat and light, just as it had around the surfboard that night that seemed so long ago now. It lifted them like an elevator as it rose up the bank, nary a ripple sullying its surface except where Devin steadied himself and Kee with one arm swishing back and forth as he kicked to keep them afloat. As they got within striking distance of the top edge of the bank, the old lifeguard training kicked in. He let Kee float and grabbed her under her arms. She was coming to herself and making little sounds. He kicked out and steadied himself on the rough concrete edge.

  Kemble didn’t need instructions. He’d had lifeguard training too. He heaved himself up on the bank and got to his hands and knees. He reached down for Kee and pulled her up on the bank, on the river side of the chain-link fence. Devin let the water push him up on the bank. For that he was grateful. He was more tired than he thought.

  The moment his foot left the water, the calm pool dimmed and was overwhelmed by the crashing floodwaters. The car had disappeared. Devin sat with his back against the fence, his chest heaving as the feeling of calm and focus dissipated. Water splashed not more than a foot or two beneath the bank. Kemble set Kee against the fence too. Devin turned his head. Kee sputtered and gasped. That was good. He was so tired. The rain stung his cheeks. But they were warm, at least for now.

  Kemble staggered to his feet and peered through the rain. “I think we floated down to a main street. Maybe Third? There’s a bridge.”

  “What happened?” Kee asked, her voice roughened by all the water she’d swallowed.

  “Devin was a hero.” Kemble glanced to Devin, a thousand questions in his eyes.

  As the experience receded, Devin started to have questions too. He gripped his hands together, trying to stop their shaking. It wasn’t from cold. What had happened here? What had he done? His breath started coming in little gasps and he looked around wildly.

  “Steady, boy,” Kemble said and put both hands on his shoulders. “Let’s get out of here before we do too much thinking.”

  “I … I don’t know.… Did I…?” He stared first at the water and then back at Kemble.

  “Kee needs you now. Steady as she goes.”

  Devin took a breath. Right. Kee. He had to focus on Kee.

  “It’s a long hike into downtown,” Kemble said. “And first we have to get over this fence.” He looked around. “Do you see that guy anywhere?”

  Devin had almost forgotten about the man who pushed with his hands from fifty feet away to make the car crash through a chain-link fence. He blinked and stared around.

  “Hope you’ve got a nifty plan for getting us back into the Breakers without anyone noticing,” Devin muttered, pulling Kee to her feet.

  “I had a plan. Which will probably still work, right up until Mother looks for her car.”

  *****

  “Phil says he got them,” Jason reported. He’d flown back into Vegas this morning. Stiff all over, but stitched up and ready for duty. “Pushed their car into the flooded L.A. River. He saw it sink.” Jason had mixed feelings about that. He’d failed in his own mission to take out Tristram Tremaine, and been punished for it. Now some punk who had started out as a drummer and had a stupid power like percussion—a human jackhammer or something—was successful in getting three Tremaines at once.

  The old woman stood and stretched her hands up like some ancient priestess. “Yes!” she hissed. She lowered her arms and turned her yellow eyes on Jason in the dim light of the elegant suite.
“Now Tremaine and his lady love will know the pain of denying me. They may have produced spawn, but I will take their progeny from them. They will die and their line will end, while I grow only stronger.”

  At least she was happy. It was always good to have the old woman happy.

  “Call Pendragon,” she ordered. “It was all very well that he gave us Tremaines. But the larger question is, what were the Tremaines doing at his house?”

  “He collects art and magic artifacts,” Jason ventured. “The Tremaines are into that.”

  The old woman turned a disbelieving look on Jason. “So. Are. We.”

  “You mean.…”

  “They thought he had Talismans.” The old woman paced in front of the lighted display of the Sword. “I think I’m suddenly willing to see Mr. Pendragon. We may have misjudged him.”

  Jason was shaken. “Is he magic? You want him for the Clan?”

  “That I don’t know. Perhaps Hardwick’s research has been inadequate. He could be more than just a Magister of the Golden Dawn. Maybe he has the gene. Or maybe he doesn’t.” She rubbed her hands together convulsively. “Pendragon wants a partnership. Obviously out of the question. But if he has a Talisman, I want it.” She paused, chewing her lip. “Did Hardwick say that Pendragon’s father was also a magician and had the same name?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think so.” Where was she going with this?

  She sucked in a breath. “He does have a Talisman,” she whispered.

  “How … how do you know?” Jason wasn’t following her at all.

  “That wasn’t his father.” The venom in her voice was startling, though Jason had heard it before. During times he didn’t want to think about anymore. “He’s not aging. The power of the Talisman is keeping him young.”

  “Ahh.” She’d think Pendragon was stealing the youth she was so desperate to regain.