Waiting for Magic

by Susan Squires

  Kee turned to Devin, whose eyes were wide and blinking. Maggie had disappeared.

  “Where’s Maggie?” she asked, and was surprised that her voice was an echo that sounded like ten or a hundred voices talking together. Maybe they were the voices of all the artists who’d come before her, she thought, strangely calm.

  “Don’t know,” Devin voice had an edge of panic. “She let go of my hand.”

  “Devin. Kee,” Maggie’s voice called from far away.

  Kee reached through some tangling vines, never letting go of Devin’s hand. He did the same, swiping this way and that. The instant Kee touched Maggie, she appeared.

  “Whoa,” she said, breathless.

  Devin tugged them forward. “No time.”

  They pushed through the vines where the front door was, under a stairway that now led to the stained-glass window above them. As Kee looked back, the staircases shifted. One crossed the chasm. Not good. Kee breathed in. They shifted again. Better.

  Devin pushed open the heavy door. Outside the night was cool. The rain had stopped. How long had it been raining? There was a grinding sound from somewhere behind the house.

  But the things in the garden were still out there. And they were coming this way. The snuffling that sounded so otherworldly attached itself to grotesque shadows out near the gazebo. Kee didn’t want to see exactly what they were. Could they beat them to the elevator tower?

  Devin was limping as fast as he could go, looking up the canyon behind the house. “Run!” he shouted, practically pushing Kee and Maggie across the porch and onto the path under the awning. Kee stumbled and stopped to scrape off her heels. Devin looked thunderous, desperate. The shadows were coming out onto the lawns, moving faster. The wet snuffling was excited. The shadows had arms. Kee swallowed. They were too long, had too many joints. The heads, if she could call them that, were just blunt bullets with gashes that drooled a viscous liquid. They cast from side to side. Were they blind?

  She glanced up at Devin, who was staring up, past the horrible shadows.

  “I’ll be faster now,” she promised. She glanced to where Devin’s eyes had strayed and saw it. “Oh, hell.”

  A wall of mud rose over the house, practically the height of the hills around Pendragon’s estate. Brush, broken planks, a tree trunk, and other debris stuck out as it rolled toward the house. It was going to obliterate everything in its path: the house, the gardens. And the Tremaines.

  *****

  They made it out from under the awing, but the bridge to the elevator tower was still half way across the lawns. Devin struggled up to where Kee had stopped, mesmerized by the oncoming disaster. They’d be overwhelmed if the shadow things didn’t tear them apart first. He looked at Kee for a split second, knowing this might be the last time he ever saw her.

  “I got the things, Devin,” Maggie yelled. She went still.

  Devin knew his cue. He’d created the mudslide, now he had to control it.

  The shadows stopped advancing so fast, but they were still coming. There was less time with the wall of mud. It was heaving itself onto the back of the burning house. Devin knew he might not be up to this. He’d used what strength he had to call it. “Run, Kee!” he shouted, pushing her toward the elevator tower. He straightened as much as he could.

  If he failed, Kee would die. It would be too bad if Maggie died. It didn’t matter much at all if he died. But Kee.…

  He looked inside. His fear for Kee was overwhelming. And under that was the shame of what Pendragon had done, the searing pain of his lacerations, the pain inside him, where Pendragon had been. All that baggage was standing between him and what he had to do. There had to be some part of the stillness remaining that he could use. He pushed back the pain of his body. He had no time for shame. He tried to put his fear for Kee away. But that was impossible. Kee was everything, everything he’d lived for, and now everything he’d die for.

  It was good to know something for sure.

  And that was a tiny rock of stillness and certainty he could make his stand on.

  Even as that thought crossed his mind, the swell of power welled up from his belly, his loins. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he could feel the water in the mud sing to him, a song of release and destruction. It towered over the house, over the gazebo, the still shadows, over him, over Maggie.

  He smiled. He knew the water’s song. He held up his hand. Water is life. Water is death. We are in the water and the water is in us. Flow with me, he thought. He pushed.

  The water was strong, filled as it was with dirt and trees and brush. Devin pushed harder, groaning, but though the surge slowed, the mud rolled on, looming fifty feet above them in the night. It ate the gazebo, covered some of the shadow things. They gave unearthly, shrieking cries as they succumbed. The back of Pendragon’s castle was engulfed, the wail of breaking timbers adding to the thunder of the mud.

  Devin dropped back, gasping. He couldn’t defend the whole lawn. He might not be able to defend anything. He looked around wildly for Kee. She hesitated in front of the bridge to the elevator tower. “Go,” he yelled hoarsely, but Kee must not be able to hear him over the grinding, because she wasn’t going. He waved Maggie toward Kee as he stumbled toward her. “Hold the bridge!” he shouted, pointing.

  Maggie turned to look and her spell broke. The shadow things lurched forward, slithering across the grass, their long, multi-jointed shadow arms almost scraping the ground. They seemed oblivious to the towering wall of mud behind them. Maggie shot Devin a frightened look and made a break for the bridge. The shadows speeded up, reaching now. Devin broke into a staggering lope.

  God, he wasn’t going to make it past them to the bridge. Everything seemed to close in on him. The roar of the wall of mud was at his heels. The crack of breaking timbers said the main house was being eaten alive.

  A shadow thing reached for him … and just stopped. An intricate colored pattern appeared all around it like a cage. Its hands lowered, the snuffling slowed.

  Devin didn’t wait to figure out whether Maggie had her Calm in place, or whether Kee had bewitched it with a painting. He turned and scraped together what strength he had. He had to dig deeper, into his gut, into his loins. He put out both hands and shoved with all that he was.

  He felt energy go out through his hands as he fell to his knees. The wall of mud towered over him. He couldn’t see the house anymore. If this didn’t work, he had nothing left. His body collapsed to hands and knees on the wet earth as he waited for the weight of water and earth to form his grave. He held up his hand, his arm trembling.

  Kee. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough. So sorry.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tristram was pounding his shoulder against the wrought-iron grating of the elevator tower as Kemble screeched to a halt in the Escalade, just before hitting the Ducati. Edwards and company were right behind him. The damp night air was filled with the smell of wet dirt. Shrieking and thunderous cracks and a slurping, grinding sound filled the air. The glow of flames could be seen far above them. Michael and Senior piled out of the SUV.

  “Wait,” Kemble shouted to Tristram as he reached in the back seat to get the crowbar he’d stashed there. “Here.” Kemble tossed the crowbar to his brother. Tristram levered the lock and pulled, his shoulders and thighs bunching with effort.

  “No go,” he gasped, a desperate undertone in his voice. Kemble could relate. Something bad was going on above them. Really bad.

  “Stand back,” Michael yelled. “Maybe you weakened it.” He glanced to Kemble.

  Kemble nodded and together they hit the gate with their shoulders. Kemble thought he’d probably broken something, but not the gate. Those wrought-iron rails were murder. But the gate had creaked. Tristram took the crowbar and now pried at the post that held the lock and was bolted to the tower wall. It pulled out visibly, taking plaster with it. Tristram backed up.

  “Go,” he shouted.

  Michael and Kemble hit it again and this time the gate
pulled off the wall entirely and bent in. Tristram was first through, as Michael and Kemble rubbed their shoulders. Kemble started up the stairs. Michael turned to look after Drew.

  “Watch out for some shadow things up there,” Drew called up the stairwell. “I think they eat people or something.” She’d been telling them on the way up about the mudslide.

  Kemble heard Michael tell Drew to wait at the bottom. Good luck with that. The stairwell was filled with the echo of pounding steps as they thundered up the stairs. Edwards and three of his men were right behind the Tremaines.

  Tristram was running flat out across the narrow concrete bridge as Kemble pushed out of the stairwell and followed as fast as he could go. The noise was deafening up here. The crowns of the trees on the hillside under the bridge prevented them from seeing anything until they burst through the foliage on the other side.

  Kemble came to a screeching halt just behind Tristram. It was hard to take in. There was an oozing wall of mud and debris about fifty feet high that had stopped just beyond where Devin lay in the grass with his arm outstretched, palm forward. Maggie was standing in front of three things that made his stomach roll, still shadows inside the circle of mud. Bright colors swirled in the air around them and coated their grotesque forms. Keelan was dashing over to Devin. The mud might have stopped its progress over Devin but the far side was still rolling over the Pendragon castle, now almost entirely engulfed in flames. In a matter of moments the mud would put the fire out. But everyone still in the house would be dead. Somewhere, Kemble heard the wail of sirens.

  Apparently Tristram was no surer what to do than Kemble. Maggie didn’t even acknowledge their presence, though Tristram at least must be clear in her peripheral vision. All her concentration was centered on the beasts or whatever they were. Devin’s whole body was shaking with the effort he was making to hold back the mud. And if either of them lost concentration the results didn’t look like they’d be good.

  Senior came up behind Kemble. Edwards and the others thundered onto the lawn. Kemble could feel his father assessing the situation.

  Edwards didn’t wait. “I see them,” he shouted. He pulled out a gun and fired at the brightly colored beasts. That startled Maggie. She looked around. The shadows started moving. Their hands, or, or arms or whatever, reached out, now too close to Maggie. Tristram lunged for her and dragged her back.

  “Get her out of here,” Brian shouted as Edward’s men followed suit and fired into the colored outline of the beasts along with their boss. Nothing happened. The color dripped away into the earth, leaving only shadows. The shadows kept coming and now they were between the Tremaine party and Devin and Keelan.

  “Not good,” his father muttered. He was always one for understatements.

  They all started backing up. Edwards and his men slowly quit firing and cast about with their guns. Could they not see the shadows now that the color had disappeared? His father’s eyes darted around, looking for an angle. He was going to try to go in after Keelan and Devin around the shadows.

  “I’m in,” Kemble yelled, to make sure his father would hear him.

  “Wait!”

  It was Drew. Michael had her clutched in one arm, his eyes glued to the advancing things. “Help’s on the way,” she said. They could barely hear her. It was as if she spoke from far away. “Unexpected.” Her eyes got big.

  “We’ve got to go if we want a chance,” Brian yelled to her.

  The sky went dark. Kemble glanced to the burning house, burning no more. It was gone, buried. The tons of mud heaved in the dark like a primeval beast.

  “A second. Just a second more,” Drew pleaded.

  One of the shadow things gripped Edwards’ arm. He screamed and buckled with the pain.

  “Get Edwards!” Drew yelled.

  Kemble lunged forward and caught Edwards by his other arm.

  A channel of light cut the night from far above, illuminating the heaving mud and the little group of tiny humans in the circle it had left, along with the shadow things no light could illuminate. Kemble jerked Edwards back from the channel of light and they tumbled to the grass. The beast burst into shards of blackness that tinkled into the grass. The energy from the light ricocheted from shadow to shadow, until all the things were just heaps of broken black glass.

  Kemble looked up to the source of the beam.

  High above the mud, on a rocky promontory of the hills above, stood a woman. A group clustered round her. She held a pole or something. It glinted silver and it channeled the light. Kemble realized with a shock that the pole was Pendragon’s cane.

  The Wand.

  She’d been trying for Kemble and Edwards. Could she see beyond the light to where they lay in a tumbled heap? But the light blinked out.

  The minute the darkness fell, his father sprinted forward. “Everyone down the stairs,” he yelled. “Get the vehicles out of harm’s way.” Kemble got to his knees. The security guys helped Edwards scramble away. The sirens were closer. The sound of helicopter blades chuffed over the grinding of the mud. It was moving across the lawn from the house too now, funneled toward Devin and the bridge.

  How were they going to get Devin out of here? If he stopped holding the mud back wouldn’t it collapse? Pressure must be building up behind it. How long could he hold out?

  Keelan was kneeling beside him, crying. He was up on one elbow, dressed in some kind of muddy and bloody silk dressing gown with dragons on it. It had hiked up, revealing one leg all the way to the hip and some of his buttock. He was crisscrossed with lacerations. Blood was smeared between his thighs. His feet were bare. Wrists and ankles were bloody. Every muscle was taut. His arm, held out from his body, straining forward, was shaking. Kemble glanced up to the mud wall, maybe fifteen feet in front of Devin.

  His father pulled Keelan up. “You’ve got to go.”

  “I won’t,” she sobbed. “I won’t leave him.”

  “He can’t be worrying about you right now, honey. Get down the stairs. We’ll pull him up and be right after you.” He pushed her from him. “Go. He wants you to go.”

  Kemble thought he’d never seen such fear, such sorrow in another’s eyes as she stood, halfway to the bridge, crouched like a cornered animal. “Don’t you die,” she hissed. Kemble knew she was talking to Devin. She whirled and raced for the bridge.

  Kemble looked at his father. It was now or never. Devin was fading. The wall of mud towering above them had developed a lip. It looked like a wave about to crash. They both knew escape was iffy at best. But though they had made Keelan leave Devin, they wouldn’t, even if it meant they suffocated with him.

  His father blew out a breath. They dug in. “On three. Two, three.”

  They each grabbed an arm, hauled him up and dragged him unceremoniously backward. The minute they broke his concentration, the wall of mud began to collapse. No time to turn him around. So they just dragged him, digging in, pushing the muscles in their legs for speed. At first Kemble thought they had it. The bridge to the tower was just ahead. Then he was knocked forward. The lip of the wave oozed around his knees, making it almost impossible to move his legs. He was being pushed forward as the mud rose.

  “Haul him up!” his father yelled. “He’ll suffocate.”

  They pulled on Devin. The mud sucked at his robe and pulled it apart. The wave, now up to their thighs, slid around them into the ravine. No running. It pushed them, slipping, sliding, even as it rose. They were helpless now. God, they’d be buried alive.

  He felt something hard under his feet. Mud flowed away on either side of them.

  He was standing on the bridge. Devin struggled to his feet but his father slipped off to the side. Kemble lunged for him. Devin was the one who caught his jacket. His father teetered dangerously, not yet on the bridge proper where the cement sidewalls could protect him. Devin was too weak to hold him. Kemble grabbed the other lapel of his father’s muddy jacket. Together, Kemble and Devin pulled him upright.

  His father stood there, gas
ping as they pulled him onto the bridge.

  “Bit of a miracle,” Kemble panted.

  His father nodded. “Only a breather. Let’s go.” He reached to Devin, who’d fallen to his knees. “Come on, son.”

  Together, they got Devin up and crossed the bridge as the mud poured over the hill. They weren’t getting much of a reprieve. The tower and the street below would be choked with mud in no time. In the archway ahead Keelan stood, her hands clasped in front of her heart. She hadn’t gone down to the street after all. Her face transformed with relief when she saw them.

  “Go!” his father yelled.

  For once, Keelan obeyed. She headed down the stairs in her bare feet.

  “You take Devin. I’ll do rear guard,” his father ordered.

  Kemble pulled Devin’s arm around his shoulder and hauled. The poor guy must be exhausted from holding back that mudslide while he was so injured. Kemble didn’t want to think about what had happened to his brother. He stumbled down the stairs as fast as he could. Devin’s feet weren’t quite keeping up, but that was just fine. Four stories had never seemed so long. They burst out of the stairwell and staggered out past the dangling wrought-iron gate. No cars in sight. Mud was pouring into the street. But Tristram was there with the Ducati.

  “They’re regrouping down the hill,” Tristram shouted. He revved the Ducati engine.

  Kemble looked up at a cracking sound. A tree next to the tower toppled toward them and crashed into the encroaching mud.

  “Tristram, take Devin down to the cars. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Kemble helped Devin to the bike. His robe was open and saturated with mud. He was obviously naked under it. It had fallen off one shoulder. Kemble blinked. The horrible lacerations crisscrossed his back too. Somebody had whipped his brother. He exchanged glances with his father, whose expression looked a lot like one of the storm clouds they’d been seeing so much of lately.