The Lightning Conjurer

by Rachel Rener

  Chapter 25

  ess than sixteen hours after the most tearful, snot-ridden goodbye I’ve ever had (and that includes myself when I had to abandon my supermodel wife in Puerto Vallarta to join this stinking fiasco), our line of seven sleek, black busses were already winding up a steep and super prohibited government-access road at Yellowstone National Park, which happened to be experiencing its worst blizzard in more than a century. In the last twelve hours alone, nearly three feet of snow had dumped on the park out of nowhere, sparking a mass evacuation of tourists and rangers alike as they high-tailed it out of the area. Well, if you can refer to a local elite team of weather-bending Auromancers as “out of nowhere,” that is. Nevertheless, we were able to drive the entirety of the winding pass that led straight to the northwest rim of the abandoned supervolcano undetected, with a small group of Hydromancers clearing the way for our caravan of repurposed school busses.

  As our own bus slowly wound its way to the top of one of the sheer cliffs overlooking the Yellowstone caldera, I cracked, “Maybe our Obsidian friends decided to ditch the blizzard and head for sunnier places!”

  Why, yes, I did have raging anxiety that I was ineffectually attempting to mask with stale jokes, thank you very much.

  “More like they were simply tipped off to our impending arrival,” Aiden sighed after glancing at his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. My mouth snapped shut. No use cracking jokes with sullen professors.

  “No word from Aspen or Ori?” Sophia asked.

  “No. But Aspen’s mother is on the ground in D.C. and about to join Ori’s special Electromancer detail.”

  “That family is so badass,” I sighed in admiration. “And Ted’s gonna meet us here, right?” I verified for the third time.

  Aiden nodded. “The squad from the Denver Chapter is already on the ground at the rendezvous point. No sign of Obsidian, last they reported.”

  I glanced at my own phone, where a stream of texts from Evelyn were blowing up the screen like a seizure-inducing strobe light. “Evelyn and Robert are safe at the Chapter, deep underground with all of the other members and their families. She even managed to find Emily, who happily glommed onto her right away. Cookies were obviously involved.”

  Aiden sighed in relief. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.”

  “What about your mom and sister? Are they taking shelter at home, or…?” I trailed off, my thoughts drifting to my own parents, hiding out in my uncle’s basement in Ohio. There wasn’t a basement in the world that would do much good if a full-scale Yellowstone eruption brought about a nuclear winter. Or if an actual nuke did.

  Except there’s no nuclear bomb, I reminded myself for the fortieth time that day. Just a desperate chick with a pair of twos calling everyone’s bluff. I grimaced. Where the hell had Kaylie disappeared to, anyway?

  It took me a moment to realize that Aiden was currently talking to me – you know, answering the question I’d asked him like any other functioning adult. Which I apparently was not.

  “…mother and Sarah are on their way. They’re part of the second wave, in case more backup is needed. Frankly, after spending all those years in Containment, I think my sister has earned the right to spend her last waking moments pretty much anywhere but here, but she insisted.”

  I nodded feebly.

  “We’ve arrived,” Archenbaud called from the front row of seats as we lurched to an icy stop. “Everyone, please watch your step. Remember your formation patterns and stay alert. Our ground teams have informed me that there has been a spike in tectonic activity in the last eight minutes.”

  Sophia’s hand reached for mine at the same moment mine reached for hers. “Hey,” she smiled, likely seeing the manic fear radiating from my eyes. “It’s going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Not if I don’t let anything happen to you… first,” I replied lamely, standing on my toes to give her a quick kiss.

  As we disembarked our overloaded bus of fifty-something Earth and Fire operatives – a mish-mosh of Parliament members, Chapter workers, lawyers, gardeners, school teachers, and bus-sick Aggregators such as myself – my stomach started tying and untying itself in fancy fisherman knots. From our cliffy overlook, which our Hydromancers had cleared of snow shortly before our arrival, the mighty Yellowstone caldera stretched in front of us, a 28-by-45-mile swath of land that was so large, you couldn’t even tell it was actually a volcanic crater. (I spent a good chunk of our bus ride hanging out with my good pal Google – hence the bus-sickness.) I let out a low whistle as I took it all in – a sprawling masterpiece of snow and steam. Once, this land had been covered by mountains, but after Yellowstone’s last super-violent eruption some six hundred thousand years ago, the entire volcano collapsed onto its emptied magma chambers, leaving a carved-out system of plateaus and bubbling hot springs, all heated by super-hot magma simmering not so far below the surface.

  I sucked in an anxious breath as I peered farther over the edge of our bluff. Thick evergreen forests carpeted the landscape as far as the eye could see, but the wide clearing directly beneath us was barren and dead, its bleached terrain too hot for even three feet of snow to stick to. Small, superheated pools of bubbling water dotted the cracked surface while billows of white steam churned from the ground like chimneys. One particularly hyperactive geyser shot boiling water sky-high while its accompanying rotten-egg-smelling clouds of sulfur made my nose crinkle in aversion.

  Regardless of what Google had said, “resting” this volcano clearly was not. It was more like a long-hibernating grizzly that was being poked by a Terramantic stick way ahead of schedule: hungry, cranky, and ready to kill anything in its path.

  “This is Norris Basin, the hottest region in Yellowstone!” Archenbaud was calling to those gathering at the edge of the escarpment. “It’s heated by a magma chamber located directly beneath this barren patch of land. If someone were to try to set off an eruption, we’ve determined that this would almost certainly be the place.”

  “What’s the latest report?” Daichi asked as he ushered a group of Terramancers away from one of the busses and into formation.

  “We’re looking at fifty percent liquid magma in the chamber – far more than the ten percent local geologists had reported earlier this week. Hey – faites attention!” Archenbaud shouted, pivoting on his heel to scold the single squad of college-aged Hydromancers we’d brought along. “The water from that geyser is as acidic as battery fluid!”

  “And getting hotter and hotter,” Sophia remarked, her voice steeped with worry. “I keep praying that this is somehow just an elaborate, twisted joke, but…” she trailed off, her gold-flecked eyes falling back to the springs below.

  “Obsidian could be hiding anywhere,” Aiden murmured, surveying the vast swath of land before us. “Across the lake, in the forest…”

  “They could be watching us right now,” I agreed.

  “Guys!” a familiar voice shouted from behind us.

  “Tedly!” I cried, sprinting toward him. He scooped me into a dangling hug before wrapping Sophia in a tight one-armed squeeze.

  “Hey, girls,” he smiled. I bit back a laugh. Despite the blizzard, he was wearing one of his signature brightly-colored polo shirts and a pair of blue jeans. Whereas I was bundled up for, you know, a Hydromantic blizzard. Thank goodness the Auromancers had momentarily let up on the snowfall. But it was still cold as hell.

  “Boy, are we glad to see you,” Aiden smiled, clasping a hand on Ted’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, sounds like we’ve got a real mess on our hands,” he groused, running a tan hand through silver hair. “Care to fill me in on some of the finer details? How’s Ro managing with everything? Not being able to be with her and Liz right now is making me crazy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Aiden grimaced.

  While the three of them commiserated and filled in various blanks for one another, I watched as Archenbaud and his crew began “organizing” our ragtag team of tw
o hundred or so Terramancers in a quarter-mile line around the ridge, with an equal number of Pyromancers standing behind them. The small gaggle of Hydromancers was surveying the largest geyser – which was currently spewing water fifty feet into the sky – from one of the lower bluffs, while the Auromancers were boarding a half-dozen reconnaissance helicopters to begin their air offensive. Some of the Level-threes skipped the helicopters altogether and flew into the sky on thermals of Wind like the show-offs they were, while another dozen or so – including Sophia – remained on the ground to enact extra Wind barriers to guard against heat and debris, if needed. Hopefully not.

  The four of us lingered near Archenbaud, waiting for our unit’s specific orders. As he ran through logistics, I knelt to the ground, feeling more than a little uneasy. There was definite tectonic activity occurring beneath us, but then again, that wasn’t uncommon in an area such as this. I closed my eyes and pressed my hand against the rock, gauging the temperament of the earth below. The layers of igneous rock stirred and rumbled, agitated.

  Agitated or antagonized? I scrunched my eyelids together and pressed harder.

  After a few moments, Daichi knelt beside me, pressing his own hands against the rocky terrain of our overlook. Many of the other Terramancers had done the same, their Pyromantic spotters standing behind them at the ready, like Aiden and Ted were doing for us. I recognized familiar faces from all over the world – colleagues and acquaintances that I’d befriended at various Terramantic conferences and training centers. Most looked as frightened as I felt. Many of them, grocery workers and educators and such, frankly had no business being forced into this kind of front-line duty. But here we were, unwitting soldiers, while the rest of the world remained totally oblivious… we hoped.

  A sharp cry – a boy’s cry – made my head shoot up. I knew that cry. It was the same distressed cry I’d heard years ago, during the massive Terramantic earthquake in Mumbai that had been caused by the very same frightened little boy.

  “Tosh,” I whispered. Now a small preteen, he was standing at the edge of a rocky outcrop, waving his arms in agitation. His mother, her long dark hair grayer than I remembered, was trying to soothe him to no avail. Jogging to where they stood, I made my way to the boy, remembering he was nonverbal. His flooded brown eyes flew to mine, recognition etched alongside the fear stamped on his face.

  “Hey buddy,” I said softly, flashing his frazzled mother a reassuring smile. Tosh’s hand abruptly reached forward to tug at my hair, captivated by the strange color, but his eyes trailed back to the massive crater below.

  “He’s trying to tell me something’s wrong,” his mother sighed, touching the red dot between her brows. “But I can’t sense anything – nothing imminent, at least.”

  “Tosh is more sensitive than all of us,” I murmured, watching him intently.

  “I didn’t want to bring him,” she replied. “This is no place for a child but… he understands what’s happening and he… he needed to come. I couldn’t keep him away.”

  Tosh’s body went completely rigid, his frantic brown irises sweeping across the crater before us. I knelt beside him, one hand and knee pressed to the ground.

  “Eileen?” Sophia called. “Is everything—”

  I held up my free hand to silence her, then pressed it back to the earth. I couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t sense what he was feeling. I looked around, spotting Archenbaud a few yards away.

  “Hey, Arch—”

  Tosh’s bloodcurdling scream tore through the air. In perfect, terrifying harmony, the bubbling springs in the valley beneath us began to scream like whistling kettles, their plumes of superheated steam raging against the sky in violent, coursing columns.

  “Everybody down!” I shouted frantically, my voice echoing across the valley as the smattering of steaming pools exploded into sky-high towers of boiling, acid-spewing geysers. “GET DOWN, NOW!”

  My last words were swallowed by a deafening explosion that knocked me to my elbows.

  Chapter 26

  ri!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around me. I buried my nose in her hair, which smelled like those tiny purple flowers and vanilla. “It’s good to see you – and in D.C. of all places!”

  “Hi, Liz,” I gave her a tight squeeze, even though my shoulder was killing me. She was nice and warm from sitting on an airplane while I’d been shivering outside the airport in frozen rain.

  “I’ve been so worried about you,” she said as she stepped back. “It seems like every time I talk to you or Ro or Aiden, the news just gets worse and worse. On a somewhat related note, you know Ted wants to wring your neck, right?”

  “Um…” I stared at the wet concrete guiltily, not knowing what to say. Aiden must have told them about the kissing catastrophe, probably to get revenge.

  “But you did save her life, and for that we can’t thank you enough,” she added, giving me another tight squeeze.

  Just wait ‘til they find out that Aiden secretly eloped with their daughter. Heh heh.

  “By the way,” she added, gesturing to the older Iranian guy standing behind her, “you remember Dr. Kevin Shirvani, an old friend of Barish’s and the head of Aspen’s Elemental neuroscience department in Denver.”

  “Of course,” I grinned as I shook his hand. “Who could forget one of the greatest surgeons and Electromancers of all time? I’ve read all of your texts on Corporeal Electromancy!”

  “Luckily for me,” Elizabeth smiled. “Ori saved my life the last time we were in D.C. together.”

  “So I’ve heard from Rowan,” he replied. “Quite impressive, Mr. Levitan… By the way, who do I have to strangle for taking my favorite student from me?”

  “My ex-girlfriend,” I answered, my blood pressure rising at the thought. “Speaking of witches, let’s get to the car. We don’t have a lot of time so we’ll have to talk details on the way.”

  They both nodded and followed me to the sweet black Escalade waiting for us in the pickup area where three other guys were waiting inside: Jeffries, our driver and ground liaison, Frank, the Empathic Electromancer from Tokyo, and Li Zhang, the Beijing Prime Representative and Electricity enthusiast.

  “Elizabeth, Dr. Shirvani—” I started.

  “You can call me Kevin.”

  “Sure thing, Kev, buddy. Anyway, meet Jeffries, Frank and Zhang. Guys, this is Kevin and our minister’s lovely mother, Elizabeth Fulman.”

  Zhang nodded at them, then went back to his phone. He was coordinating last-minute details with one of the tactical team leaders from the back seat.

  “The Elizabeth Fulman?” Frank’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “As far as I know,” she smiled.

  Jeffries, after giving her and Kevin a polite nod, stepped on the gas to take us to Capitol Hill.

  “Will anyone else be joining us?” she asked as she put on her seatbelt.

  “Not on the A-Team, no,” I replied. “We’ll have three backup units within five kilometers of the summit, but it was necessary to keep our squad small. More, uh…” I snapped my fingers, “you know, when you can move around quickly…”

  “Maneuverability?” she offered.

  “Yes. That. And easier to sneak into this thing when we don’t have a line of fifty Electromancers to coordinate. I figured one small elite team should do it.”

  “When do we move?” Kevin asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  “We’re already moving,” I replied. “The mission starts now.” I reached behind my seat and handed him a black tuxedo in a bag, almost identical to the one I was wearing. Then I passed Elizabeth the lady equivalent.

  He frowned at the expensive clothing in his hands. “This feels very…”

  Frank turned around from his seat. “Rushed? Poorly thought out?”

  “That’s because it is.” I looked down at my watch. “Uh, Mr. Driver? Jeffries? What’s our ETA?”

  “Seven minutes, sir,” he replied. “Six minutes if the Parkway is clear, which it appe
ars to be due to increased security measures.”

  “Okay, everybody, listen up,” I said, hoping my voice sounded confident. Which I definitely wasn’t. But they didn’t need to know that. “The security on and around the Hill will be insane. Every street for three blocks within the perimeter is going to be closed. Everybody in the area is going to have security badges. There will be multiple secure checkpoints. And even inside the building, there’s gonna be mantraps to lock us in place if we fail a security check.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Kevin asked, his eyes growing wide.

  “We lie through our teeth and let our brilliant Empaths – that’s you, Elizabeth, and Frank – do their work.”

  “Oh, boy,” Elizabeth muttered.

  “Here’s the plan,” I continued. “By the way, everyone shut your eyes because anyone who isn’t currently in a suit needs to change… like now,” I gave Kevin and Elizabeth a look, then turned ninety degrees in my seat to stare out the window. I could see a small reflection of Elizabeth in the glass so I shut my eyes. (Bekhayékha, even I have some standards.) “Okay, so we’re going to pretend to be part of the Canadian administration. Aides for that really good-looking guy that all the girls like…”

  “And?” Frank prompted. “Are you gonna tell them the rest of this hair-brained plan?”

  “I’m getting there!” I cleared my throat, trying to make my voice sound cool and confident. Like Aiden’s. That guy always sounded smooth as ayran. “And then,” I continued, doing my best studly professor impression, “we’re going to walk right through the front door.”

  “With what security cards?” Kevin asked, grunting as he tried to put on stiff clothes in a moving car.

  From the backseat, Zhang was snickering. He and Frank already knew this part.

  “With these,” I replied, removing several cards from my wallet and holding them over my good shoulder for him and Elizabeth to see.

  Kevin, who was now dressed, snatched them out of my hands. “Ori… these are veterinarian punch cards. For a cat. And this,” he added, his voice getting higher, “is a YMCA membership card that expired last year.”