Whiskey Storm

by F. J. Blooding

  Ollie followed with a grunt.

  Merry and the other Eastwood’s were gone. Leslie had disappeared as well. There was the sound of fighting all around them.

  But Mandy stayed close to Leah.

  Eldora remained in her chair, but those black eyes followed Paige everywhere she went. The rest of the Blackman’s remained seated as well. Why?

  Paige went over to them, scanning the area with her normal vision and her witch vision. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you getting up?”

  Eldora narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought that was obvious. We’re rescuing you.”

  Eldora looked in the direction of the portal Paige had stepped through. It was now closed even though Paige had no idea how it closed. “You opened the door.”

  “Just like you taught us.” Paige had the sense that something else was being said here, but she just didn’t quite understand what it was. It was if Eldora was trying to say something else, but she wasn’t using her words. It was as if she was…

  Using that unspoken language of the elements and the rest of the world.

  So, Paige stepped out of herself little bit. She went to that space where her magick resided, and she listened to Eldora without using her ears. She listened instead with her soul.

  The chairs were rigged with bombs. If any of the Blackman’s left their seats for any reason, the bombs would go up and would take the entire area with them. Eldora could open a portal and take the bombs away, but those bombs would go with her.

  They needed to get the Blackmans and the Eastwoods and Leslie and Mandie and Leah out of there.

  Paige agreed.

  “Protect Phoebe like she is your own.” Eldora’s voice was old and defiant.

  Like she was a Whiskey? That was a rather tall order.

  “You will need her, and she will need you. We are as one, and we must be if we are to win.”

  Eldora knew she wasn’t coming back. She had that calmness that came with certainty. “You sure you got this?”

  Eldora nodded. “It’s an old trick I used to do when younger.”

  What Eldora was proposing to do could wipe her out before she even made it through the door she opened. “Well, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Eldora smiled and closed her eyes.

  A wind whipped through the area.

  The other Blackman witches looked around. A few raised their voices in alarm.

  DoDO had noticed Paige was there and changed their targets to her.

  Paige raised her magick to defend. That’s where her strength lied. Not in door magick. Not in spells.

  In magickal fists.

  “We’re going to need doors,” Paige told Leah and Ollie. “Lots of them. When the Blackmans are free and the bindings of their magick are gone, tell them to open doors and get us all back home.”

  Leah nodded, her blue eyes wide.

  Ollie stared at Eldora in confusion.

  “One last thing,” Eldora said softly.

  DoDO was almost on them. “Yeah?”

  Eldora smiled. “Tell Merry to give them hell.”

  Paige didn’t get another word of warning. Eldora’s head fell back. The ropes that held her family fell away. The chair rose into the air toward a door that ripped open with a deafening roar.

  The Blackmans scrambled away. Leah shouted something to Phoebe. Phoebe shouted to her family.

  Paige was all fists and flying human feet against DoDO who came in without bullets. They were focused on trying to recapture the Blackman witches.

  A pulsing beep sounded through the chaos, sharp and distinct.

  “We need to get out of here!”

  Doors opened all around her and her witches began disappearing.

  A DoDO agent came at her, his hands filled with white lethal magick.

  Paige advanced on him and caught his fist as it came down on her.

  But instead of being hit with his magick, it rolled off her and seemed to settle within her.

  His eyes went wide.

  She smiled fiercely and went in for the kill. Or maybe the massive wounding.

  A hand grabbed her from behind and yanked her hard.

  As she fell through the door, an explosion rocked her with the concussion.

  The door she’d come through slammed shut.

  And she landed hard on the floor.

  Silence.

  Cold floor.

  Solid ceiling.

  Well, that could have gone worse.

  24

  Paige lay on the ground, willing the floor, the walls, the planet to stop moving. It wasn’t that she was dizzy. It was simply that she had lost her sense of where here was.

  Cool hands reached down and touched her.

  Leah’s magick touched her. Her red veined door magick seemed to settle around Paige like a weighted blanket.

  But then, another set of hands found Paige, pressing down on her shoulders, and words were muttered into her ear that registered as sound only. Speech on such a base level had no meaning. The All Mother’s language filtered away and she lost the understanding she discovered just moments before.

  But as she listened to those words, spoken by a female voice she didn’t recognize, her senses reduced, leaving just a human woman. The world stopped moving, stopped rotating. And everything solidified.

  She found herself staring up into Phoebe’s black eyes. Synapses fired as if Phoebe was downloading information into Paige’s psyche. It wasn’t that she understood what was being said exactly. It felt more like a software update where a necessary patch was being installed. Paige knew just enough about computers to understand that. She was the one who fixed everyone’s computers when they stopped working. One would think that would be Tru, but no.

  Phoebe eyes and face left, and Paige just laid there, doing her best to keep the floor from leaving. Her only responsibility in that moment was to make sure the tile didn’t float into the sky because… it could happen. Not really, but it made her feel like less of a schmuck for just lying there.

  Her magick had failed her out there. If she hadn’t been pulled back, there was a good chance, she wouldn’t have made it. Except—

  Except that the mage—the DoDO agent—had hit her with his mage magick.

  And… she’d kinda powered up.

  Was that the reason she was so disoriented now?

  This didn’t make sense. This was something she needed more information on. What was happening with her magick? What was she becoming? Not a mage. She refused to believe she was becoming a mage on top of everything else because… no. Just… no. She was already a very powerful witch and shifter. If she had suddenly inherited a bunch of mage magick on top of all that, she was giving it back. She’d be giving something back.

  But it certainly didn’t feel like it was working. Her magick wasn’t—It was hard to explain. But it just felt like it was out of sync with her. Like they were two different things trying to occupy the same space. She imagined this new magick was an asteroid, she a planet, and her original magick was a dinosaur waiting to be exterminated.

  Cawli growled low in the back of her mind. He gave her a mind a brush of comfort and disappeared again.

  As Paige struggled to her feet, her ears started to function. Words weren’t making any sense yet, but she comprehended sounds. Shoes scuffing against the floor, moans of pain. Heavy sighs of frustration. That was certainly a step in the right direction.

  Eventually, however, the words people spoke did make sense. Merry had taken charge alongside Leslie and they were getting the Blackman witches cared for.

  How had the DoDO gotten in? That was the question. Whatever weakness they had found needed to be plugged.

  However, it appeared as though that was exactly what Merry and Leslie were working on.

  Irritation flared a bit that they hadn’t talked to her about what to do with the wards even though that was irration
al. She’d been knocked out. What di she want? The world to stop until she was ready to take charge again?

  No. And it wasn’t as if those wards were singularly Paige’s. Everyone had invested a little bit of themselves which was the reason why they were so strong. However, Paige had been the one to initiate them, and so she felt a sense of ownership? That probably wasn’t the right word for it, but it was the best one she could come up with.

  nobody owned the wards. That line of thinking went to a bad place. She had bigger things to handle and this moment just amplified that. A year ago, her top concern would be the wards. She’d have been in Merry and Leslie’s place, trying to figure out how DoDO had gotten in to take the Blackmans.

  So, what was she supposed to do? What was her job now? She was the “bigger problem” person. So, what was the bigger problem?

  Well, they had a lot of those. Communication. Information, extraction, protection. How could they communicate with each other and the world? Who needed extraction? Who needed protection? Where would they set up protection hubs? How would they keep DoDO out?

  First, they needed to see if they could get networks set up. Information and extraction first. Set up the infrastructure. They couldn’t afford to be this blind and weak. Reacting would get them killed.

  Paige turned to Leah. “I need you and Phoebe to work together and see if you can make these doors a reality.”

  “Are you okay? Really okay?”

  Paige brushed off the question. No, she wasn’t. “We need to be able to help as many people as we can. And we may not get good location information all of the time.”

  “Okay. But we need information.”

  Nice one. Paige held up her hand to give her daughter a high five.

  Leah paused, and then did a half-assed slap.

  They’d work on it.

  “I’ll work on getting you information and locations. But right now, I just need to know what you can set up, how quickly you guys can get it set up, and what you can do to make it easier. We might have a few doors needed or a lot. I don’t know.”

  Leah nodded once and turned to Phoebe.

  “What about me?” Ollie asked, stepping up, his hands clasped behind him.

  This was so weird. “Your mom doesn’t need you?”

  “She might, but I think we need all door magick on deck. Don’t you?”

  “Probably.” That certainly seemed to be the issue. “You’ve also got blood magick, though. You and Leah will become stronger? As blood is spilled?”

  Ollie nodded. “It’s pretty handy in a war. We have plenty of DoDO to draw from, too.”

  Paige didn’t want to agree. “Well, see how handy that’s going to be setting up the network. You two might be taking point on difficult extractions.”

  Ollie’s eyes softened as he silently acknowledged what Paige had done there.

  Leah was her daughter, her teenaged daughter, and she’d just admitted to letting her to go to war.

  “I’ll teach her a few things about her blood magick.”

  “Please.”

  Troutdale could only be one hub. It could only be one destination. There had to be others.

  Paige stepped out of the Eastwood magick workroom and saw busy. Everyone had something to do.

  Everyone, that is, except for her smaller children.

  Sometimes, being a mom was kind of a pain. She had bigger fish to fry, and she still needed to somehow keep track of her kids and find a way to somehow save the world.

  Leslie came up to her, both of her eyebrows raised in an expression of awe and excitement. “That was new.”

  It certainly had been. “Ley line magick. It affects me somehow and I don’t think I like it.”

  “Eldora really stayed behind?” Leslie turned toward the room, visually scanning the faces of the other Blackman witches.

  Paige did the same. She recognized her half-brothers. Derek, William, Ian, and Stephen were all accounted for and were assisting others. She didn’t know any of them very well at all. They hadn’t been raised together, and she had only discovered that they were even related recently. She hadn’t tried to get to know them any better because Eldora had been kind of a deterrent. Paige and never trusted Eldora.

  She just hoped that Phoebe would be a better coven leader, and would be someone Paige could trust because Paige had made Eldora a promise: treat them as she would her own. She’d have to make good on that.

  Leslie turned back to Paige. “I can take the kids from here.”

  Just the tone in Leslie’s voice when she said that made Paige feel like she really was a horrible mom. “No. I need to figure this out. There has to be a way to do this and be a mom at the same time.”

  “You don’t have to be that superhero mom.”

  Paige sighed. “If I don’t, then I won’t be a mom.” Paige turned and gathered her younger children. Rai was sleeping in a medium-sized ball of fur and fluff. She made a really cute bear, but Paige found out quickly that bears were heavy. She touched Rai’s head and commanded her to change into something else. She shifted into a baby fox. Kits were so much lighter. Ember was in leopard form and was pouncing on a much taller Bobby.

  Bobby was holding his own pretty well, which should have surprised Paige, but he was almost as tall as Tyler now. Not—he really wasn’t. He looked like a five-year-old maybe? A tall five-year-old. But he was definitely not a toddler anymore.

  Whatever was going on with Bobby was going to eventually bite her in the butt. However, that wasn’t going to happen this day. Right now, she just had to be glad the boy could carry himself.

  Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she didn’t remember the last time she had actually eaten anything. And it rumbled loudly. So, she shoved her kids into the car, located Roxxie and made sure the angel was okay. She was staying pretty close to Leslie and was doing what she could to assist.

  Paige took the kids back to the house and fed them all, and then she put all three of them down for a nap. She wanted to nap as well, but she knew that was a bad idea. She really didn’t have that kind of luxury.

  So, instead, she called Michelle. “Have you been able to set up a communication network?”

  “I’m on my way to you. Talk to you in a minute.”

  How long before the cell towers stopped working? Would it even matter? They didn’t have power. How long before they didn’t have juice to power their phones?

  And, joy of joys, they had no water. They had a well, but that well had an electric pump. And the food in her fridge was starting to get warm. They needed to find a way to save the food. Fast.

  So, she called Suzanne while she still had power in her phone and asked the mayor to see what she could do about the refrigerated food. Suzanne assured her she was already on that and to have all food that needed cold storage brought to the high school.

  She’d give Margo that fun chore.

  Paige wasn’t certain what else she could do. She walked out to the backyard. It was filled with people. She wasn’t certain if people were ever going to leave, or if the Whiskey lands had all of a sudden become the town hub.

  She saw Danny Miller with new people and headed toward him. He was the only reporter she knew, and she had something very important for him to do.

  He looked up at her with a frown, that was quickly replaced with a slight smile. “Paige.”

  No time to waste on pleasantries. “How’s the information network?”

  Danny took in a deep breath and released it slowly. “It’s not as easy as we’d like. The power is just one issue. Communication is another. Our internet is down all over. Cell coverage will likely be next.”

  “Every phone will run out of power first.”

  “Agreed. But even that’s only a small problem. They’ve got—I don’t know. They’re deleting everything we post and share. They’re erasing us from the net. The only voice being heard right now is the President’s.”

  “That’s not
good.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “What about—” Paige hadn’t always really paid attention when Dexx went into his aluminum hat tirades, but she did occasionally. “What about the dark net?”

  “I’m looking into it.” A mask slid over Danny’s face. She recognized it all too well. When she was a detective, she had a mask of her own. “What are we doing?”

  She knew he wasn’t talking about the details. He wanted to know about the big idea. Were they succeeding? Were they going to war? “That hasn’t been fully decided.”

  “And who is deciding this? You?”

  Paige realized that she had to be careful of what she told Danny. Yes, she trusted him. But how much of what she said could be taken out of context? She raised kids and a man, so she knew what that meant. She could say the words she meant out loud, but they’d be reported as they were interpreted, not as they were delivered. And how much did she want to admit? They had no idea what they were doing. That wasn’t something that the public really needed to hear.

  “We’re building a council of the top leaders. Leaders of each of the represented groups, paranormal and human. And as more come in, I’m sure that our counsel will grow. We want to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard.”

  “How far do you think this is going to go?”

  “Looks like pretty far.”

  Danny narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, we have been able to get some information gathered.”

  This was certainly news. “What do you have?”

  Michelle came up to them and assessed Danny.

  He barely acknowledged her. “The National Guard has been called. They’ve set up checkpoints along the state borders. They’re making sure that refugees don’t get past them. They’re not just checking the highways. There’s reports of refugees being captured everywhere. Out in the country, in fields. People are trying to shield them and protect them. Those people are being rounded up with the paranormals.”

  This was bad. “Do we know where they’re being taken?”

  Danny shook his head.

  Michelle nodded. “They’re being rounded up and sent to prisons and camps gulag style. It looks as though this is been in the works for a while. The infrastructure is already up. There are entire prisons emptied and now they’re being filled.”