Whiskey Storm

by F. J. Blooding

  “Okay. Well, I need to know how to keep my magick working. We’re headed toward war and whatever those mages use, it’s affecting me.”

  “It’s not—” Balnore licked his lips as the kid who’d ran to the bathroom walked more sedately back out the sliding glass door. “You know that the original magick users blended the lines.”

  “I did read that.” Though, it felt more like reading the Book of Genesis.

  “Well, they were trying to create a witch powerful enough to wield both the elemental energies and the ley-line energies.”

  Fuck. No. “You’re trying to tell me I can do that?”

  “No. It can’t be done. But I am telling you that you’re the closest thing we’ve had to achieving that in a really long time.”

  “Wai— what?”

  “Let me give you a brief history of what happened in the previous attempts to blend the lines.” Witches went crazy, and magick itself had seemed to “infect” the magick user. The things they did sounded like Doctor Moreau’s Island.

  “Infect?” He was kidding. He had to be kidding.

  Balnore nodded, an apologetic look on his face and continued. World’s history was filled with their attempts. Small disasters throughout the lands. Entire civilizations that just “disappeared” for no apparent reason.

  “The two energies are not intended to mix.”

  Which made sense. “So, I can absorb the ley-line energy.”

  “It appears so. But I would caution you not to.”

  ”Yes, please tell me why.” Her frustration leeched into her words. A lot.

  Balnore wasn’t fazed. “The previous witches capable of Ley line absorption went insane. The last one devoured an entire town.”

  Wait. “Devoured?”

  Balnore licked his lips. “There wasn’t anything left of it. Ley line magicks are very powerful and very pure and are a direct connection to the earth. Mages can tap into it and are disconnected to it at the same time, but a witch, an elemental witch, connects to the elements. The energies touch her soul. And that is what makes it so very dangerous.”

  So, in other words, in her attempt to save the world, she might very well…

  Devour it.

  Maybe the President was right to be afraid.

  26

  Paige invested the next few hours of relative peace and quiet while the kids slept, into researching the books Elder Yad and Merry brought, but Balnore was right. There was a lot of theories inside them, but they hadn’t gotten close enough to record any real facts.

  Frankly, that worried Paige more than a little. They thought they’d gotten a little close a few times, but those had ended… poorly.

  The witches had all experienced a surge in their abilities.

  So had Paige.

  Then as they continued to use those abilities, they’d gradually become more and more insane.

  Paige knew what it felt like to be inside that “insanity.” It might have looked like insanity from the outside, but from the inside?

  The meanings to everything was just different. Time had a different meaning. Good meant something else inside that magick. Evil wasn’t something the magick even understood, but it did understand bad. It understood anger.

  Reading the accounts of what the witches said and how they acted sent chills down Paige’s spine. She knew where those witches had been mentally. They were viewing the world—the human world—through the eyes of something much bigger, more powerful than humans could ever comprehend.

  Their worries, their demands and commands, their needs were all so small and insignificant to the wide world. These puny things were so destructive and so insignificant at the same time. The world didn’t understand how something so minor could be so infective.

  She also discovered an entry predicting how the world of humans would end, with each human devouring the masses in a continual plague of greed and hunger.

  The zombie apocalypse.

  She doubted seriously this was the reason the craze for zombies had spread. She seriously figured it had something to do with the fact that people weren’t stupid. They looked out at the sea of humanity and saw that they generally had one thing in common; greed. And how would that greed win out? How would it play out?

  An apocalypse.

  Well, that was all rather riveting, but it just told her one thing.

  She needed to keep her magick out of the ley line magick. Plain and simple. Mages needed to be mages. Witches needed to be witches. And it would just be good practice not to mix the two.

  Leslie came down the stairs with ruffled emotions. “Paige.”

  That single word shot out like a bullet. Paige got up, putting the books aside with a groan.

  The great thing about living with a bunch of other people you didn’t hate was that work got shared. Granted it was bigger with all the people, but it was still done by more than one person. The sucky part of living with a bunch of people was that there were days when every little thing tended to irritate at least one person and that irritation cascaded through everyone else.

  And lately, Paige had been doing a lot of little things to irritate Leslie.

  Like not doing her own laundry. Or failing at dish duty. Or only making one meal a month. Little things.

  Paige was due for a Leslie explosion, so she screwed on her concerned-yet-deflected face and greeted her sister.

  Only to find Kammy walking behind Leslie mostly naked.

  Taller than the day before.

  “What are your kids doing to mine?” Leslie stomped her booted foot from the last step and faced Paige full-on, her eyes filled with fury.

  “Oh, crap.” Whatever was going on with Bobby didn’t stop at just Bobby. She needed to let Roxxie know. But at the same time, this also meant that the growth was probably something related to the twins. But what? “I don’t know. I noticed it with Bobby but we thought it was a prophet thing.”

  “A prophet thing?” Leslie’s tone rose with both eyebrows. “The kid grows like a normal person for two years and then suddenly shoots up like a beanstalk with a giant, and you think this is a prophet thing?”

  Paige didn’t even understand how she’d been in the same house with Kammy and not noticed he’d grown so much in such a short time. “Did this just happen?”

  “Yes.”

  Okay. So, if this was happening with the babies, what was going on with the other kids? She pulled out her phone and called the school. The receptionist was lovely as always—meaning she wasn’t—and informed her that her kids were fine. Leslie’s kids were fine. And no one was experiencing unusual growth spurts.

  Okay. Well, there went that thought. “They were all sleeping together?”

  Leslie nodded, her eye drooping with angry worry. She turned to Kammy having fun with the stairs he struggled with just the day before.

  Paige herded the larger little boy up to their shared room.

  Bobby was curled up in his toddler bed and was now almost the same size as Tyler and the twins were the size of three-year-olds.

  “This has to be proximity to the twins.” A thread of terror rolled over Paige. What if there was something wrong with the twins? What if this was something she couldn’t control? What if they continued to age this quickly until they died? She needed to find someone who could fix this. Fast.

  The same thoughts must have been going through Leslie’s head, too. Her angry worry melted into worry-worry. “We need to keep the twins quarantined.”

  Paige rubbed her head, but she didn’t want to wake the kids. “I agree.” But she didn’t want to. “The twins and I will…” Where would she take them? Where could she take them?

  “Pea.” Leslie took Paige’s shoulders and thunked her forehead to Paige’s. “You find a place where those two will be safe that’s far away from other kids. Far away. Totally safe. And then you come back because we can’t win this without you.”

  They had to, though, right? Becaus
e the thought that this entire thing rested on her terrified the crap out of her.

  “I’ll take care of Bobby and Leah.”

  Paige really didn’t want to do that to her sister. Again. She was literally the crappiest mother out there. All she did was dump her kids onto other people.

  Leslie pulled back and gave Paige a look that said she didn’t give two fucks for the guilt pony Paige was currently riding. She needed to follow Leslie’s “suggestion.” Like now.

  Paige worked on gathering the twins.

  Bobby was a bundle of nerves and questions, but Leslie worked on wrangling him and Kammy. They all three invaded Tyler’s room and found clothes for the boys to wear.

  The twins were lethargic. Paige had to carry them both around in human form. They wouldn’t eat. They wouldn’t help get themselves dressed. She stole clothes from Bobby and Kammy since the twins were now the same size the toddlers had been just a few days ago.

  Who could she go to?

  With them in human form, she needed to take a car. But her car was… she didn’t know where. That was the problem with being part-time shifters. Sometimes, you needed a car to get to one place, and then you didn’t on the way back.

  She borrowed Leslie’s and hoped they had enough gas.

  She did.

  She could go to the Blackmans, but they had kids.

  She could to the Eastwoods, but… okay. She didn’t know they had kids, but she was pretty sure they probably did?

  Shifters were out of the question. They always had kids. If they didn’t have any of their own, they usually took in strays.

  Dryads?

  She didn’t want to know if her kids would adversely affect other paranormals. Would they abnormally grow to the point that disease would infect the tree?

  No. Where?

  Cyn.

  Paige groaned, already hearing the conversation. Cyn wasn’t going to like this.

  By the time she pulled up in front of Cyn’s house, she had a relatively viable case to bring to the woman. She just didn’t understand how’s Cyn’s mind worked. The woman was chaos wrapped in a burrito.

  Cyn and Lynx came out to greet her.

  Lynx was warm and inviting, his cat ears poking out with his long black hair pulled back in a manbun. They exchanged pleasant smiles of greeting and then the two of them carried the twins into the massive house.

  Cyn just kinda glared and held the door.

  It wasn’t that the woman was mean. She just really didn’t like Paige.

  She made a concerted effort to not “be an ass,” which was the way some people saw her. She was a focused individual who sucked at small talk, but with some people, like Cyn, that was necessary.

  So, in order to navigate Cyn to important things they talked about events in town. She learned that Steve and Gary had rigged up a power system for the town and that there were sections open to the power grid. TV was to be watched locally only. There were a few other rules. They’d already had a solar field and a wind farm nearby. But the locals had been reluctant to tie their city grid to it because of loopholes in legislation that no one really understood. But with those things out of the way, it was easy to get people talked into going green. TV was to be watched locally only. There were a few other rules, but Paige let her eyes gloss over and waited for the requisite politeness period to end.

  By the time covered local gossip and actual city news, Cyn’s body language was a lot more relaxed and she was actually smiling. It only took fifteen minutes.

  Paige was annoyed but at the same time, she just had to keep telling herself that different people were simply different. This was how Cyn worked.

  “I’m guessing you came here for something.”

  Paige filled them both in on what was going on with her twins.

  Cyn’s hand flew to her chest and her blue eyes rounded with alarm. “ I’m not babysitting. I’m terrible with kids. Why bring them here?”

  Paige didn’t like the idea of just leaving her babies with anyone. “No. I was…” She couldn’t even believe she was thinking the thought in her own head. To say it out loud? “I was wondering if your parents would be able to keep them in the Vaada Bhoomi until this blows over or I can find answers to what’s going on.”

  Cyn frowned with a different shade of alarm. “You want my parents to watch your kids in the Vaada Bhoomi?”

  “Yes?” Honestly, Paige had no idea. “They’re half shape-shifter, so it might be that being over there with the other shape shifters might help stabilize their growth? Or maybe there’s something in the Library that might give us some information on what’s going on with them.”

  “You’re afraid the growth won’t stop?”

  “Yes.”

  Cyn slapped her palms against her thighs and stood up. “Oh. Well, that I can help with. I think. Let’s see.”

  Cyn took Rai who was still sleeping and Lynx took Ember who was blinkingly awake. She took them to the bedroom and to the closet door. Cyn opened it and walked through like nothing.

  Paige needed to prepare herself like boarding Hogwarts express. She stepped through quickly, and entered a room of artifacts.

  Cyn and her dad greeted and they talked about the things he’d discovered. He was stuck here now that his body was the grounding stone for the ward tree in their yard, and he was busy cataloguing the many artifacts stored in the amazing library.

  The room had changed a lot since the last time she’d seen it. It was organized now. Things were labeled.

  And it was a lot bigger.

  They all walked through the castle to the Library room.

  It really was a castle. She didn’t understand why or how this came to be. But it seemed to change to meet the needs of the people who used it.

  The Library was huge and Paige had no idea how they were going to find Cyn’s mother.

  Cyn and Arthur seemed to be well practiced at this though. They didn’t ring any bells or announce their arrival. They simply walked in, and walked through the stacks and stacks and stacks of books that rose so high Belle would have been able to complete a complex singing ladder routine with ease, and found her within minutes.

  “You want us to…” Charlotte blinked her green eyes and shook her blonde head as if trying to clear the fog from her mind. “I don’t understand.”

  “I just need to see if there’s any information in here that would explain their rapid growth,” Paige said as clearly as possible. “And the growth of the kids around them.” She didn’t feel any older, so that was good. She was quite old enough for now, thank you very much. “And to see if their lives are in danger.”

  “Just.” Charlotte released a petulant sigh and tipped her head with a frown at Arthur. “And you want us to keep the children here?”

  No. Paige didn’t want that at all. She wanted her twins with her. “We’re going to war. So, yes. Unless you think that taking them into battle would be safer.”

  Charlotte licked her lips and glanced away. “I’m sorry.”

  Not as much as Paige. Her heart twisted with the idea of leaving them behind, but she didn’t give herself the chance to wallow in that. She had to move. She had to change the world before it burned. And she couldn’t do that…

  She could do that and be a mom too.

  When would her kids come first?

  Well, they’d at least grow up knowing they weren’t the most important people in the world. There was that, at least.

  But couldn’t they be the most important people to one person? Couldn’t that be a thing?

  Not today. “I’m hoping they’ll be safer here because of their shifter side. Their animal spirits are very strong.”

  “Thunderbird and rajasi,” Arthur said.

  “Yes.” Maybe that had something to do with this? Their spirit animals needed to get their little bodies big enough to handle them? She didn’t know.

  I will remain here, Cawli’s voice said inside her mind.


  “Who is that?” Charlotte asked, spinning around.

  Huh?

  Paige turned, trying to figure out what Charlotte was hearing.

  And saw a cat. The creature had very interesting markings, an array of dark stripes along its belly and odd spots along its back.

  But those eyes? She knew those eyes. “Cawli?”

  He nodded his little cat head. I can stay here with the twins and help to keep them in line.

  “Well, that would be…” Charlotte looked up at Arthur, her eyes wide. “…helpful.”

  “You’re a cat.” Paige couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that her big-feeling spirit animal who was so powerful was so… small. He was the same size as a large house cat.

  I am. This is my first form.

  Huh. Well, she could stand there and gape, or she could get on with the business of abandoning her kids.

  She really had to stop saying it like that.

  I agree. You are doing what is best for them. You are not abandoning them.

  Arthur set Ember down and gave Paige an awkward hug.

  She fought it for a moment and the accepted what he offered.

  He pulled back. “We will watch over them and we keep them safe.”

  “And,” Charlotte said, placing her hand on Paige’s arm, her expression filled with caring, “we will look for an answer.”

  “Thank you,” Paige whispered around the knot in her throat.

  Then, she kissed each of her sleeping kids on the top of their toddler heads, tears threatening to spill out, sobs threatening to take over—

  And walked away.

  27

  Anyone who says it’s easy to walk away from your kids to go to work or save the world is a shamer. It took everything Paige had to keep on walking. Out of the castle, out of the bedroom, out of the house, and then to drive. Down the driveway. Down the road.

  Back to her house.

  Once there, she walked into an empty house and her heart opened like a dam. She made it up to her empty bedroom and sobbed like a broken thing, missing Dexx, missing her kids, missing her freakin’ sister who lived in the same freakin’ house but who was so busy—they both were—that they never really got to really see one another.