by A. L. Knorr
It was no use. It would not be put down. Those wicked horns lowered as the beast dropped to all fours, targeting Saxony as she stood on the rock, eyes still blazing, fists still flaming. She lifted her hands and slowly beckoned it. My heart swelled with pride.
Targa disappeared under the water and reappeared at the base of the rock where Saxony stood. Georjie ran across the beach and stood with her feet in the sand in front of Saxony and Targa. The three of them faced the Archon, tense, waiting. The ocean surged as Targa's blue eyes blazed righteous anger. Georjie's eyes were white and blazing, while Saxony's glowed red.
My heart filled with love for them. They would fight to the death, this was apparent. This was also something I could not allow.
When all else fails, love does not.
I wheeled fast and tight, heading out over the Atlantic with Saltford at my back. Picking up speed, I wheeled again, shooting straight toward the Archon which was still advancing on my friends.
Its horns rose against the sky as it reared back on hind legs, lifting massive, blurry claws.
Aiming for the region of the heart, where the Euroklydon had opened a smoldering red gash in its smoky hide, I passed over my friends’ heads. Pinning my wings tight to my body, I arrowed for a target I knew was there but couldn't see.
A fraction of a second before impact, I phased.
Saxony
A starburst of lightning flashed in the sky. Shards of light exploded from the central point of the storm-beast. I blinked and shielded my eyes, wincing at the pain in them as the light sliced through my vision and seemed to pierce my brain with a lance.
While I blinked at the sky, the scene over Saltford suddenly and drastically changed.
The storm-beast had vanished. The sky was a beautiful crystalline blue, save for the smoke from fires and the dust from disturbed earth hanging in low clouds over Atlantic Avenue.
The sound of alarms filled the air and a few small figures could be seen moving in the streets.
The tempest which had made war with the storm-beast looked momentarily lost. Losing power, the sands swirled and shifted in the skies, as though searching for its target. It was beautiful to behold, like a flock of starlings flying together against the clear canvas of blue.
"What…what just happened?" Targa reached up to help me down off the rock.
We waded out of the Atlantic and met Georjie on the beach.
"Did you see the falcon?" Georjie asked, throwing her arms around Targa and me and squeezing us hard.
"What falcon?" Targa asked, her voice sharp. She pulled back and looked from Georjie to me. Only now did her face truly telegraph fear. Not once during the whole horrific attack had Targa looked as frightened as she did now.
"I thought I'd imagined it," I rasped, rubbing a hand across my nose.
"What falcon?" Targa's voice cracked.
I looked at Targa and put a hand over the wet hair at the nape of her neck. "It was there for only a moment, and then…the flash of light."
"No," Targa whispered. A fat tear rolled down one cheek, followed by another and another and then her eyes were streaming endlessly. "No. She didn't."
"She'll be all right." Georjie put her hands on either side of Targa's face, wiping away the tears that just kept coming. "She's a Hanta. She fights demons, that's what she does. She'll show up, you'll see. She said she takes them deep underground, that's gotta take a bit of time. Don't you think?" Georjie wrapped her arms around Targa and looked at me over Targa's black hair, pleading for agreement.
I nodded. "She'll be back. Just give her a minute."
I wrapped my arms around Georjie and Targa and took a breath. I felt Targa shiver so I let my fire heat my body, warming her until steam rose from her shirt and her hair. She relaxed against my warmth.
I found that my throat had closed up and I thought there was a good possibility it would never open again. I searched the skies and ground for Akiko, hoping for another glimpse of the brave little falcon. My heartbeat slowed to heavy, aching thuds.
The water had begun to settle. The shores of the Atlantic were full of garbage—broken boats, fishing gear, ropes and nets, while random bits of trash which swept in and out of the ocean. The water was a murky brown and capped with dirty foam.
"Guys…" Georjie pulled away from our hug and drew our attention from the water to the sky. She took a step back. "Whoa."
The swirling sand funneled together and was coming straight for us. I could have sworn for a moment I saw a face in the shifting particles—a familiar face.
"It's…" I began.
The sand arrowed for the beach and came together. As though filling a hollow glass sculpture, legs formed of the sand, which grew into a pelvis and a torso.
As her arms congealed and her head topped the sand-figurine now walking across the wrecked beach toward us, I somehow found her name. "It’s Petra."
She became flesh in full color, naked and bone dry save for her bare feet as a wave swept over them. Her dark hair was wild and flew around in a breeze and then settled over her brown shoulders. She was a vision straight out of poetry as she closed the distance between us, her expression calm.
"Of course that was you," Georjie said on an exhale. "Tempest. Euroklydon."
"You're frightening.” My voice was hoarse and the words sounded distant to my ears, like someone else had said them. And my eyes went from Petra to the skies, still searching, still waiting for the return of a certain avian creature. Any moment now, Akiko would phase into flesh on the beach and join us.
"Are you guys okay?" Petra bent and grabbed a torn yellow raincoat from the random garbage on the beach. She made a face of disgust as she pulled the wet plastic coat over her bare torso and zipped it up. "I don't know what happened. One second that thing was there and then, boom, it just vanished!"
The sound of alarms and sirens and shouting voices had only increased and carried on the breeze. But the beach was empty except for us.
Taking the idea from Petra, Georjie went and picked up a piece of canvas. She held it out to Targa. "Cover up, hon. There are people with cell phones around. I'm already freaked out about the attention we're going to get when the worst of this passes."
"You were recorded?" Petra asked.
I nodded. "Pretty sure Georjie was. When the storm first started."
"That was no storm." Petra's face grew thunderous. "It was pure evil. Nakesh made the proverbial deal with the devil, if you know what I mean."
Targa, Georjie, and I gaped at her in shock.
"How do you know that?" Targa asked, half-heartedly holding the shred of canvas around herself. "I mean, we know it was evil, but how do you know Mr. Nakesh made a deal with that thing?"
"Because I unleashed it by accident when I confronted him." Petra's mouth was a flat line. "There is no more Field Station Eleven, by the way. No more Project Expansion."
"I don't care about the project anymore. Today, there was almost no more Saltford," I said. "I need to find my family."
"I don't even know where to start. I need to call my mom." Targa looked around, bewildered. "I lost my cell in the water."
"You can use mine,” Georjie offered. “I should call Mom, too. And then see if there’s anything left of our house."
"And you?" I asked Petra.
"There's someone I need to find, just down that way," Petra replied as we began moving across the wrecked beach toward the city. "Where's Akiko, by the way? Was she with you?"
Georjie, Targa, and I shared a look of worry.
"We don't know where she is, but there's a pretty good chance that she took down that thing all by herself." Targa tightened the canvas around herself.
Petra's eyebrows spiked upward. "Seriously? What is she? I've been dying to ask," Petra said. "TNC said they didn't want her and I've been confused by that ever since."
"Akuna Hanta," Georjie answered. "A hunter of demons."
Petra took this in and then started laughing.
Targa and I share
d a bemused look.
"A demon hunter? Really?" Petra said through her laughter.
"Why is that funny?" Georjie asked as we skirted the mess of dirt and wreckage covering Atlantic Avenue.
"Nakesh made a deal with an ancient demonic force and then tried to hire three Elementals to help him execute his evil plan. Three Elementals, who happened to be best friends with a demon hunter." She continued laughing. "Now that is poetic justice."
The rest of us didn't find it quite so funny because our demon hunter was still missing.
"I don't get how building domes for people to live in is an evil plan," Georjie said. "It might have been a crackpot idea, but it still seemed like their hearts were in the right place."
Petra lost her smile. "I have a friend who I'm hoping will be able to explain it to me, too. But you'll have to trust me for now, TNC's intentions were not altruistic. That reminds me, Georjayna, the plants from the prototype may need your attention. I took the dome down."
Georjayna nodded distractedly. “Okay.”
We walked together in silence for a while, listening to a city in shock.
Petra spoke up again. "How important is it to keep your identities a secret?"
"Very," I said. "Extremely."
I thought of how much Basil had impressed upon me that no one but my family, he, and the other students at Arcturus know what I was. I had already spilled the beans to my friends, which he wasn't going to be happy about. Now the world was going to know and probably have video evidence very shortly uploaded to the web once the people who took the recordings got their bearings. It might have been done already.
"It's imperative." Targa had an edge to her voice.
"Hey!" A voice pulled our attention down the beach to where a man was running toward us, waving. He had a cut on his forehead and part of one pantleg was burnt. The skin of his shin was red and blistered, but it seemed by his expression that he wasn't in any pain.
We stopped walking to watch him approach.
"I've been looking for you," he said to me, panting as he stopped just a few feet away. He bent over and gasped for air. "You're the fire lady. What you did…" He straightened, catching his breath. He shook his head in wonderment. "I always thought there had to be people like you out there. Pyromancers, you know."
I opened my mouth but didn't know what to say.
"She's not a pyromancer," said Targa, but the sound of her voice made me turn and gape at her. Her voice had become layered and musical, like violins that seemed to come from everywhere. "She's just a teenager who goes to Saltford High."
"Not a pyromancer…" The man's face went soft and expressionless, his eyes vacant, as he repeated after her.
"Saltford was hit by an earthquake and a freak storm today, nothing more." Targa continued speaking in that incredible voice.
Georjie, Petra, and I shared looks of amazement.
"There was nothing supernatural about what went on," she continued.
"Nothing supernatural…"
By the time she was done with him, the man seemed to be confused about why he was on the beach. He murmured something about needing to find his dog before wandering off at a stagger which then became a jog.
"Are you going to do that to everyone in Saltford who thinks they saw something cray-cray?" I asked Targa. "’Cause that could be tricky."
Targa shook her head and let out a defeated sigh. "I don't know. There's going to be fallout from this. My mom is going to freak out if anyone caught me on video.”
"They wouldn't have caught you in mermaid form, surely," I suggested, putting an arm around Targa's shoulders. "You were underwater where no one could see you."
“What about when I stopped the wave?"
"Hey at least you didn't have fins while you're doing it." I gave her a reassuring squeeze but I understand how she felt. I had thrown a lot of fire around, and someone had almost certainly caught Georjie lacing vines through the school. Pretty much every student had a mobile phone with a video camera on them at all times.
"Would you like me to send out an EMP?" Petra asked.
"EM-" Georjie began, puzzled.
"Electromagnetic pulse," she explained.
"You can do that?"
"Of course she can," I added with a laugh. "Girl can turn into a sandstorm and make force-fields. An EMP is a cakewalk."
"What would an EMP do?" Targa stepped gingerly around a bunch of broken glass on the road.
"Fry all the electronics in the city, all the cell phones, laptops, computers…"
"Emergency vehicles, hospital machines," Georjie added. The sound of sirens from the city took over when no one said anything right away. "Maybe now isn't the best time to cut off communication and handicap the emergency teams."
"Tempting, though." Targa gave a nervous laugh.
"Listen," Petra said, stopping us at the intersection of Atlantic and Grace. "I have a friend who is an amazing hacker. He's the whole reason TNC's evil plan was stalled. If something turns up on the internet that you're not happy with, I'm sure he'll be able to take it down. Two things are going to work in your favor in this situation." She held up one finger. "First, do you have any idea how much fake video there is online claiming to have caught a superhuman on tape? Anyone who has mediocre CG skills can make something look pretty convincing. You can claim it was faked and most people would believe you."
"And the second thing?" I prompted, not overly comforted by the first.
Another finger joined the first. "People are going to be so freaked out by the storm itself, I can't imagine a handful of kids seeing your powers at work are going to trump it."
She put down her hand and let this all think in.
"Why don't you just wait and see what happens." Petra shifted uncomfortably inside her rain jacket. "Between Jesse's skill and Targa's voice, I bet we can put it down until it all blows over."
It was the only plan we had that didn't involve crippling the city at a time when it needed electronics and communication lines that still worked, so we agreed.
Petra headed off in the direction of a residential area, while Targa, Georjie, and I agreed to stick together. We began to walk west, the direction of my home. We kept looking over our shoulders toward the ocean, hopeful for Akiko's return.
Saxony
Saltford was brought to its knees, but it didn't lose its head. Schools were repurposed into temporary shelters for those who had lost their homes. Except for Saltford High, which would need to be completely rebuilt because that damage was permanent. Georjie had removed all of the vines holding up the rubble of the school once darkness had fallen, but not before news crews got photos of the incredible sight.
Amazingly, the death toll was only seven, and one petite Asian girl was still unaccounted for. Injuries, on the other hand, were in the thousands. It seemed almost everyone in Saltford had at least a cut or a scrape. There was a lot of smoke inhalation, a lot of broken bones, and the burn unit was almost full with victims of the fires. Remarkably, many of these injured people recovered fully and quickly subsequent to a visit from a certain blond volunteer.
Nothing had publicly surfaced about three superhuman girls working together to save Saltford, but I was sure it was only a matter of time.
The storm was being touted as Petra had suggested it would be—a freak occurrence of nature, and this was what my parents and RJ all believed as well. I didn't see much point in setting them straight. Jack, however, practically locked me in his room until I told him the whole story, including the offer from TNC, since I couldn't hide anything from him anyway.
I called Basil to let him know my trip to England to attend Arcturus would be delayed while I helped clean up my neighborhood and helped friends who were impacted by the quake to rebuild.
The Sutherland home and my home escaped unscathed, but Targa's trailer had been swallowed up along with many of the trailers in her park. She stayed with Georjie until Mira got home and the two of them checked into a hotel while they decided wh
at to do. My money was on them going back to Poland right away rather than having Targa finish school in Saltford. Our high school was a pile of rubble, so she'd have to relocate anyway, and why stay in a place where people knew her face and someone might confront her about what had happened during the storm?
Liz came home right away to be with Georjie, and to her credit, she put all of her work on hold to help the clean-up efforts.
It was going to take a while to rebuild. There were entire neighborhoods with gorges running through them which would have to be cleaned up and stabilized and decisions made about what to do with the property.
As the days passed, though, my heart grew heavier and heavier. Akiko had still not turned up, and not having any idea what happened to her was weighing us down like rocks.
About a week after the attack, Georjie texted Targa and me with an SOS to meet at her place with a characteristically cryptic message: I received a package in the mail. You guys have to see this.
Georjie ushered us into her front foyer and closed the door. She had a fat envelope in her hand.
"Come on. I'll make you guys a coffee," she said, sprinting up the stairs.
Targa and I shared a look as we kicked off our shoes and followed her up to the kitchen. Georjie made us cappuccinos and we sat at the table together. Georjie slid the envelope across to me.
"Open it."
Georjie's address had been messily scrawled on the front of the envelope, but the handwriting was unfamiliar and barely readable.
"There's no return address."
Georjie shook her head. "No. But it's from Petra."
I took the envelope and pulled out a thick wad of folded paper. I opened it up and stared at the documents with confusion.
"How do you know?" Targa peered over my shoulder.
“Petra and I went to take care of the plants at the dome site,” Georjie explained. “She said she’d be sending something.”
It dawned on me after flipping through a few pages what I was looking at. "These are deeds!"
"Deeds to what?" Targa took some of the pages and read them, brows pinched.