Like a Torrent

by Olivette Devaux

  Paul, to Cooper’s left, reached out and touched Cooper’s hand. Sure enough, a tickle of energy slithered under Cooper’s skin, sinking into him, and through him, to the ground.

  “I just grounded Paul,” Cooper reported.

  “And I felt the charge transfer,” Paul agreed. “And I can feel Mark again. He’s irritated.”

  “That’s just because I don’t like flying blind, and this place is creeping me out. Not the graveyard part, I mean. Just the... the way it’s empty. It’s weird.” Mark coughed, as though to cover up his unease. “And yeah, I can read Paul. He’s a bit too happy being able to zap Cooper and get away with it!”

  “Cooper, take off your ground-stone,” Ash said. “Let’s link up and try again.”

  Cooper flashed Ash an uncertain look. “You think?”

  “Neutral ground,” Ash said, looking grim. “If there’s a safe place to try this, it’s here.”

  Slowly, like a child forced to leave his comfort blanket behind, Cooper slipped the silk cord of his pendant over his head, and set it in the grass before him.

  The world didn’t come to an end. The neutral ground theory still held.

  “Link up,” Ash said.

  Cooper grasped his hand – yes, Ash was all there with his vibrant energy and drive, liquid and smooth and...

  and then, nothing.

  “What happened?” Cooper blurted. “I felt you okay, and now you’re gone.”

  Ash let go. “I touched Hank,” he said. “I think we are starting to see what his Void can do.”

  They all stared at Hank now. Cooper had never heard of anyone being able to stop other people’s talents before, and it sure looked like Hank didn’t like being the focus of their attention.

  “Hank, would you move out for a moment? We’ll try it without you.”

  Hank crawled on the grass to take a seat outside of the circle, and they all readjusted and linked up again. Power surged from Paul to Cooper, from Cooper to Ash. Like a vortex, it flowed and spun and gained momentum, and with it, fierceness.

  “What next?” Cooper whispered, not knowing where to channel all this potential, and afraid to cause damage.

  “Hank,” Ash said. “Go touch Cooper’s shoulder.”

  A moment later, Cooper felt the heat of Hank’s light touch.

  The power was gone, as though it had never existed before. A thud behind him had Cooper jump and whirl. “Hank!”

  They all scrambled to surround Hank, anxious with worry. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Hank croaked as he struggled to pry his eyes open. “Y’all just about knocked me out!”

  “I saw it happen,” Jared piped up. “I mean, I saw it, in my mind. Us being on neutral ground really helps with that, by the way. There’s no interference.”

  “What did you see?” Ellen asked.

  Jared took a deep breath. “It was... weird. It was like Hank sucked all the energy away from you.”

  They all stilled. The implications of Jared’s insight were inescapable.

  “Hank?” Ash squatted down, peering at him. “Can you really do that?”

  “Sort of?” Hank sat up. His shoulders were hunched, and misery was written all over his face. “It’s the Void. That’s where the power goes.”

  “Or that’s where you think it goes,” Cooper said. “You didn’t want to tell us, did you?” He schooled his voice to be neutral, and his expression to be sympathetic.

  “I’m sorry,” Hank said. “People avoid me when they find out, like I’m going to steal their mojo. Which is bullshit, by the way. Just... I don’t want to be like this! I wish I could do something cool, like you guys.” He shook his head, eyes fixed on the grass by Ash’s feet. “You have no idea what it’s like, to be ostracized like that.”

  Nobody said anything. Silence thickened in their little bubble at the edge of the woods. The cemetery, as well as the city that surrounded it, fell away and Cooper suddenly felt adrift, in a floaty and untethered feeling of utter sadness.

  “I know what it’s like.” The words came out of his mouth so suddenly, Cooper himself was surprised by them.

  “What makes you think that?” He heard a bit of push-back in Hank’s tone now, as though he didn’t believe anyone in the world could possibly understand him.

  “My earth-sense came late to me,” Cooper said quietly. “I thought I was crazy at first. It was so bad, I went to see a doctor – so they gave me drugs. Serious drugs. I was messed up for a long time, not knowing what’s real and what’s not. My family figured I’d be one of those people with a normal life, but since this happened when I was several states away in college, they had no idea.” A bitter smile twisted his face. “My life’s been a mess. Then I met Ash, and... and it was like the sun came out from behind a permanent cloud.”

  “Shut up,” Ash mumbled, obviously embarrassed. “You’re fine. You’re pretty damn awesome. I didn’t do a thing.”

  “Oh.” Hank’s voice was like a pebble in a pond. When Ash pressed his lips together, focused on Hank again, Hank clambered up to his feet. “So, I didn’t know about Cooper. That this could happen, I mean.”

  Cooper shrugged, as though to toss the tension off and refocus. “Never mind all that. Just tell us what you can and cannot do.”

  Now it was Hank’s turn to shrug. “I’m not sure. I mean, I can stop people from using their talent, but I think we have to touch. And I haven’t really been testing it out. There wasn’t anyone at home who wanted to be my guinea pig.”

  “You seem to have your limits,” Ellen said. “We knocked you down on your ass. Did you black out?”

  “No,” Hank said quickly. “No, it was as though I got kicked by a horse.”

  A cloud passed over the sun, bringing humid air and deepening the shade under the trees. Their lunch break was getting too long, and Cooper began to stir in uneasy anticipation of things to come. “We can’t stay here forever,” he blurted out.

  “No, we can’t.” Ash scanned the faces around him. “I think the unspoken question is, can Hank drain the node and make the power go into the Void? My feeling is, he’ll be able to do that in twenty years, and only if he has solid support of an experienced team. So if we don’t want to kill off Hank and have him burst into flames, him doing this isn’t an option.”

  Hank glanced down, which told Cooper everything he needed to know. “And we’ll keep an eye on Hank and make sure he doesn’t try it on his own,” he said in a tense, hoarse whisper. “Won’t we, Hank?”

  Hank shook his head. “I’m so fucking useless,” he said. “And yeah, draining the node would be something useful to do with my life.” The finality of his sacrifice remained unspoken. There was no need stating the obvious.

  “Maybe you can’t drain the whole node,” Jared said, “but I think you could help. I’ve seen it, and now that I’ve seen all of us together, I have an idea.” He glanced at Ash. “But it’s an idea we can carry out only if Ash lets me direct traffic for a while.”

  Cooper bit his lip. Ash relinquishing control on this project would certainly be unexpected.

  CHAPTER 14

  Cooper wore his ground-stone on the way back to Lawrenceville. Their dire circumstances changed his opinion of the ground-stone and its effect. Whereas he used to resent the loss of his earth-sensing skills the way an amputee resented missing a limb, the dulling presence of the artifact was now a comfort that promised security.

  It kept him safe – and it kept his friends safe, too.

  No more earthquakes.

  Yet, despite the fact that Cooper could no longer visualize the layout of the underground structures in his vicinity, he could feel the hum of the node from three miles away. Once they passed the 40th Street Bridge, the hum became a throb he couldn’t ignore.

  That energy underground, the roiling and turbulent center where two flows of power met, tasted of fire and broken rock. It was just as well that Hank was driving the other vehicle. Had he been in Ash’s van, Cooper might’ve yielded to tempt
ation and asked Hank to help him get grounded.

  Which would, most likely, knock Hank out for the count.

  And they needed Hank for later. That was the plan, and since Jared was the only one in their group who could see the power flows and their balance as though with plain sight, Jared’s plan seemed to be the best.

  The van rumbled over a pothole. The jostle it gave Cooper was a welcome distraction from what awaited them.

  “What’s wrong?” Ash asked in a low voice, as though not to over-share with Jared, who was sitting behind Cooper.

  “I can feel it.” The words cost him.

  “It’s calling to him,” Jared said. “I can see tendrils of power spinning out. It’s feeling out his shields.” Jared spoke of the node as though it was sentient.

  “Let me ground and center some more,” Cooper said. He didn’t see the familiar landmarks they passed as Ash brought them closer and closer. Instead, he focused his attention inward. The whirling sphere at his center needed to spin, nice and slow, and the ground-stone needed to suck in any extra power he managed to leak.

  “Are your shields up?” Ash’s smooth baritone was low and unobtrusive, just loud enough for Cooper to hear over the road noise.

  “Trying.” And he was. He was visualizing all he was worth. Structures of light and darkness formed an overlay that distorted the tangible world around him, and keeping all those moving, ephemeral parts in place took a lot more effort than just swinging a sword. Or even swimming.

  “Good,” Ash said. “Me too. Jared, are your shields up?”

  A guilty silence resonated from the back seat.

  “Jared.” An admonition.

  “I can’t see through my own shields.” Jared ground out in a strained whisper.

  Ash pulled into a parking space in front of the first row house. “Shield up now, just to get a break,” he ordered. “You can drop them later, as needed.”

  “Okay.”

  They all walked like in a daze. Had Cooper been able to make flippant observations, he’d have said they were all like a bunch of zombies, but as it was, he moved with the same stiff walk of Jared and Ash.

  Ash took the point with his Japanese katana in his left hand. The sword was sheathed, with the polished surface of the lacquered wood saya reflecting light as brightly as though Ash had been holding a naked blade. Cooper followed him down the alley and to an opening in the chain-link fence. Only once he glanced behind him, to make sure that the rest of their party was still in on the action.

  They needed every single one of them.

  He wouldn’t have blamed any one of them for turning back and driving far, far away.

  Slowly, Cooper hunched and stepped through a thin veil of green fronds that were beginning to grow back and fill the empty space. The fragrance of honeysuckle hung in the air, sweet against the bitter scent of bruised foliage underfoot. His sneaker crunched old, overgrown gravel, and he had to fight his natural tendency to reach out and read the ground ahead.

  His shields were up, and the ground-stone that reinforced them lay unpleasantly hot upon his chest.

  “Let’s hurry,” Ash gasped. “The faster we get this done, the better!”

  They broke into a faster gait, one as fast as they dared while still focused on remaining shielded under the onslaught of pulsing energies. Cooper’s feet heated up, reminding him of that one time he walked over red-hot coals, but this time, he didn’t smell the pungent reek of melting rubber soles. This time, he only felt the formidable threat of accumulated stress underground. A stress that came from millions of little earthquakes, fractures of bedrock pressured by hot, corrosive liquid that was forced deep underground to break up the layer of Marcellus shale and release its coveted methane gas.

  Every little fracture released a bit of energy, and somehow, that energy ended up not thirty miles away, where it should have. No, that destructive energy was dumped here, just to accumulate and seethe and wait to be liberated, whether by chance or by design.

  The image sickened him, and he stumbled.

  “A little more, and to the right. Toward the river.” Jared’s voice carried clear enough for the whole group to hear. Cooper heard the strain Jared was trying to hide, and his admiration for his cousin grew along with his concern. To know where to go meant Jared had taken his shields down.

  “Over there,” Jared said, and pointed to a black stone outcrop, whose almost-flat mass jutted out of the ground.

  Seeing a piece of bedrock here by the river was unusual. Cooper knew the alluvial deposits of the flood plain ran deep.

  Jared waved his arm, catching Cooper’s attention. “I think it’s that thing,” he said. As soon as he pointed toward the outcrop, Cooper stopped and stilled his mind.

  “Unshielding,” he said quietly as the rest of the group caught up. In his peripheral vision he saw them spread apart and circle the outcropping of stone. Slowly, cautiously, Cooper let his shields thin, then disappear entirely.

  The pulsing of the node was a rumble underfoot, as though a subway was continuously passing many feet underground, the way they used to in the big city, when he visited.

  He closed his eyes. He sank his mind into the stone, feeling the strata of soil and rock that had been deposited over millennia of spring river floods. Those floods no longer happened a lot, and the soil read like a diary of a long-dead character that stopped writing regular entries when the rivers were dammed upstream. The fertile soil had grown into a burgeoning explosion of greenery. Beneath it, the denser layers of half-petrified sediment were riddled with man-made tunnels and reinforced with quarried stone that left a dry and foreign taste in the back of Cooper’s mind. The network of passageways was clearly etched in Cooper’s mind from before, and now he could feel them again, even though his ground-stone threatened to burn a hole through his T-shirt.

  Damn, but did that thing hurt!

  Cooper peered at the ground, desperate for something to put between the overheating stone and his skin. Not green leaves. The gravel would never stay put, the crushed plastic bottle would melt.

  “What is it?” Ash touched his arm.

  “The stone hurts. Burns. If I only had something...”

  “Got it,” Ash said. With a few long strides, he disappeared into the thick stand of trees, where the twisted trunks of choke cherry were tall and shady. Within a minute, he emerged with a long, thin grapevine trailing from his hand. “Here, I’ll put a wreath around your neck, and you can nestle the stone on the twigs.”

  “It’ll burn through,” Mark said.

  “Eventually. But we might be done by then. And we can get more, or... or something.”

  Cooper breathed deeper, now that the stone didn’t try to burn an impression into his skin. “Thanks.”

  Ash nodded. “The node. That outcrop... is that it, Jared? And Cooper, can you see the energies now?”

  “Yeah, now I can.” Cooper lacked the energy for lengthy explanation. His focus was on his shields, especially now that the ground stone didn’t sit flush against his chest.

  The node throbbed with loud and insistent heat.

  “So this is it, huh?” Mark squinted at it, as though he hoped to see more than he could, and reached out to touch the black stone.

  “Don’t!” Cooper shouted. “It’s hot. It’s cooled magma.”

  “I thought this was all sedimentary,” Ash said. “Magma would mean –”

  “Yeah.” Cooper was breathing hard. “It’s wild, and it wants me.” The power snaked along the ground like fast-growing vines, reaching for his ankles, luring him in with a promise of more.

  More of what he wasn’t sure, just more, and bigger, and greater, and more desperate for Cooper to make it stop and take the pain away.

  He took a step toward the rock, then another.

  “No, don’t.” Ash hung on to his arm, tugging back, fighting against the force that had them all standing there like salt pillars, mesmerized and indecisive.

  “Cool it, Ash,” Cooper ground ou
t. “Remember, balance. We wanted balance.”

  Ash pulled harder. “I can’t let go of you!”

  “You must!” Cooper yanked to the side, freeing himself of Ash’s grip, but also not walking straight at the still-hot basalt flow that must’ve welled up recently, and was still seething with liquid heat under its solid shell of black, finely crystalline rock.

  Cooper sat on his butt, legs outstretched. If he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t be drawn by the thing. Not walking was safe.

  He felt its fire. He also felt its pain, a hurt accumulated over months and month and swept under the carpet of tall grasses and wildflowers.

  He wanted to heal it, yet he didn’t know how.

  ASH FELT COOPER tumble into the grass to his right, and knew right away that his chance had come.

  Maybe the only chance.

  He drew his sword, tossed the scabbard behind him, and grasped the hilt with both hands. “Everyone, back me up!” His voice cracked with stress, and his mouth was dry.

  They had just this one chance.

  Jared stumbled to his eleven o’clock. Probably took his shields down. Just when Ash was about to yell at him, Jared spoke.

  “Ash, give it water. Like in Chernobyl, okay? Bury it, flood it. That’ll balance it out.”

  Ash raised the sword, then cut. His focus was on the overall movement of his body, and within it, his mind and whatever made his talent work.

  An arc of water appeared in the wake of his blade, hovering in mid-air like a sword made of water, before it fell apart into thousands of droplets and landed on the black stone with a hiss. Steam rose, swirling even in the heat of the August afternoon.

  “Like that, but more. Lots more.” Jared swayed from side to side.

  Ash pushed concern for Jared out of his mind. He was the only one who could summon water, and summon water he would. The only way to tame this node was to keep at it, cool it, douse it in a torrent of an opposing element until it gave up its anger and allowed them to coax the flow of its power into a smooth and steady pattern.

  “Should I...?” Hank’s voice, a mixture of fear and determination, sounded next to him.