There were so many ways this could’ve gone better. More training, more practice. More time. More everything, even people, and that boiled down to one simple fact.
“I should’ve asked for help a lot sooner.”
Hank nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “But correct me if I’m wrong, the node went bad pretty suddenly, yeah?”
“I should’ve predicted it.”
“Grandma Olga should have predicted it,” Hank corrected as he doled out his words with metronomic precision. “And if she did, and didn’t say anything, then there was a reason. Maybe no matter what we were going to do, something bad would have happened.”
Ash leaned back from his half-eaten meal. Olga Sorensen had probably known this was one of the future possibilities as soon as she had bent her mind toward him and Cooper back in upstate New York. He respected her, and he respected her unwillingness to mess with time-flow and possible outcomes, if only by providing information. Reality had a way of circumventing all predictions and precautions, she had said. “Nah,” he finally broke the silence. “I don’t envy her her talent.”
“It’s a no-win, most of the time,” Hank agreed. “Hey... so how’re you feeling? Headache status?”
“Still there. I still need to sleep. How’s Cooper?”
Hank’s face darkened. “Still out.” Then an uncomfortable grimace contorted his face. “Hey... so what happened there yesterday? I thought you guys were going to balance out the elements, then I was going to siphon the extra energy into the Void. Right?”
Ah. Finally, a chance at getting some information. “You were standing to my left,” Ash said, visualizing as much as he could. “What do you remember happening?”
Hank set his bitten apple down, and took a drink of water instead. “I, uh. I stood there, waiting for the right time. We had a plan, and we were kind of sticking to it. You were summoning water with that sword of yours, and Ellen started making wind. And then, after a lot of show, you jumped forward and stabbed the rock with the sword, and then everyone’s power began to drain into it. So, I was afraid to touch anything. I mean, had I tried to interfere, I would’ve sent all the power everyone worked so hard to generate into the Void, y’know?”
“Makes sense,” Ash said, remembering not to nod.
“So then it all went to shit. There was so much steam, it was hard to see. The rock exploded, and the next I remember you and I were knocked down, and Cooper was standing over what was left. He was, like, holding his hand over the crater. And then Jared came up and grabbed his shoulder.” Hank paused.
Ash blinked slowly, letting Hank gather his thoughts. So far, this was a lot like the dream he remembered. Just when he was tempted to prompt Hank for more, Hank spoke again.
“It was weird. It was so quiet, y’know? Just the fog, and the heat, and the guys were pouring all they could into it, which I don’t understand, because Cooper is earth with some fire, so how would that help anything? And Jared didn’t have an official element, he just had the Sight. But then Jared disappeared, and the heat went away.” Hank’s tone was as bewildered as the eyes under his bushy eyebrows.
“Just like that?” Ash said.
“Just like that. And nothing was left. I checked. Not even clothes.” Hank gave an embarrassed cough. “Like, I thought... this is so fucking dumb, but at that moment I thought it was like Star Wars or something, and when the Jedi died, they left their robes, right? But...”
“But no robes.” Ash nodded this time. His head hurt, but he’d live... unlike Jared. “You know, this disappearing act, it can’t be the first time this has ever happened. The guys even called it something. So if you hear about it in the legends, or in stories, or even in the movies which happen to be inspired by stories, maybe? Then it probably has some basis in fact.” This wasn’t the time to tell Hank that he could walk the river bottom without breathing in the conventional way, but he had read old folk tales where “magical” beings could do just that.
Except he wasn’t magical. He was just Ash.
“Maybe.” Hank shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s fucking weird, is what it is. But we all agree we don’t feel his power signature anymore, so he... he put all of himself out there.”
Ash gave a dry, bitter laugh. “I keep waiting to wake up.”
“Good luck with that,” Hank said. “I’ve been waiting since I was six.”
The glass of the living room window trembled. “What the fuck?” Hank jumped to his feet.
“An earthquake?” Ash bit back a gasp, but alarm coursed through his body nonetheless. “Cooper doesn’t have the ground stone anymore!”
“He doesn’t?” Hank asked as he strode to the window, narrowly avoiding his coffee table.
“No, I think he threw it into the pit. That’s what’s making that shield. We should go check it out...” Ash was on Hank’s heels, trying to see what was going on outside.
“It’s that nosy asshole again,” Hank said. “He was here the night we moved in, after you left. What a snide little twerp, too.”
Ash peeked past Hank. There, parked in the street, stood a sizeable truck, the kind used for carrying heavy equipment. Two big, burly men jumped out. One kicked the wire fence, which was now heavy with blossoming vines and posed an impenetrable wall of lush greenery.
A familiar figure slid out of the truck’s cab. Slight, blond, and none too welcome, Brian Clegg from the South Side gang was stomping all over his turf.
“That guy? The blond?” Ash said, pointing.
Hank growled. “Yeah. He wanted to know who owns the property.”
Ash pressed his lips together so hard they hurt. The memory of an unwelcome letter, offering to buy the whole property, came to him as though from very long ago. After last night, all events in the past hid behind the curtain of fog, unexplainable events, and sorrow.
But the letter had been real, and so had been the wild and outrageous offer, posed by an unknown party through a lawyer and a bunch of shell companies. “His name is Brian Clegg, and he’s no good. Did you tell him anything?”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “To fuck himself. Didn’t like him one bit.”
One of the big guys reached behind the seat, and emerged with a pair of bright-red, wire-cutting shears. He headed for the fence.
CHAPTER 17
The dull throb of Cooper’s headache was his background music, quieter now than before, but still there in its insistent entirety. He was fully awake, sprawled in a strange bed and staring at a ceiling that gleamed white despite the curtains across the window. A plain, white ceiling was a soothing expanse, surrounded by empty, beige walls.
He recognized those walls. He’d designed them, he’d painted them.
Cooper patted his chest in a habitual gesture, then stopped. That’s right, the ground-stone was gone, and Jared was gone with it.
Jared, who had transcended the gifts he’d been granted by fate. Jared, who had poured the energy that had been his lifeblood into Cooper, who had, in turn, passed it into the shields that now guarded the rogue node.
A node he didn’t feel anymore.
Cooper sat up, taking his time and checking his sense of balance. He didn’t want to end up heaving, the way he had after his first backlash headache, when he had been hiding out in Ash’s old apartment.
Would every backlash headache mean having to wake up in a strange bed and tasting that vile mushroom tincture? He shuddered, but looked around anyway, knowing what he would find.
As he expected, the night table to his right held a glass of water and a brown glass bottle with a twist-off cap. Next to the bottle laid a spoon. Cooper picked it up, poured himself a spoonful, and downed it.
A shudder wrecked through him in response to the bitter taste. He chased it with water, which didn’t do him a whole lot of good as far as the taste was concerned, but it took the edge off the thirst he had built up since yesterday.
His ground-stone was gone. He kept reaching for it with his mind, only to find a gaping void where its comfo
rting heaviness used to lay. Cooper sat up in alarm. That artifact helped him center, it made it possible for him to be with Ash... or with anyone else, probably. Now, he was a danger. A hazard, a walking earthquake trigger who didn’t know how to keep his energies on a tight leash.
Cooper focused inward in an effort to ground and center himself. He used every trick he’d ever been taught, but the void left behind by the ground-stone’s soothing effect threatened to draw him into a useless exploration of what he had lost.
Is this what addiction was supposed to feel like?
He needed to center, dammit. Ground and center, and maybe call his family and let them know that he was alive, but that things were not, strictly speaking, well. He had thrown the artifact into the gaping wound in the Earth on sheer instinct. It had felt right at the time, and it would still feel like the right thing to do, if only he didn’t miss the calm reassurance of the darn rock so much.
Ten minutes of sitting still later, the ground felt solid under him once again as Cooper clambered out of the bed. He felt grungy, still wearing yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt. Whoever tucked him in had taken off only his shoes and socks, and those were by the side of the bed.
The socks looked disgusting. Cooper slipped into his sneakers barefoot, laced them on, and cautiously headed for the door. The bathroom was, as he recalled, downstairs.
Few minutes later, he was done with his business, which included borrowing a dose of mouthwash and splashing a copious amount of water in his face.
He crossed into the kitchen and looked around, surveying the dark wood cabinets and the easy-care composite countertop. The black, square plates with an Asian design of green bamboo to one side clued him into his host’s identity, because he remembered unpacking the plates for him. Cooper had spent the night in Hank’s bed.
That’s when he remembered that Jared was no longer with them.
ASH TORE OUT of the house, heedless of the cobblestones that threatened to trip him up. As he crossed the boundary between deep shade of the buildings and the jagged, sun-baked pavement on the other side of the narrow street, the heat of the day slammed into him so hard, he was forced to slow down.
“Boss,” Hank wheezed behind him. “Wait up!”
Ash ignored Hank. His entire focus was on Brian Clegg and his two burly henchmen. He rounded the front of the truck and skidded to a halt. Then he took a deep breath, straightened up, and gave Brian an arch look. “And what might you be doing on my property, exactly?”
Brian turned to him with a wild glare in his eyes. He was a bit shorter, which didn’t exactly matter much. Air shimmered around him with a distinct hum Ash imagined he could almost see the energy as well. His power signature flared in and out, wild and erratic, as though his shields were on the verge of failure.
“Brian. I asked you a question.”
“And I don’t owe you an answer,” Brian cut back. “We’re on a public street. I don’t answer to you.”
“You’ll answer to me if you touch my fence with those wire cutters,” Ash said. He tried to keep his voice level and calm, as though he was in perfect control. He tried not to show temper. Pretending that he didn’t need to had served him well in the past.
But this was Brian Clegg, the horrid scum who had scammed his way into too many shady real estate transactions around town, and Ash didn’t like Brian Clegg in general. He didn’t like the way Brian Clegg did business in particular, because his way of acquiring property usually meant buying some run-down building in need of tender and loving restoration, and setting fire to it.
He hated to think how he got that past the insurance companies.
Then again, if he owned a system of shell corporations, and if even Ash’s experienced lawyer couldn’t figure out who was trying to buy the property which now surrounded them, then Brian was pretty well hidden from the public eye. Being hidden would obscure his arsonist ways for long enough to diversify his investments. This time, he was into fracking, probably. And he was sending all kinds of distended, junky energy into this node.
“I’m not selling the property, Brian. I think you know that, or you wouldn’t have tried to hide your identity.” Ash spat it out, hoping to lure Brian out and learn something definite. Something useful.
“You should’ve,” Brian hissed. “It was a fair offer.”
“I can’t sell land that hasn’t been cleansed.” Was that giving away too much? Ash inhaled a shallow breath, doing his back to look nonchalant again.
“Not your monkey, not your circus, tree-hugger freak!” Brian Clegg vibrated with rage. His aura flared so hard, the headache Ash had wrestled under moderate control earlier began to assert itself again. But if they had felt the backlash of the node exploding, Brian probably had not fared much better. “What’s your problem, Brian? Feeling a little... edgy?”
The air that filled the five feet between them tingled with potential. The truck’s headlights began to flicker, and the blinkers flashed in an erratic, disjointed pattern.
“Tone it down,” Ash said. His taunt had not gone unanswered, but this was not the response he had been hoping for. Cold fear washed over him. He didn’t know Brian well, and he didn’t know the nature of his talent. If Brian failed to keep his powers under control, they would all have more problems than just one rogue node. “Breathe. Center yourself, okay?”
“You stuck-up little prick,” Brian spat. “Don’t tell me what to do, you half-baked moron!” He sucked in a lungful of air and held it for two beats before he let it slowly whoosh out again.
“You look like a popped balloon,” one of his guys said in Brian’s direction. He looked a lot older than Ash, probably because his hair was white in the sun. Or maybe he was an albino. It was hard to tell, with his eyes covered mirrored sunglasses. The grin on his face was young, though, making him look like he wasn’t much older than thirty.
“Shut up, Rhea.”
“Yeah, shut up, Dave, or else he’s gonna fry your brain,” the other guy said in a voice that was as serious as a heart attack.
Ash bit his tongue. Taunts and verbal jabs came to him, one after another, as though Brian Clegg was drawing his personal worst out of him. That wasn’t who Ash was. Regardless of their differences, Brian was suffering. If he was suffering, and if his power tended to flare, Ash wasn’t inclined to make him feel worse. He certainly knew better than to provoke him right next to his newly restored houses.
“You came here for a reason,” Ash said sensibly. “You came here because you want something, and presumably the thing I have is over there, behind the fence.” He jutted his chin in the direction of the crater that used to be the node. “Maybe I can help you out.”
“Maybe you can fuck off.”
A flash rent the air.
A wall of force slammed into Ash, and a thunderclap deafened his ears. He reeled backward, stumbling into Hank.
Brian Clegg flailed his arms around, out of control and spitting mad. The truck’s headlights were shining bright, and the horn began to blare as though an invisible someone was leaning on it hard.
“Stop it,” the white-haired guy, Rhea, barked at Brian. “He said he’d help.”
“I don’t need his fucking permission!” As Brian roared, the safety glass of the truck’s windows blew out. A hail storm of rounded glass pebbles spilled to the ground with a wind chime sound, breaking the sudden and unnatural silence that settled over them after the thunderclap. It all happened so fast.
Hank grabbed Ash’s shoulders, steadying him.
The gesture must’ve attracted Brian’s attention again. He aimed his finger at them.
The air crackled, the air lit up with the fresh scent of ozone, and a lightning shot out of Brian’s fingertips.
The deafening thunder knocked Ash and Hank to the ground. Even though he got knocked down, he was unaffected by the lightning bolt.
It’s power went into the Void, courtesy of Hank.
Still reeling, Ash lifted his head to see the other, younger man rip a
hole in the curtain of vines. Brian leaned in, cutting wires.
“Shit, boss,” Hank whispered. “I can’t absorb much more than that.”
Ash watched them go through the hole, cursing at bloody scratches. “Thank you, Hank,” he said on an exhale of relief. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He sounded shaken. “For now.”
“Okay. Let’s get the others and figure out what’s going on. We need reinforcements.” Ash scrambled to his feet and handed Hank a hand to help him up. “Thank you,” he said with a grim frown. “You saved my ass. I didn’t expect Brian to have lightning. I thought he had fire, judging from all those burnt-out buildings.”
“Electrical fires,” Hank said.
“Electrical fires,” Ash said with a nod. “That’s how he’s been able to hide the arson from all those inspectors. All he did was overload the existing electrical wiring, especially if it was already the outdated knob-and-tube kind.”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “And I just hope he doesn’t overload ours.”
CHAPTER 18
The two lightnings outside, and the immediate and sharp thunderclaps that followed, caught Cooper by surprise as he was searching Hank’s cabinets for cereal.
A long annoying sound of a broken honking horn from the street filled the whole house. It didn’t do his aching head any favors. And had that been the sound of broken glass he’d heard outside?
Grateful that he had his sneakers already on, Cooper ran through the house and burst out the front door.
Ash and Hank were sprawled on the ground, alone, and slowly getting up. A big truck with enough cargo space for heavy gear was parked across the street, all white and official-looking. Currently, the vehicle had looked worse for the wear.
The horn.
The broken windows.
A windshield so riddled with micro cracks, it looked like it was covered with granulated snow.
Cooper reached his senses out to assess the situation. Someone’s power signature was all over this, and its resonance felt vaguely familiar.
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