by Kenny Soward
“Let’s go.”
Ingrid had woken up due to Torri’s yelling. “What’s going on, Lonnie? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to help Torri with something. Be right back.”
The ECC commandos sped them across the roughest of the terrain as fast as they could, stretching the quad runner engines whenever they hit an open field. According to Torri, Tam’s Holler was a couple of hills over where eight families lived.
There hadn’t been a single drop of rain though, and that’s what confused him. Yet, the closer they got to the troubled area, the ground showed rain-slicked grass and puddles. That unmistakable smell of wet dirt, plants soggy and limp.
They went up a particularly steep rise where a mix of pine and evergreen stood, over that, and then down the hillside where Lonnie’s jaw dropped at the site of an unrecognizable mangle of homes and rusted vehicles strewn from left to right down the hillside, stopping at the edge of the forest on the far side.
Some sort of path had divided the small community, but now it was just a muddy swath. And in the mud, two bodies lay face down and motionless. One looked to be a little boy.
The other appeared to be a woman judging by the tangle of hair strewn in the mud.
It was like watching some news coverage of some distant tragedy. Yet the high revving of the quad runner engines and the smell of it all reminded Lonnie it was very much real. The sick feeling that had been growing in his chest expanded. A sort of quickness of breath that he couldn’t calm no matter what he did.
They stopped near one of the bigger structures, a long wooden home partially in ruins. It had probably been in decent shape before all this. Right now, it looked like someone had slapped it across the face. The front porch and awning were collapsed, and the entire home tilted precariously forward.
Only when the ECC commandos turned off their quads did Torri’s wail strike his ears. It was a gut-wrenching sound. And then she was off the quad and sprinting toward the home, hair flying behind her. If she tried to go into that house and it collapsed on her…
“Torri, wait. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Lonnie and the commandos chased after her, trying to stop her as she stooped and peered frantically into the front window, and then disappeared through the front door.
“Shit.”
And that’s when Lonnie noticed there weren’t any news crews or, more importantly, rescue crews. There were no police or Red Cross. No one.
As they made their way carefully through the debris in front of the home, Lonnie glanced again at the dead bodies, saying to the ECC guys. “Hey. Can one of you call the police? Get someone out here? I think she called it Tam’s Holler.”
One of the commandos, a tall guy with a head of kinky hair, shook his head. “Sorry, man. We’re not authorized for outbound communication at this point. Can’t use our phones until cleared.”
“For fuck’s sake, man. Call the fucking police. There could be people alive here.”
And just like that, from inside the house came a woman’s cry followed by a man’s groan.
You.” Lonnie pointed at the shorter of the two, a stocky guy whose muscles bulged against his commando suit. The guy wasn’t nearly Crash-sized, but tankish enough. “Help me inside. Torri!”
“In here.”
Lonnie peered through the leaning front door frame at the darkness inside, split only by some gray morning light filtering through the cracks. Fucking thing could come right down on top of them if they weren’t careful.
“No problem,” he mumbled, then he launched himself inside, boots slipping on the muddy incline, a floor of slick, wet linoleum. He batted away some child’s toy. Some throw pillows. A soaking rug.
He gripped a handful of soggy, cold fur.
It was a dead dog.
Big Sheppard mix if he could place it right in the dark. He pushed it off to the side and the thing went sliding past. “Careful,” he said. “Dead dog.”
Then he was in a hallway, leaning against the tilting wall, seeing Torri at the end trying to open a door that appeared to be blocked with something.
“Hey,” he said, coming up. “This place is going to slide right on down the hill the rest of the way.”
Torri stopped her shoving and listened.
All they could hear was the cries of the two people inside and the slow groan of the house as it started to topple over.
Torri threw out her hands and squeezed her fists.
The ground trembled, and a slithering sound shook the walls. The house groaned and creaked, shit falling off of shelves and rolling across the floor. Yet it slowed its ponderous lilt, finally settling in place with a sigh.
Lonnie, still bracing himself, glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” the ECC guy said.
Torri remained in the hallway, still focusing, still clenching and shaking her fists.
Something began lifting the house, and the slithering noise returned, pushing it upward until they were nearly level. Lonnie felt the residual energies coursing through his feet. Up the damn walls. Thrumming in his head. It was like standing back on the Roebling Bridge with Selix, like standing near the spot where Torri had called her forest to take down that demon.
“I got this,” the witch said. “Can you get the door?”
“Yeah.” Lonnie slid beneath her raised arm and swept his hands together, sending a blast of power at the door, ripping it off its hinges. He spotted a couple of people perched up on a dresser at the far side. There was a sea of junk between them.
“Oh help us,” the woman cried, reaching out to Lonnie.
He was across the debris in a second, wading to them through boxes and over a bookshelf that had fallen forward.
“No, not me. Grab Roy first. His leg ain’t so good. That’s it.”
Now Roy was a big guy, but Lonnie still had some power pinging around inside him, and he was able to get the big man off the dresser and stumble with him across the room. His ankles twisted and turned as he got Roy through the door and past Torri, who moved aside long enough for them to get through.
The ECC guy helped with the woman, and soon they were all safely in the yard.
Lonnie turned and stared at the house and marveled at it resting there on a big fat tuft of grass that had grown up beneath it, fat blades sticking out from beneath the porch.
“Heck, Miss Torri,” the woman said. “Ain’t seen you do nuthin’ like that in a long time.” She looked to be in her fifties with straight, steel gray hair. Fit enough, but no way could she have gotten Roy out by herself.
“What happened, Sadie?”
“Well, big rain come in and caught us by surprise. Not a single warning from the weatherman, and I always have my radio on just in case. I mean, these hills are always fixin’ to bust, especially with a warm March, but you’da thought…”
The woman trailed off, her eyes having spotted something.
And before anyone could stop her, Sadie wailed and tore off to the muddy swath of path running between the homes. The place where the two bodies lay dead. She fell to her knees beside the little boy, started to touch him him, but hesitated. Then she made up her mind, diving in with her hands and scooping him up, tears and sobs together like the worst melody anyone every heard.
Lonnie caught a glimpse of the boy’s pale little face before Sadie tucked him against her breast.
Lonnie’s stomach rolled with the woman’s wails.
“They was just gonna have a walk,” Sadie cried. “Liam always liked to be out at night. Lookin’ for fireflies or playin’ with old Dobber.”
The rest he couldn’t make sense of, so he turned away.
Torri grabbed him and spun him around. “Hey! We got more work to do.” The look in her eye was fierce and heart stricken, and Lonnie understood what Torri meant to these people. She was as real as a god got.
He pulled out of her grasp, nodding. “Yeah, let’s see if anyone’s left alive.”
And t
hen he eyed another collapsed home on this side of the holler and made his way over.
Chapter 21
The makeup person gave Lindsey a brief touch or two beneath the luminescent camera lights as she steadied herself for the interview with CNN News. This one was important for many reasons.
She’d be stating her case one last time for the American people, specifically those in the states with primaries coming up. Ones that could potentially seal her nomination as the Independent Republican candidate and set her up to publicly slaughter whoever the Democrats threw up there. It was between Josslyn Clark and Tim McHay on that side, Matt Sampson on the other. Lindsey didn’t give a good god damn who it was, but if she had a choice, it would be that smarmy Josslyn Clark and her fund mishandling husband. The guy who’d gotten off scot-free after embezzling several million dollars through his accounting firm and blaming one of his employees for the crime.
That’s part of the reason Azarah felt right at home amongst Earth’s humans. They were as willing to destroy their own kind as she was. It was amazing they hadn’t imploded as a species already and blown themselves into oblivion with their wonderful nuclear weapons. It must be that strange, underlying loyalty (she’d call it instinct) that kept them alive, she suspected. That thing that made them pull together in the end, against all odds.
Well, she was going to shatter that to pieces in the coming months and years, until her face was the only face they knew, the face of their future, the face of their goddess.
The reporter sitting across from her, one James Marrow, was a tall forty-something guy with youthful features broken only by his occasionally severe expressions, which she knew made up for the true vapidness only celebrity news folk could have. She flashed him a genuinely humble smile and acted surprised when he said, “Now Linsdey, is there anything that’s off limits today?”
Her look turned more predatory, yet she kept her emotions in check so he wouldn’t see through the mask, that red glint in her eyes which came out whenever she was threatened or aroused. “Absolutely not, James. Feel free to go for the throat.” And she lifted her head so he could get a good look at her slim neckline.
James backed off, smiling. “Good. I’m sure you’re prepared. I’ll try not to be too hard on you.”
Oh, James, she thought. Poor, poor, James.
The hovering producer and his team finished the final light, sound, and camera checks, and then leaned in between them. “Two minutes Mr. Marrow, Miss Walls.”
The two both nodded and thanked him, and then Lindsey leaned back
No sense in being too aggressive right off the bat. Much better to let the two minutes pass as slowly as possible, her eyes roaming his body like a predator trying to judge if this meal was worth the taking. To his credit, only a small sheen of sweat broke out on his brow. He could only hold her gaze for a second or two before he had to look away.
She smiled on the inside.
The producer stepped in. “And three, two, one…and we’re live.”
James Marrow transformed from sweaty and unsure to bolstered confidence. He leaned forward slightly in his seat, his voice lowering to a professional monotone, eyes focused on the camera.
“Hello, America. This is James Marrow reporting from the CNN Interview Room where we are fortunate to have Lindsey Walls as our guest. Miss Walls, good to have you.”
Lindsey matched his posture but polished it off with a warm, melty smile, her eyes as warm and golden brown as caramelized honey. “Good to be here, James.”
“It’s been, what, seven months since we last spoke?”
“Yes, and a lot has been happening.”
“Indeed, Miss Walls. In fact, you have been, as they say, tearing it up in early polling in Ohio and North Carolina, and many experts expect you to sweep up nicely in the early primaries. How does that feel to have such positive prospects as the race tightens?”
Lindsey looked pleased, but not too pleased. “Honestly, James, it’s not completely unexpected. We’ve been working hard on this run for years. We’re listening to the people, James.”
“Explain that, Lindsey. What does that mean, listening to the people?”
Lindsey went into her general spiel about the grassroots campaign she was running, and how people were responding. At some point during the conversation, Lindsey leaned forward a little more, an almost imperceptible movement. She smiled into the camera and addressed the American people, ignoring James Marrow. The conversation took many twists and turns, and she used James Marrow more as a tool, leading him to all the questions she wanted to answer, never truly giving him what he wanted, often frustrating him, although she suspected much of his fluster was an act to appear riled up for the American people. It was important for him to look like a hero and show his concern for their welfare. He was championing their cause by asking the really tough questions.
Right.
Lindsey played along, letting James look good because that was mostly his job. He was handsome, and he deserved, no, demanded, his share of the spotlight. Lindsey kept pace, dancing with his questions like a new lover.
During breaks they eyed one another and flirted to build up the tension.
She loved every minute of it.
By the time they were done, a full thirty minutes later, there could be no doubt that this would be the highest rated interview of the entire campaign. But there was still time for one more thing, one more shot at her enemies she wanted to take. A parting shot to those who wished to dethrone her before she ever took the seat.
“James,” she said, giving him an exasperated look while a shock of her sable hair fell across her eyes to indicate it had indeed been a heated bout. “Before I sign off and hit the trail, I need to give a shout out. May I?”
“Of course, Miss Walls,” James said, expressing himself in an exhaustive yet satisfied tone. His tie had come loose by now, his top button undone, and he wore the expression of a job well done.
Lindsey innocently tried to find the camera. “Is it here?” She pointed, then adjusted in her seat. “No, here.”
Focused in now, she lowered her head and directly addressed those who would see her harmed. “I don’t think this has made the national news, James, because things like this are hardly meant for the headlines.”
“What’s that, Lindsey?”
“Well, as some of you know, I have distant relatives in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. Just some cousins, mind you. Can’t say we keep in touch all that much, but they’re the kind of folk I could come home to and it would be like we were never apart. Today, there was some flooding in Tam’s Holler, a little place north of Pikeville Kentucky. Eight families were devastated. Sixteen dead, all because of a flash flood. Well, my heart goes out to them, and I’m planning a personal visit soon. Very soon. I want them to know I see them, and they won’t be forgotten.”
By this time her eyes were full of tears, and she gave America a wan smile. “You folks out there can count on it. I’ll be there for you.”
Looking forlorn, James nodded knowingly. “On that note, I want to wish the best of luck to Independent Republican hopeful Lindsey Walls on her run, and prayers to those folks in Kentucky who lost their lives this very day. For CNN News, this is James Marrow.”
Chapter 22
“Do you believe that shit?” Lonnie shook his head after Kristanna turned off Lindsey Walls’s CNN interview.
It had been an extremely hard day. By the time the authorities had arrived, Lonnie and Torri and the two Holy Avengers had rescued seven people from their flooded homes and fished out some of the dead where they lay in the rubble.
Aside from the little boy, there were five more kids. Five more fucking kids. After finding each one drowned or crushed beneath something, Lonnie assured himself that it would surely be the last one. But, no. Five. The last one having been washed all the way down the hill where she drowned in a ditch in a violently churning whirlpool that had kept her body submerged.
By the end, Lonnie was
a shaking, shivering mess.
Torri stood near the big monitor in the ECC tent. Her hands were balled into fists at her side. Her eyes were livid with rage. “She did this, that low life bug. That evil woman.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Lonnie offered. “She could be playing to the situation.”
“No. It was her. I felt her magic all through the holler. She called a storm that was heading more eastward and turned it into Tam’s Holler. That’s why no one could prepare.”
Lonnie wanted to protest, but he knew it was true because he’d felt it, too. Yeah, his goddamn grandmother, who happened to be a hyper-intelligent bombshell, had just killed several innocent people. “She did it because she knows we found out her secrets. She knows we’re digging. That’s why you couldn’t find your other witch friends, I bet.”
“Except for Em.”
“Yeah, except for Em.”
Bess let her eyes linger on the screen, her jaw clenching as she struggled with some decision.
“She needs to die.” That was Alex, making the decision for her.
“I have to agree with the asshole,” Crash said, nodding. It was Crash’s first time in the tent. After marveling at all the gear humming inside, he’d started a hesitant chat with Alex.
“So, us two assholes agree,” Alex grinned at Crash, flexing his fist. “She needs to go. Change of plans, Bess? No more scouting missions. Direct assault on the Azarah’s tether?”
Bess bent down at the computer terminal and brought up the map of the area they’d scouted in Hell, the place where they’d pinpointed the origin of Azarah’s tether.
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. We don’t worry about Azarah here on Earth. She’s too powerful. Too strong.”
“But she has to know we crossed over to Hell,” Kristanna said. “She has to know we’re going to attack the source of her power.”
“I don’t think she knows yet,” Bess said. “And that’s a huge advantage.”
Alex peered at the monitor, the wheels in his head churning. “Yep. We’ve got a back door in, and if we go right now we can mess her up big time, God willing. And we all know He wills this one.”
