by John Levitt
“Oh, very true. I’d be someone else. Or would I? My circumstances wouldn’t be the same, of course, but is that what really matters?”
Eli held up his hand. “Be that as it may, can the side effects of opening the rift be countered, even if we can’t stop her from opening it?”
“Oh, I’m sure it could, if you knew how.”
“But we don’t,” I said. “Do you?”
Geoffrey got more and more uncomfortable. I tend to ask direct questions, and he tends to avoid answering them. Whether he can’t or just won’t is something I’ve never been able to make up my mind about.
“I don’t deal with matters of talent anymore; you know that.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear. But could you, if you had to?”
“ ‘Could’ is a tricky word.”
I had a moment of déjà vu. This was word for word the same conversation I’d had with him a few years ago. This time I’d learned there was no point in pursuing it, though. It would only go around in circles. I tried a different tack.
“Well, if you were us, and wanted to prevent this, what avenues would you explore?”
“But I’m not you. So how can I answer that?”
I gave up. We weren’t going to get anything useful here after all. But Victor, who hadn’t said a word up to now, surprised me by speaking up.
“How could Jackie pull this kind of thing off? Even with the book as a guide, it would take impossible amounts of power. Even a power object, if she had one, wouldn’t account for it.”
Geoffrey’s face brightened. Here was something he could talk about, something that wouldn’t result in his getting involved in the problem.
“Well, she has Richter’s book. And if I remember right, it’s supposed to include ways to harness natural forces. That’s what provides the power to institute the spells.”
“Of course,” said Eli. “There’d have to be a way to access huge amounts of power. But is that practical?” I expected Geoffrey to go off on the meaning of the word “practical,” but Sherwood interrupted.
“Well, she’s doing it, isn’t she?” she said. Geoffrey beamed at her like she was a clever student.
“Now, see, there’s a practical answer.”
“What kinds of forces, exactly?” Eli asked, trying to get Geoffrey to focus again. He waved his hands in a vague manner.
“Oh, you know. Wind. Water. A tsunami would be useful. A volcano would be ideal.”
“A tsunami,” Eli mused. “A very big wave.” Geoffrey said nothing.
“She’d need a lot of power for this last spell,” Victor said. “Someplace where there are really big waves. Huge, giant swells would do it. Somewhere close by.”
“Somewhere world famous for the power of its waves,” Sherwood added.
We all stared at one another with the slightest dawning of hope.
Mavericks.
TWENTY-TWO
EVERY YEAR, A WORLDWIDE SURFING COMPETITION is held at Mavericks. The combination of an odd underwater rocky shelf configuration and the long Pacific stretch the waves must cross to reach it make for an ideal surfing venue. During storms, waves can reach heights of fifty feet, and twenty-five is routine.
Sometimes the waves are even too strong, and the competition has to be postponed. They crash on the break-water with astounding force, plumes of spray shooting up hundreds of feet in the air. They wouldn’t be that strong on a normal day like today, but there was a stiff breeze blowing and the waves would still be impressive.
Mavericks is right down the way from Half Moon Bay. Ironically, we’d passed it on the way up to see Geoffrey. Legend has it that it was originally named Maverick’s Point, after Maverick, a white German shepherd that belonged to the first surfer to discover the area back in the early sixties.
The entry point is a small touristy town called Princeton, with a long pier and lots of little shops, many selling surf-related stuff. I pulled off the highway at the Princeton exit right on Victor’s bumper, and we wended our way through the back streets until we reached the parking lot that is the jumping-off point for the Mavericks beach.
Strangely, there were only two cars parked in the lot. A light rain had started and the wind had picked up, blowing in off the ocean and churning up the waves, but even so, it was unusual to find it nearly deserted. Many couples visit the beach when the weather kicks up; the rain and wild surf and windswept ocean is viewed as romantic. Look at the personal ads.
As soon as I got out of the car the reason became clear. The lot felt deserted and unsafe, the beach stretching away toward the point dark and ominous. Another simple aversion spell. Not strong enough to raise any real concern, but enough to make the random beach walker decide it might be better to come back another day. This was good, in fact, wonderful. It meant we had guessed right, that Jackie was here, and that we had a good chance of stopping her before she completed her task. Lou was unaffected by the aversion spell, naturally, and the rest of us didn’t waste any time in trying to counter it. We simply gritted our teeth and ignored it.
I examined the cars, one a black Civic and the other a gold Lexus. One car must belong to Jackie, probably the Civic, but what about the Lexus? A friend of hers, an ally? The hood on the Civic was cold, but the Lexus was warm. So whoever owned it hadn’t arrived much before we had.
A wave of dizziness swept over me as I stood next to the car, bad enough so that I had to sink to my knees to avoid falling down. It passed quickly, and as I got up I saw Victor and Sherwood getting up as well, and Eli supporting himself by leaning on Victor’s BMW.
“It’s started,” Eli said.
A bark from Lou alerted me to a lone figure that had appeared at the end of the parking lot where it led to the beach. A woman, small, delicate, and familiar. She stopped when she saw the four of us and made no move to run as we approached her. She put her hands out in a supplicating fashion, showing she was no threat to us—at least not for the moment.
“You’re too late,” Cassandra said, but without the air of satisfaction I would have expected.
“We’ll see,” I said.
Another woman came out from behind some large rocks at the base of the cliff and came toward us. It could only be Jackie—but it wasn’t. She was wearing a small backpack over a light parka shell.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Victor. “We should have known.”
It was Jessie.
“What’s going on?” Victor said when she got close enough to hear him without shouting. He held himself ready, but I couldn’t tell if he was getting ready to defend himself or if he was about to launch an attack of his own.
“Relax,” Jessie said, wearily. “I’m here for the same reason you are.”
“How did you figure out where she was?” I asked. Jessie pointed at Cassandra.
“She told me. Jackie finally confided in her about what was going to happen. All of it, including what would happen to the practitioners left behind. Jackie understands what the consequences will be, all too well.”
“And she doesn’t care?”
“She does care. It’s tearing her up inside, I’d guess. But she’s going to do it anyway. That’s why she finally told Cassandra—she had to tell someone. But she believes she can create a better world, and any sacrifice is worth it. She doesn’t care about practitioners; she cares about Mother Earth. She cares about a new beginning. She doesn’t plan to survive the process herself.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She told me that.”
“Lord save us from the righteous,” Eli said softly.
“But Cassandra was appalled—I’ll give her that. So she came to me, figuring I’m the only one who might be able to change Jackie’s mind—or be strong enough to stop her. Unfortunately, neither one of those things has turned out to be true.”
She pointed to the massive stone jetty that jutted out at an angle from the shore, acting as a breakwater. Waves crashed against it, sending spray flying. Farther out were rocks where the waves broke even l
arger, but these waves were still impressive. A sign at the base of the jetty warned that it was not safe for pedestrians to walk out onto it. That didn’t take a genius to figure out.
Almost at the end of the jetty, legs braced against the wind, stood two figures. One was Jackie; she wore a long dark coat and her wiry hair was whipping in the wind. She held a large book in one hand and, although we couldn’t hear her, was obviously intoning a ritual. Occasionally she would stop, crouch down for a moment, then straighten up and continue. It was either part of the ritual or the ritual was taking a lot out of her.
The other was no surprise, either; it was Malcolm. Jackie faced the sea and he stood behind, offering occasional words of direction. He turned his head and stared back at the shore, noting us and waiting. He was also there to make sure nothing interrupted her, or at least to do his best.
I turned to ask a question and caught sight of Cassandra hightailing it across the parking lot. She’d done her part. She didn’t know what would happen next, but she knew she wanted no part of whatever it was.
“So why are we just standing here?” Victor said, and took a few steps toward the jetty. He stopped when he saw Jessie wasn’t moving. “And why didn’t you let us know where she was, anyway?” Jessie looked at him, defiant.
“What did you expect? She’s my daughter, remember? I want her stopped, not killed, and I didn’t trust you’d be mindful of that distinction. I only just got here, anyway. I thought I might be able to talk Jackie out of what she’s planning, but she’s set up a protective set of wards around her perimeter. I can’t get close enough to her to even talk to her, much less do anything about it. I can’t break the wards, either—she’s strong, you know, probably as strong as I am. And she’s had all day to work on them.”
“Maybe between all of us we can break through,” Eli said. Victor grunted in agreement and spun on his heel.
The jetty was broad and smooth, covered with ocean spray, but easy to navigate close to the shore. But as we got farther out, the waves picked up in force, crashing against the sides and occasionally washing over our feet. I kept a close eye on Lou—the waves weren’t high enough yet to threaten the rest of us, but he’s a lot smaller and closer to the ground.
We got to within a hundred feet of the two of them before the wards kicked in. It wasn’t a physical thing; it was more along the lines of an aversion spell, but a lot more powerful. My head began to hurt, and at the same time the beginnings of nausea stirred. I took a few more steps and doubled over, trying not to throw up. A stabbing pain above one eye took over, like a migraine, but even more localized. I took another few steps and the symptoms doubled. I almost fell over from the pain as my legs suddenly became too weak to hold me upright. Victor was a few steps ahead of me, so he must have been feeling it even worse. We were now about ninety feet away from where Jackie stood, arms outstretched to the sea, but it might as well have been miles. There was no way we would be able to reach her.
Lou stayed right by my side, totally unaffected. It pays to be an Ifrit sometimes, even if you can’t operate a can opener. I stumbled back toward the shore. A wave crested the jetty wall, and in my weakened condition almost knocked me off my feet. The good thing was that the effect didn’t last; by the time I returned to where Jessie was waiting, I felt perfectly fine. But I wasn’t about to try that again.
Victor staggered back a few moments later. He’d made it farther than I had but it was a hollow victory.
“Okay,” he said. “That didn’t work. We’re a little far away, but we’ll have to make the best of it.”
He bowed his head for a moment, looked up, threw out his hands, and sent a wave of energy toward them, nothing specific, just probing. At the same time I reached into the power of the waves, taking a page from Jackie’s book. I didn’t try to attack her directly; with the power crackling around, nothing could touch her. And Malcolm had his own protection.
But while Malcolm and Jackie were immune, the jetty wasn’t. Waves are ferocious eroders of rock and cliff. Those who build on the edge of the ocean often find that out, much to their discomfort a few years later when the cliff erodes and their homes plunge into the ocean. If I could do the same thing to the jetty, in fast forward, our troubles would be over.
But it didn’t work. The energy I sent out toward the jetty flowed instead into Malcolm, as if he were a giant magical magnet. He seemed to glow for a moment, but other than that remained unaffected.
“This is bad,” Eli said, seeing what was happening. “Jackie’s used the power she’s drawn to make him into a living shield—anything we throw in that direction he’ll absorb, and it’s not bothering him one bit.”
“Can’t we work around it?” Sherwood asked.
“Probably. But I doubt we can do it in time.”
Jackie was still facing the ocean, back not entirely turned, but mostly. She had to be aware we were on the jetty, but hadn’t yet acknowledged our presence with so much as a glance. Malcolm was on alert, but she remained entirely focused on the task at hand. She was drawing power from waves, not only the ones that were slamming against the jetty, but the larger ones crashing on the rocky breakwater farther out. Every time a particularly large wave broke, the booming sound was matched with a surge of energy that flowed into her and out again. We could all feel the energy coursing around her. The very atmosphere was charged, the way it is right before a thunderstorm breaks, but ten times stronger.
It didn’t look like we could stop her, but maybe we could at least distract her. An interruption at a timely moment might be enough to send the invocation awry. That had its own dangers, but compared to the consequences if she succeeded, it was a minor concern.
“Lou,” I said, bending down next to him. “We can’t reach her. But you can. Distract her, bite her, anything. It’s important. But watch out for Malcolm, okay?”
He looked down the expanse of jetty that separated her from us. It narrowed as it reached farther out, and waves were now crashing over it with increased force. Jackie must have used an attraction spell to help keep the two of them in place; otherwise they might have been knocked off the jetty themselves.
Lou looked back at me, then back down the jetty. A huge wave crested over the top, not far from where we stood, foam hissing and swirling. He licked his lips nervously; he doesn’t like water at the best of times, and a violent sea was not his idea of a good time.
“I know,” I said. “It’s dangerous. But there’s no choice.”
I could almost hear him thinking, Yeah, not for you. But he shook himself, getting some of the rain off his fur, and started off toward Malcolm and Jackie with a determined gait. He had to stop a couple of times, dancing around to avoid the wash of some of the bigger waves. I don’t know if Jackie never noticed him or if she was just ignoring him like everything else, but Malcolm was ready. He crouched down for balance, arms outspread as Lou got closer. Lou sprang at him, then at the last moment ducked under his arm and zeroed in on Jackie. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, though, and when he got next to Jackie he was still within Malcolm’s reach. Malcolm spun and caught him by a hind leg just before he could close his jaws on her leg.
Lou twisted around, quick as a snake, and sank his teeth into Malcolm’s hand, but Malcolm didn’t let go. He scrabbled at Lou with his free hand, finally getting a hold right behind the neck, lifted him up, and tried to cast him out into the roiling water.
Lou wasn’t about to let go, though. He clamped down on the hand holding his leg like a crazed pit bull. After a few futile attempts to dislodge him, Malcolm figured out what to do. He raised Lou high above his head, with the idea of driving him hard onto the rock surface of the jetty. And that might have been the end of it, but as he stretched full length, Lou let go of his hand and tried to claw his way down Malcolm’s arms to get at his face. Malcolm flinched and turned away, and just as he did, a powerful wave crested the top of the jetty and hit him full force.
He might have weathered it if he hadn’t been o
ff balance in the first place. But he was, and the wave knocked him off his feet and swept him off the jetty toward the sea. He let go of Lou as he fell, trying for a purchase on the rocks that formed the jetty lip. For a moment it looked like he was going to make it until a second wave crashed into the jetty, sweeping him off into the water. I thought Lou was going over as well, but somehow he managed to wedge himself against the rocky lip at the edge, and when the wave receded he was still there.
Malcolm’s body type, thick and heavy, wasn’t made for swimming. I don’t even know if he’d ever learned to swim. It didn’t look like it; his arms thrashed and he kicked his legs spasmodically, each limb working at cross purposes with the others. A wave rolled over him and he disappeared for a moment, then briefly reappeared before vanishing again. This time he didn’t resurface. He was gone.
That in itself should have provided enough of a distraction, but Lou wasn’t counting on it. He picked himself up and lunged toward Jackie, but by now she was ready for him. She stepped back and unleashed a solid kick to his midsection. I could hear the thud even from a distance, and the strangled yelp Lou uttered wasn’t reassuring. The kick lifted him off the ground and launched him into the heaving water below. A huge swell picked him up and spun him back fifty feet, almost even to where we were standing.
His head popped out of the water, and I got a glimpse of legs whirling in a desperate dog paddle, paws scrabbling in a frantic attempt to keep his head above water before he sank out of sight once again.
It would have made an interesting ethical dilemma—did I ignore him and concentrate on stopping Jackie, who was in the process of killing people and destroying practitioner society, or did I try to save Lou and let our society dissolve? What’s more important, loyalty to an individual or loyalty to the common good? But it was a moot question—before I could think, I’d dived headfirst off the jetty after him.
I hit the water next to him just as he surfaced again, and grabbed his harness as he was about to go back under. So far, so good. Luckily I’m a strong swimmer, and the summers I’d spent with my grandparents by the ocean had left me comfortable with waves and surf.
