I looked over his shoulder, trying to catch sight of what had sent a tingle down my spine earlier. There was no one to be found and the feeling was gone. Whoever had been watching me was gone.
"Here," Dodd said as he handed me a sheet of paper with the torn edges.
Send Jo out. Or else!
It was written in red crayon, complete with horrible penmanship.
"Pretty funny," I said, handing the sheet back to him.
"Yeah, but I don't think it's a joke. There are lightning bugs flying back and forth in front of the door."
I'd figured as much. I wondered how many bugs it had taken to hold the crayon. They were resourceful little creatures. After The Shattering, lots of things I'd never thought possible had happened. One of the byproducts was a small group of lightning bugs that could speak. But even though they could, they seemed to be quite selective in who they chose to communicate with.
"Did you talk to them?" I didn't know why I bothered asking the question. He wasn't even changed. That was another thing I'd confirmed in the last few months. Birds of a feather do tend to flock together. Changed were drawn to others like them and to me. I wasn't changed, but I was linked just as deeply to the same magic they were and I guess that sufficed.
"I tried," he said, confirming that the rumor mill, even in the worst of times, still cranked full speed ahead. I'd never discussed the bugs with him directly.
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweat suit. "They fly away every time someone gets close." He shook his head, perhaps a touch disappointed. I didn't blame him. Talking to bugs wouldn't ever be a super power claim to fame but it did have a novelty appeal.
"I'm going to go see what they need," I said as we headed toward the staircase together. "How's Sabrina?" I hadn't seen her since we'd returned. I thought to the night we'd gotten back from the senator's territory, when it seemed that things were turning the corner. She had sat next to Dodd on the couch, leaning into him for support, looking like a broken doll. But even as battered as she'd been, I thought she was going to be okay. I wasn't anywhere near as certain anymore.
"She's...I don't know. But she’ll be fine." His voice was firm on the last sentence, as if he could will her mind to heal by his sheer determination.
"She will be. She's strong." I let it drop, hoping I was right.
"Should I come with you?" Dodd asked.
I knew he would, even though he was vulnerable to the rippers, the man-eating monsters and the stuff of nightmares, who lingered close by at night. I shook my head. "Thanks, but they'll just freeze up if I have company."
I waved him off and I was relieved to part. I didn't have enough lies left to keep talking and I knew the Cormac questions would be coming soon. Where is he? Is he coming back soon? Did he say he'd send word? They always did.
I entered the stone lobby that looked so much different to when I'd first come here. It was all massive stone. Large wooden doors replaced the glass modern ones and I could feel the draft coming from them before I got within ten feet.
I waved off the two Keepers standing guard. No one questioned my right to do anything anymore, one of the few perks to being in charge. Too bad it wasn't enough to offset the mind numbing stress of responsibility. I didn't see faces anymore; I saw mouths to feed and bodies to clothe.
As soon as I stepped outside, the frigid air blasted my skin, my breath visible in the night. I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing the skin left exposed by a t-shirt that would have been perfectly adequate six months ago. I should've stopped for a jacket but I hadn't wanted to leave the lightning bugs waiting any longer.
The same evening the wormhole had opened, an even colder arctic chill fell onto the city. I was never one for conspiracy theories, but sometimes you've got to embrace a coincidence for what it is. I just hoped it didn't last too long or spread too far. If this was the weather pattern in California, all the farms' produce we hadn't tapped into yet would be spoiled before we got there. Silly things we'd taken for granted before were life and death now. Who'd have thought, a year ago, that starvation might be what wiped out mankind?
It didn't take more than a few minutes for the lightning bugs to swarm over. I knew they were my bugs when one showed off her blinking pink tail instead of the standard yellow.
"Hi, Jo," a little chorus of voices sang out.
"Look, Jo." Pinky, as I now thought of her, was flashing her tail purple.
"You're such a show off," Charlie said. He was the one whose tail was a hair dimmer than the rest.
"You're just mad because you're dull," Pinky shot back. "You can't even do yellow well."
She did have a valid point. She flew around him, flashing an alternating pink and purple light. If I could make out her features, I was sure I'd see a smug face that matched the tone.
"You take that back!"
"What did I tell you guys about fighting?" I used to try to stay out of their bickering. Then, one night, things went bad. Fred was still flying crooked due to his bent wing. I wanted to ask how he was doing, but he was very bitter and the reminder alone could make things go south quickly.
"Sorry, Jo." Pinky stopped swirling.
I'd discovered on past visits that there were only a small percentage of lightning bugs that could speak. They called the other bugs dumb. I'd tried to determine if it was the same percentage of bugs as the changed to human ratio, but the bugs couldn't count that high.
"Would you like to come in? It's pretty cold out here." Their flying seemed to be a bit more sluggish than normal. I knew they were bugs. They had probably outlived a normal lightning bug’s lifespan already and I couldn't lose another body, not even a little one.
"Oh no! We don't go to the light," Todd explained. I recognized him by the slightly deeper voice. He was the James Earl Jones of the bug world.
"Are you sure? It's safe in there and it's so cold out here." Not to mention the penthouse was awfully lonely at night. Even bickering bugs would be an improvement.
"No, we've lost too many to the light. First rule of Light Club is you don't go into the light," Pinky said.
"I bet I know the second rule."
"No, Light Club is a secret. You couldn't possibly know."
"Let me give it a try. Second rule of Light Club is don't go into the light?"
Little gasps of shock ran through the swarm.
"I just hope your third doesn't have anything to do with fighting."
"Of course not! We'd never fight, well…not anymore." No one added since Fred, but it was silently understood.
"What's the third rule, then?"
No one spoke and I watched them fly into a little cluster and whisper so low that it would be impossible for any human to hear.
Finally, Pinky spoke. "It used to be that your first night in Light Club, you had to go into the light."
I sucked a breath in through my teeth, knowing where this was going.
"After Chuck, we don't do that rule anymore."
"Chuck?"
"It was horrible. He went too far. He was like that, a risk taker to the end. All we heard was a horrible zapping noise. He managed to escape but he only made it to the window landing before he collapsed, exhausted. We screamed and screamed but he just didn't have the energy left. His last words were 'better to die young than to fade away'. It was the last time we saw him."
I heard the footsteps crunching in the snow, coming from the direction of the castle, and knew the lightning bugs weren't going to be happy.
And right on cue, they chimed in. "He's coming again. Got to go!"
I looked behind me to see Burrom approaching. "I thought you liked Burrom?"
"Nope. He's off the VIB list!"
"You mean VIP?"
"No, VIB. Very Important to Bugs."
"Why'd he get bumped?"
"We heard him say we were 'just bugs.' Yeah, well he's just stupid."
The bugs flew off, making little giggling noises, and I shivered as I turned around and watched Burrom appro
ach. It was as if the Earth and night conspired for him. The moon hung full in the sky and glistening snowflakes started to fall as he walked the distance to me. The light from castle silhouetted his form, leaving just a hint of detail. And if I squinted my eyes just so, I could almost pretend it was Cormac.
But it wasn't. Cormac was gone. He'd walked out the door and I'd closed it. So I didn't squint and I didn't pretend. I accepted it for what it was and I used the pain to build the armor around my heart for the day he might return.
Burrom pulled off the jacket he had on and laid it upon my shoulders and followed up the gesture by pulling it closed in front of me. It was such a boyfriend act, but I didn't think he realized it, and I let it go unspoken. He had a carousel of women coming and going so often I think it was becoming second nature to him to behave like that.
"What's going on?" He looked in the direction of where the bugs had flown off.
"Nothing." I pulled the jacket snug to me and felt his leftover warmth. I turned and lifted my face to the snow. It was coming down heavily now and presented a clean and stark contrast to the destruction it was softly coating.
"Come on." I turned and walked closer to the drawbridge. It had once been a piece of metal that had lain over the cracks in the surface, created by the first of the great storms. The magic saw fit to turn it into antiqued wood with old iron fittings. It even supplied a mechanism for raising and lowering it over the rushing water below.
Our footsteps echoed loudly as we stepped across and into the middle of what used to be the Vegas strip. The buildings were charred skeletons of what they once were, destroyed and hollowed out. In twenty or thirty years, as a new generation was born and raised, they would never know the brilliance that had once existed where I now stood. When I closed my eyes on the new landscape, I could still remember the vivid lights.
One day, the picture would dull in my mind's eye, as it would for everyone. Fewer and fewer people would be around to tell the story of the incredible world we had once built. But, with the snow falling and reflecting the silver light of the moon, the world was almost pretty again. Hauntingly beautiful, one might say.
The quiet peacefulness was eerily foreboding. The rippers, strange scaled monsters more fitting for a horror flick that terrorized us on a daily basis, were oddly absent. Burrom and I were the only ones outside.
"It is beautiful." Burrom's voice was deep with a rough timbre.
His face was raised to the sky, seemingly breathing in the environment. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have thought twice of the gesture. But it was Burrom, and so he might have been leaching some sort of energy I couldn't see. He took a couple steps farther and reached out his arms, palms up.
"It's glorious."
I watched him slowly circle around. "What's glorious?"
He let out a deep pleasing sound. "The magic. It's so strong and clean, lately." He tilted his head in my direction and opened his eyes, a smile on his face. "I understand why he left."
"Who?" I purposely played stupid hoping he'd take the hint that the subject of Cormac was not open for discussion.
He lifted an eyebrow and I knew he wasn't going to let it rest.
"He was too sensitive to it and kept resisting it." He raised his face again. "Someone who was so intent on control, the way he was, would be unnerved by the flex and flow of it pulsing within him."
He let out a sad sigh of regret as he dropped his arms. "As much as I could stay here all night, I've got to go in. They've been making a real mess of my bar lately."
He walked back toward the castle, now a towering stone structure complete with turrets.
He stopped just long enough to wink at me. "Your secrets are safe with me," he said. "I agree with the lies you've spread." He then continued walking. "It's for the best, until he returns."
I didn't need to ask him why he agreed. It was better for everyone involved that Cormac's disappearance hadn't seemed unplanned and chaotic. People needed reassurances right now, and thinking the one constant figurehead had abandoned them could rock the foundation.
"If he ever does," I yelled after him.
"He will."
Burrom continued into the casino but he’d sounded so positive that hope sparked in my chest and it urged me to chase after him and question what he knew. But that would open up a Pandora's box of emotion I'd sealed away. It wasn't something that I could dip into. If I opened that box, it would break wide.
Chapter Two
A New World Justice
"This is my pack," Rogo said, growling loudly as he faced down his opposition in what was now the great hall. A crowd was forming around them but no one dared to get closer than five feet.
It had been the main casino gambling floor not so long ago, but you would never know it now. There was the same stone as the exterior everywhere you looked, and not the faux stuff, but a foot deep. I knew because I'd had to reopen a few doorways after the magic decided to redecorate. A large walk-in fireplace on one side helped offset the lack of modern heat in the room.
When I'd woken up this morning, I'd discovered we'd lost more electricity sometime in the night while we slept. At least the magic had the decency to supply torches along the walls.
"You aren't wolf enough to man your own pack," the other wolf, Kaz said.
I wasn't surprised the tensions had elevated to this point. Kaz was an alpha wolf who had come through a few months ago. I was more surprised it had taken this long for him to try to assert his dominance. I'd known he was going to be trouble as soon as I saw him standing in the portal, arrogantly demanding entry. His every action had reeked of supremacy.
Rogo surprised me though. I'd figured he would eventually back down and let him take over. Kaz seemed more dominant than Rogo. Guess I was wrong.
Kaz's chest was puffed up and I stood back, debating whether I should intervene. We were supposed to have a meeting in a few hours, to discuss the different contributions. I didn't know wolf politics, but I knew it would be a lot easier to deal with one alpha wolf than a bunch of different fractions like I had to do with Vitor and Burrom.
"We'll see about that," Rogo spat out. "I call Mortem Pugna."
"Accepted," Kaz replied before Rogo had barely finished speaking.
Just great. We were almost out of coffee, I might have to read my daily notes by torchlight, and now these two morons were going to fight to the death before I'd had my quota of caffeine. No wonder this world was so uncivilized. Didn't anyone have manners, anymore? No blood until after I had my coffee. How many times did you have to tell them?
I guess it was time to get involved, sort of. "You'll take it outside," I said as I stepped forward out of the shadows, my favorite place these days. No one could ask you questions you couldn't answer if they didn't see you.
"Don't give me those looks, you have no idea how hard it is to get blood out of stone floors. And don't even tell me the winner will clean it, because you know it will be my issue. Just like Colleen's dog, who's shitting all over the place." It was bad enough the floors were stone, but must they be filthy, too? Couldn't a girl expect some sort of standards in her living conditions, even during the end of the world?
They stood, chests puffed up and still not budging.
"You both know I could take you down. Even paired up it's not looking good for you, so I suggest you heed my warning and take it outside." I pointed toward the doors, like they might have somehow forgotten the direction outside was.
They both growled and I stepped in between them. Just like in a dogfight, it's not normally a good idea to step in between a wolf fight either. I needed to take drastic measures. I was not dealing with another bloodstain.
I put a hand on either chest and pushed. "Not. Here."
They both finally nodded their acceptance. "Outside. Ten minutes," Rogo said.
The wolves disappeared, probably to change form. They usually fought in wolf form. I'd already witnessed a few skirmishes as the wolves integrated into their new positions an
d places in the pack.
The crowd in the hall around me was on fire, buzzing about what had just happened as Burrom headed over.
"You have to lay off the mother angle. Makes you sound soft." I eyed up his current outfit. Too snug pants and a skin-tight tee.
"That's only because you're naïve. What do you know of mothers? Didn't a maple tree shit you out?"
It was hard to hear his snort over the din of the crowd gossiping. "I take it back. You sound just as you should."
I laughed. I knew how crude that had sounded.
"You're cool with this?" he asked, knowing how I hated the constant fighting.
"I would've stopped it if I wasn't. Besides the needless death aspect, I'm not sure it's worth trying to stop. This one is unavoidable." I couldn't imagine either Kaz or Rogo playing second fiddle for long.
"Do you have a dog in this fight? Pun intended." He stood, feet shoulder breadth apart, arms crossed as if he were discussing a football game that was about to start.
"I'm not fond of Rogo, but he's predictable, if not always controllable. I would prefer him to be the victor, but it will be easier on me either way. One less wolf to negotiate with." I shrugged and leaned against the now empty breakfast service table. "It's efficient, if not pleasant. What I don't get is, what's so wrong about just beating each other to a pulp and calling it a day, like normal people?"
Burrom leaned down closer to me. "It doesn't work for the wolves. If they didn't have the fear of death hanging over the confrontation, there would be constant fighting for alpha."
I pushed up and started heading outside before all the good spots were taken.
"You want to watch?" he asked as he fell into step beside me.
"'Want' isn't the right word. I need to make sure it doesn't get out of hand and others don't try to jump in. Plus, I like to see them in action." With the wolves making up about a third of the castle occupants, it was beneficial to have as much knowledge as possible. There was also the other issue of my mother's murderers, which I'd eventually have to deal with.
Redemption: Alchemy Series Book #4 Page 2
