FoM02 Trammel

by Anah Crow

  “That’s a piece of paper,” Cyrus snapped. “When my visions come with a map, I’ll make one for you.”

  “Hang on.” Ylli was crouched in front of a computer—there wasn’t a chair in the room that would accommodate those wings. “Here’s a street view. I think this looks like what you were describing, and it’s where Dane said it would be.” He turned the computer so Cyrus could see.

  Kristan was in the room, curled up out of the way on a loveseat near the window, looking like a shorn cat and about as happy. Noah didn’t have time to feel anything about her presence before Lindsay tugged him toward the table.

  “I see you still plan to be useful,” Cyrus said sourly. His glare was aimed at Lindsay, and Noah bristled with annoyance. He’d had enough of the bullying of old mages back home.

  “I belong to Dane,” Lindsay said quietly. His focus seemed to be on Ylli’s computer, not Cyrus’s expression. Noah had to appreciate the way he could deflect the old mage’s irritation without flinching—it took practice. “He called. I came.”

  Dane snorted at that and tapped the map. “Those of us who can drive will need to know the way.”

  Noah hadn’t been in a car since... He shoved the thought down and tried to make himself stop clinging to Lindsay’s hand, but it was nearly impossible to do both at once when what he wanted to do was run upstairs and hide in bed.

  “You will have to be quick.” Cyrus was ignoring Lindsay now, which was probably for the best. “The summer winds are lazy and the future has been too thick for me to see far. She will need you soon. You will not get there in time, but late will have to do.”

  “Someone else will drive.” Lindsay’s voice was pitched low for Noah, but the room was small.

  “Let me see the map.” Kristan sounded as irritable as Cyrus, and she got Ylli out of the way with a knee to the kidney. He gave her a glare, but didn’t seem distressed. They were both Vivian’s, and Noah didn’t want much to do with either of them if he could help it—he changed his mind when she said, “I’ll drive.”

  “I’ll get you there on time,” Dane rumbled. There was no sign of Vivian, Noah realized. She came and went so often, he had no idea how she fit into Cyrus’s plans. Dane handed the map to Lindsay and turned to help Cyrus out of his chair. “Ylli, the van.”

  “I’ll bring it around.” Ylli was gone out the other door, his wings rustling.

  “There will be a mage coming of age near this city today,” Cyrus explained as Dane helped him up and started wrapping him in a dark cloak in spite of the summer heat. “I have told you that I did not pick this place for the casinos.” That glare was for Dane, who grinned back unrepentantly. “We must find her and keep her safe. Some things cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.”

  That, Noah understood. Suddenly, he was itching under his skin with wanting his magic back. His family kept away from the human world and those who originated there, but the moment shifted Noah’s view of them irreparably. He wondered how he would have fared if someone had looked ahead to worry about his future. If someone like Cyrus or Dane had been there. It wasn’t as though his family didn’t have the connections to tell them what might be coming. Lindsay squeezed his hand and, when Noah looked over, Lindsay looked paler than usual.

  “I will tell you when we have her,” Cyrus said, leaning on Dane as they headed for the door. “I am trusting the three of you to make sure that as little as possible of this is exposed to the world outside. I have seen moments of what is coming and I fear that our world may spill into the other, that we will be exposed.” He pointed at Lindsay with a long, pale finger. “This is your time to do for others what was done for you. Be grateful it comes while you’re young.”

  Then they were gone, and Noah, Lindsay and Kristan were left alone in the silence that followed Cyrus’s declaration.

  “Well, if everything’s going to hell, I guess we’re not taking the Cadillac,” Kristan said dryly. “Let’s go, kids.”

  “Do you want it now or when we get to—” Lindsay glanced at the map in his hand. He seemed shaken, but the way his jaw had clenched at Cyrus’s words said it had more to do with what Cyrus was saying than with returning Noah’s magic. “Wildwood, apparently. Do you want it now or when we get to Wildwood?”

  “Now.” Kristan could wait. Hell, Cyrus could wait. Noah wasn’t going anywhere while Lindsay looked that unsettled. “Ignore the old bitch. He’s a dime a dozen, trust me, I grew up around them.” He took Lindsay’s free hand and tugged gently. “Only way he’s better than the rest is that he cares about all our kind. Doesn’t mean he’s not an old bitch, though.”

  The corner of Lindsay’s lips quirked. “It’s not that. I don’t belong to Cyrus, I belong to Dane. Cyrus can’t throw me away, and he has good reason to be angry with me. It’s... I was wondering if it was anything like this when Cyrus sent Dane to find me.”

  “Of course not.” Noah gave him a grin, trying to mask his own uncertainty. “We weren’t there. It wasn’t nearly as pretty.” Maybe teasing would work. It did on his sister. Drove his brothers nuts, but he’d settle for Lindsay chasing him out to the car to punch him.

  “I’ll give you that.” Lindsay shook his head, smiling a little more, and looked Noah over. “Here, let me...” His eyes lost focus, and Noah could feel the subtle shift as the illusion drew back and was replaced by reality. Really, it wasn’t so much the presence of reality as the absence of Lindsay that made the difference.

  “I’ll try not to let you down.” Noah didn’t give much of a damn about the rest right now, but he wasn’t going to make life harder for Lindsay.

  “You won’t.” Lindsay gave his hand another squeeze and led him out to meet Kristan by the car.

  “You pick the worst times to get frisky with your boyfriends,” Kristan muttered. She was driving an old Volvo, one of the mismatched stable of cars the family kept in the garage.

  “I’ll start by not setting her on fire again,” Noah said, holding the back door open for Lindsay. He’d have a heart attack if he had to ride all the way to Wildwood with Kristan at the wheel and Lindsay in the passenger seat. It would be easier if he sat there.

  Kristan might have been a pain, but she was a fast driver. Noah turned the radio on to a local station, looking to pick up any signs of a disturbance, trying to distract himself. He cracked his window and lit a cigarette, ignoring how his hands kept shaking.

  “Hey.” Kristan snapped her fingers and held her hand out imperiously. She had better control of her magic than Noah had expected—he didn’t like her a damn bit, didn’t feel anything pleasant about her. Still, he lit her a cigarette and passed it over. “Thank you,” she said, changing lanes without signaling and sliding the Volvo between a dump truck and a bus.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Noah tried to keep from putting his foot through the floorboards. “Just...don’t crash.”

  “I’m not stupid.” Kristan narrowed her eyes as she pulled out to pass the bus on the right.

  Noah was about to argue the point when he saw that she was headed for the exit into Wildwood. Not much farther.

  They didn’t go more than a block off the exit ramp before the problem was apparent. Traffic lights were out all over town, and in the distance, a Ferris wheel sat unmoving against the perfect blue sky.

  Kristan parked in a pay lot near the boardwalk, but when Lindsay got out of the car, he pointed the other way. “I think it started over there.”

  When Noah turned, he understood. Across the street, a motel sign was flashing neon blue in a pattern he recognized: S-O-S.

  “I need to see.” Lindsay was halfway across the street before Noah realized he was moving.

  Lindsay didn’t stop at the sign. He vaulted the fence around the pool easier than Noah would’ve expected from someone who looked that fragile, and pounded up the stairs, clanging metal announcing every step. So much for stealth. Good thing everyone else was too frantic to notice them. The motel guests were milling about anxiously, in and out of their rooms, u
nsure whether to seek shelter or flee the building.

  “Can you call Ylli?” he asked Kristan. He didn’t want to interrupt Dane and he was sure Cyrus didn’t carry a cell phone.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Kristan reached into an inside pocket of her summer jacket and Noah caught sight of what looked like a gun holster. Vivian’s people were more in the world, maybe it was her choice that they protect themselves. Guns were useful things—there was little way to track a mundane murder back to a mage.

  Lindsay was already past the first landing and Noah decided to get his priorities straight. He took the stairs two at a time to catch up. It was shocking how unfit he’d become and how fast Lindsay was for someone who looked like he’d been kept indoors his whole life. At the edge of the narrow walkway around the motel, Lindsay gripped the rail and, for a moment, Noah thought he was going to vault that, too, and launch himself into the pool below. Instead, he stared into the distance, searching the skyline for more signs of the new mage’s manifestation.

  “You can feel through your magic, yes?” Noah looked around, turning to see the chaos spreading through the city.

  Two blocks from the motel, he watched a delivery van plow through an intersection and slam into the back end of an old car, sending it spinning out of control. The car wrapped around a lamppost and, even at this distance, Noah could feel the dull thud of the fuel catching fire. He snapped his magic down on it and the flames went out, but there was nothing he could do about the rest.

  “We need to make these people stay still.” His heart was pounding hard enough he thought he was going to be sick. The memories of his own accident resonated through him. “And maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  “Give me a minute.” Lindsay was still staring off at the city. Noah wanted to tell him they didn’t have a minute, that these people were going to get themselves killed, but then he saw the traffic lights flicker to life—all red.

  Men in uniforms—traffic cops and city workers—appeared at the intersections, working to fix the problem. They weren’t real, Noah knew, but it was hard to remember that when drivers and pedestrians interacted with them so naturally.

  Lindsay still didn’t turn toward Noah, but he held out his hand. “Come here. I can keep you out of the illusion, and you can stop the fires.”

  As the chaos faded, Noah’s composure returned. He took Lindsay’s hand, knowing the illusion was about to disappear and he would have to deal with reality. Already, he could see that whatever was wrong wasn’t an assault and it wasn’t coordinated. Maybe Lindsay would know more soon.

  “Kristan needs to find us,” he reminded Lindsay.

  “We won’t be hidden. But I need to be careful not to interfere with Cyrus and Dane.”

  Reality returned slowly, like the opening sequence of a movie. Smoke rose from a diner down the street, power lines sparked with too much electricity, but the illusion flickered at the edges of Noah’s vision, like if he turned his head fast enough, he would be able to see the calm that had been there a moment before.

  It was easier than Noah remembered to let his magic out. He could feel fires flowering far beyond the range of his vision, and he carefully eliminated each. The worst was at a gas station where all hell had broken loose. He couldn’t see it to know what had happened, but he could feel the fire feeding from the tanks and devouring everything in reach. Like always, there was a sense of sadness at quelling the flames, putting out what had been vivid and alive. But he could feel the fire gnawing at flesh, and he couldn’t let that happen.

  Beside him, Lindsay looked like a statue, paler than ever and taut with strain. His gray eyes were fixed on nothing that Noah could see, but he was watching whatever it was with intensity. He breathed like Noah remembered breathing to ride out the pain of a broken arm or wrecked knee, keeping on top of it and staying focused. Noah couldn’t imagine what he saw. The fires were overwhelming enough, and Lindsay had thousands of sentient creatures to convince that all was well.

  When the wind whipped up and Lindsay swayed with it, clinging to the rail, Noah wrapped his arms around him without thinking. Lindsay leaned into him and Noah managed to pry Lindsay’s white-knuckled hands from the rail. If they needed to leave, Lindsay couldn’t take that with him.

  Knowing how difficult it was to sustain that much magic and not being able to help was maddening.

  At the same time, Noah was filled with a kind of awe that was tinged with dread. Very few people must have known how powerful Lindsay was, or he wouldn’t be breathing still.

  As Lindsay let his head rest on Noah’s chest, Noah stroked the hair out of his face. The wind kept lashing at them, tearing at the signs and façades on the buildings around them until Noah could hear them coming apart. Cyrus’s body might be fading, but his magic was still immense.

  “They’re at the boardwalk.” Kristan had to shout to be heard over the wind. “We need to stay, to make sure he can keep the humans from knowing what’s really happening.” She wiped her hand across her face where blood was trickling from a gash. “He’s okay?”

  “He’s fine.” Noah let his hand slide to rest on Lindsay’s throat, so he could feel the pulse skittering under Lindsay’s soft skin. Fast, but steady. Yes, he was fine. “You?”

  “Piece of trash hit me.” Kristan pressed her sleeve to her cheek.

  “Least it was a fair fight.” Noah couldn’t resist, even in the chaos.

  “Fuck off and light me a cigarette,” she snapped. “And focus. I saw smoke back three blocks behind you.”

  Focus. Right. Noah dug out his cigarettes while his mind wandered back, looking for the fire. This rearguard action was going to kill him, with the waiting and the not knowing and having to trust Cyrus and Dane. But this was his place. He cut another fire off at the roots and the flames blew away in the wind. It was better than he could have hoped for.

  Dane hated driving the van. It was remarkably like the time he’d tried to ride a cow, and he wasn’t thinking about how many decades ago that had happened. Having Ylli in the van didn’t improve his temper. No matter how much he loved Vivian, her charges got on his nerves and had since he could remember. Ylli was a bright young man, but shy and withdrawn. There wasn’t anything he’d done to earn Dane’s animosity, it was just there.

  In many ways, there wasn’t much difference between Ylli and Lindsay. The ways they were different, though, drove Dane half-mad. Dane’s pet name for Lindsay didn’t reflect Lindsay’s fierce nature and knack for self-preservation. Ylli was prey, and it distracted the hell out of Dane. Every feathery flutter and anxious twitch from the back of the van made Dane’s fingers itch as his claws threatened to come out.

  “By the sea.” Cyrus reached out and locked his thin hand around Dane’s wrist. The last year had aged him so much that it made Dane want to howl some days. He kept telling himself he’d seen mages older and more wizened who were still going strong, but it didn’t keep the distress at bay. Every time he was close enough—and more and more he found ways to be close now that Lindsay had Noah—he soothed himself by listening to the sound of Cyrus’s heart.

  “Everything here is by the sea, Cyrus.” Still, that did help him pick an exit.

  “A long path, by the sea,” Cyrus hissed. The wind coming in the half-open window blew his long, silvered hair around like a cloud.

  “There are some trails.” The constant clatter of Ylli’s fingers on the keys of his computer and the soft whistle of his breath were out of sync with the rush and wash of Cyrus’s blood. The world of Dane’s senses was rattled by the lack of harmony. He and Cyrus and Vivian had always been closely attuned, their every move and breath had become an instrument playing a constant symphony of living.

  “No trails.” Cyrus let go of Dane’s wrist and leaned forward, glaring through the windshield. “The wheel.”

  “I know where it is.” Dane pre-empted any offer of directions from Ylli. A Ferris wheel stood out against the sky, down by the boardwalk. “Put that thing awa
y once you tell Vivian where we are.”

  Despite working out where they needed to go, Cyrus looked angry as he sagged back in his seat. Dane didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to know.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked anyway, taking advantage of a lull in traffic to dig behind the seat until he came up with a bottle of water. “Here, have a drink.” It wasn’t cold, but it was spring water.

  “Feh. Plastic.”

  “You should have died sooner if you didn’t want to drink out of plastic. You knew it was coming.

  You bought stocks in it.” Dane worked the cap off and shoved the bottle into Cyrus’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Things are too clear.” Cyrus scowled but drank.

  Dane clenched both hands on the wheel and breathed slowly. He put his foot down on the gas, and they rocketed through an intersection with wildly blinking traffic lights. He could smell smoke and electricity and melted rubber.

  “Clear is good,” he told Cyrus. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Cyrus put the water down half-finished. “I can’t see her. We cannot have lost her already.”

  Dane turned the wrong way down a one-way street behind the boardwalk and pushed the van to go as fast as he dared. There was a public parking lot, a little above the beach, and if they got out there, they could see most of the boardwalk.

  “Something’s definitely happening,” Ylli chimed in from the backseat. He had a tiny phone that was all picture screen cradled in his hands. “People are talking about some kind of terrorist attack.”

  “The truth would only distress them more,” Cyrus said dryly. He huddled in his seat, eyes narrowed, mouth set in a thin white line.

  “We’ll get out in the confusion. Lindsay will make sure we don’t stand out for what we are.”

  “Are you sure?” Ylli’s question was nearly lost in the nervous rustle of his wings.

  They took a corner, almost on two wheels, and Dane cut off a Jeep headed for the parking lot. It looked like the power was out, someone had lifted the gates leading in and out of the parking lots and left them up. Better and better.