by Lee Roland
“She’s back there,” the Commander said. He snapped the phone shut. “Stuck in that mass of steel behind us. All we have to do is wait. She’ll come to us. I have watchers. If she climbs out, tries to walk, we’ll catch her.”
Alex didn’t speak. There was little to say. He wouldn’t ask what kind of watchers.
The Comander’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, then relaxed. “Hania, I want you to talk to her when we get her. Can you do that? You’re younger. She might listen to you. All she has to do is come with us. The others are free to go. No one has to get hurt.”
“Except the dragon.” The words popped out, cold and bitter.
The Commander gave a low laugh. “The dragon is still alive. Injured, but alive.”
“How do you…” Alex stopped. Ah, the man was manipulating him, playing to what he had determined was Alex’s desire not to hurt anyone.
Alex stared away, out across the barren land. A bank of thick clouds drifted across the sky, miles to the south. As he watched, it changed as a profound darkness swelled within. This was the kind of wall cloud formation that created tornados across the flat expanses of the state. Lightning shot horizontally along the clouds, dancing through in cosmic fireworks. He could feel the energy. Or was that just the drugs still permeating his blood? Grandfather had tried to teach him the way of the spirits, the ways of the earth. He’d forgotten. But now, since they’d given him the shot that made him see the true Elder, he could see, feel things here, too. He stared at the storm and called. Come this way, oh, please come this way. If the woman had the cover of a storm, she might escape. He shifted in his seat. The tattoo on his back grew warm.
The billowing clouds reached thick fingers into the sky, higher and higher into the pure, cold heavens. Cold from above met the warmth from the land below. He could feel it now. Other clouds scuttled toward the turbulence as if drawn by a colossal magnet.
Alex glanced at the Commander. He had that silent introspective look that occasionally terrified him.
The storm grew. Its malevolence churned to cover the sky. Alex turned his face to the window and mouthed silent words. Come to me. Come now. It raced toward them like a black, towering, tidal wave.
The Commander’s phone rang. He frowned and flipped it open. “What?” He listened for a moment, then said, “Turned around? A big rig crossed…that’s impossible.”
Thunder rumbled now, low and deep. Alex felt it in the air and in his mind. The tattoo on his back suddenly itched as if it wanted to crawl away.
The Commander snapped the phone shut. He opened the Jeep door.
Lightning struck. Loud and sharp as the crash and crackle of a giant overloaded transformer. Alex felt tiny slivers of electricity spark in his fingers, as if he could rub them together and start a fire. They rippled through the impressive bird tattooed across his back.
The Commander shut the door. Another brilliant flash. A massive detonation shook the ground. The state troopers were heading for their cars. The Commander tried the phone again. No luck this time. The storm had isolated them.
Alex silently laughed. He could feel it, the storm he’d called, as if it raged inside him too. The clouds whipped high, cutting off the sun. The wind scoured the earth tearing away the fine particles of red dirt and carrying it toward Heaven in the clouds. Lightning danced through the black foam, then cut the earth in dazzling flashes, followed by thunder that rolled and tumbled across the rugged land. He turned his face away to hide his joy.
The maelstrom struck. Screaming winds tore around the vehicle from every direction, whipping back and forth like demons trying to escape hell.
It rained. There was no need for a roadblock then. The deluge stopped everything in both directions. For an hour, it rained…and rained. Alex leaned back and closed his eyes. He needed more rest.
****
The Interstate direction change required time. Someone had to have seen it, but they’d escaped again.
Maeve cursed herself. She’d involved Joe in an evil situation, and he had no idea of the danger. She leaned forward and stared in the wide rearview mirrors, checking for pursuit. Nothing yet. They’d topped a slight hill, and she could see the interstate flow stopped, bumper to bumper. As she watched, a black, billowing cloud lifted over the scene like a deadly hand. Lightning cracked. Joe jumped slightly, but Raymond moaned. Harriet gave a sharp cry. Flor had her eyes closed and fists clenched. Thunder shook the ground like giant boulders blasted from a granite cliff to shatter the land below. Magic. Magic filled the turbulence behind them.
“Flor? Did you…?”
“No. It’s not mine. It’s like mine, but not the same. Someone…I don’t know.”
Joe leaned forward and gripped the wheel tighter. He knew little of Maeve’s world, but she knew he sensed the need, the urgency to flee the storm. Like most, he could feel it when the borders between ordinary and magic licked at the reality of his life. The diesel roared as he urged his own version of thunder along.
Joe Don left the highway at the second exit and then had Maeve pull out the map to find a different road. Northeast across the corner of Texas and into Kansas. Joe and Maeve both cried when he left them at a truck stop on I-70 near Salina.
Her luck held and Maeve found another friend in Salina. Charlie’s rig had a bigger cab and a bunk where Raymond could rest. Charlie laughed a lot, and Maeve had visions of him as an African prince, carrying a spear and hunting lions across the great continent. Maybe in another life.
When they reached Garden City, Indiana, they said goodbye to Charlie, and Maeve decided to try to get them another car.
****
Maeve gazed out the window at the darkened street. The dingy hotel room in the slums of Garden City, Indiana smelled like old sweat and fresh piss. Four floors in the building, and their room was on the third floor. Not the best place to be. The rides she could get had taken them much farther north than she wanted them to be. Restless, angry, she’d been demanding information from Raymond about why Tana sent him to find her.
“He’s still weak. You shouldn’t be so crabby,” Flor said. She put her arm around Raymond as if it would shield him from Maeve’s questions.
“I only get crabby when people chase me and shoot at me,” Maeve told her. “You owe me information too, Princess. You pick me up at a truck stop, drag me across the desert to meet your aunt who, from the condition of her body, probably wasn’t your aunt at all. Next thing I know, bullets are flying.”
“She told me to call her Aunt.” Flor frowned and sounded a bit defensive. “My mother and father called her my aunt.”
Maeve watched Flor’s eyes and decided she told the truth—but not the entire truth. Pushing her beyond what she offered might be too much stress on Raymond. Harriet hopped from the back of a chair to her lap. Tears trickled from her tiny eyes. “Don’t ask,” she said. “Go home.”
Maeve shook her head. “You all rest. I’ll see if I can get us a car.”
“Where are you going?” Flor asked.
“To the airport. The long-term storage lot. We can hope the owner won’t be back for a few days.”
“But I have a whole suitcase full of money.”
“Flor, we’re running for out lives. We can’t go car shopping. And don’t talk money or being on the run. These walls are made of paper.”
Maeve grabbed the leather case holding her lock picking tools out of her backpack. At ten o’clock, she slipped out and found a cab to take her to the airport. The driver didn’t speak English, and he barely looked at her. He wouldn’t remember her.
She went first to the passenger drop-off, and then cut back through the parking lots, face down, knowing she was probably on camera. She tried a little magic cloak, a tiny shimmer of air around her. She couldn’t tell if it worked. She played duck and hide as she made her way through the cars. Two businessmen came down the aisle and came her way so she dropped and rolled under a car. Would it be theirs? Close—the next one over. Ten minutes later, they kep
t talking, and she had an urgent desire to roll out and tell them to shut up and go away. She didn’t give a shit about their overhead, salary ranges, or 401K’s.
With a flutter of wings and click of talons, Harriet landed and peeked under the car. Now what? Maeve motioned her to come.
“No.” Harriet was adamant. “You come out.”
Maeve pointed at the businessmen’s feet.
Harriet took flight.
“What was that? A bat?” one man asked.
“Don’t know. Let’s go.” They couldn’t see Harriet, but they could feel her. As soon as they were gone, Maeve rolled out. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are Raymond and Flor okay?”
The harpy perched on the roof of a car. She ruffed her feathers. “They was doing nasty.”
“No kidding. In front of you?”
“Said I could close my eyes.”
“Well, keep watch for me, okay?”
“’Kay.”
To Maeve’s surprise, the tickets hanging from the rearview mirrors had the expected date of the owner’s return. The white mini-van with heavily tinted windows would work. The owner wouldn’t be back for a week.
The first year away from Elder, Maeve had traveled with a young man who boasted he’d stolen a thousand cars and broken into hundreds of buildings. He taught her the lock trade, and his lessons had served her far better than Tana’s teaching on the rote and ritual of spells. She never stole cars, but occasionally, one vehicle or empty house would provide a warm dry place to sleep. Regular locks came easy—the new automatic and computer locks posed a challenge. Easily stolen vehicles were history. Somehow, though, with a little fiddling, her method always worked. She certainly surprised her teacher. He abandoned her right after she showed him what she could do.
Maeve had the door open in three minutes. She fiddled around under the dash until she found the right combination of wires. Shit, how many wires did it take? The engine started. Now, could she get out without the attendant remembering the van’s owner? She rolled the passenger window down for Harriet to come in and headed for the exit.
Modern technology ruled the airport. The only thing between her and the world was a machine. She slipped on her dark glasses. When fed the ticket and two twenty-dollar bills, the compliant engineering marvel opened the gate and released her. With luck, they should be in Tennessee before the owner returned and they searched the camera data. Like the motel Raymond trashed, she made a note to ask Tana to compensate for the vehicle.
Three police cars passed her, one after the other. Premonition time again. “Harriet. Go tell Flor and Raymond to leave. Find them a safe place. Then come back to me.” Harriet was out the window before she finished speaking. By the time Maeve reached the hotel area, they had the streets barricaded. She couldn’t get through without being spotted. It was up to Harriet now.
****
Alex stood beside the Jeep waiting for orders. The multitude of red and blue flashing lights painted cars and buildings like a bizarre special effects movie. The Garden City Police Department barricaded the streets for a block around the rundown hotel building. Dear God, how much power did the Commander have? The state police in Okalahoma had shut down an Interstate highway for him. Now, the Garden City cops stood back and watched a minor military style invasion of a rundown slum hotel by private unofficial forces. They provided back up too, holding watch at each entrance to be sure no one left without the Commander’s okay.
Was it any more surprising than the storm on the highway? The Commander didn’t seem concerned, though Alex caught him staring a couple of times. He shouldn’t have told the story of the Thunderbird. What had really happened? There was no way he believed he’d actually called up that storm because he felt connected to its power. He forced himself to stop thinking about it. He didn’t want the Commander to consider such a dangerous idea either.
Taggert kept quarreling with the Commander. Giving the Commander a hard time was stupid and possibly deadly, but Alex understood Taggert this time. The Commander sent Taggert’s buddy Howell and another man to open the motel room door in Arizona. Alex hadn’t seen what actually happened, but was told a creature, a monster leapt from the room, killed them, then disappeared.
Alex’s eye caught a flash of movement. A shadow drifted away from the hotel roof, and he knew they had escaped again. He should go inform the Commander not to waste time with the search, but the intense joy and wonder that sprang from his heart silenced him. He’d give the fugitives as much time as possible.
****
Maeve drove on and found an old derelict industrial park. Bad section of town, but at least it was deserted. Metal warehouses, boarded buildings, chain link with barbed wire, another hopeless place in a string of hopeless places.
Two sluggish hours stretched past midnight. She climbed out and walked to the shadow of a nearby building. The occasional yellow vapor streetlight leached color from a silent world. Great Mother Inaras, where were they?
Then she heard it. Wings! Flapping hard, desperate, Raymond came down fast. He hovered for a second—then crashed like a massive slab of meat slammed on the pavement. The ground shook under Maeve’s feet. Flor rolled off his back, onto his leg, and sprawled on the street. She hugged Immal’s box in her arms and had her and Maeve’s backpacks over her shoulders. She’d left her suitcase behind. Maeve ran to her.
“I’m okay.” Flor struggled, but didn’t seem injured.
Raymond gasped in thick rheumy wheezes. His body splayed across the road jamming his tail against buildings on the other side. Leathery wings stretched out as if he didn’t have the strength to fold them.
“Raymond! Change back. Do it now!” Maeve yelled at him. She helped Flor to her feet. Blood, turned black by the dim yellow light above them, trickled from Flor’s elbow.
“He’s too weak,” Flor said. “By the time Harriet came to warn us, they were in the lobby. We went to the roof. Then we had to find you.”
“He has to!” Maeve went to his head. “Raymond!” She shouted. Weak or not, he couldn’t lie in the road much longer. Car lights flashed one block up. What if the vehicle came toward them? Pain shot up her arms as she pounded on his rough scaly head with both fists. She knew he couldn’t feel it, but she had to try. “Get up, you stupid lizard,” she screamed. “What are you, a dragon or road kill?”
When nothing happened, Maeve grabbed Flor and pushed her back into the building’s shadow. “Sit down and rest.” Flor slowly sank to the ground. Maeve placed her hand on Immal’s box. “I’m going to try to help him. May I use a little of Immal?”
Flor nodded, a bare movement of her head.
Maeve opened the box and dug in. A bone shard jabbed her hand, and she grabbed it along with a handful of dust.
“Flor, I’d tell you to run, but you probably won't. My magic goes crazy sometimes. Raymond might die from it. He’s for sure going to die without it.”
Her first lessons as a Random Clan witch involved healing. Like all magic, it never came easy to her. It usually went sideways—or completely failed.
Raymond gasped and quivered when Maeve sifted Immal’s ashes on his head. His body must have remembered the power from his first healing on the mound. She dug through her memory for a spell, one to heal, to cleanse…the hell with it. She’d figure it out as she went along. She should take her boots off. Contact with the earth was best if you planned to ask the Earth Mother for a miracle. Through six inches of asphalt? Not likely.
Mysticism, chants, and rituals bored her. Maeve always went for the heart. She closed her eyes and called to the unseen world of magic. It glittered behind her eyelids like fireflies. Opening her mind, she began a prayer to the Earth Mother, the Elemental Inaras.
“Great Mother, I know these words aren’t a proper chant, but I’ve never asked for anything so important. Raymond’s going to die without help.”
A subtle shift in the magic touched Maeve. Okay, that was something new. “Yeah, I know. I’ve done some crummy stuff with mag
ic. I’m sorry, but please don’t take it out on Raymond. No Elder dragon should die on this damned road.”
Every request required an offering. Maeve drew a deep breath, clamped her teeth tight, and slashed her palm with Immal’s bone. She screamed. It shouldn’t have hurt that much. Blood splattered on Raymond and dripped to the street.
The hungry spell rose in Maeve’s heart, and she fed it with love, memory, and her own lifeblood. Raymond had held her hands when she learned to walk. Raymond had given her the gift of the air above Elder.
Pavement rippled and crinkled like cellophane wrap under Maeve’s feet, as silky threads of power flowed from the sacrifice. Set free by her haphazard spell, energy rushed away into the night. Maeve clasped her hands and tried to staunch the blood feeding it. “No,” she cried. “Don’t let me hurt anyone. Don’t hurt anyone.” She dropped to her knees on the quaking ground.
Flor appeared. She’d found a scarf and wrapped it tight around Maeve’s wounded hand.
Raymond opened one eye, he closed it, and grunted. Transformation to human shape, usually instantaneous, stretched to five minutes.
Maeve didn’t need witch-sight to feel the swelling storm around them. What had she released upon an unsuspecting city? “Let’s go,” she said. “I want miles between us and…where’s Harriet?”
“I don’t know. She was with us until we started down.”
“Damn! I know she can find me but—”
“What if something happened to her?”
Maeve and Flor hauled Raymond to his feet. When they reached the van, Harriet paced across the roof waiting for them.
“Did it again,” Harriet trilled, her voice rising to a shriek. “Told you, no magic.”
Maeve didn’t speak as she slid the van’s side door open. Harriet didn’t have to remind her she’d screwed up. Flor climbed in the back with Raymond, leaving Maeve to drive.
