More Than Magic (Books of the Kindling)

by Donna June Cooper

  Nick’s whole body tensed up and he gritted his teeth against the wave of pain. You’re lying. Trying to get me to come out or do something stupid. Grace is safe. Grace is probably bringing the cavalry right now, you son of a bitch.

  “We’re just waiting for him to bring her so we can take care of both of ya at the same time. She just wanted you to know, in case you was wondering what was takin’ so long.”

  There was indistinct yelling. Apparently Nick hadn’t managed to hit Annie either.

  “And she wants you to know that we’ll be blowing this place up then, with you in it. After we let you listen while we kill Miss Grace.”

  They’re lying. Grace wouldn’t have— Shit. She would have.

  His vision was doing that white out thing again, and he shut his eyes. Using the anger, he pulled himself further up the stick and aimed his gun carefully at the door.

  Grace, dammit, you did not come up here by yourself. You took Jamie Lynn and ran.

  If he could he’d throw himself out that door shooting anything that moved. Go out like Butch and Sundance, and take the Taggarts with him.

  But he couldn’t move.

  Grace was fine. They were trying to bait him.

  The bad thing was, they had succeeded. His heart rate went up even further, and now the whole cave seemed to be tilting sideways. He closed his eyes and it was a little better.

  But there was gold shimmering behind his eyelids.

  The cave was still tilting on its side. Then he lifted his head and it righted itself. Well, that was stupid, Nick. It was getting hard to hold his head up so he let it tip back down and rest on the walking stick. But the view from here wasn’t great anyway. The usual meth lab equipment and filth. Obviously Annie hadn’t been in here much. But he doubted lemon-scented furniture polish would help the smell in here. He would’ve smiled, but it hurt too much.

  You’re losing it, Nick. But he didn’t have the energy to argue with himself anymore.

  He shut his eyes again.

  Swirling blackness shot through with brilliant shafts of light. And somewhere in the distance—music.

  So far there had been no more fireflies or dancing stars, but there had been bats hibernating peacefully just inside the entrance. And guano. Spider webs had been plentiful as well, near the entrance anyway. Further in there had been plenty of water and mud, as her gloves and knees and rear end could testify. Messy, but not magical—yet.

  She paid it all little attention, only slowing down for what she had always thought of as the giant steps. In the light from her headlamp, it looked like a drop off, with the floor seeming to disappear and only rock beyond it, retreating into darkness below her.

  Just out of sight were a series of rough ledges, like a great staircase that curved along the wall of rock below. As a child, she had carefully backed off the ledge, barely able to reach the first step with her toes. As a teen, she had scooted off and helped Pops down. Pops had told her that there had been no drop off at all when he explored here on his own.

  Focusing on Nick’s rapid heartbeat out there somewhere, Grace slid off carefully, and followed the wall around until she was nearly under the drop off once more, then through another dark opening that twisted right and spilled out into her picture room.

  It was just as she remembered. Nearly round, with a rock floor and smooth walls sloping upward into the dark. Warm, as if the floor was radiating gentle heat, and not damp. On one wall, the swirl of carvings she remembered so well danced in the light—even more vivid and strange than she remembered.

  And the handprint was back. She hadn’t dreamed it or imagined it or made it up. Pops had always believed her. It was real.

  The indentation fit her hand perfectly, as it had so long ago—when her hand had been much smaller—but she didn’t want to think about why it fit now. With her hand in the carving, it was as if she was holding her palm over the heart of some vast entity. Grace closed her eyes and felt it—the slow majestic tempo that had underscored her life for so long—and Nick’s heartbeat, racing within it. She pulled away and went quickly through the opening on the other side of the room.

  The pulse-pounding fear and adrenaline that had pushed her through the woods was gone. But as long as she could sense Nick’s heart beating, she felt invigorated, more alive than she had ever felt in her life.

  She navigated her way through narrow twists and turns and ups and downs, clambering over rocks and through some tight spots, trying not to think of how the Taggarts had managed to access this magical place—and pollute it. She would worry about that later. The cave ceiling was dropping ahead of her, although the floor was fairly level and dry, and there were fewer obstacles to climb over or around. She was almost running.

  And then it stopped. Ahead all she could see was rock, with no openings at all. A dead end.

  Grace followed the wall with her hand as it curved before her to meet the other wall, but instead of solid rock, as it seemed to be, she found a narrow sideways opening. She had to pull off her pack and duck a bit, dragging it behind her, but it opened up into a long low corridor, then another hidden opening to the left and out into a room. A real room with a hard packed dirt floor lined with wooden shelves along one side.

  It appeared to be an office, with the cave ceiling almost too low to stand on one side, then sloping upward to the wall full of shelves. There were other shelves around the room, a moth eaten rug and an old desk covered with books and papers, plus an oil lamp and a chair with a wicker seat that had rotted through. All of it was covered in dust and draped with spider webs. There was no sign that anyone had set foot in this place for countless years.

  There was also no sign of Nick or a meth lab. But she felt him, just beyond that wall of wooden shelves.

  Annie and Mitch could be out there as well. Although both of them had been injured, they hadn’t seemed seriously hurt.

  Grace pulled off her gloves and dropped her backpack, took the safety off her shotgun, slung it back over her shoulder, and reached up and turned off the head lamp.

  Darkness. She blinked, waiting for the afterimages to fade. Then she saw a crack of light along the top of the shelves where the wood had shrunk away from the rock. There had to be a door somewhere among the shelves. She scanned that whole side of the room carefully, looking for any sliver of light.

  And there it was. A small vertical slit. She moved toward it. There was something here, half hidden, probably by books or dust or who knew what else. She didn’t want to chance switching on the lamp again, so she felt along the edges at about the height a latch or knob or something would be, moving books, feeling something skitter away from her fingers, nearly knocking something else off the shelf. There. A wooden handle hidden beneath a shelf, worn smooth by someone’s fingers long ago.

  She took the shotgun off her shoulder and held it in her right hand while she gripped the handle with her left, took a deep breath and pulled up.

  There was a thunk and then a loud squeaking sound followed by the thumps of a couple of books falling over. Something rolled across the floor as the shelf door swung out. She brought the shotgun up at the same time, scanning the cave beyond.

  But all she could see was Nick, sitting propped against the wall right in front of her. His gun pointed, rather unsteadily, at her.

  Then she couldn’t see the gun. She could only see the twisted staff of wood that Nick was wrapped around as if his life depended on it.

  Pops’s walking stick.

  It was the hat. That stupid rainbow-colored hat with the ear flaps. No one but Grace would wear that hat and carry a shotgun at the same time. So he must be hallucinating. At last.

  He lowered the gun to his knee.

  “Sorry. I thought you were real.” But his voice was mostly gone at this point so he wasn’t sure the hallucination heard him.

  It was only when the gun was eased out of his grasp and the vision put it in her jacket pocket that he decided this might’ve slipped from vivid hallucination into d
ream and he should wake up while he still could.

  He tried to move, but he’d been in this position too long and it hurt—a lot.

  Which meant he was awake, didn’t it?

  “Shit.”

  The hallucination shushed him. She had slung the shotgun back over her shoulder.

  There was noise outside again. Yelling. Annie. And the answer from up on the ceiling again. Mitch.

  The hallucination had his gun out in her hand again, this time pointing it at Mitch’s voice.

  “Mr. Revenuer Man, we just wanted to let you know we decided to move things up a bit and blow you up now instead of waiting for Miss Grace. So thank you for making Memaw laugh, she says.” His snicker echoed around the room.

  “I’d like to make Memaw do lots of things, none of them funny,” the hallucination hissed, shoving the gun into her waistband.

  “I love redheads,” Nick said. Was that out loud?

  The hallucination looked at him strangely. “Can you move?”

  He shook his head in the negative. “Yes.”

  “Nick, you’re going to have to help me. Can you feel your legs? Your arms?”

  She was using that schoolmarm voice of hers.

  “Yes’m,” he croaked.

  “Good. We need to get out of here fast. First, we’ll lie you down. Then I’m going to drag you. So just hang on tightly for a sec—”

  Nick clung to his lifeline, the twisted stick of wood. She took it in one hand and put her hand behind his head, lowering him sideways to the floor.

  The movement made everything go black for a moment. When he became aware again, he was on his back, the walking stick still clutched in his arms.

  “Can you hold your head up off the floor for a little while? No, wait. Your jacket.”

  She pulled his hood out from under him and pulled it over his head. Then she grabbed his ankles, sliding him carefully backward through the doorway in the shelves, into utter blackness.

  If this was a hallucination, it was getting really weird now, but he wasn’t going to think about the possible explanations for being dragged slowly into darkness by an angelic-looking creature with a rainbow on her head.

  Then he slid over something on the floor and the jarring pain wrung a groan out of him.

  She didn’t apologize, but he saw the agonized look on her face as she lowered his feet to the floor, turned around, and pulled the door shut behind her.

  For a moment it was pitch black, with odd spangles and that bright white pain that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Then a light came on over her head, and he was back to thinking about angels with halos and wings—

  “A little further. We have to get out of this part of the cave, in case they do something really stupid—” his angel said, dragging him through a narrow and twisting passage of rock, “—and blow themselves up.”

  Nick couldn’t manage coherent thoughts any longer. He just drifted. They had stopped moving and she pushed his feet to bend his knees up. He grunted.

  “Sorry. But you need to keep your legs bent for me if you can. Don’t move.”

  Then she disappeared and the light went with her. There was something very poetic about that, but he couldn’t think what it was.

  When she came back she was carrying her backpack and running, the light casting strange bouncing shadows on the cave walls.

  “Really stupid.” She knelt over him, covering him with her coat. There was a tremendous boom. His ears popped, the floor shook, and dust cascaded down on them from the ceiling. Mostly on her, because her wings were open covering him.

  “There’s a limited supply of magic fairy dust.”

  But they were too thick and opaque for fairy wings.

  “I hope they blew themselves off the mountain,” she growled. She stood and took off her coat. Then she rolled it up and put it under his head and shoulders. “Now, close your eyes and think happy thoughts.”

  Maybe she was a fairy.

  Swirling blackness and pain, sucking him down into oblivion.

  “Those aren’t happy thoughts.” He thought he heard her say.

  “Filthy blackness corrupting everything.”

  “Stay with me, Nick. Talk to me.”

  Her hands were moving on him, pulling his vest open and pushing up his sweater and his undershirt, hot against his skin—

  Grace in his arms—wrapped around him, moving on him.

  “I need to find Grace,” he said, or thought he said. Before I die.

  Swirling blackness shot through with brilliant shafts of light.

  “I need to tell her something before—”

  Nothing was left but light—gold and shimmering behind his eyelids.

  He could’ve sworn he heard her whisper—“Hold that thought.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grace could feel Nick’s heart beating firm and slow under her cheek, his skin warm against hers. She sighed contentedly and opened her eyes, watching as the light moved up and down on the cave wall and wondering why it was doing that. Then she realized the lamp was still on her head and Nick’s slow and rhythmic breathing was moving her, and the lamp, up and down in a steady motion.

  She sat up and instantly regretted it, bracing herself as the cave dipped and swayed around her. Her fingers were clenched tightly around something. When she opened them, a slug fell out of her blood covered hands. She remembered. She scrambled around to find her pack and retrieve the first-aid kit, then pulled out one of the water bottles and took gauze to wipe at the blood that had dried on Nick’s stomach, gradually revealing an expanse of healthy, unmarked skin. She had to unbutton his jeans to reach the last of the blood that had seeped underneath the waist band. There was no sign of the wound. No sign there had been a wound, except for the blood on her hands and his clothes.

  “Thank you,” she breathed and pulled Nick’s bloodstained undershirt and sweater, which each still sported a hole, over his chest. Then she snapped up his down vest. Digging around in the pack, she pulled out one of the silver emergency blankets and unfolded it, throwing it over him.

  According to her watch, she had been out for more than thirty minutes. At least she hadn’t fallen off a hospital bed this time. But Nick should’ve been awake by now.

  Grace checked his vitals. Everything seemed normal. And yet he was still sleeping.

  So she closed her eyes and reached in. It had become second nature now. Nothing. No sign of any of the damage, of any bullet fragments, anything. And it wasn’t a coma.

  “So why are you still asleep?” She touched his forehead, then brushed a finger down his cheek. “You need to wake up and tell me all about this Nick McKenzie person.”

  When her finger reached the spot where his dimple hid, she leaned over to press her lips to his. It worked in fairy tales.

  Nick mumbled something she couldn’t understand and his hands twitched—both good signs. Whatever else happened, Nick would live and she would have to be content with that.

  She reached into the backpack and pulled out her camp candle, setting it up on a rock near Nick’s head so he wouldn’t awaken to darkness, and lit it. First, she needed to see what the damage out by the cave entrance looked like and whether she needed to worry about the Taggarts coming in to look for them. Second, she needed to see if there was anything useful around, like blankets or additional water. Annie had said something about running water. Third—

  Too much analysis. Move.

  Her muscles protested as she stood up. When she thought about how far and fast she had gone through the woods, she was surprised she could move at all. But there had been something lending her strength—and someone drawing her here.

  She picked up her shotgun and felt for Nick’s handgun against her back. Any Taggart unlucky enough to get within range was going to be very sorry that they were still on her mountain.

  At the opening, she looked back at Nick, worried that he might wake up in a daze and then panic. His face looked relaxed and peaceful. There was no si
gn of the deathly pale, pinched expression that had frightened her when she had found him. She could only hope he would see her pack and supplies and realize she was around. She didn’t want him wandering off alone into the cave.

  There was a thicker layer of dust covering the contents of the office. Some books and papers had fallen out of shelves onto the floor, but the shelf wall was still intact, which was a good sign. She found the hidden door easily this time. With Nick’s gun in one hand, she turned off the headlamp and pushed the door out, cautiously peeking into the lab.

  It had gone dark outside while she was unconscious, and there were no fires smoldering or huge holes in the roof. No light of any kind entered the lab from the opening or the vents. She listened for any sounds at all, but there was only silence—except for the slow, ancient song that hummed beneath her feet.

  Cupping her hand over the headlamp, she turned it on for a moment, focusing on the front of the cave. At the slightest hint that the Taggarts might be around, she could turn it off and disappear before they saw her. But she needn’t have worried.

  It wasn’t the kind of devastation she expected from an explosion—more like an earthquake. There was a lot of broken glass and small equipment scattered on the floor, and lots of dust covering everything. But, the cave opening was gone. The force of the blast had collapsed the outcropping of rock in front of the cave, smashing the wooden wall and door and filling the entrance with rocks—some a pretty good size. There were no openings to the outside anywhere that she could see and no drafts of cold air coming in. Of course, only search lights or daylight would tell the full story.

  It was going to take a while to dig out, or dig in. Either way, the Taggarts wouldn’t be coming this way to check for survivors. Hopefully they had blown themselves to bits with that foolish stunt. And good riddance.

  She shoved the gun back into her waistband and started exploring the lab, sniffing for any signs of gas or—

  There was no chemical smell. And when she was dragging Nick out of this place, there had been a horrid stench like sulfur and ammonia mixed with battery acid. But now, nothing.