“Relax,” said Veritas. “Think back. Let yourself drift on the current of the past.”
Ashanti’s brow softened. “All right. I’ll let myself drift.”
“Float back...back. Take a deep breath and slowly release it.”
Ashanti’s chest rose as she inhaled deeply...then compressed as she let the breath out. Again, she did the same, and again after that.
“Look around, Ashanti,” said Veritas. “What do you see?”
“I see...I see...” Suddenly, her face twisted, she let out a sob. She lurched up, grabbing for Veritas, and pulled her close, crying into her shoulder. “I don’t see anything. Just darkness.”
“That’s all right.” Veritas rubbed her back soothingly, looking in my direction. “You’ll be all right.” Meeting my gaze, she shook her head slowly, telling me everything I needed to know about Ashanti’s condition.
Her memory was not coming back anytime soon.
When Ashanti was done crying, Veritas said her goodbyes. She’d return if we needed her, she said, but for now it was time to go.
“Thanks for the coffee.” She shook my hand. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you—the latest incarnation of you, that is.”
“You’ve met others?” I asked. “Other incarnations?”
Veritas grinned. “I’ve met them all.”
“Could you tell me about them?”
“Someday.” Veritas winked. “If you live through what’s coming in the morning.”
Then, with a jaunty wave to everyone, she went in the back room and shut the door. Apparently, she wanted a little privacy when she went through her transformation back into Duke.
The rest of us watched her go, then stood around staring at each other—but the awkward moment didn’t last. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds later that a knock pounded the front door.
I walked over and peeked out from the edge of the blinds...then unlocked and opened the door without further hesitation. Of all the people I wanted to see just then, he was at the top of the list.
“Hi, Gaia.” Briar nodded at me as he entered the place, then looked around and nodded at the others, as well. “Ladies.”
“What’s up, Dale?” I asked. “Do you need something?”
He shook his head grimly. “I’m here to help. I heard things are about to go off the rails in a big way.”
“How did you hear that?” I turned in time to see Luna hastily shove her phone in her pocket, trying to look innocent. “Never mind.”
Agitated, Briar took my arm. “Let’s get you out of here, Gaia.”
“No,” snapped Phaola. “It’ll just make it worse.”
Everyone looked at her at once. Was her hostile inner passenger doing the talking again?
“Seriously, Gaia,” said Phaola. “They’re coming here whether you’re here or not. If you hide somewhere, they’ll punish everyone else they can find. They’ll destroy the whole town.”
Briar frowned at her, looking confused. He knew her well, since she was such a good friend of mine, but what she said just wasn’t tracking. “What the hell is going on here? Since when does Phaola know the bad guys’ evil plans?”
“Since a bad guy took up residence in her head,” said Nephelae.
“Not that he’s in control anymore,” added Minthe.
“We don’t think,” said Nephelae.
Briar looked around at each of us, taking in what he’d just heard, trying to process it. Then, he threw his arms in the air with a flourish. “Whatever you guys say.” After being a part of my world for so long, he knew better than to keep asking questions when dramatic license was clearly called for. “So this office is where we make our stand, correct?”
“There’s no ‘we’ in this, Dale,” I told him. “Unpowered individuals should be as far from here as possible. That goes for townspeople, which is where you come in. I want you to evacuate the local civilians and close all the streets around this building.”
“Sure, no problem,” he replied. “And if they ask why I just woke them out of a sound sleep and told them to get out?”
“You could say there’s a gas leak,” I suggested. “That would be a good explanation for the street closures, too.”
“And then you want me out of the way while you fight for your life,” Briar said with a tinge of anger. “Is that it? Did I cover everything?”
I didn’t expect the pushback. “Dale, I just...”
“Well, you can forget it, Gaia,” snapped Briar. “I’ll evacuate people and close streets, but there’s no way I’ll make myself scarce when the woman I love is in danger.”
“But, Dale—”
“Is that clear?”
“Clear as day, Sheriff,” said Luna.
“Couldn’t be clearer,” agreed Minthe.
“Roger that,” said Nephelae.
“Good.” Briar nodded with satisfaction, looking around the room, then settling his gaze on mine. “Because that’s how it’s gotta be.”
With that, he spun and crossed the room, making a beeline for the big whiteboard on the far wall. The board was occupied by one big message announcing a sale on Asian adventure trips, and he wiped it clean with an eraser from the tray along its lowermost edge.
“Now who wants to help me map out a battle plan?” Briar put down the eraser, uncapped a black dry-erase marker, and started drawing lines with it.
At that instant, the door to the back room swung open, and Duke marched out, waving a hand in the air. “I do! I do!”
Briar looked at Phaola. “I’m guessing they’ll bring more of those mind-controlled Landkind?”
Phaola nodded and tapped the side of her head with a fingertip. “My other brain just confirmed it.”
“Then we’re going to have our hands full.” Briar’s sketch of the Cruel World/Charmer Investigations building and surrounding neighborhood was taking shape.
“And Gaia’s powers have been on the fritz,” said Duke.
Briar turned to me, looking surprised. “They have?”
“But they’re fine right now,” I insisted. “I promise.”
“Still.” Briar hid the concern in his eyes by turning back to the whiteboard. “We have even more reason to plan accordingly. We need to account for the variables and prepare fallbacks.”
“Good thinking.” Luna smiled. “It’s times like this when it’s pretty awesome having a boss whose boyfriend is a sheriff.”
“You said it!” said Minthe and Nephelae at the same time, giggling.
I just smiled and let Briar continue planning on the whiteboard. The truth was, he and the others only knew about some of the picture. An altogether different plan was taking shape in my mind at the same time, a plan none of them would be privy to until much later. They didn’t need to be in on it, since none of them would be involved. I was the only one who’d be directly at risk, and it would be well worth the gamble.
Because it might just save everyone in the end. It might just stop EarthSave and whatever they threw at us.
But I wouldn’t take the chance of sharing it with even my closest allies, because they might try to stop me from going through with it…especially Briar. One way or the other, the secret plan would remain my secret until I followed through with it or died trying.
26
Was it smart of me to stand out on the street alone when I knew an attack force was out there somewhere plotting my capture?
At that particular moment, I didn’t care. It was three in the morning, no hostiles seemed to be nearby, and I needed to get some damn fresh air.
The bipolar mood I liked to call “Sinking Fast” had me locked in its steely clutches and was dragging me down in a hurry. My friends were making plans, preparing for the fight, but as the hours ticked away, I just felt lower and lower.
Whatever was going to happen, I wished with all my heart that I was already on the other side of it. I just wished it could be over, so the dread would be over, and I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
Lea
ning against my parked Highlander, I tipped my head back and gazed up at the dark, cloudy sky between the streetlights. A car hissed past—some local, no doubt, on the way back from a bar—but Confluence was otherwise quiet. It could have been any Saturday night, nothing special about it, not possibly the last night of my life as I knew it. But “Sinking Fast” and I knew better.
It was times like these I sometimes wished I’d taken up smoking.
Just then, the front door of the office opened. I looked, expecting Briar to march out on a safety check.
And surprise—it was Luna instead.
“There you are.” She closed the door behind her and joined me in leaning against the Highlander. “Wrapping your head around the incoming shit, I take it?”
“Do you have a cigarette?” I asked her.
She looked at me with a stunned expression. “I didn’t know you smoked, sis.”
“I don’t.” I sighed. “But now seems like a pretty good time to start.”
Luna chuckled and bumped me with her elbow. “You’re not worried, are you?”
“Mostly that bad things will happen to people I care about,” I said.
“You are literally the entire world,” said Luna. “Pretty sure you can handle these assholes.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The cool night air felt good as it swirled into and out of my body. “What if I get disconnected from the planet again? What if my powers cut out in the heat of battle?”
“Then you’ve got the rest of us to back you up,” said Luna. “And we will give those shits the fight of their lives, believe you me.”
I nodded. It was true, I had my team around me—Luna, Briar, Duke, Phaola, Minthe, Nephelae—but I still felt shrouded in darkness. I still felt like I was at the bottom of a deep well without any handholds to climb out again. Even the secret plan I’d concocted seemed doomed to failure.
“I can’t let them Hollow and Fill me,” I said. “If humankind took over the soul of the Earth, the consequences...” I let the sentence trail away for effect.
Luna moved closer and looped her arm around my own. “It won’t come to that, sis. We won’t let them hurt you. We won’t let them win.”
I watched the shadows of my friends shifting across the blinds in the office windows. “If it comes down to it, and I still have control, I’ll do anything to stop them. Even if it means the end.”
Luna frowned. “The end of what?”
“You know,” I said darkly. “The world.”
We were both quiet for a long moment. The end I’d mentioned had nothing to do with my secret plan; it wasn’t even something I’d consciously thought about before. But now that I’d said it, I realized there was truth to it. It was something I might be willing to do, if things got bad enough.
Somewhere in the distance, a cat screeched three times and fell silent.
Luna hugged me closer. “Don’t think like that. Don’t give the idea any space in your head.”
“It’s not my first choice, but...”
“Take it from me.” She stared at me, looking deeply serious. “I know from experience. Or have you forgotten how the moon used to be?”
I had forgotten. Or maybe the knowledge was all there, but I just hadn’t looked back that far since regaining my self-awareness. Once again, slacking off in dealing with my heritage had nipped me on the ass.
“You did the same thing?” I asked. “You...destroyed yourself?”
“You should know. You were there.” Luna sighed loudly. “And undoing that mistake is why I came back down to Earth in the first place. It’s why I came to see you, sis.”
“Undoing the mistake?”
“If we get through this,” said Luna. “When we get through this—I want you to help me be reborn. I want you to help bring the moon back to life.”
I frowned in disbelief. “Is that even possible?”
“I need your help, Gaia,” said Luna. “To save my world and the people who sleep there. How’s that for giving you motivation to survive?”
Just then, the door swung open, and Briar peered out, looking annoyed. “Care to pitch in on the planning side, you two? We can’t do it all ourselves, you know.”
“Sure.” Luna let go of my arm and strolled inside. “We can’t let the Sheriff do everything, can we, Gaia?”
I sighed, because I still had about a thousand questions for her—but our private time was over. “No, we can’t, Luna.” I pushed away from the Highlander and headed for the door. “Everyone knows battle plans require a woman’s touch.”
27
Getting some sleep would have been the smart thing to do, but the only ones napping were Blue Knob Mountain and Prince Gallitzin State Park. The rest of us were too busy getting ready for the upcoming battle to feel even the slightest bit sleepy.
We chugged coffee, argued over the battle plan, debated possibilities, and watched the clock. Six a.m., when we would make our first move, would roll around before we knew it.
We did have our share of surprise guests, which helped keep things lively. Any guests would have been a surprise at four o’clock on a Sunday morning in Confluence—though these particular guests were especially unexpected.
Mahoney from Doc Yough’s came first, offering his services in the forthcoming fight. Apparently, Duke had texted him, calling him in to reinforce our meager battalion.
“I’ll gladly fight beside you, Gaia,” said Mahoney. “If you’ll have me.”
Mahoney might have looked like a scrawny, bearded mountain man, but I knew he was a force to be reckoned with. As the avatar of Ohiopyle State Park, he had all the power of the mighty Youghiogheny River at his fingertips, its raging whitewater enough to overcome formidable enemies.
“I’d fight at your side any day of the year, Mahoney.” I held him by the arms, then reeled him in for a giant hug. “It would be an honor, my friend.”
About a half-hour later, something seriously loud pulled up outside, signaling more new arrivals. The knocks on the door that followed sounded like the blows from a jackhammer, hard and fast enough to break right through if I didn’t open up quick.
When I threw the door wide, I was totally surprised. Two young people grinned back at me—a redheaded guy and a blonde girl—both of them armed to the teeth.
“Roy! Rusty!” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. I hadn’t seen them much in the past six months, since they’d helped me infiltrate and defeat Groundswell at Parapets in West Virginia. “Long time no see!”
We couldn’t hug because of all the guns in the way, but I impulsively hopped forward and pecked each of them on the cheek. Like me, they couldn’t stop smiling.
“Two recruits for the Charmer Militia, ma’am!” Roy Price snapped off a crisp salute. “As you can see, we brought plenty of party favors.”
“And there’re more in the truck.” Rusty Quick hiked a thumb at the giant red pickup parked behind them. “Our motto is ‘be prepared.’ That and, ‘It’s not nice to fool with Mother Earth.’”
I was so happy to see them—and maybe a little punchy, too, from lack of sleep—that I forgot my worries about bad things happening to the people choosing to fight for me. They might not have been any older than 20 or 21, but they’d been invaluable in my fight with Groundswell, and I knew they’d be helpful again.
“How’s Corinne?” I asked, referring to Roy’s mother. “How’s Late Jim’s?” That was the diner she ran in Rough Run, West Virginia.
“Both are great, as always,” said Roy. “Mom sends her regards, of course. She wanted to come, but she had to stay and take care of my little brother.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” I said. “This could be a hell of a fight. Duke told you we’re going up against the federal government, didn’t he?”
“Even better,” said Rusty. “Bring ‘em on.”
“Did he tell you they’ve taken over some fully-powered Landkind?” I asked. “It’ll be a dangerous showdown, to say the least.”
&nb
sp; “Dangerous for them, you mean.” Roy laughed.
“I agree with my man, here,” said Rusty. “We’re West Virginians. Those ass-clowns won’t know what hit ‘em.”
Just then, Briar cleared his throat loudly. “It’s about that time,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Everyone parted to make a path for him to the door, except me. I waited as he approached, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Good luck,” I told him.
His gaze locked with mine, sending shivers up my spine. Without a word, he took me by the shoulders and pulled me close.
And then, right there in front of everyone, he gave me a long and loving kiss.
I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of his lips crushed against mine, drinking it in. If things went wrong, I knew, this could be the last kiss we ever shared. It could be the last time we held each other.
Somehow, that made it all the sweeter and more intense. It felt to me as if we were alone together in time and space, with no one else watching or sharing the moment.
I didn’t want it to end. My love for him burned like a flame inside me, surging and twisting. I was grateful for every moment I’d spent with him, and I longed for millions more.
“Gaia,” he whispered as he pulled away from me. “I have to go. It’s six. I have to evacuate and cordon off the area.”
“Right.” I lingered there for just a moment, afraid to break the spell...afraid, yes, of facing what was to come. Then, slowly, I let go and stepped back. “Stay in touch,” I said. “Give us the signal to take our positions.”
“You know I will.” He unhooked the radio from his belt and handed it to me. “I’ll call from the car.”
“Okay.”
He turned then and whipped open the door. “Let’s do this thing.” He stepped outside, then ducked back in with one last thing to tell us all. “Any trouble, don’t hesitate to call.”
“We shall indeed call as needs must, good constable,” said Duke. “Asking only in return that you do the same, as we all face this challenge together.”
Earthbreaker Page 12
