The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller

by J. E. Hopkins

  To mark his grief, Still Water, like his father, had chopped his hair so that it hung above his shoulders and had cut a diagonal slice the length of his small finger on each side of his chest. The blood from the cuts traced a wet, sticky web across his chest and down his belly. It felt hot when it oozed from the stinging gashes, but quickly cooled in the morning air. He would keep his hair short for the year he remained in mourning. The scars that would form on his chest would always remind him of his mother’s love.

  Father Sun cast a warm glow over the now sacred ground and the whisper of water against stone was the only sound. His mother’s spirit would linger with her body, but eventually move on to the camp of the dead. He would return to the site next spring and cover the bones that had fallen to the ground with stones.

  The band turned for the hour-long walk back to their camp. The remainder of the day would be spent telling the deeds of those who died. The chief had called a council meeting for that evening to decide how the band would respond to the attack, but Still Water believed there was little they could do. They were too few and the Blackfeet too numerous in the lands to the north.

  He and his father were the last to turn away from the burial ground and had walked in silence for several minutes when his father spoke. “You have behaved as a man, as one who has the wisdom and strength to become a Medicine Father. Soon we will leave for our winter hunting lands, but there is time yet for your quest. We will fast today and take a sweat bath to purify ourselves. I will offer you guidance during the sweat. When the bath is finished, you will leave and seek your vision.

  2015

  33

  Toledo, Ohio

  Akina’s call was one of those rare events that John would never forget, no matter how much he wished he could. Where he was—Dell’s Diner, lots of chrome and bright blue counter seats, north of Toledo. Who he was with—Stony, purple steaks of hair and amethyst nose stud; Ron Hammer, flirting with Stony. Smells—burgers cooking on the diner grill. What they were doing—making a third pass through the list of Robert Wells’ known associates before driving to Detroit for a flight to Washington.

  “Thank God you answered,” Akina said. “Are Stony and Ron with you?” She sounded frantic and scared.

  “They’re right here, why? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “The secret service intercepted another message from Wells.”

  “Yeah?”

  What could the message possibly say that would make her so upset?

  “We think GT used T-Plague magic to destroy Detroit. That’s why I was so relieved when you answered the phone. Toledo is so close and we don’t yet know the area of the destruction.”

  “Slow down, Akina. What do you mean destroy? A bomb?”

  Stony and Ron had been engrossed in a whispered conversation. They stopped and stared at John. He shook his head and mimed “bad.”

  “Not a bomb,” Akina said. “First responders are reporting that it’s like the city was never there. No roads, no—” Her voice caught. “No people.”

  “Hang on,” John said. He stood, threw some bills on the counter, and started for the door with Stony and Hammer following in his wake. “We’re less than an hour away, heading there now. Send me the email. I’ll call when we see what’s going on.”

  “John, Wait!”

  He pushed through the door. “What?”

  “You’re never going to get close by car. The whole place is shut down and the Army is moving in. They have a helicopter standing by. Is there a place where it can land and pick you up?”

  They’d stopped for lunch on their way to Detroit for a flight back to Washington. Dell’s Diner, part of an I-75 truck stop twenty miles north of Toledo, sat like an island in a sea of soybeans and corn. He gave Akina the freeway exit number. “Tell them to land in the field west of the truck stop. We’re in a red Ford rental.”

  The MH-6 Little Bird helicopter was piloted by a thirty-something Major Jack Andrews, who picked up the three agents fifteen minutes after John ended his call with Akina.

  As they strapped into the narrow bench seat, Andrews turned around and handed them ear plugs. “I’ll wait until we’re on the ground to tell you what little we know.”

  They followed the path of I-75 as it ran northeast toward Detroit.

  John’s mind insisted that they were headed into a blast zone, where some sort of large explosion had taken place. He didn’t have a frame of reference for “disappeared.”

  Will we be able to tell when we’ve crossed into the affected area?

  He got his first hint fifteen minutes later. Highway patrol cars blocked the north-bound interstate lanes and cars were being turned around. There was no south-bound traffic, other than the cars that had been turned back.

  Two minutes of flying time later, the interstate ended as abruptly as if a giant had cut it with a pair of scissors. One second, they were flying above the concrete path, then there was nothing under them but rich green grass and rolling hills. The chopper circled and dropped down to a hundred feet. Even this close to the ground the demarcation between before and after was stark. Before: light green farmland, carved up by I-75 and a tracery of local roads. After: dark green grass as tall as the belly of a horse and not so much as a game trail.

  Andrews climbed to five hundred feet, continuing to circle. From here, John could see that the break followed a large arc, disappearing into the distance on both sides. Andrews brought them around and pushed the cyclic control forward, speeding into the heart of the unknown.

  They landed on the banks of a river less than five minutes later. John counted a half-dozen other military copters in the air around them as they descended. He got out, squinted in the mid-afternoon glare, and slipped on his sunglasses.

  Major Andrews came around the chopper and the three agents collected around him. “We’re standing near what used to be the main bridge over the Detroit River that connected the city to Windsor, Ontario.” He nodded across the slow moving stream.

  They were standing in a large clearing. A dense forest ran up to the banks of the river on the other side. “Windsor’s gone too?” John asked. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Neither did we until we came looking. Apparently both governments started getting phone calls reporting the change, but it took a little while before anyone would believe the callers.”

  “So…so, how much area are we talking about?” Stony asked. Her face was pale as the white polo shirt she was wearing. “How many people?”

  “I don’t know the number of people,” Andrews said, “but it’s like someone drew a circle ten miles out from here and deleted everything. Everyone.”

  He stared at John. “Do you know what happened here? They won’t tell us anything and have forbidden us to talk about what we see. I’m not even allowed to go back to my base. I’m to fly you guys back to your pickup point and come back here.”

  “You should follow your orders, Major.” John’s voice was sympathetic, but uncompromising. “This is way above your pay grade and the last thing you want is to get your name on a list of security risks. That clear enough for you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know people who grew up here,” Hammer said. “Used to drive up from Cincinnati and spend a lot of time with them, hunting and fishing. This was a huge city, maybe a hundred and fifty square miles, not counting Canada. I have friends who worked here.” The secret service agent’s color was no better than Stony’s.

  We’re all in shock. How could we not be?

  Stony took her phone from her pocket. She tapped the screen a few times and looked up. “I was going to Google how many people live—lived—here. No cell service.”

  “Ten miles to the nearest tower,” Major Andrews said. “Only coms are military.”

  The field they were standing in was a rough circle that covered maybe ten acres. All John could see beyond that were mature trees. The flight in had shown the same pattern: dense forest broken only by occasional clearings.


  Old growth forest, before it got old. This place hasn’t been erased, it’s been sent back in time. But there’ve been Indians around here for ages and trappers since the seventeen hundreds. Where are they?

  Stony seemed to be on the same wavelength. “The army hasn’t seen a single person? Not one?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, ma’am,” Andrews said. “But they’re not telling us any more than they have to.”

  Stony walked away from the group, shoulders bent and shaking with sobs.

  “Give us a few minutes, Major,” John said. He walked to the river’s edge and sat on a boulder, staring into the slow-moving green water. The sun was warm on his back and the air thick with the buzz of grasshoppers. The air had a crystalline clarity that he’d only experienced at the tops of mountains. It carried the scent of the nearby river but also something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Then it struck him. The air smelled like it did after a heavy thunderstorm—fresh, clean, and rich with life.

  Just not human life.

  The water’s placid surface swirled in lazy eddies, mesmerizing and inviting. He felt as if he was looking into the past, at times and events long forgotten. A mist formed above the water a few feet from shore, pirouetting like a water spout, then collapsing and coalescing into shapes. Shapes that became people, people that he recognized. His father and mother, when he was eleven or twelve. His friend Molly Ann Ross who Natalie had reminded him of.

  Molly, just before she died, lying in her hospital bed, her back to him. She turned, stared at him, and spoke in his mind. “It’s okay to remember now.” Her voice drifted away as the shapes dissolved into the mist and lifted into the intense blue sky.

  He did remember. He’d been in Transition when he visited Molly in the hospital and realized that she wasn’t going to get better. As soon as he got back from the visit, he’d walked to a small cemetery that was a couple of blocks from their Montana home. His memories carried the smell of the damp, freshly cut grass on which he’d sat, the sound of traffic in the nearby street. He’d settled behind a large monument to one of Missoula’s founders and used Transition magic to try to save his friend.

  He’d said the last verse of the ritual when a voice stormed into his mind.

  HER TIME IS PAST. THAT CANNOT BE CHANGED. YOUR TIME LIES AHEAD. YOUR TRANSITION AND THAT OF ANOTHER MAY ONE DAY SAVE ALL CHILDREN.

  He’d awakened at the foot of the monument from a deep sleep, to the sound of his mother calling frantically for him from the cemetery gate. He’d had no memory of using Transition and had never thought of it again.

  Until now.

  I should have died. I used magic that wasn't unique and I should have died.

  “John?” Ron Hammer called to him from the helicopter. “The Major says he needs to get us back. The army wants him back on task.”

  John felt a convulsive shiver run down his spine. He shook it off and stood.

  I need to sort this out, but I can’t right now. I gotta get us past the emotional devastation of this tragedy and back onto the investigation. Wells will strike again and we have no clue where he is.

  He turned and tramped toward the helicopter. Stony and Hammer were already on board.

  A thought popped into his mind. The voice he’d heard during his recent trip to the Adams Memorial at Rock Creek had said that his lavender eyes would be restored.

  He approached the MH-6 from the rear so that he couldn’t be seen, pulled his sunglasses down, and checked his reflection in the mirrored surface of a steel panel.

  Lavender.

  Stunned, he replaced his sunglasses. Any residual doubts about what he’d been experiencing were utterly destroyed by the change in his eyes.

  He recalled more of what the Rock Creek voice had said. “Transition’s corruption can be defeated by two acting as one. One, Tareef Kahn, a child whose lavender eyes persist. The other, a child grown with Transition forestalled.”

  Have I been granted some sort of magic do-over to combat T-Plague? Magic that I need to complete with Tareef?

  He felt the truth in his soul and with it came a breathtaking sense of peace and well-being.

  34

  Murree, Pakistan

  AC slowed and turned the truck off the road and into the dense pine forest that lined the side of the road outside Murree. Twilight became night under the shelter of the trees. The old Ford bounced through the woods until the road to Islamabad was no longer visible behind them. He shut off the engine. “We’ll sleep here tonight and go on to Islamabad tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Tareef said. He opened the passenger door and jumped out. “I’ll get the food and water.” The food that AC’s mother had packed was in a box in the back of the truck. After eating, they’d move the box to the cab to keep it away from animals and make a sleeping pallet on the truck’s bed.

  It had taken Tareef most of a day to hike down the mountains to AC’s farm. His friend’s father had agreed to let AC drive Tareef to Islamabad but had insisted that they not travel during the night. “To travel the roads at night is to invite being captured for ransom,” he’d said. He’d explained that they were just as likely to be taken prisoner by the Pakistani military as by bandits.

  Tareef and AC left the following morning, traveling from sun up to sun down, stopping only when nature demanded.

  They decided to eat sitting on the forest floor, so they could watch the stars appear in the small windows of sky framed by the tops of the tall pines. Dinner was the same as lunch—thin slices of roasted lamb with pieces of crusty bread that was made in the farm’s clay oven.

  “Do you ever dream that you’re going to be late without knowing what you will be late for?” Tareef asked.

  AC laughed. “Sure, except I’m always late because I didn’t get all my chores done.”

  “I feel like I’m standing in a thirsty desert after a summer storm. The last drops of water are soaking into the ground and I must find the American before they vanish.”

  “And you don’t know why you need to find him?”

  “No. But I know in my heart that I must, or the world will end.”

  AC didn’t say anything for several moments. “We’re an hour away from Islamabad. I’ll get you there early tomorrow.”

  Tareef punched AC in the arm. “I know, thank you. The only way I could’ve gotten to the city sooner was if I’d flown like the Falcons that soar in our mountains.”

  But once I’m in the city, I still must find the American.

  35

  Youngstown, Ohio

  “Gas n Go station in five miles,” Robert Lee said.

  He’d driven from Blissfield, Michigan to the Cleveland airport, where he’d done his hot-wire trick, ditching the Mustang for a rust-brown Camaro. The car had no working air conditioning and stank like something had crawled inside and died.

  GT lay on the back seat of the car, where he’d been all day. He got dizzy and felt like he was going to vomit whenever he sat up. The hot wind blowing through the open windows made him wonder what it would be like to drive through Death Valley.

  They were about an hour south of Cleveland on Ohio 21, following a route that GT had plotted using a Sharpie and a Rand McNally road atlas that Asshole bought in a gas station outside Blissfield. At Asshole’s insistence, GT had avoided highways and toll roads and marked a meandering path south before turning east.

  “I gotta take a dump,” Robert Lee said. “When I finish my business, I’ll get some gas, and drive for another hour before I stop for the night. Then we can get caught up on the news from Michigan.”

  “I don’t want to hear about Michigan,” GT said.

  The Camaro’s radio was busted, just like the aircon, and Asshole’s frustration at the lack of news had grown with each passing mile.

  Robert Lee ignored him. “How far from here?”

  They were going to Mount Vernon, about twenty miles outside the District of Columbia.

  GT rolled over onto his side, reached down,
and picked the atlas up from the floor. He noticed a crumpled Zero candy bar wrapper tucked under the driver’s seat.

  He flipped onto his back and looked through the pages for Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and finally Virginia, adding up a string of numbers. “About five hundred miles.”

  “After you’ve taken care of Washington, we’re going to take a canoe trip up the Potomac and see the sights.” He sounded excited, like he couldn’t wait. “We’ll do it at sunrise, so we can see the land like the first Americans.”

  “You mean Indians?” GT asked.

  Robert Lee reached over the seat and swung at GT, missed. “Before this is over I’m going to break your habit of being a smart mouth.”

  GT had thought he was beyond caring, but hearing Asshole get excited about killing people pissed him off. Mostly it made the feeling that he was going to vomit worse. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind.

  “Are you going to make me go into the john with you? I don’t want to watch you take a shit.”

  Robert Lee had kept GT near his side since Toledo. He wouldn’t leave him alone in the car because he was afraid that someone might see him cuffed to the steering wheel and call the police.

  “Let me hang around in the store while you go.”

  Robert Lee laughed. “Why the fuck would I do that? So you could take off?”

  The image of the candy wrapper on the floor floated into GT’s mind. He loved Zero candy bars. Carmel covered in white fudge. Hard to find. The inside of the wrapper was white.

  Perfect for a message.

  GT rolled onto his stomach, bending his legs and resting his bare feet on the ledge of the open rear window. His left arm was pressed against the back of the seat; his right dangled over the edge. He’d been restless and swapping positions all day; Asshole didn’t even look back.