From her reconnaissance, Lucy remembered that the fences wrapped all the way around the Macadam side of the building, and, in a flash, passed that information to Tonantzin. The only place the fences did not reach was the back side of the building, toward the rail tracks. The dirt had too steep an incline there for any protection to be able to stand.
Then, deep inside herself, Lucy realized it didn’t matter where the fences were, and whether anyone could access the building. The thing they had planned and hoped for? It was already working without the extra contingency plans the witches had set in place.
Lucy no longer needed Raquel or Moss or any of the other members of Arrow and Crescent to get close enough to the building to touch it and form a link on the astral plane.
Lucy could feel everything, and Tonantzin with her. The building pulsed on the astral, every molecule of concrete, steel, and glass. Every computer cable and water pipe. The syrupy taste of coolant from the building’s air-conditioning sweetened the tip of her tongue.
This, then, was the gift hidden inside the Alchemist’s cursed poison, the thing she hadn’t sensed before. His poisoned magic had changed her psychometry, seeking to use it for his own ends, but he had been vanquished, leaving her with a power so great it was unheard of. Lucy no longer had to touch a thing to know its secret history and purpose.
Once Lucy touched the æthers, she touched everything on earth. All she had to do was think of an object and she knew it. All she had to do was reach, ever so slightly, and the information was there.
Body and spirit were one.
The Goddess laughed and shoved Lucy’s consciousness back out of the way.
36
Jack
A line of cops in riot gear streamed through the glass doors of the tan building. They looked like robocops or something. How could the people around him face this shit down, over and over again, with nothing but their soft bodies and bandanas? He’d never thought of it before. Never been confronted with the ball-shrinking reality of it. A few of the people around him had donned skater helmets, but most of the gathering crowd? Their bare heads shone in the summer sun.
There was no shade in the street. The only trees were some maples growing in a dirt area next to the black barricade fences that ran down the edge of the long driveway, past the guard shack, to where the back side of the building began.
The sun was punishing, and standing this close, arms linked to people on either side, Jack felt grateful for the inner T-shirt soaking up some of the sweat that would otherwise be pouring down his back into his jeans. In contrast to the sweat, his mouth felt desert dry, and his stomach cramped with nerves. Jack tried to work some moisture into his mouth and keep his breathing slow and even, the way Olivia tried to teach him during that one, disastrous run.
His attention was split between the feathered dancers, the cops, the people that surrounded him…and the fact that inside his head he still searched for Lugh.
He was also trying to figure out where Lucy was. His emotions ratcheted between complete certainty that she was a badass and capable of anything, and fear that everything would go terribly wrong, and that she would be at the center of it all when it blew.
“You okay?” Marta asked. She was already masked up, black bandana covering the lower half of her elfin face.
“I don’t know.” That was the simple truth. “But…”
The dancers finished, and one of the dancers blew a conch shell, its blast carrying over their heads. She turned one direction, then another, sounding a blast in each compass direction. Jack felt the sound inside his bones.
All of his fear, his uncertainty—even his anger—cleared on the fourth and final blast.
And then the tall man was in front of him again. Jack stood a little taller in his boots, trying to match the man’s proud stance. In his right arm, long as a spear, the man held a wooden staff, a black flag affixed to the top.
“But the battle is coming,” the man said. “Are you ready?”
Lugh? Jack thought.
The man simply stared, blue eyes bright as the summer sky above his green bandana.
Marta, eyes narrowed, looked from Jack to the man, and back again.
“I’m ready,” she said. “You ready, Jack?”
Jack cleared his throat, planted his boots, and stood a little taller, trying to match the man’s proud stance. This was the test, then. To hold his ground as nothing more than a geek. A coder. A man. Someone trying to do what was right.
“I’m ready,” Jack replied.
The man whirled, black banner flying, and Jack, computer geek, novice hacker, and coder extraordinaire, felt the world tilt on its axis.
And then the shouting began.
37
Lucy
The Goddess pondered, tasting the concrete, the tar, the river, and the sun combusting high in the sky. She tasted the power of the witches gathered on the roof. She tasted the power of the people down below.
She saw the pattern of connection that wound from Lucy’s heart and hands, twining toward the other witches, and the building, and across the country, far beyond. A web of humanity and magic.
Tonantzin tasted the twisting, winding fear and anger of the men and women in their strange, padded suits. She knew the serpent who had possessed them, and she knew that being was her foe.
The Goddess threw back Lucy’s head, dark hair shining in the sun, and laughed. Having a physical body was a deeply satisfying thing.
From deep within her, Lucy heard that laughter. It cracked her consciousness. She heard the echo of Brenda’s voice from the night before. Felt the words of the sacred contract that had been spoken.
Lucy stretched and pushed, as hard as she could, forcing her way up toward the light of the blazing August sun.
This body is mine, she thought. I share it with you, gladly. But we shall fight today, together. This is my fight.
::Would you challenge my power?:: Tonantzin’s voice felt fierce, as sharp as the thorn on a rose.
No. But I demand the right to share what is mine by birth. I demand full consciousness, for both of us, here, and now, above and below. In this space and this time.
Lucy felt the Goddess resist, but held her own. Then Lucy felt the change. A grudging acknowledgement that Tonantzin would honor the witch’s power.
The Goddess nodded.
“May it be so.” The words of power were spoken, and Lucy was not sure if they came from her or Tonantzin.
She turned to the five witches, who stood waiting. Ready for battle.
“It is time.”
38
Jack
The dancers moved to the rear of the crowd. Jack couldn’t see them anymore, but as the shouting began, their drums and rattles took up a beat that shook the air.
He couldn’t tell what was being shouted, or who was shouting, but the air felt dense, as if competing gases swirled inside a bottle, getting ready to explode.
The man with the banner ran through the crowd, banner whipping through the air, stirring the people to action.
Marta tugged at their linked elbows, tightening up the space between them. The person to Jack’s right did the same. They formed a shield wall with their bodies. It felt familiar somehow, as if his body held the memory of exactly this formation, even though that was impossible. Jack’s heart beat faster. He tilted his head toward his shoulder, wiping sweat onto his Superman shirt.
Now that he was locked into formation, Jack felt the sudden urge to run. To crash through the crowd to the streets beyond. To run toward the safety of the park, or the streetcar.
To get out.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” he muttered. He wasn’t built for this. He was just a nerdy coder, he should’ve stayed with Olivia and all the rest. He should have…
He remembered the spear at his back. The blue eyes boring into him. He heard a voice echo on the edges of his mind. Carried on the shouting voices and drum beats.
::It is time you fed the warrior wh
at he requires.::
What is that? Jack thought. The line moved inch by inch, booted step by step. Moving forward. Toward the building. Toward the line of riot cops.
And then all hell broke loose.
39
Lucy
Lucy felt it then, all the way to her bones. The power of the Goddess. The power of the city. The power of the brujas, far flung, working their magic. A mighty web of witchcraft tingled in her hands. A stream of symbols and numbers flowed across the buildings, linking earth to sky in some cosmic cipher. The code had been unleashed.
She flexed her fingers and felt the web expand and contract. She felt her sisters and brothers at the base of the ICE building beneath her. She felt the mighty river at her back, and the trees and cars and people that surrounded her. She felt the dormant volcanoes that ringed the city.
Most of all, she felt the curse that had become a gift. She had the ability to sense, to taste, to feel. Lucy had the ability to see.
And oh, what a vision it was. In city after city, the witches gathered. In city after city, they awaited her decree.
And Tonantzin moved among them all. The ancient power was free.
Lucy drew her fingers toward her palms.
The earth beneath the ICE building began to shake.
Tonantzin walked between the worlds.
As Lucy’s body stood upon the rooftop wall, the Goddess strode free, stretching deep into the bones of earth, reaching high up into the æthers. East to West, North to South, each time her bare feet struck, the earth trembled. People shouted in panic and in awe.
::My daughter! Use your powers! Do what must be done!::
The voice inside her head was loud. The shouting of the people was louder.
Lucy felt her siblings at her back, and her other brothers and sisters down below. She felt the witches and the web.
And the power her ancestors had gifted her, that lived inside her body and her mind? The power that the Alchemist had tried to twist to his own ends?
It roared. Tingling, crackling, snapping like a fire, the psychometry lit her hands in a great, incandescent blaze.
Lucy lifted her arms in the air. She felt the connection from body to building, to witches, to la gente. Across the country, gathering to gathering, she knew what must be done.
This system must be activated. That structure must be cracked. This other building must fall. Water and fire, earth and air, must work their will. Every facet of the web had a slightly different purpose, but through the Goddess, and the brujas, and her magic, Lucy felt, and saw, and tasted them all.
She flexed her fingers once. Twice. Three times.
Then, clapping her hands, she laughed. Tonantzin laughed.
From the blue sky, lightning flashed. People screamed. Down below, she saw a banner burst with fire.
She clapped again.
Molecule by molecule, atom by atom, the building tore itself to pieces….
And began to fall.
40
Jack
“What’s happening?” Marta called. For the first time, Jack heard fear in her voice.
“Earthquake?” Jack said the word, but he didn’t think that was the truth.
He wrenched his head around, to the top of the condo building behind him. Lucy stood on a ledge on the top of the building, hair whipping in the wind, hands outstretched, clenching and unclenching her fists. She looked glorious. Terrifying.
He tasted ozone in the air, as if an electrical storm was building, despite the clear blue sky.
Jack could just make out two other witches behind Lucy, still standing on the roof, reaching for her, trying to draw her back to safer ground.
“Jack!” Marta screamed. “The cops!”
Bam bam bam bam bam! His body jerked. Sharpness. Impact. Pain bloomed on his side. Bullets? He tasted capsaicin. His eyes burned. Jack hunched over his torso. Searing pain. The smell of pepper spray. Choking. Coughing. The earth rumbling. People falling. Holding tight. Holding tight.
What had he been shot with?
A waving black banner, smoking, catching fire.
Bam bam bam bam! His body jerked again from the projectiles. Breath stole from his lungs. He scrabbled backwards, trying to hold the line.
“Jack!”
Trying to hold on to Marta and the others. Trying not to crash into the people behind him as the line of riot cops moved forward, shields up, batons out, and, staring at him like one singular dark eye, the barrel of a gun. Jack couldn’t see who held it. It pointed at him from between two shields, two cops in riot gear. The shooter was protected.
Jack was not. All he had was a stupid Superman T-shirt, bruised ribs, and aching lungs.
And Jack was not afraid. Groaning, he stood tall again, and began to push. His elbows dragged on the line. Ribs screaming, he shoved his body forward, toward the cops with their shielded faces and bodies covered in carapaces of armor.
Toward the dark Cyclops eyes of the rifles.
“Nooooo!!!” The word sprung from his lips with a mighty roar. “You are wrong! And you. Must. Pay!”
The warrior was the sacrifice. The warrior was the priest who laid the sacrifice on the altar.
The warrior must do everything in his power. Even if the warrior must die. Every story said so. Jack felt it now. He knew it to be true.
“Jack!” Arms tugged him backward. He strained against them. Moving forward.
“Stop shooting, you bastards! Stop shooting!” Whose voice was that? Jack didn’t know.
From the corner of his eye, the burning banner. A flash of lightning.
The pounding sound of drums.
And then, behind the line of cops, the glass doors of the building wavered. The blacktop bucked and rumbled. And, as if a giant began to squeeze two crushing arms, piece by piece, the ICE building trembled itself apart.
41
Lucy
Woman and Goddess. Goddess and woman. Lucy held the threads of magic in her hands, barely believing that it was actually working.
The code flew across the æthers. The witchcraft followed, twinning and twining, braiding, flowing outward in a pattern whose source she touched with her hands. A pattern designed to sow discord. To smash the order of oppression.
To usher in a world where freedom was a sweet possibility that dripped like honey from the comb.
The buildings themselves, all over the country, rejected the people working there. Some were driven out with noxious smells. In others, sprinkler systems drenched offices in a deluge that shorted out the computers. Computers that had blared out loops of crying children and women’s screams.
“Lucy!” Familiar voices behind her. Hands tugging at her sweat-slicked arms. “You need to get down! They’re shooting!”
As if Lucy didn’t know that. As if she hadn’t felt the hard pepper balls hitting Moss and Jack. As if she hadn’t felt Raquel and Tobias scramble away from the building when it began its mighty disintegration. She felt them run as great hunks of concrete flew. As the roof shook itself apart. As panicked shrieking rose from behind once solid walls.
The gates of the cages were opening. Everywhere. Parents grabbed children, young grabbed old, and together, they made a pattern of movement and light, of blood and breath, all twisting, twining, moving, all flowing toward freedom.
Lucy turned her head, looking in her friends’ faces, creased with concern and covered in dirt. She looked back at the maelstrom. Dust ballooned out from the building, carried by the river winds. Lucy ran a hand across her own face, feeling grit mixed in with the sweat.
She allowed Brenda and Selene to tug her down from the ledge. She turned. The other brujas rocked and chanted around the offering bowls. Power crackled from Izel in her chair, and her apprentices fed that power outward. Toward Tonantzin. Tonantzin, who still walked between the worlds and strode the earth. Tonantzin, whose hands were everywhere. Tonantzin, La Madre, protector of her children.
Tonantzin, still tethered to Lucy’s consciousness by the
magic that had helped to bind her there.
“Lucy, you have to come back to us.” That was Selene speaking. Moon-pale face and long black hair. “I can feel you in there, but we need you back all the way. It’s only a matter of time before the cops come up here.”
“The magic…it’s too strong.” Lucy couldn’t let it go. It wouldn’t let her go. The Goddess was still walking….
Brenda stepped forward. “I set the spell to cede her consciousness. I’ll bring her back. Go check on Izel! She’s even further gone right now. We have got to get off this rooftop and she’s going to need help.”
Then Brenda’s hands were on top of Lucy’s head.
“Your name is Lucy. You are a witch, and a priestess. You hold magic in your heart and hands.”
A gentle touch as warm palms touched her eyelids, and slowly moved down her dirty face.
“Lucy, may you see with your eyes. Smell with your nose.”
Lucy inhaled, smelling Brenda’s tuberose oil mixed with dust and heat, river and tar.
“Speak with your lips. Feel with your heart, touch with your hands.”
Touch by touch, word by word, breath by breath, Lucy felt herself, her soul, fill up her body. She felt her essence kindle itself deep inside her core. She felt stronger. More certain. More real.
She had walked with a Goddess inside her. Together, they had triumphed. And Lucy had survived.
“And may your feet walk the sacred path, in beauty and service. Blessed be,” Brenda concluded.
Lucy blinked and coughed, then ran her hands down her ribs and patted her thighs. Testing her edges. Yes. She was present. The power that was Tonantzin had returned to the minds and hearts of the people, where the work would continue, moving forward, until more of the mess the country was in could be cleaned up.
By Sun Page 15
