Downpour

THIRTY-FOUR

Soren Faith put his hand on Willow’s shoulder as if he were keeping her in touch with the floor when she might have levitated out the broken window after Shea. He squeezed his eyes shut against the flaring lights off the lake for a moment and then blinked until he could see her more clearly. “I don’t know what’s going on here. In a year I’ll probably have convinced myself I never saw or heard any of this—or I hope to God I do—but right now we are going to pursue and apprehend a killer in the perfectly normal way.” He glared at Willow and then at me. “And you all are going to sit tight and wait until we do and not go running around in the dark . . . doing whatever you’re doing. And that means all of you,” he added, shouting at the rest.

Then he let go of Willow and grabbed onto Ridenour’s arm. “You and me, Ridenour. Now!”

The ranger trembled and resisted Faith’s tugging. “No, no . . . I can’t.” His face was streaked with tears and he hunched as if broken.

“You’re going to have to. This is your territory, Ridenour, and you’re the senior officer. You’re coming with me if I have to drag you. And besides, that bastard’s got my handcuffs.” Faith put his hand under Ridenour’s armpit and hoisted him to his feet, forcing the other man toward the door until his legs started to work on their own.

Costigan cackled and muttered, dancing side to side where he stood and casting weird, energy-tailed gestures at Jewel Leung, who was cowering in her seat, gasping and clutching her chest. Geoff groped for an oxygen cylinder and mask under her chair, but he seemed afraid to take his other hand off her and couldn’t quite reach it.

Faith paused in frog-marching Ridenour to shout at the old man, “Cut that out!”

Costigan spat at him. Faith rammed his free fist into Costigan’s belly, knocking the breathless bokor to the floor. “I’ll be back for you later, you damned lunatic.” He wiped the spittle off his face and shot a scowl at me. “Help Newman with his wife. Then stick this idiot somewhere he won’t scare anyone else. And you,” he added, pointing at Willow, “stop acting like a juvenile delinquent and don’t break into any more trucks!”

He grabbed Ridenour again, but the ranger now seemed to be all right on his own. The two men headed for the door. Faith cast one more appalled glance at the light and noise still rioting above the lake and shook his head, muttering, “I miss my damned dog.”

Quinton was closest to the Newmans, so he crouched down and dragged the oxygen from under the chair, handing it to Geoff. While Geoff helped his wife, I grabbed onto Willow’s elbow and pulled her with me toward Costigan. Quinton joined us in wrestling the writhing bag of bones and spite to his feet.

“I guess a punch in the stomach works pretty well,” Quinton said, patting his pockets. “Not as messy as a knife between the shoulder blades, either.”

I frowned at him, but Willow laughed. Obviously I was missing the joke.

Willow started to make a gesture over Costigan, but I stopped her. “There’s no telling what’s going to happen to magic right now. Better stick to the mechanical means of keeping him out of trouble.”

“Oh,” she murmured. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a wadded handkerchief that didn’t look like hers, and stuffed it into Costigan’s mouth.

Quinton found a roll of duct tape in his endless pockets and put a patch of it over the hanky before using most of the rest to bind up Costigan’s arms and hands so he wouldn’t make any more interesting gestures. For good measure, Willow removed his cross, but it crumbled away to a twisted handful of rust, bones, and thorns in her grip as soon as the chain was clear of his body.

She gave him a sly look. “Oh, you are a nasty little man,” she whispered. Costigan’s eyes widened with fear, and he squeaked through his gag as she waved one of the bones at him and sang in a low voice that slid and rattled on the spine like blues, “Black cat bone, black cat bone, think my woman done took my black cat bone. . . .” She snapped the bone in two and threw both parts into the fireplace. Costigan whimpered and slumped in our grip, shivering, his skin suddenly wrinkling with goose bumps in his undressed state. Willow glanced at me with overly bright, defiant eyes. “It wasn’t his,” she said.

The sound of the lake changed, the roar pitching upward and then booming while the room filled with searing whiteness. The house shook and waves battered the windows, flinging gallons of icy water into the building. Jewel made a panicky moan behind her oxygen mask while Geoff lifted her out of the chair and tried to rush her to the door.

“We’d better get that lake fixed soon,” Quinton yelled, “or there won’t be much left around here.”

“We need the anchor stone!” I yelled back over the noise. The hot light was fading a little, but it left normal vision stunned and dim. “Get the Newmans and Costigan out of here and into Geoff’s SUV. He can drive them someplace safe while we try for the anchor—”

“It’s here,” Willow said, her voice cutting through the roar of the lake’s power with silky ease. “I left it by the door.”

So I had felt the stone enter the room. Good to know I wasn’t imagining things, but we still had to figure out how to get the stone back in place.

Quinton and I helped Geoff move Jewel and her oxygen into the Mercedes. Then we hauled Costigan to the SUV as well and locked him in the cargo area at the back. He made no protest, but we didn’t trust him, even if he had started shivering violently. Geoff called him a mean old bastard, but he threw a blanket over the man anyhow.

Willow met us at the dock with the stone in her arms. The agitation of the water had died down a little, but the lake’s surface was still chopped into rough waves and icy spume that had coated the short dock in a thick layer of frost. Hard, sharp shards of snow stung our faces and hands as the wind cut into us, even through our coats. One of the boats had been rammed into the dock with such force that the bow had knitted into the nearest piling in a shredded mess of fiberglass and wood. The remaining boat was small but looked sound, if somewhat waterlogged, since it didn’t have any real cabin, just a partial enclosure and windshield over the steering wheel near the front.

“How are we going to do this?” I asked over the howling of the magic-fed storm.

“I’m driving,” Quinton replied, “while you look for the broken waveguide. It has to be near Barnes Point, since that’s where the stone was hauled up.”

I glanced in the direction of the hatchery building where I’d first met Ridenour. It looked a dreadful, cold distance away.

“It’ll be OK,” Quinton said, seeing my worried look. “This little boat is seriously overpowered, even with three people in it,” he added, reaching to pat the massive outboard engine and nearly slipping into the lake as his feet slid on the frozen dock. “Whoa! We’d better get to it.”

We climbed in, trying to keep our feet out of the chilly water in the bottom. Quinton struggled to get the frost-crusted engine started, but after a minute it roared and then settled into a throaty burbling.

Willow had put the stone down in the bottom of the boat where it glowed bright green and gold once it was in the water. Then she’d dug into a cabinet under the seats and found what looked like pairs of padded suspenders, which she handed out while Quinton was coaxing the engine. “Self-inflating life preservers,” she explained. “You pull the cord if you go in the water.”

I didn’t think we’d have enough time to do anything but drown in water that cold, but I didn’t say anything and struggled into the weirdlooking garment anyway. I’d never spent much time on boats, but I guessed Willow had since she had grown up near the lakes, and I’d take her word that even a powerful mage might need a little help if they fell in.

Quinton cast us off and then eased the boat out into the lake before opening the throttle and sending us slamming across the waves toward Barnes Point. We all huddled under the little shelter to avoid the worst of the storm and spray.

“Why is it so bad?” Quinton asked, looking at the lake that still shot light and streamers of energy into the sky, illuminating the boiling clouds overhead. “It’s as if the lake got pissed off. . . .”

I looked to the south. “I think I underestimated the ley weaver,” I replied, “or its connection to Shea. The power jumped up exactly when Shea broke the window. Can you see how Beauty is getting smaller and changing color? I think it’s pumping accumulated power back into the lake, either to help Shea or to create an overload that might kill all of the other mages.”

“Is re-laying the anchor actually going to help?” Quinton asked. “I mean . . . that’s a lot of energy. . . .”

Willow cut in. “No more potential than the lake has always had. The leylines always managed the storms in the past. They channeled the wrath of Storm King; they can manage this.”

“If we can repair them,” Quinton replied. “I’m not sure how we’re going to do that. Harper can find the broken line of the waveguide— at least I think so—but I don’t know how we’re going to find exactly the right place to put the anchor back down or make sure it goes into place.”

“I’ll sing.”

“What?” he asked, peering at her.

“Listen to the stone. I’ll sing that note and the lake will answer. When we are in harmony, we’ll have found the stone’s proper place.”

“How are we going to hear the lake singing in all this noise?”

Willow shrugged. “I don’t know. If we could send energy back to the . . . waveguide? It would sing louder, but all the energy flow is up right now. We need down.”

“I’ll have to push, then,” I said. “It won’t last long, so we’ll have to be close, and if we’re off, we’ll have to reposition and try again.”

Willow nodded, her uncovered hair straggling like ink around her face. She looked as chilled as I felt and I hoped we’d be in the right place soon.

As we neared Barnes Point, I crouched down on the seat beside the little boat’s side rail and let myself sink deep into the Grey, as close to the grid as I dared. I fell through chaos, the mist and color of the Grey roiling and slashing at me as I went deeper. Streaks of light and hard knots of ghost-stuff ripped through me, making it difficult to concentrate and look for the straight, sharp line that would mark the waveguide’s edge among the roaring cataracts of magic.

I could see the brighter, stronger lines of the dominant power flow below us, rippling in ever-changing shades of green sparked with gold, but it lay deep under the flooding wash of red and gold belched into the lake from the ley weaver’s dwindling construction. The closer we got, the more the tiny boat pitched and squirmed against the thrashing surface. I tried to grab onto something to keep myself in the boat that looked from within the Grey like a spiderweb cupped around a tiny green gem that was the anchor stone, but I was so thin in the normal world that my hand passed through the upright I tried to clutch for. I hoped I wouldn’t be thrown out and drowned, but I’d spotted the sharp razor-cut line of the waveguide—a weak emerald glow in the depths—and I couldn’t waste my concentration on anything else.

“There,” I tried to say, but my voice didn’t seem any more substantial than a ghost’s.

Then I felt a soft touch against my palm, a delicate brushing like butterfly wings, light but real. “I’ve got you, Harper,” Quinton’s voice whispered into my head. He’d never been able to touch me in the Grey before and I’d been able to hear him only as if from a great distance. But now, it was almost as if I felt him inside my own skin.

I pointed at the line. “There.” I felt the boat turning, rocking, as we moved closer. I kept pointing and giving directions as best I could until we were right over the line and Quinton brought the boat to a halt. Deep below the surface, the wild stream of the leyline rushed and roared, drowning all other sounds in the Grey. I came back up, through the red battering and clatter of Beauty bleeding into the lake and away from the boiling mist, back into snow that had turned to sleet from angry, flashing clouds that seemed to scream and tear themselves apart over and over.

Quinton tightened his grip on my hand and hauled me closer to him. I felt bruised from my brush through the fierce energy the ley weaver was pouring back into the lake. “It’s right below us,” I said. I wasn’t sure my voice was loud enough to hear, but they both nodded.

Willow picked up the anchor stone. “We need to find the proper place for this.”

“Wait a minute. Harper needs to rest.”

“We can’t wait! The storm won’t let up until we’re done, and I can barely feel my fingers and toes now. I won’t be able to sing for very long. We have to do it now.”

Quinton would have objected, but I pulled away from him and nodded, catching my breath. “We can’t wait. We have to try now.”

Willow held up the stone near her ear. “I can barely hear it.”

I flicked a passing bolt of blue energy toward the stone. It felt ridiculously heavy and sluggish, not at all as it had when I’d pushed on the energy to stun Jin or dissipate the ghosts in Tragedy Graveyard.

The stone rang, sending ripples into the Grey. Willow sang back.

A distant note answered from the lake and the surface of the water broke into hard waves that rushed at our little boat, driven by a surge of red energy from Beauty.

“Down there,” Willow said, pointing west toward Fairholm.

Quinton let go of me to maneuver the boat farther down the lake until we reached the spot Willow liked. The boat pitched violently, like a dog shaking off water, and Quinton pulled me in under the canopy, nearer to the wheel. Willow locked one elbow around the nearest railing and sang at the stone again, having difficulty staying on pitch as the cold dug in its claws. I pushed as hard as I could, shoving the loose energy at the surface down to the waveguide.

The water exploded upward with a blast of sound, knocking the boat into the air and shooting toward the clouds with a shout as if from a giant throat.

Willow shrieked as she tumbled overboard, the anchor stone flipping through the rain and reflecting flashes of lightning from the storm. Something in the clouds answered, screaming and diving toward us. Quinton and I sprawled in the sloshing cockpit and then struggled to the rail, calling out and looking for the black shape of Willow’s flapping dress.

Willow hit the water several feet away. She’d pulled the cord on the life preserver, but her movements were weak and we could see the anchor stone sinking into the water, gleaming. We had no way to know if it was heading in the right direction or not.

“Oh gods, no,” I muttered.

The screaming thing from the clouds ripped its way loose and dove toward Willow. The long flashing shape, resembling a slender fish with a monstrous, tooth-filled snout, let out a screech, and lightning leapt from its mouth, curling along the shredded bottom of the clouds. A second scream came in reply and another lightning fish tore from the storm.

Willow, floating in the ice-cold water, let her head loll back, using the last of her breath to sing something that rose in pink and green smoke toward the lightning fish. The last wisp of color slipped from her and spun upward.

Quinton restarted the swamped engine and spun the boat toward Willow.

Willow’s song brushed the first lightning fish and it writhed around, coiling and leaping in the storm-slashed sky before it dove straight down, toward her, toward us, toward our tiny, fragile boat....

The lightning fish plunged into the water, massive as a bus. The wave it sent up shoved Willow toward the boat and the boat toward the shore. Quinton fought to keep the boat in a safe line and turned back to come around without hitting Willow.

“There has to be a life ring or something in the lazarette!” he yelled at me.

“In what?”

“The seat locker. Look under the seat!”

I slid back into the rear, scrambling to get the seats up and look in the compartments under them. I found a life ring on a line and held it up for Quinton to see. He nodded and steered the boat in a circle around Willow. Overhead, the second dragon-thing screamed lightning into the sky and thrashed the air with its tail, chasing the shadow of its nemesis thrown on the surface of the water by the gruesome light of the lake’s corrupted power.

I threw the ring at Willow and the movement of the boat brought it slowly around to her, but she barely moved and it slid past her.

“She’s too cold,” I shouted back to Quinton. “She’ll pass out in a minute! ”

I tore off my coat and threaded the stupid red scarf under the straps of my life preserver. Then I dove into the water toward Willow.

Below, the first lightning fish grabbed the anchor stone in its mouth and flipped around, shooting toward us. I swore and swam through the freezing water to Willow. I grabbed on and wedged my arm through one strap of her life preserver before I tugged on the cord of my own. The sudden added buoyancy as the packed straps bloomed around my chest and head popped us upward for a second. She murmured in distress, her face pale blue in the storm light as the lightning fish leapt from the water, spitting fire at the clouds. I could hear the stone singing as the lightning flashed past it.

I wrapped the sodden scarf through the front straps of Willow’s life preserver and tied her to the ring as it floated by again. She held on to me with sudden strength. “Bring it back. Make it sing again,” she croaked, barely intelligibly from between stiff blue lips.

“Just get back in the boat,” I snapped, pushing her away and waving at Quinton to haul her in.

Willow made a weak noise of protest, but Quinton was already reeling her back in. In the clouds, the two lightning fish fought and squabbled over the anchor stone, lashing at each other with their tails and lighting up the clouds with their fury.

I was barely warm enough to keep treading water myself, but I caught my breath and gathered my strength. Then I pushed. I shoved as hard on the boiling energy of the Grey as I could, thrusting it downward to the broken waveguide of the lake, hoping, praying even, that it would work.

Bright green light pulsed in a hard, straight line from the water below me and shouted into the sky, knocking the battling lightning fish across the storm like jackstraws. The first dragon spun in the air, spiraling like a falling maple seed, the stone singing in its mouth and shining the same bright green. The lightning fish dove toward the water again as if the line of energy below were pulling it down.

Then it spat the stone out. The light seemed to snatch the tumbling rock and drag it into the depths, the sound of the two songs forming a single soul-shaking note that boomed into the air and then faded into the depths.

The light ebbed down, the screams of the lightning fish receding as the storm eased and the clouds drifted open enough to let ordinary moonlight slice onto the suddenly becalmed surface of the dark lake. The silence breathed around me and I shut my eyes a moment. There were no wild streamers of energy or pools of magic screeching into the sky, no piercing red light from Beauty, just the moon and the distant lap of the lake on the shore.

And the burble of the outboard engine drawing closer.

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