Thief Of Souls

23. The First Wave

Winds in the upper atmosphere had quickly shredded Michael’s fierce storm into wispy threads of ice vapor. By noon, thousands more had gathered around the Nevada and Arizona sides of Black Canyon, because, where Hoover Dam once stood, the Colorado River Backwash was its most impressive. At that point, the waters gushed back into Lake Mead, at a steep up­ward slope—a river rapids flowing against the pull of gravity.

The white water running back into the canyon that had been Lake Mead, was filled with the bodies of those chosen followers—but the mourning for the dead was overcome by the sight of the backwash.

It was an image that burned itself into the world’s collective consciousness, because it was so wholly in­conceivable, no one could wrap their mind around it. Rational thought meant nothing in the face of this won­der, and people knew that from this day forth, nothing they thought or believed could remain the same. Like a train hurled from its track, day-to-day life started grinding to a screeching halt, as alliances began to shift, and people began believing in the divinity of the mar­tyred Dillon Cole.

They had no way of knowing that he was still alive.

Even when he washed up the rapids where the dam had stood, he appeared to be just another victim life­lessly pulled along with the flow. No one noticed the small lily pad of calm that protected him, as he surged semi-conscious up the Colorado River.

Drew Camden had stumbled away from the canyon before the waters reversed. His shoulder was badly swollen, the pain making him hobble like Quasimodo as he crossed the desert back to the campsite. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find there, but he didn’t know where else to go. Yellow police lines were spread like cobwebs, blocking everything off, and he burst through one like a racer at a finish line. The campsite was de­serted except for the police.

“My God, it’s another one!” one of the cops shouted. “Don’t let this one get away.” They were on him in an instant, hurling questions.

“Dam . . . broke,” Drew muttered. “Friends died. Two of them.” The cops looked at each other.

“It was a lot more than two, kid,” one cop said. Drew stared at him blankly.

“Forget it,” the cop told him, “it’s not your prob­lem.” There were paramedics around him now. They secured him to a backboard, and packed his shoulder with ice.

“Don’t worry,” one of them said. “You’ll be fine. The doctors’ll patch you up, and have you home in no time.”

Home. It was a place Drew hadn’t the luxury of con­sidering for quite some time. Between the alternating current of his own personality, and the events he had been a part of, Newport Beach seemed far, far away. In a way, he had been caught up in Michael’s tornado all this time, hadn’t he? From the moment the sharks leapt up the beach, he was drawn up in a current that left him at the mercy of the winds. He had been de­stroyed, reborn, shredded, and reconstructed, and now he had been spat back out again.

When he got home, he would have much to tell peo­ple: things about the Shards, and about himself as well; things that needed to be said.

As he lay there, he heard voices around him and snippets of conversations talking of even stranger events at the river.

". . . damnedest thing . . .” ". . . it never hit Laugh­lin . . .” ". . . whole thing flowing backward . . .”

He heard radios reporting on it. Police had crowded onto one of the buses, watching it on TV. “That can’t be what it looks like . . .”

It’s not over, thought Drew—but whatever happened now, he instinctively sensed that he was not a part of it anymore. He was not one of the Shards—and al­though he had envied Michael at first, he now realized there was nothing envious about that kind of power in this kind of world. Tears filled his eyes, and one of the paramedics gave him a shot of morphine for the pain.

As they carried him toward a waiting helicopter, he began to struggle against his bonds, trying to force a single thought out before the morphine took effect. “Okoya . . .” he said weakly, his thoughts slurring. “Bad. Dangerous. Must find . . .”

A paramedic looked to his partner. “The kid’s rant­ing.”

“Who isn’t today?” his partner said.

The paramedics ignored him as they carried him to the helicopter and past a bus, where the frayed ends of nylon cords dangled limply from the mirrors and bumper.