Indigo Springs (27 page)

For that last half hour, Astrid could believe that it could stay this way, that she’d find a way to make the events of this terrible day recede without ripples, that the trouble would wash away and leave her with the two people she loved most.

“It’s gotta be time by now,” Mrs. Skye said, as they neared the end of their meal. “Should we check?”

“I’ll go.” Draining the last drops of her lukewarm soup, Astrid rose.

“We’ll all go.” Sahara hopped up, brushing invisible dust from her slacks. She had eaten nothing but pickles. Her eyes were peculiar, dark and inhuman.

I should have drained her while she was unconscious.

Pushing on the vitagua to hold it out of the real, Astrid tried to see forward, to see if danger lay ahead.

Nothing. The grumbles were all but silent.

Good riddance, then. “Come on.”

Leaving the dishes on the floor, they trooped downstairs, single file, to see if it was time to surrender.

It would be okay, Astrid thought. They had magic on their side, after all—Sahara would Siren the authorities, and with the evidence of magic hidden away…

It was a shock to come upon the body of the Chief again, the motionless hump on the living room floor, covered in the drop cloth. Astrid flashed on swinging the block of ice, hitting him—and cringed.

Jacks groped for her hand. “It was self-defense,” he whispered, voice thready but firm, and she nodded fiercely.

They crept up to the fireplace, searching for any trace of blue. There was nothing. The vitagua was gone.

“We’re done,” Sahara said. “Quick, Astrid, freeze it and we’ll tidy up.”

“We’re not done,” Astrid said. “Sahara, I need to drain you.”

“No way! Henna died—”

“You know it’s safe. I’ve done it three times now.”

“I need it,” Sahara said. “To gauge the cops…” She looked at Jacks pleadingly.

“I’m with Astrid on this.”

“And what a big surprise that is.”

“Sahara…” Astrid grasped for a gentle way to induce her friend to allow the drain. “It’s the best way.”

“It’s not best for me!”

Jacks gave her a sidelong glance, eyebrow raised in query. Offering to grab Sahara, perhaps, make her submit?

It might be the only way. Sahara had always been headstrong, selfish even, and the liquid magic was making her worse.

And it had to be done. It wasn’t just her eyes that had changed—the skin of her hands was pink and rough, and the streaks in her hair were more apparent, light circles on glossy, almost green-tinted hair.

Hold her down, drain her, and use the earring to make her forget, as Mrs. Skye had suggested. But Sahara had been betrayed by everyone she’d ever loved.

No. Try reason. “Sahara, I’m in charge of the spring. You said so yourself.”

“You’re punishing me for causing the spill.”

“Your eyes look strange. They’ll notice.”

“We mermaid them into ignoring it!”

“Sahara—”

“I said no.” She threw out a hand in a
stop
gesture, and caught Astrid under the chin with her index finger.

The jolt of contact brought knowledge with it, a sense of how fast Sahara was falling—had fallen—into vitagua-induced madness. Their plight didn’t matter—all that mattered was getting more magic. The grumbles were telling her things about all of them, intoxicating knowledge….

Astrid jerked back, raising a hand to her neck. Her clamped-down concentration on the fireplace—on the vitagua flood—broke.

The house trembled, shivering at first and then bucking. They all fell, Jacks pitching toward the kitchen, Sahara and Astrid doing an involuntary dance near the front door. Mark caught Mrs. Skye before she could pitch down the steps, then tumbled onto the carpet.

Outside, they heard car horns and people shouting.

Vitagua geysered out of the fireplace in a rush, spraying the room, washing over Mark, crumbling the hearth. Hunks of brick and mortar bounced on the carpet as the floor around the fireplace caved in, revealing the basement, the open maw of the freezer. Astrid had pushed it under the first vitagua leak but it had been perfectly cleaned out, just like everything else. Now it overflowed as the vitagua poured out in a gush.

With a boom like shattering river ice, the wall behind the fireplace split. A blue vein of frozen vitagua glimmered in the crack. Liquid magic gouted into the real through the widening hole in the hearth.

“No,” Astrid said. She stretched out a hand and froze the vitagua in the fireplace, sealing the entry point with magical ice. “Cold, cold, everything just freezes up.” She was careful to think only of freezing the vitagua before her—not the stuff within.

“Oh, no. No. Now we’re really screwed,” Jacks said.

“Was anyone splashed?”

“Not me,” said Mrs. Skye.

“Jacks?”

Shaking his head, he pointed at Mark, who was soaked from head to toe. His skin was damp and translucent.

“Gonna be God,” he mumbled, “Siren can run for president, Siren could rule the world.”

“Shut up, Mark,” Sahara said. “You’ll be okay.”

“Lie still,” Astrid said. She needed to break his skin. Pooling vitagua into his arm, she groped for a loose nail that lay on the shredded carpet.

“Here,” said Sahara in the same instant, holding out a paring knife.

Seeing the blade, Mark panicked. “Get ’way,” he bellowed, snatching up and swinging the rifle. The blow caught Astrid on the side of the head and Mark broke free, sprinting past Sahara to the kitchen. He dived into the enclosed back porch and they heard a series of clicks.

The rifle—he’d used it to seal himself in.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Skye was staring at the knife.

“It’s not how it looks,” Astrid said. “We need to break his skin to draw out the contamination. We weren’t going to hurt him.”

The old lady sighed. “I’ll talk to him.”

“We have other problems,” Jacks said, pointing down.

Mouth coppery, Astrid stared into the laundry room. Vitagua lapped at the walls, three or four feet deep. Things floated amid the flood—corks, bits of paper, food containers.

“I saw this….”

Sahara made a sound that fell somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “All your stuff, Jacks.”

“It’s just stuff,” he said.

“It was chantable,” she said, and he frowned. “And we could have used your watch. Why’d you take it off?”

“Special occasion.” He squeezed Astrid’s hand. “Maybe it’ll survive.”

Astrid glanced away, remembering the feel of it snapping underfoot.

“Perfect tigers,” Sahara sighed. “Astrid, how fast can you push this into the unreal?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t want to go.”

“There’s another way to get rid of it, isn’t there?” Sahara said.

“What?” said Jacks.

Astrid leaned on him. “She wants me to chant things.”

“Everything in the house, if that’s what it takes,” Sahara said. Her odd eyes were shining.

“We can’t create pools of chantments,” Jacks said.

“What does it matter now? We know who was hunting us, and he’s dead.”

“Mark was supposed to release us soon,” Astrid said.

“Screw Mark,” Sahara said bitterly. “He signed on to play gunman, he can play gunman until we’re done.”

“Sahara…”

“Come on, we can’t give him a bunch of chantments and turn him loose. Too many people know already.”

“Whose fault is that?” Jacks said.

She ignored him, letting her voice drop to a whisper. “As for Pat, I have an idea—put the earring on her.”

The frozen vein of vitagua in the wall glimmered as Astrid fought for calm. “Sahara. We’re the crazed gunmen. You and me. I’m the killer, Pat and Mark the hostages.”

“But—”

“You can’t blame Mrs. Skye for looking out for him.”

Sahara glowered. “She’s making everything harder.”

“I’ll make the chantments,” Astrid said. “We have to hold off the police until that’s done. Then we have to get everyone—and I mean everyone—out of here.”

“Making chantments will not fix this,” Jacks said.

Sahara laughed shrilly. “Tell him what you told me—how you’re the boss and all.”

She ignored the outburst. “Come up with an alternative, Jacks.”

“There isn’t one.” He kicked a loose brick into the basement.

“Okay,” Sahara said, suddenly pleased. “Same job, different time line. Hold down the fort, lovebirds. I’ll go upstairs and collect some chantables.”

“Lovebirds,” Jacks said, as she trotted upstairs. “I didn’t think you’d tell her.”

“Of course I did.” Astrid kissed him. “Jacks, your paintings.”

“I have everything a guy could ever want,” he said quietly, and she folded herself against his chest.

“Your dad…”

“Started it,” he said, not without difficulty. Then they were kissing at the edge of the hole in the floor, and he was wiping tears off her cheeks as she fought back sobs.

“Come on,” he said. “Hang together or hang separately, you know? We have to keep an eye on the mad mermaid.”

“She’ll be okay,” Astrid said.

“She’s off the deep end.”

“If we fight, she leaves,” Astrid said. “I can’t do this alone—”

“What am I, invisible?” he said, and then his face grew grave. “Astrid, last night, when you were asleep—”

A floor above them, the phone rang.

She went into the kitchen, leaning her ear against the locked door. “Mark?”

No answer. The phone continued to ring.

“Mark, they’re probably freaked out by the tremor,” she said. “You’ve got to talk to them.”

“Not coming out.”

She reached for the kaleidoscope, looking in. Mark was on the floor, mumbling to himself. His skin was glistening and red spots were forming on the backs of his hands.

“Mark, you want to be part of the gang or not?”

No answer.

“You said you’d help us buy time with the police. We’ve got a big spill here—”

“Don’t I know it.” His tongue looked flat and his lips were stretching back to his ears, making his words mushy.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” she told him. “I was trying to drain out the contamination. Why don’t you prick your finger on some glass or something and just slide the tip under the door?”

“Slip me another magical object, and I’ll answer the phone next time they call,” he said.

“Mark—”

“Am I in the gang or not?”

She reached out randomly, picking up a saucepan lid and chanting it. “It’ll stop bullets,” she said, sliding it under the door. “But Mark, about the contamination—”

“Piss off or I’ll tell ’em everything.”

With a sigh, she turned the kaleidoscope’s gaze outside. Sunset was in full glorious swing. West through the back wall of the house, she could see gold and cream-tinged clouds, streaks like lash-marks striping the blue.

The block was cut off by now, sealed tight by the police line and patrolled by grim young men in khaki. The townspeople watching at the perimeter looked fatigued and anxious. Men were unloading black trucks at the edge of the police staging area.

“Why all this attention for a small-town gun standoff?” she murmured, tracking her neighbors’ upturned faces, their pointing fingers.

What she saw hit like a punch to the gut. Vitagua had sprayed up through the chimney. Syrup-thick, it had drizzled over the edge of the bricks, contaminating the moss on the roof. Humps of green fuzz as big as rats were growing out of control. A dandelion that had somehow rooted itself in the eaves was blooming at high speed, producing first buds, then fist-sized yellow blooms, then clouds of white seed parachutes. Those seeds were taking root everywhere, compounding the problem as they too burst out, gold flowers turning white in seconds, hurling more seeds.

Within the crowd, Astrid could see people sneezing; the air must be full of pollen.

Around the blue-slicked chimney, a cloud of insects had gathered, probably attracted by the vitagua’s floral scent. Some were caught in it, writhing in the fluid, growing in size and then falling to buzz drunkenly in the humps of moss.

The contamination was out.

The vitagua within her was a-throb, beating against her pulse, demanding that she split the world open and let the flood come.

Do it, the grumbles whispered. Tune in to that vein of vitagua pushing into the real, lay your hand on it and think of warmth. The town will be under a magical lake so fast…

The thought was enticing, hard to shake off.

At least she knew enough to tug the spirit water on the roof back to the brim of the chimney, then pull it down to the hearth.

“Jacks, do you know where Pat is?” Sahara sounded frustrated. “I can’t keep track of everyone myself.”

On the other side of the porch door, the phone rang.

This time Mark picked up. “I didn’t kill Sahara Knax in Boston,” he said, voice thin. “You know that now. I want assurances from the Boston police that I’m cleared. Then I’ll let everyone go.”

There was a pause. “Nobody leaves until I talk to the same detective I talked to before,” he said. He hung up with a moist sigh. “You out there, Astrid?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That should hold them a while.”

She scanned the crowd again, picking out the soldier in charge, a spare graying man who was slamming down a telephone receiver. Under his direction, a team of workers was erecting a wall of stereo speakers near the front yard.

A scattering of pops: gunfire.

Upstairs, Mrs. Skye shrieked. “What is that?”

Astrid climbed to the second floor. “Police are shooting at a contaminated sparrow.”

“The vitagua’s out?” Jacks said.

“I pulled back as much as I could,” she said.

Mrs. Skye looked at Astrid reproachfully. “Things getting crazy out of hand, huh?”

Astrid nodded. The contamination was out; their secret was all over TV. “We should give ourselves up.”

“Smart girl,” said Mrs. Skye.

“No chance,” Sahara said.

“Nobody’s getting sweet-talked into ignoring this now.”

“Be quiet a minute, Pat. I need to think….”

“Sahara, we can’t bluff our way out of this anymore.”

“Then we run,” Sahara said. “Make some chantments we can use to escape and just take off.”

“Leave…abandon the house?” The grumbles cried out, as if betrayed. The idea seemed impossible, like leaving an arm behind. “Leave Indigo Springs?”

“There’s a whole planet out there. Expand your horizons, Astrid—of course we leave! It’s the only way.”

“Abandon ship,” Jacks agreed. He pulled her against him, drawing a long shuddering breath. “She’s right.”