Magic Time: Angelfire (11 page)

“Sonofabitch!” Colleen squeals like a five-year-old and leaps back from the shimmering curtain.

Beyond the veil, our would-be gourmands shriek in fear and fury. I want to laugh, not at Colleen (although I have to admit she looks damn funny—kind of like a guerrilla goldfish), but at the sheer exhilaration of what I’m doing.

If they came like smoke, they leave like a buffalo stampede. When the thrashing fades, the wood is as tranquil as a Robert Frost poem. There is only the whisper of rain and the breathing of ten relieved creatures in a bubble of light.

I hold the globe of light around us for another several minutes, until I’m sure I hear nothing in the woods beyond. Then I let it go. It does a Fourth of July fireworks fade. So does my energy. Hands on knees, I pant like a dog.

“Bozhyeh moy,”
says Doc softly, and I think he crosses himself.

“What the hell was that?” Colleen demands, her eyes still raking the woods.

Cal utters a single bark of laughter. “Cool.” He grins at me sideways in the flicker of struggling firelight. “That,” he says, “was a step above your usual parlor tricks.”

“I’ve expanded my repertoire. So, what do we do, boss? ‘Do we go or do we stay?’ ” I half gasp, half sing this last bit, then pull myself upright.

Cal sends me a quick glance before sinking to his haunches. “If we could count on them staying away…” He shakes his head, flinging water from his hair. “This weather is miserable for traveling.”

“Look, here’s an idea—why don’t you and Doc stand watch while Colleen and I grab some sleep? If the horses act up again, wake me and I’ll blow another bubble.”

Cal surveys our soggy campsite. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could set up a ‘bubble’ and have it stay put?” “I … I don’t think so. That took a lot of effort.”

“Could I get you to try? Anything, Goldie. All it needs to be is flashy.”

Flashy. “Okay. Lemme see what I got.”

I fashion a ball of blue-white light, rolling it between my
hands, feeling the texture of the power against my palms. They all slog over to watch me, looking like a gathering of drowned cats in the pale light. Rain drips from their hair, glitters on their eyelashes, and trickles down their cheeks.

I take my ball of light, set it about four feet off the ground, and let go. “Stay,” I tell it, and step away.

It stays.

“You’re still thinking about it,” says Cal. “Walk away and make another one.”

I do as asked. When I’ve finished and set the second globe, I glance back at where the first one was—and still is.
Cool
. A little Goldie goes a long way.

When I cozy down in dry clothes inside my pup tent, a perimeter fence of obedient light-balls stand guard over my sleep. I send them my last conscious thoughts.

When I wake at dawn, the rain has stopped and the sky is a bright blue, streaked with flame. The light-globes are gone.

“How long did they last?” I ask Doc over a hasty breakfast of dried fruit and flatbread.

“Almost two hours. It appears they extinguished when you entered deep sleep. But we had the fires up again by then.”

I get my bearings, listening to leaves, and we mount up, striking out due west. Just after noon something changes. We are within sniffing distance of the Ohio River. Behind me the others discuss whether to ford the river or try to find a bridge. I’m idly wondering if there might be trolls under bridges these days when a window opens in my mind through which I catch the scent of a melody.

This is neither my memory nor the memories of leaves, this is the real deal. Without a moment’s thought, I turn my horse and head due north.

“Goldie?” Cal comes up beside me. Sooner (a nervous Nellie if there ever was one) prances and rattles his bit. “Don’t we need to find a place to cross the river?”

I only half hear the question. “River? No… he’s on this side. Up ahead. North.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know. Somewhere. I hear him.”

“What are we doing?” demands Colleen from behind. “We’ve been heading west all day. Why are we turning north all of a sudden?”

“Because, that’s where
he
is.”

She swings her horse—a big, red roan named Big T— right around in front of Jayhawk and cuts us off. “Look, Goldman, we are not out of danger here. Every night we spend in these woods is a night we risk attack. Crossing the river is our best chance of losing our Shadows.”

“What makes you think they don’t live on that side of the river, too?” I ask. “Besides, this isn’t about avoiding Shadows. It’s about finding the Bluesman and his flare friend. Crossing the river is also our best chance of losing
them
.”

She gives me a hard glance and turns to Cal. “Look, Cal, I vote we cut our losses and get the hell out of these woods while we still can. We’re heading west. Let’s keep heading west until we find what we’re after.”

“I can handle the Shadows,” I say.

“Oh, come on, Goldie. You did it
once
. Next time it might not work. Your juju doesn’t exactly come through every time, does it? Besides, they might figure out that the fire isn’t real.”

“It wasn’t the fire; it was the light.”

Colleen snorts. “Says you.”

She is about to say more, but Cal’s patience has evaporated. “Cut it out—both of you. You sound like a couple of stubborn kids. I happen to think Goldie’s right. I also think we don’t have time for this argument. We have to keep moving.”

“We sure do,” Colleen says.
“West.”

“Yes, after we’ve tracked this guy down and answered some questions.”

“It may turn out to be nothing,” Colleen argues.

“Or it may turn out to be everything,” Cal counters. “For now, we go north.”

She meets him eye-to-eye for a moment, then shrugs and reins Big T out of my way. They follow me north along the Ohio River, down a corridor of crystal trees.

We ride until dark, then set up camp near the river. From our campsite we can hear one of the things that’s different about the Ohio these days—it’s not the gentle, meandering giant of lore and legend. This new, post-Change Ohio doesn’t gurgle and murmur, it roars.

A short hike up the back of a low bluff in the waning sun, and we can see the difference, too. The Ohio is a froth of whitewater rapids, and our camp is downwind of a very impressive, if abbreviated, waterfall. It’s loud enough to make sleep difficult.

Of course, I have the added impediment of guilt. For his faith in me and my abilities, I have repaid Cal by losing contact with our Pied Piper. I can no longer hear him. And because we are in an area of low brush, there are few glass leaves sending out good vibrations.

The river rapids are not loud enough to keep me from overhearing a muffled but heated disagreement after I’ve turned in. The participants are Colleen and Cal, and the first inkling of the subject comes when Our Ms. Brooks raises her voice to announce that Goldie is unstable and not to be trusted and, furthermore, Cal knows it.

This is not an unusual observation for someone to make about me, but since I realize it’s leading up to something more portentous, I roll surreptitiously out of my sleeping bag and sidle up to the back of the rock behind which this fascinating debate is taking place.

“Look, Cal,” Colleen is saying, “I know you don’t want to say it, or even think it, but we both know damn well that Goldie is two tacos short of a combination plate.”

I hear the delicate sound of Cal’s eyes rolling. “He has a kindled mood disorder,” he defends me. “It means he has … bad spells. It doesn’t mean he’s hallucinatory.”

“He has a disorder, all right. One that causes him to have
a very skewed take on reality. He
was
hallucinating, Cal. I was there. I saw reality. And in reality,
there was no flare
.” “Then how did you end up in that tree?”

“In spite of what Goldie says, I think it had to have been the musician. He’s able to pull people to him with his music. He could just as easily push people away.”

I could picture Cal giving her that almost catlike look of puzzlement, hands on hips, skepticism in every word of body language—a lawyer’s pose. “I have to take the chance that he’s right, Colleen. I think you understand that.”

“All right. Let’s pretend for a moment that there is a flare. We have no way of knowing what her situation is. Maybe Mr. Blues Guy
isn’t
protecting her. Maybe he’s imprisoning her or maybe she’s … I don’t know … defective or weak or something and the Source didn’t want her in the first place.”

“If she’s imprisoned, shouldn’t we try to free her? If she’s been passed over by the Source, wouldn’t you like to know why? It might help us figure out why the Source is taking flares in the first place. It might even give us a tool to use against the Source.”

Colleen utters a growl of pure frustration. “Yeah, and it might lead us on a wild goose chase that takes us in a completely wrong direction. We don’t have time for wild goose chases, Cal. This world is unraveling a little more every day, and there’s no way of knowing when it will stop—if it
ever
stops. You think following this guy might take us to the Source? I think it could just as easily take us away from the Source.”

There is a long and pregnant pause, into which, at the most critical moment, Colleen murmurs, “God, Cal, I hate saying crap like this to you. I hate always being the—the prophet of doom. But this feels like a false trail to me. And a waste of time.
Tina’s
time.
Everyone’s
time.”

No fair! The family card and the humanitarian card played in one deft move. And with a self-deprecatory spin, no less.

There is a crunch of leaves, and Cal says, “Do you think you need to remind me of that? Look, Colleen, you’re asking
me to make a choice based on a complete uncertainty. It’s your word against Goldie’s.”

“Right, and you’re taking his.”

“Colleen, I believe you didn’t see anything. I also believe Goldie
did
. Does that seem so strange?”

“Well, it—”

“Tell me, when was the last time
you
made fire leap out of the tips of your fingers or heard the Source whispering in your ear?”

Another pregnant pause. “That’s not fair. He’s a head case, Cal. Ask Doc. If you don’t think he’s worried about Goldie’s mental state, you can think again.”

“All right, Colleen. If it will make you feel better, I’ll talk to Doc about Goldie’s mental state. But I’m not going to make a snap decision. I think the best thing we can do is sleep on it and see where things stand in the morning. We’re sure as hell not going anywhere tonight.”

“Fine,” says Colleen. Leaves crunch underfoot, then she says, “Cal, I’m really sorry. I know I’m a bitch. There are times I pride myself on being a bitch. This isn’t one of them. I just don’t want to see us … pulled off course.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let us be.”

There’s a moment of silence, then leaves crunch again, this time with an air of finality, and I sidle back to my bedroll.

Bitch. Witch. Snitch.

I run out of rhymes and concoct a plan: I will wait for Doc to commence snoring.
They
may not be going anywhere tonight, but
I
am. Of course, I’ll leave a good trail so they can follow me—and they’ll have to follow me. One way or another, we are going to find the Bluesman.

As luck would have it, Doc has trouble sleeping tonight, and I am half asleep myself, rapids or no rapids, when the window opens in my head and music comes cascading through—loud, clear, and achingly close.

I wait for nothing.