Magic Time: Angelfire (15 page)

“Mr. Goldman,” says the Asian gentleman, “we have had a number of people approach Enid during his sojourns with an interest in using his talent. Ultimately, they wish to seek advantage from it over their unfortunate fellows. Machines such as we once relied on for services no longer work. There is only one means of replacing them that does not require arcane talent.”

“Human machines,” I murmur. The ambient temperature in the room drops a few degrees and I shiver.

He is nodding at my reaction. “In a word, slaves. So you see, there are people in our new world who have a need, and others who will attempt to fill it. Commercialism, Mr. Goldman, at its most despicable. Out there, human beings are once again becoming a commodity. I think you will understand how some would find Enid’s talent attractive in that context.”

“I do understand. And I understand that your mission is to protect all of this. I don’t know what I can do to convince you that my friends and I are no threat. Look, um, maybe if I tell you what we know about the Change and the Storm, you’ll understand
our
mission.”

They exchange glances, then all eyes go to Mary. She nods.

“There was a government project code-named ‘the Source.’ I don’t pretend to understand the physics behind it, but I do know that it went pretty horribly wrong. We … met one of the scientists who’d worked on that project. He’d been changed by the disaster—not like anyone we’d ever seen. Not like anyone we’ve seen since. We suspect that when the project went south, something terrible was born. You call it the Storm; I call it the Megillah; I’ve heard it called other things. It’s powerful. It’s sentient. It sees. It senses. It hungers.”

Even at a distance, you can feel the power of it
.

“And for some reason it’s most hungry for flares, people who were twisted like Magritte was. Like my friend’s little sister, Tina. She was twelve when the Storm took her. Look, I don’t want to sound like, um, like Mr. Sob-story, but since
you seem to be in a position to decide my fate, I think you should know the kind of person Cal Griffin is. He’s been taking care of Tina since their mom died and their dad ran out on them. Well, not quite in that order, but it’s a complicated story. The point is, he’s spent most of his adult life protecting her. But he couldn’t protect her from the Change or from the Storm.” I glance at my musician friend, where he leans against the door frame. “Cal wasn’t as lucky as Enid, or maybe the legal profession just doesn’t lend itself to sorcery, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop what happened to her. It was like Magritte said, a—a tornado just sucked her away from him. Since then, we’ve been on a sort of quest—Cal, Colleen, Doc, and me. Cal is determined to find Tina and free her and the other flares the Source has taken. More than that, he intends to find some way of defeating the Source.”

A ripple of surprise circles the room.

Mary watches the reaction of her fellows closely then turns to me. “And you and your friends accompany him. Why?”

I pause to consider this. “Before the Change, I lived on the street. People stepped on me, over me, and around me on a daily basis. Most of them took me as just another crazy. While insanity is a great defense against all sorts of abuse, I … I admit I slip in and out of reality more easily than the average guy. Cal always treated me like a man, even on my bad days. Sometimes he even treated me like a friend. So when he says we can find the Source and do something about it, I believe him.”

“Why?” Mary asks.

How to describe Cal’s possession by this mad
vision
that we four merely human beings can confront and conquer the unknown? That we
must
do it. “Because
he
believes,” I say at last.

The Native American fellow, who appears to be in his early fifties, leans forward, eyes intense. “This Doc you mentioned, he’s a real doctor? A medical doctor?”

Duh. I should have my head examined.

I nod eagerly. “Yes. Yes, he is. He was a surgeon in Russia, but he knows a great deal about general medicine, and he’s absorbed bookloads about herbal remedies. He’s had to.”

I neglect to tell them that before the Change, Doc was peddling hot dogs on Manhattan street corners.

Mary says, “I know what you’re thinking, Delmar, but I’m not sure we can afford to let ourselves be seduced by need.”

I’m not much of a seducer, but it doesn’t hurt to try. “If you need a doctor, Doc Lysenko will be only too happy to assist. He can train nurses, medics. He might even be able to recruit some doctors from Grave Creek.”

Mary draws a deep breath as if I am taxing her patience mightily. “Mr. Goldman…”

“Goldie.” I give her my most winsome and lopsided smile. It even worked on my mom… when I was ten.

She grimaces. “Goldie. We are charged with protecting these people and with adding to their number. Right now, I can’t send anyone out through that portal because your friends are camped right in front of it. From what you’ve told me about Cal Griffin, I suspect he’s not likely to leave without you.”

She’s right. Stunning thought. Being left and leaving, I realize, had become rather a lifestyle for me.

“We could bring them in,” says Delmar.

“And then what?” asks the Asian gentleman. “It doesn’t sound as if they intend to stay.”

“We could stay long enough to help with your medical needs.”

“We
need
a doctor, Mary,” says a black woman with tight, graying cornrows. “Even a temporary doc would help.”

“We need more than that, Letty.” Mary looks at me. “Well, Mr. Goldman, you’ve given us a lot to think about. Enid, why don’t you and Magritte show Goldie around while we try to come to consensus here?”

We stroll outside—or at least Enid and I stroll; Magritte 
swims the air between us like a sea wraith. I congratulate myself that I’m no longer a prisoner. Now I’m a tourist.

I peer into the forest as we make our way down the hill in front of the Lodge. It seems to go on forever, blurring to a misty green in the deepest reaches. A thin haze rises up from the far treetops and forms a shining bowl overhead. In a trick of the eye, the sky looks more golden than blue. The temperature is almost balmy.

They give me the cook’s tour. I see vegetable gardens, windmills, a water tower that catches rain and flows it out to the cabins and vegetable patches. The Lodge and some of the larger outbuildings are on wells. There’s a waterwheel, too, snuggled up against a deep channel cut from a fast-running stream. It’s nearly complete. It will be a working mill, Enid tells me, used to grind wheat, corn, and various seeds and nuts into flour.

“That’s something else we gotta go outside for,” says Magritte. “We haven’t been here long enough to harvest much.”

“Mary said she wasn’t sure why it was cut off from the outside. Any theories?”

“I sure as hell don’t get it,” says Enid. “That’s more up Maggie’s alley. She’s got a kind of sense about these things. It’s got something to do with the old tribal magic, I think. That it, Mags?”

“Mags” nods. In the sunlight she looks like an archangel, sans plumage. Her hair is pale flame and her skin gleams like opal. She makes me hurt inside.

“There was Wyandotte Indians around here,” she says. “They used the caverns to protect them from the Delawares. Sort of a hideout. There’s an old Indian Council Chamber and some other places they used to have ceremonies. Power’s real strong down there.
Real
strong. Some folks even say they seen ’em. Or their ghosts, I guess. Especially in the old Council Chamber.”

Some folks. “Have you seen them?”

She hesitates, then nods. “So’s Kevin Elk Sings. His daddy, Delmar, was a chief, and his mama was a medicine 
woman, so he sorta comes by it natural. I don’t know why I see ’em. Maybe because I’m like this.”

“Is that what protects the flares while they’re inside? This power? Or maybe the ghosts?”

They exchange glances, then Magritte says, “Sort of. When everything changed, the Preserve got cut off, somehow. You can’t walk in or out, except through the portals. You try to walk out, you just end up somewhere back inside.”

Sounds familiar—Boone’s Gap had a similar if more sinister means of dissuading escape. “And the Storm can’t get in?”

“Not with Enid here.”

Enid again. I’m in awe. Enid’s a regular one-man show. “How do you do it?”

He gives me a weary smile. “Wish I knew.”

“So, how did Mary find this place? Does she have some sort of talent herself?”

Magritte glances at Enid and says, “
We
found the Preserve—me and Enid. We both saw it, but he made it open up. With his music.”

I’d be more surprised at that if I hadn’t felt the power of Enid’s music for myself. “The music opens the fold
and
draws in the sheep,” I murmur.

“If they hear it,” says Enid. “Some people got too much anger to hear it. It kind of picks who it wants to come in.” “It picked me,” I say.

Maggie treads air, turning to Enid. “He’s right. It
did
. It did pick him.”

He stops, sagging back against the trunk of a pine tree to look up at her, a crooked grimace on his dark face. “What— so now you’re thinkin’ he belongs here, or some cosmic shit like that?”

“I can’t stay—” I begin.

But Magritte cuts across me with, “Enid’s the only one who can open this place up.” Her eyes meet mine, making me dizzy. “Except now … there’s you.”

Enid looks up into the branches of the pine and says, “Dammit, Maggie.”

Well,
this
puts a new spin on things. “How do other people—”

“Enid has to open the portal for them. When we’re out on the road, no one else goes in or out. Scares poor Mary just about to death that something’s gonna happen to him out there.”

“There’s literally no one else that can do it?”

“We can,” says Magritte. “Fireflies, I mean. But without Enid we don’t dare go outside. We don’t dare.”

Enid shakes his head and the little bells woven into his dreadlocks sigh musically. “Dammit, girl, you got the biggest mouth on you. She’s right, though. Kevin Elk Sings can see the portals, but he can’t open ’em. It’s taken a month of Sundays to bring in the folks we got here.”

Catch-22. “So there’d be some benefit to me staying here.”

Both of them are looking at me with wary gazes, Magritte’s eyes going from azure to silver. She says, “I’d be lyin’ if I said no, but even if you did, there’s no way the Council’d let Enid go. Gettin’ in and out is one thing. Keepin’ the lid on this place is something else.”

“Are you sure you couldn’t train this Kevin Elk Sings to—”

“Tried it,” says Enid. “The kid’s got a ton of talent or power or whatever you want to call it, but it’s real raw. And me, I
do
this stuff; I don’t know
how
I do it. Makes it damn hard to teach someone else.” He shakes his head and gazes out over the parkland. “Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

He looks like hell, I realize—gray beneath his chocolate skin, eyes weary.

“This must take a lot of energy.” I gesture at the bright golden haze on the meadow.

“More every day, seems,” Enid says, and adds, “So, your friend Cal’s a lawyer?”

Okay, we change direction. “Uh… yeah. Or he was, any-way—before things got interesting.”

“He know how to find loopholes in a contract?”

“I’m sure Cal can find loopholes with the best of ’em.”

    “Think maybe he’d be willing to help find one in mine?” “Why? Any contract you had before would have to be void now.”

“You’d think so, huh? But you’d be wrong. Mine just sort of changed shape.”

I’m fascinated. I’ve seen many strange and terrifying twists and tweaks in our topsy-turvy world, but a twist of law is unique. “I thought this Howard what’s-his-name was the problem.”

Enid doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even seem to have heard the question. His eyes are closed, and his skin glistens with sudden dew.

Magritte touches his hand. “You go on back to the Lodge, Enid. Get some sleep. I’ll stay with Goldie.”

He starts to open his mouth, then just nods and levers himself away from the tree trunk. We watch him make his way back up the hill, walking like a man three times his age.

“Is he sick?” I ask.

Magritte is silent. When I look at her, her violet-blue aura is dancing with darker hues. “He… It takes a lot out of him, all he does.”

She seems about to say more when someone pops out of a nearby cabin and waves us down.

“You’re wanted up to the Lodge, Maggie,” she says. “Pronto.”

We go up, pronto, and I’m introduced to Kevin Elk Sings. This might have been a pleasant event, except that he brings chilling news from the West Virginia portal: Cal, Colleen, and Doc are under attack.