K Stewart: A Devil in the Details

The deafening roar blotted out all else. It became the be-all and end- all of our existence. Large chunks of gravel peppered us as we stumbled for shelter, wherever that might be. Something heavier hit the center of my back, staggering me, but I managed to keep us both moving. Out of the darkness and storm-blown debris, we crashed into a concrete barricade and simply couldn’t see to go any farther.

Huddled at the base of the pillar, I tried to shelter Esteban as best I could, almost wrapping myself around him. Mira’s spells were forfeit for fighting the demon, but I prayed to anyone listening that they’d still protect me from an ordinary, everyday tornado.

Sharp things bit at my exposed skin, drawing blood in what seemed to be a hundred places. The kid screamed. I think I did, too, until the tornado sucked away all air and the ability to breathe.

It felt like we were there for years, with nothing but noise and pain in that horrible vacuum. I wished for my eardrums to burst, just to relieve the immense pressure. Every breath was full of dirt and grit, and we choked and gagged on what little air we got. And just when I was certain we were dead where we sat, it was gone.

In the abrupt silence, I thought I’d gone deaf. Then I heard water dripping somewhere nearby. One beam of sunlight found us, amidst the mud and the shambles of concrete and twisted rebar. The breeze, once so punishing, flirted around us, smelling freshly scrubbed, like spring. I think somewhere, a bird was singing tentatively.

Esteban was curled around his injured arm, and I wasn’t sure he was even conscious until he moaned and mumbled something in Spanish. “Hey, kid… You with me?”

He said something else, something I knew wasn’t polite, but nodded, and finally raised his head. His skin was a sickly gray, his dark eyes wide and staring. I eased his hand away from his broken arm to have a look. The thick leather bracer had protected him from the ravages of fang and claw, but it was bent at a wholly unnatural angle.

“Boy, when you do it, you do it right, hey, kid?” I smiled at him, and he rallied enough to give me that “Are you nuts?” look. He was going to be okay. Getting to my feet, I decided I was going to be okay, too.

Sure, I felt like shit. Blood trickled down my stubbly cheek from a cut I didn’t remember getting. My right leg was done with me, and refused to hold my weight. I was going to have scars down my left thigh, and the small vain part of me briefly mourned the marks. Luckily, I couldn’t feel either of them, the blight- numbness extending almost all the way to my hips. The knuckles on my left hand were going to scar, too, but I flexed them and they still worked. Most important, I was alive and I had my soul. My right hand was bare of all marks.

As I glanced around the wreckage, I came to appreciate how unlikely that had been. The pillar that sheltered and protected us had been sheared off two feet above our heads. The shattered remnants were strewn about us, a jagged garden of concrete chunks and mangled rebar. Any one of those would have cracked a skull, ending all our troubles in an instant. Bless Mira and the powers that sent her to me so many years ago. “One of us is the luckiest sumbitch on the planet, Paulo-er

… Esteban.”

A gleam atop the broken column caught my eye, and I limped closer to have a look. Perched there, sweetly as a centerpiece, were two pale white river stones, shot through with clear quartz veins. Matching nothing else in the debris around us, they lay nestled together as if placed by a careful hand. I picked them up, rolling them over between my fingers. They were warm and dry.

I’m not sure about religion, or God, or where we go when we die. But wherever it is, I think it must be a good place. And I decided Guy and Miguel were there. I pocketed the stones, to be placed in my garden. I’d take my signs where I found them.

“Be at peace, guys,” I murmured.

Esteban finally struggled to his feet and immediately blanched. “I’m going to throw up.” And he did. I think he felt better afterward. At least, he had more color to his ashen face.

“C’mon, Paulo… er, whatever I call you. Let’s go see what’s still standing.”

With my arm around his lanky shoulders, we hobbled out of the wreck of a parking garage, to find that Sierra Vista looked as bad as we did. The ground was littered with shards of plate glass, the storefronts gaping like toothless mouths. The cheerful neon signs were tangled in impossible ruins, if they weren’t gone altogether. Water sprayed from a fountain that no longer existed, and only one hardy sapling swayed in the spring air. One building had collapsed in on itself, and I thanked the powers that be that the tenant hadn’t moved in yet. Okay, so maybe sometimes I believe in God.

All in all, it looked like a war zone, Esteban and I being the walking wounded. I wiggled a finger through the shreds of my jeans and sighed. “Mira’s going to kill me.”

“Quien es Mira?”

“My wife. These were my good jeans.” I was probably in shock, and I’m allowed a warped sense of humor. I just chopped the head off a hellhound that was trying to eat a seventeen-year-old boy.

“Jesse? Jesse!” Funny, that didn’t sound like my wife’s voice, but sure enough, a woman was frantically calling my name. Kristyn pelted toward us, multicolored hair standing at sharp angles like a terrified hedgehog. I wasn’t even sure she’d known my real name, until that moment. “Ohmigod! Ohmigodohmigod! Did you see that?” For one horrifying moment, I thought she was going to hug me, and I braced for the excruciating pain. Instead she skidded to a halt, all but vibrating, she was so worked up, and blinked at our obviously injured state.

“Is that… blood?” Kristyn went as pale as Esteban and slumped toward the ground.

Somehow, I caught her with one arm. “Aw crap. C’mon, Kristyn. I can’t carry you. Don’t do this to me now.”

She whimpered, doing her best to keep on her feet, but she was now covered in the very blood that had her swooning. My day just wasn’t getting any better. It was Murphy’s Law at its finest, right here. This crap only happens to me.

I glanced at Esteban and chuckled. Then he snickered. Then we both burst out laughing. Groggy, Kristyn eyed us as if we’d finally lost it. I guess maybe we had. But under the circumstances, I think it was excusable. We laughed until our eyes watered and we were gasping for breath. We laughed so hard it hurt. We were still laughing when the ambulances started arriving.

There was a minor incident when I refused to leave until I checked on my truck. It was going heavily against me, but about the time one paramedic had a syringe full of sedative pulled out, the other one relented. I was allowed to hobble to the parking lot, leaning on Kristyn, who seemed to have recovered her moxie.

My truck was there, all beautiful in her rain-washed glory. And miracle of miracles, she was untouched (barring all previous damage, of course). In a tornado’s inexplicable way, the same forces that had trashed the shopping center had neglected the employee parking lot. All twenty or so cars sat there just as they’d been parked. I made a mental note to send Will and Marty back out to pick her up, then went along with my captors like a good boy.

Esteban and I had one brief moment alone, as the paramedics got us loaded into the same ambulance. He glanced at me, steadier now that his arm was secured to a board. “What happened to the baseball man?”

“Tell you the truth, kid? I don’t give a rat’s ass.” And that’s all I had to say about that.

They never found Nelson Kidd. I suppose it’s possible the tornado carried him off, and we’ll find his body years from now stuffed under some random rock by the terrible forces of nature. But I think it’s more likely he just vanished, ashamed to face what he’d done. Ivan sent word out to the other champions. He’ll never be able to pull the same stunt again.