Marc Zicree - Angelfire

A piece of the One.

In the moments of quiet I tried to avoid, I could still hear Fred’s voice, gentle, trying to explain to me and to Tina why he held a tiny mountain mining town in deadly thrall.

If I let go, I’m destroyed, too. Something bad needs me to be whole.

Something bad.

I’d been warned. And when Fred Wishart had been sucked into the void between Boone’s Gap and whatever place the Source inhabited, Tina was gone with him, torn away by an unnatural wind. Gone, while I lay in an impotent heap, stunned, broken, knowing her terror as starkly as if it had been me in the Storm’s embrace.

I wanted never to feel that combination of emotions again.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” said Faun. “And I don’t think the rest of you should talk about it, either. It’s bad luck.”

The others seemed to agree. They drifted away in silent consensus, Javier giving me a long backward glance. Only Magritte stayed.

“They’re scared,” she said when they’d gone. “The Source is evil, but it has a pretty voice. I think that makes it more evil, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I also think that makes it more dangerous. You say you can hear it in here. How is that possible?”

She just looked at me and shook her head.

“The wind chimes-Goldie thinks they’re what protects you when Enid’s gone. Is that what they do? Is that when you can hear the Storm-when Enid’s gone?”

Her lips curled. “That Goldie’s pretty sharp.”

Yeah, and I wished he were here. Maybe he could get her to open up. “What makes the wind chimes work, Magritte? Does Enid do something to keep them moving? Is he the only one that can do that, too?”

I watched her glide along the altar, touching the sacred things there one after another as if they might protect her. Her movements had the feel of ritual-as if this were something she performed regularly as a ward.

“Look, Magritte, I know Enid is sick. Is that why the Source gets through sometimes, because he’s getting too weak to stop it?”

She swung around to look at me, her eyes wide and stricken. When she spoke, her voice was nearly a whisper. “When it came for me, I felt its touch. It was the same touch I felt every time I …” She hesitated, her hand cupping the little Buddha. “My johns really liked it when I started to change. They said it was like doin’ an angel. I was with a john when I changed final. The Storm came quick and sudden and it touched me. It was like somebody’d took that john and multiplied him times a million.”

Her hand had clenched around the Buddha. Now she let go, stroked it gently, and moved on to the next relic. “I don’t ever want to feel that touch again. I’ll die first.”

I didn’t have to ask if she meant it. I tried to put Tina out of my head, to stop thinking like a brother and start thinking like a strategist. “I don’t want you to feel it, either. I want to stop the Storm. Completely. And it’s possible that you and Enid might be instrumental in that. Maggie, I need your help. Tell me about the wind chimes. Is Goldie right-are they what protects you inside the Preserve?”

She was silent long enough that I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. Then she said simply, “Partly.”

“Partly. What else is there?”

“Enid’s music. Us fireflies. And this place. It’s a powerful place. It all kind of works together. But when Enid’s … when he’s gone, we have to work harder to tune out the Storm.”

“How do the chimes work? Do you know?”

She shook her head. “Enid says they scramble the signals. So we don’t hear the Storm clear and it don’t hear us.” “Does Enid have to move the chimes?”

“No. Anything can move ’em, but you can’t count on the wind around here, so he keeps them going. It’s in the music-in his head.”

“Maggie, do you have any idea why the Source wants you?”

She looked up from the altar, her face caught in a fall of bloodred light from the window behind the altar, the white silk of her tunic stained with it. “It’s hungry,” she said.

The strategist sat silent while the brother faced the horrible possibility that his sister might be dead-that the Source, for whatever reason, literally devoured flares. I forced my throat to make sound. “Do you… do you think it kills the flares it takes?”

“Not the way you mean. A pimp doesn’t kill his girls. At least not all at once. He just uses them up, bit by bit.”

Nausea swept me. I fought it down. “Maggie, can you hear the Storm now?”

Her eyes locked on mine, she shook her head. “Not right now. But I think some of the others do. I know Faun does. She’s not very strong.”

“And Enid? How strong is he?”

She stared at me from those bottomless eyes for an eternity. “I think he’s dying.”

I caught up with Mary in the caverns, walking into the middle of a scene that involved a trio of snarling grunters and a red blanket. The problem: one of them had it; the other two wanted it. They were in the process of ripping it apart when Mary stepped in and snatched it away from them. They turned on her in unison, showing fangs, reaching for the lost prize.

Adrenaline kicked in; I drew my sword and got in the way.

If the grunters were surprised, Mary was outraged. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that damned thing away!”

I stood my ground between her and the grunters. “They were about to jump you.”

“They were not. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk over them as if they weren’t there. They’re people , dammit. Regardless of what they look like.”

I lowered my sword slightly and gave ground-a little. I glanced at the grunters. They dropped into defensive postures, eyes shuttling warily back and forth between the two of us.

Mary, meanwhile, swung a backpack down from her shoulder and pulled out more blankets. “This is a different sort of place than you’ve been before,” she told them. “There’s no treasure to be hoarded here. And there’s enough for everyone to have what he needs.”

They shuffled forward in unison, still snarling, eyes darting suspiciously. One reached his hand out for the red blanket. Mary smiled and gave it to him. He clutched it to his chest, grunted out something that sounded like “Thanks,” and headed off into the gloom. The other two dove for the backpack.

“Blue!” said one. “Want blue!”

“Mine!” said the other. “Blue mine !”

In another second they’d be fighting again.

I took a step forward. “Hey, fellas! Why are you here, huh?”

They both turned their milky eyes up to me and blinked.

“Didn’t you come here to find a more human life? Didn’t you come here because you didn’t want to end up alone, or wandering around with a pack of animals?”

Mary picked up the cue and grabbed a couple of blankets, which she held out, one to each grunter. “He’s right, boys. Try to remember what brought you here. You want to be better than what your friends outside have become? Well, being better starts here.”

“You’re a natural,” she commented as we made our way back to the surface after the incident.

Tweaked torchlight fluttered and ran across the rough walls, making and unmaking shadows. It was hard not to suspect them of harboring danger.

“A natural what?”

“Leader.”

“I was going to say the same of you.”

“Bullshit. If you’re so impressed with my leadership, why the hell did you run me over back there?”

“Run you over? Mary, I thought they were going to tear you to pieces. They can do that. I’ve seen them.”

“So have I. But you forget-the very fact of their having followed Enid in here shows that they’re different. You saw it yourself. They’re better than that.”