C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

Colin, looking ridiculously healthy, sat in a wheelchair in the living room, beaming around at everyone. He turned the chair as he heard us coming down the stairs. I could see the shadows of his spirit snake around his shoulders, but the weight didn’t seem to affect him at all. His grin got wider. “Amazon!”

“Colin! My God, they let you out? You look fantastic.” He did. My inverted vision didn’t bother me at all anymore. It seemed normal for his hair to be black and streaming bits of light when he moved his head. His color was better and there was more meat on his bones, although how that could be affected in the two days since I’d last seen him, I wasn’t sure. “My God, you look great !” I bent to hug him and kiss his cheek. His temperature was a little high, but everyone’s was, in the hot weather.

“I’m just out on temporary leave,” he said. “One of modern medicine’s miracles, they keep telling me. Never seen a reversal like this. I made the big eyes at them until they agreed to let me out for a couple of hours. I’ve got to get back before nine.”

“I hope you don’t mind him coming along,” Garth said behind me. The smile in his voice buoyed me up.

“Nah, of course not. A little good news’ll help us all get through the rest of the night.”

Garth’s voice lowered. “Is it going to be bad?”

I shrugged my eyebrows. “Looked in the kitchen yet?” He shook his head no, and I tilted my head in the right direction. “Go see for yourself.”

He came back a few moments later pale and wide-eyed, just as everyone else had done. “How’re we going to take care of that?”

I shook my head. “I wish I knew. I don’t really understand spellcrafting, Garth.” I sat down on a couch, rubbing the scar on my cheek. The couch sucked me in; four bouncy kids did in even the best of springs. I edged forward, trying not to disappear entirely into the cushions. “I’ve watched it tear a hole in the sky and another one in the earth. Can we make a spell to just move something?”

“Translocate,” Marcia said from the doorway. I lifted my head, relieved. “This isn’t exactly where we agreed to meet,” she said as she came in.

“I know. Something came up. What’s translocating? I mean, how do you do it?”

“There has to be an exchange. We can’t simply move something from one place to another. We have to take something back in order to make up for the mass of the thing we’ve placed elsewhere. Where is it?”

“The kitchen.”

Marcia was grim, not pale, when she came back from the kitchen. “I don’t know if a translocation spell will work on something that’s not solid. It may , and then all we’ll have to translocate is air, which would be the best-case scenario for the house.”

“But,” I said, hearing it hanging on her words.

“But it may not be possible. The ritual to bring the spirits across, and Virissong with them, may have to be completed before we can make the exchange.”

“Solidifying that thing will destroy Billy and Mel’s house, Marcia. There’s got to be another way.” I put my hands on my thighs and pushed myself upward.

“What is ‘it’?” Colin asked. I looked at him, then at Garth.

“It’s a…” I looked at Colin again. “Oh, hell, I’ll just show you. You’re here anyway.” Despite the knot of worry in my lungs, I couldn’t help grinning at Colin. “God, it’s good to see you out of there. You look so much better.”

He lifted an arm and flexed the biceps. “I’ll be breaking all the girls’ hearts soon. C’mon, I wanna see this thing that’s got you guys all spooked.”

I put my hands on the wheelchair handles, waving Garth away. “I’ll take him. Being an Amazon’s gotta be good for something.”

“Wait till I tell the guys back at the ward I’ve got an Amazon girlfriend,” Colin said cheerfully. I laughed and wheeled him down the hall to the dining room and kitchen.

The serpent’s silver glow was bright enough to hurt my eyes. Colin didn’t lift a hand to protect his own eyes against the brilliance, and after a moment I remembered it was probably black to his eyes, like it had been when I first saw it in the Dead Zone. I wondered if it glowed black to him, or if the glowing was just a spiffy side effect of my stupid inverted vision.

It heard us coming and lowered its head through the door to flick its tongue at us. It was nearly full-sized now, its head longer than I was tall. It was going to destroy Billy’s house, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it.

“Jesus,” Colin whispered. The serpent’s cold eyes focused on him and it thrust its head forward a few feet, until its flat nose was almost touching his chest. I backed up several steps, pulling Colin with me. The serpent flicked its tongue and followed, then opened its mouth and hissed a wave of hot irritation over us. I could see the sides of the door through its translucent skin, its body already too wide to fit through the opening. For the first time I thought I heard the house creak protest against the thing’s tremendous weight.

“It’s kind of gorgeous, isn’t it?” Colin whispered. I gaped at the top of his head, then at the monster.

He was right, though: it was. Not like a snake; it was too much more than a snake to simply have a snake’s deadly grace. It rolled forward another foot or two, its gleaming spires slicing through the wall and ceiling above it. That time I did see the wall shudder, plaster loosening from the ceiling. I backed up another couple of steps, watching first the ceiling, then the serpent. “It is,” I admitted. “It’s gorgeous in a kind of ‘I’m going to crush you to death in my gigantic coils’ way. Seen enough?”

“I guess,” Colin said reluctantly. I backed out of the dining room, entirely unwilling to turn my back on the serpent. It reared up a few feet and spat. Colin and I both flung our arms over our faces, yelling. The venom passed through us, harmless as a breeze, and hit the floor behind me with a wet splat. The hardwood gave an acid hiss, a foul odor steaming up as the varnish was eaten away and the wood beneath it scarred. I twisted to stare at it, then jumped backward, avoiding the damp ruined floor as I yanked Colin’s wheelchair back over it. The rubber tires melted and stretched, sticking him in place for a few scary seconds before my determination overcame the gooey residue and the chair schlucked loose.

“Joanne,” Colin said in a small voice. I looked up to discover the serpent’s head pushing through the dining room door we’d just abandoned.

“Oh,” I said. “Shit.” I backed up faster, hoping there weren’t any toys to trip over, and led the serpent into the living room.

“Out of the way, out of the way, please get out of the way.” I dared glance over my shoulder so I could navigate the living room without knocking anyone or anything over. The gathered coven members leaped to the sides. “I don’t know why,” I said, still very fast, “but it’s following us—”

“Me,” Colin said. I stepped on my own heel and nearly fell over, staring at the top of his head again.

“Jesus. You’re right. It’s following Colin and I’m going to see if I can lead it out of the house.” By the time I was done explaining my clever plan, I was out of the living room and nearly to the front door. I fumbled it open and pulled Colin onto the porch. The serpent stopped and reared its head up again, mouth open wide with anger. “C’mon, big guy,” I said to it. “Just a little farther.”

Then I took a step back and realized I had no good way to get Colin off the porch. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to maneuver the wheelchair without dumping him on his ass, even if he was still slight and I was reasonably strong. “Shit,” I whispered again.