Harvest of Changelings (37 page)

F
OR A LONG MOMENT, THE SECOND—
I MUST THINK
of
myself as First, as Prime Mover, Valeria
is
dead. The others need me to accept this, accept me as Prime Mover—
didn't respond to the report that had just been delivered to the Dodecagon. Instead she stared out the nearest open window. The day had dawned without sun. Thick, thick roiling black clouds all but hid the bare minimum of light. The storm, thank the Three, was still far out to sea. She could not see the lightning, but rather its flashing glow on the grey water. Below she saw only a few people hurrying through the streets. Most had not left their houses, or were at the Temple.

“Sec—Prime Mover, please,” a speaker for the Third-Born said, his hooves striking the floor.

They aren't quite used to me as Prime Mover, either.

“I know. I'm sorry,” she said and turned away from the window. “The report is no surprise. The Peace has held for a year—almost a year. There have been—and continue to be—violations. The Fomorii know how weakened we are from the war. There are signs they may be planning a new war. And you want to know if our call to the changelings has borne fruit. In three days, on Samhain, we will know. There is nothing I can do to make Samhain come any
sooner. No petitions in the Temple to the Good God, to the Goddess, the Teachers, no prayers to the Three. I cannot sound the call any louder or make its effects happen any sooner. You all know this,” she said, looking slowly around the table, her bronze eyes glowing. She lifted her right hand and then, one by one, flicked a splash of light at each one, a warm, white wash that broke and flowed over foreheads, eyes, ears, mouths, spilling down throats.

“But will they wait those three days before they break the Peace?” a centaur asked, his arms folded across his chest, his tail swishing nervously back and forth. His left front hoof kept tapping the floor.

The Prime Mover resisted going over to grab it and hold it still.

“We and the dolphins think so,” the swimmer said who sat beside the centaur. “They need the power of Samhain and the opening of the gates as much as we do.” For the first time in years, a speaker for the swimmers had actually attended a session of the Dodecagon. His green-and-black body glistened wetly in the yellow candlelight. Water pooled at his feet. When the swimmer turned to look up at the centaur, moving his hands to make his point, water sprayed everywhere. The drops bounced off the auric shields of the others. The centaur had forgotten to manifest his shield—he sputtered and stepped away, his tail swishing even harder.

“Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to get you wet,” the swimmer said and got up to try and brush the water off the centaur's chest and face. This, of course, made matters worse as he sprayed and dripped more water.

“Never mind,” the centaur said and stepped back hastily, his tail swishing. “Prime Mover, can we wait three days, can we hold out if they attack beforehand?”

“He's right,” she said. “They need the power from the gates as well—”

“Why don't we attack?” a dwarf interrupted, ignoring the sudden intake of breath and mutterings at his breach of accepted good manners and council protocol. “We have waited and waited for this silly experiment of the First-born to work and so far, no powerful changeling children. Are we going to let all that we lost during the war be a vain sacrifice to First-born pride?”

“How dare you say such a thing?” a First-born shouted, his fist pounding the table. Fireballs popped as he hit the table and bounced over the polished wood, leaving scorched trails behind.

“Stop, both of you,”
The Prime Mover said, as the fireballs fizzled out on the stone floor. “All of you: STOP!” she said angrily,
turning to glare at the other First-borns who were grumbling among themselves. “We will not sacrifice anything to anyone's pride. There was no other solution. We will not just sit and wait. I have placed our forces on alert; we are prepared for attack. But, even if the Fomorii weren't moving against us again, we still would have called the changelings home. We are just too weak after the war to go on without their new blood, energy, their new magic. If this experiment does not work, if the changelings do not come to Faerie, a renewal of the war by the Fomorii will only hasten the inevitable.”

“Fair enough,” the dwarf growled. “Damn First-born arrogance,” he added, under his breath. The Prime Mover shook her head at the other First-born.
Let it go.

“Now, if we can go on to other business? . . .”

“We will be off the coast of Tir Mar and the White City just before midnight on Samhain, as planned, Your Highness,” the lieutenant said.

“Good,” the prince answered, his fangs bared, his eyes glowing fires. “We will strike them at their weakest—when their call fails and when we draw on the energy of the changeling world, of those at the gate who cannot cross. The rule of the dark will last for millennia.”

“Yes, my lord,” the lieutenant said, and touched his forehead with his front claws in salute. “I know their souls will taste sweet.”

The phone rang.

“Hello, St. Mary's, Father Jamey speaking,” he said, surprised the church phones were still working. The electricity in the air had caused half the phones in Wake County to go out. And the half that worked seemed to belong to all the Catholics in Garner with the same idea: call the church, find out what was going on, get some reassurance. He was sure, as he listened, that there was a goodly number in the sanctuary, praying or lighting vigil candles or slowly following the Stations of the Cross, muttering as they walked. How many, he wondered, had even been inside the church before everything had started?

Don't be so cynical. Take people where you find them. At least don't be cynical out loud.

“No, I don't know what's wrong with the phones.” The lights in the room blinked then, popped, and then were out. Instantly everything in the room softened and dimmed, as only the grey light from outside was left. “Yes, my lights just went out, too—there, they are back on. Yours aren't? Maybe soon. Yes, the weather report is still calling for unseasonable storms. No, I am sure we are not facing an inland hurricane. I heard it on NPR this morning. The National Weather Service is researching the cloud formation even as we speak. Yes, I know there was some daylight early this morning—I guess that old saying isn't true anymore. Darkest before dawn. Never mind, you were saying? It is safe to go out—but I would stay home at night—and there is a dusk-to-dawn curfew anyway—you know that. Yes, of course, you can come to church—just stay put wherever you are after dark. Yes. This is all real. Yes. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Father Jamey hung up and looked out his office window. It was just after nine—the visible daylight for the day was gone, the one brief break in the clouds just after dawn, replaced by a pervasive greyness and the darkening clouds, the occasional lightning only briefly adding any light of significance. That was the tenth phone call since he had gotten into his office. Now the wind was beginning to rise. According to NPR severe thunderstorms were up and down the Eastern Seaboard and there really was a late hurricane, Susanna, brewing out in the Caribbean. Chains of typhoons were supposedly spawning in the Indian Ocean, but overseas news was erratic at best, with all the interference. The worst storms seemed to be in North Carolina.

More lightning rippled across the sky, followed by explosive thunder, as if a chain of firecrackers had gone off above the earth. The church had been packed for the eight A.M. mass. He looked briefly from the window to the mirror that hung on the inside of his closet door:
I guess they found your face inspiring, bucko—dark circles, hair looking permanently electrified. No accounting for taste.

“Well, prayer won't hurt. I bet it's actually helping—if I can get enough to pray tomorrow morning during that one bit of light, I think we can make it out of here, anyway. I should talk to Ben—tell him this should work—that I can do what I have to do, my own magic,” he said to himself, as he turned back to staring out the window. He raised his right hand as he stood there and then slowly drew a cross in the air, light bleeding from his hand as it moved. Then, the cross, wavering, but finished, he drew a five-pointed star around it. Father Jamey took both hands and pulled at the sides of
the star, as if to make it wider, to give the cross more room. More white light first fell out of the star's interior, dropping like a net around him and he disappeared. Almost. He could see in the closet-door mirror a faint whiteness, a blur.

“That will do, I think. Let me go tell Ben.”

The phone rang again just as he got to his office door.

“Damn.”
Now, remember why you became a priest, Jamey-boy. Ben and the kids and Jack and that big cat are not going anywhere.

“Hello, St. Mary's, Father Jamey speaking.”

 

Three calls later, the last one cut short by a white flash that must have fried the line, Father Jamey stepped out on the rectory's back porch steps, and then down into the yard. He stood there, pulling his overcoat tighter as he watched and listened. The wind was rising, a cold, wet wind, with a high whistle. Wolf-wind, he thought, remembering what he and his brothers had called such winds when they were children. Wolf-winds came down from the mountains, spreading snow far and wide, as they set howling wolves loose on the terrified populace.
I wish I had tried to call home before the phone went dead. God help us all if it snows
. Twisting and turning sheets of newspaper, brightly colored insert ads like huge odd fall leaves, unidentifiable bits of plastic flew through the air. An escaped umbrella rolled and bounced down Vandora Springs Road. The number of cars and trucks on the road didn't seem out of the ordinary, but then Father Jamey had never paid any attention to morning traffic. He was sure, however, that the cars and trucks passing loaded to the gills were not ordinary.

Where are you going? Where do you think you can go to escape all this? You know all the highways leading out of North Carolina are blocked and guarded by the Army.

Now, where are the watchers? Ah, right across the street was the Wake County Sheriffs squad car—
I wonder why they haven't gotten the Garner PD to help?
The others—Father Jamey couldn't see them, but he felt them, and today, as if this wind had carried the scents, he could
smell
them: bitter, metallic, harsh, sort of like zinc. Wait-there was one, skulking behind the oak tree near the squad car.

Might as well as try this now.

Father Jamey drew a luminous cross in the air and then, with a
shove,
released the glowing cruciform into the air. The cross wavered, shook, and for a moment, as it collapsed into itself, Father Jamey thought his new magic had failed. But the cross became a white ball, a small comet that streaked across the streets, its tail
a white flame. The comet smashed into the tree and the shape screamed and ran.
Was that a man? Or a woman? Or worse?

A Cherokee Scout rumbled down the street as Father Jamey turned to go back inside. He waved at the dour deputy who waved back.
Did he see the cross turn into a comet? Hit the tree? The shape? Never mind.
The rain started when he got to the back steps, cold, and heavy and laced with bits of ice.

 

“Ben's in the choir director's office,” Hazel said, looking up from the piano. She was trying to teach herself how to play. “I have to do something, Father.” She wasn't doing so badly, Father Jamey thought as he stood beside Hazel, listening as she picked her way through a simple tune.
But then, isn't music a magic by itself? Random sounds shaped and arranged into meaning?
The cat, which had been drowsing at Hazel's feet, got up, stretched, and then headbutted the priest's legs.

Pet me.

Okay, okay, I will. I thought you could talk, you big overgrown rug.

Head to tail. Rugs don't have claws, by the way.

“Okay, no more rug jokes,” Father Jamey said and sat down beside Hazel to stroke and scratch the cat's massive head as Hazel finished the tune.

“Jack helped me some—he said he had piano lessons when he was a kid and took them again for a while after his divorce,” she said, looking up when she was done. “Your eyes are getting all silvery, too, Father Jamey.”

“I know. I figure I can give up trying to hide my ears—everybody will be too busy looking at my eyes. Play something else.”

“Okay, but I only know two.”

As Hazel started another simple tune, Father Jamey looked around for the others. Malachi lay beneath the window, on top of a pile of sleeping bags, covered by several blankets and a quilt scavenged from the rectory. He was sleeping, his face to the wall. Father Jamey could see his aura, a pale, sickly yellow, streaked with red. The lights intertwined in his hair and glowing beneath his skin were the same feverish red.

Hazel stopped playing. “He doesn't wake up much now, Father, except when Ben makes him drink something, eat some soup,” she said softly. “He can still sort of mind-speak, but mostly it's all dreams about Faerie and the White City and the sea. And the four of us all there together. He's dying, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is. Unless we can get to the gate. I have an idea—not a great one, but an idea. Where is everybody else?”

“Jack's with Ben. I think Russell and Jeff are flying around in the church. They were reading for a while,” Hazel said and pointed to the books scattered on the floor beside the sleeping bags and blankets. “Then they got bored. They sent Jeff's dinosaurs flying around here, but Ben got mad and sent them into the sanctuary. They woke up Malachi. I told Ben Malachi liked to have them around, but he didn't listen. What's your plan, Father Jamey?”

“Let me talk to Ben and Jack first,” the priest said and looked up to see a stuffed purple apatosaurus and a cherry-red tyrannosaurus rex parked on the ceiling.

 

Jack was in pain. Father Jamey could see it in the man's grey face and how he lay very still on the couch by the computer, as if the wrong gesture or movement might be too much to bear. He lay under an embroidered quilt the priest's mother had given him when he had accepted the job at St. Mary's.
My first parish. Might be my last one, too.
Even a priest needs to have some nice things, vow of poverty or not, she had told him when she had brought it out to his car.
I hope Duncan called her, let her know I'm all right, despite being at the center of all the storms.
Duncan, the older of his two little brothers, had called last night and his voice had echoed in the phone, as if he were talking deep inside a well.

“Hey, Big Brother Father . . . I've been trying for days to get a line ... what the hell is going on in North Carolina . . . Mama's worried sick about—”

The line popped and buzzed, as if there was something between Jamey and his brother, eating their words, gulping down their sounds. Duncan finally gave up after extracting a promise from Jamey to call home as soon as he could.

I wish Dunc were here.

“Hey, Father J, Earth to Father J,” Ben said, snapping his fingers, as he turned his chair away from the keyboard and the monitor. “I was trying to get on the Internet, when the modem went dead. It's as if we are on an island in the middle of nowhere.”

“Sorry, my mind was—never mind. We are on an island, sort of. North Carolina is the spawning ground for these storms that seem to be driving anything electrical insane. The phone lines go dead, they come back to life, they just went dead a bit ago, so no Internet access. The lights are on permanent blink, I think. All of which you already know. What are you trying to find on the net, anyway?” Father Jamey said as he took the chair beside Ben.

“Passing the time—”

“He was looking for more magic, as if we didn't have enough of it already. A spell or a charm or something,” Jack said slowly, trying to sit up. “To heal this wound in my chest. The burns on my back are healing; I don't think my chest will ever heal.” The priest could see, from where the quilt fell from Jack's chest, the faint pink stains coming through Jack's T-shirt.

“I should change your bandage again,” Jamey said. “I know you should probably not travel, Jack, but I do have a plan now, to get us out of here and closer to the Devil's Tramping Ground.”

There was a sudden flash of light, immediately followed by a cannon shot of thunder, so loud, it seemed to almost be on top of the church. The computer popped, sparked, and went dead, along with the rest of the room's lights.

“Guess that takes care of that. Okay, Father J, what's your plan?” Ben asked. “Where did you put those candles you brought yesterday?”

“Over there, by the door; I'll help you light them. I told you I could do some magic myself now. I showed you how I could make a luminous cross in the air. Today I used that cross to make one of the watchers leave—I don't know if it was from the cross, like with vampires, or just the fright of having it turn into a fireball that exploded right in front of the watcher. I can do that now. And I can make a glamour—an old word for a magic shield, like a cloak of invisibility, which will hide the church van. I told you that I could, I think. I'm the strongest in the morning, in that brief hour of light before the clouds close over. We can get to Chapel Hill in an hour—even in the van. I figure we should take that over the wagon: more room.”

“The van's fine, but what after Chapel Hill? We still have to get to southwest Chatham County before midnight day after tomorrow,” Ben said. The two of them moved about the room, setting out and lighting the candles. The soft candlelight pushed back some of the grey light coming in the window.

Jamey shook his head. He hadn't quite figured out that part of the plan yet. He was working on it. He had another idea, but wanted to wait and mull over it some more. They had to travel in the dark then—there was no way around that or hide in the woods by the Devil's Tramping Ground all day and that didn't seem like a good idea.

“Will your magic be enough?” Jack said. “Black magic is awfully strong and it's getting stronger and stronger. I can feel it—that's where these clouds and storms are from. Even with that glamour, the witches will chase us. Or the deputies or somebody.”

“We've got to try. What other choice do we have?”

“Okay,” Ben said, nodding his head. “It could work, but the next part is what worries me. Chapel Hill to Chatham—”

“I have a plan for that,” Jack said, interrupting. “Give Thomas what he wants and then hightail it out of there—fast car, church van—whatever.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asked. “Give Thomas what?”

“Me.”

“Jack!” Jamey and Ben shouted at the same time, Ben coming to his feet.