Chapter 98
The innocent one soared through the black clouds. He was in his father’s form, a dark-winged monster swooping after the taxi as it sped across the serpentine river. He kept close, like a hawk tracking a mouse’s shadow.
If the solemn one had fought the pixie-like one, he would’ve darted down, grasped him in his claws, and carried him to the horror.
He smiled, tracking the yellow taxi’s light.
He dove between the cables of the bridge and swept past the taxi.
At the window, he slowed and nodded to the pixie-like one.
Who could see the Jersey Devil’s son tonight? The black clouds were so thick most humans would believe he was a figment of their imagination.
The wind gasped. A convulsing, anguished scream ripped at its thin tendrils.
It wasn’t the boy.
The boy was gone.
Most of the wind had stayed with him, keeping the funeral pyre’s fires at bay.
No.
This scream sounded like the ocean rushing through a sea cave. Or like a ship crashing against a deadly reef. It was the citrus and pearl dust scented woman, and she was in agony.
Had the wind already forgotten its promise to the boy?
Had it left the citrus and pearl dust scented woman to die?
It feathered toward her, collecting the thin particles of itself that remained in the horror’s ring.
It shrieked and reared back at the blast of scalding, tear-flesh-from-bone, searing heat. What was this?
The heat scorched the woman and her brothers. She was crumpled on the ground, her arms over her head. The musician and the trickster shot waves of ice at the hell scented fires. It wouldn’t be enough. It couldn’t be.
The wind saw their illusions were weakening. But the fire was a hungry, torrential, endless thing.
Why wasn’t the woman fighting? She was the strongest of the Bards. She was the heir. She could shove back the flames.
The wind moaned at the heat and sank toward the woman’s shaking form.
It hadn’t wanted to leave the boy. It hadn’t wanted to.
But the boy was gone. His body was just a shell thing. It was the wind who’d wanted it to be with him in the north. To sing him wind songs under the hemlocks.
The boy had wanted him to protect the woman.
The wind realized it had been wrong before. When the fawn-like one had told the wind it couldn’t follow the one it loved, she’d meant it couldn’t follow the boy into death. And now, the fawn-like one meant the wind couldn’t follow him by mourning over him when it was needed by someone else.
The boy didn’t need the wind anymore.
The woman needed the wind.
It screamed, its wind noise a breaking, broken, grieving cry. It swept over the boy’s cheeks, swirling on his cold, familiar skin. It tapped his nose, and then, one last time, it flicked his ear. Then, hugging the boy, it screamed goodbye and tore itself free.
It gathered itself and yanked like a lightning bolt across the river to the woman.
She needed the wind.
Her eyes were closed. Her small hand gripped the crystal necklace the boy had given her. The crystal was shattered, and the shards cut her palm. The heat was so unbearable that her hot blood felt cool. The wind tapped the coppery scent and pressed against the boy’s broken crystal drop.
What was wrong with the woman?
It flowed over her shaking form.
She smelled of citrus and pearl dust. She smelled like the sea. Like gentle waves crashing over a shell-strewn beach. Like saltwater lapping over golden sand.
But then the wind gasped and rushed against her skin. There was more. She didn’t just smell like the sea.
She smelled like something else. It was a summer meadow, full of tall grass and wildflowers. There was sunlight and shadow, and the sweet green grass was shaded by birch trees. It was the wind in the meadow, rustling the grass, keeping it company. She smelled like the sea and the wind.
What was this?
What was this?
She smelled like the boy, but not boy. The meadow had moved from its forest in the north to a plain next to the sea.
The wind’s broken heart ached, and it gasped as it pressed close—close—closer still.
And there—there!—it felt the raging, wild, shadow and light current of the boy’s power. Not just the boy’s. But the man’s. And his father’s before him. It was the Ward’s illusion, and it was inside the woman.
No.
The wind stilled. Listened.
Not inside the woman.
Inside the Ward.
The wind struggled to yank itself faster, faster, faster!
When the boy and the citrus and pearl dust scented woman had lain together, they’d made a child. The wind could sense its spirit now. It was grappling with the river of power, fighting to contain the flow that threatened to rip its mother apart.
It rushed to the baby. It was as tiny as the wind’s thin particle. Both of them were more spirit than not.
The wind pressed a tendril against it.
I’m here! the wind cried. I’m here!
The boy’s child was frightened. It could feel its mother’s terror. The wind soothed it. I’m here! It sang it a wind song. It told the child’s spirit to be brave. To hold on. To have faith. To have hope. To hold on to love. The wind told the boy’s child that it wasn’t alone.
Then, at a frightening convulsion, the wind was ripped away. It landed next to the woman, panting on the concrete. The sting of fire surrounded them. Outside the blaze, the creatures of Hell Gate descended into the horror. The girl screamed. What was wrong with the girl?
The wind crawled over the sizzling pavement to the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s pink-shelled ear.
The fan, it whispered.
The woman opened her eyes. She looked around, sweat beading on her brow. Could she hear the wind? Could she understand it now she had the Ward’s power flowing inside her too?
The fan!
The wind remembered what the merchant had said. He’d told the woman to use it when it got hot. It was hot.
The woman’s hand shook. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the fan.
Above her, the trickster and the musician had nearly run out of power. Their water shield had thinned to a trickle.
She flicked her wrist, and the lacy gold and pink paper fan expanded.
The water shield guttered.
Now! the wind screamed.
The boy had died, but the wind would not let his child die too.
The woman waved the fan.
The wind shrieked. It was a wind fan! It was a hurricane! It was beautiful!
The fan called the wind. In a single snap of the woman’s wrist, every bit of wind, from the Atlantic to the Catskills, swept against the paper and ricocheted off.
The wind had become a mighty wind giant.
It bounced off the fan and screamed.
It was wrath. It was rage. It shoved the fire back and swept it into a giant fire tornado. It saved the woman and chased her attackers away.