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“You two can stay at my place,” Hank said gruffly as he supported Ash on their way across the broken ground. Tufts of grass and weeds were harder to see at dusk, with the sky dark overhead and heavy with water-laden clouds. Not even a glimmer of sunset lit up the western silhouette of Pittsburgh on the other side of the river, and despite the uncertain footing, Ash was grateful for the soothing dusk.
Behind him, muffled voices carried on the remnants of the fog as Paul and Mark hauled Cooper on a stretcher improvised of left-over construction lumber and an old blanket.
“Come on,” Ellen called from the street. “The coast is clear!”
Ash wanted to get away from here, from this place of death and destruction. His instinct told him to flee across the river, to the safe, small apartment with a basement bathtub and a big-enough mattress sprawled on the floor.
Cooper’s place.
A safe place, free of strong ley lines or rogue nodes, and unspoiled by the bitter taste of defeat. At least Cooper was out for the count. This way, he’d be spared the worst of his back-lash headache, and his mourning for Jared could be postponed by a day or two.
Poor Jared, the flirty, funny, sweet cousin who saw that which was hidden to the ordinary eye, yet couldn’t even nudge the flows of power around him. Ash wasn’t sure what had happened in the end, or how Jared managed to get out all that energy that had been contained within him and merge it with the shields that now hid what was left of the node.
He’d have given a fortune to have Jared’s insight right now, because even though he didn’t feel the thrum of the node anymore and didn’t feel the hum of the ley lines, Ash wasn’t sure whether they had failed, or succeeded.
“Lift your feet, or I’ll have to carry you,” Hank said.
Ash blinked. They were inside his place, with the bedroom upstairs. “Oh.” He turned. “Bathroom first.”
Hank let him go. Ash stumbled, bare feet gripping the polished wooden floor – when did someone take his shoes off? – and barged through the recycled antique door, where he tended to his need. After he washed his hands and face, he made the mistake of looking into the mirror.
He barely recognized himself. An empty-eyed stranger peered at him, a man with sallow skin and circles under his eyes, wild-haired, and in obvious pain.
He turned away. This wasn’t the time for introspection. He needed to sleep this off, and when he was done, he’d tend to Cooper.
“Is there any reishi?” His own voice was that of a broken stranger.
Hank nodded. “Yeah, my mom gave me a batch. How much do you usually take?”
“This isn’t the time for a normal dosage,” Ash whispered.
“That’s right,” Hank echoed his sentiment. “This isn’t the time for normal anything.” He pulled a large bottle out of the dark cupboard and poured a small shot glass. “Here, knock this back.”
Ash did. The flavor took him by surprise. Woody, and... and sweet, but not from sugar. “Diff’rent,” he mumbled before he downed the glass of water Hank pressed into his hand.
“Come on,” Hank prodded him. “You need to sleep.”
Minutes later, Ash was in Hank’s bed, stripped to his boxers and covered in blankets. The room was dark and quiet. A random thought flitted through Ash’s mind, telling him he would’ve expected to hear at least a bit of traffic from Butler Street up the hill, or the occasional honking of a car from the 40th Street Bridge.
He let the soothing darkness claim him.
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THE BLARING OF an ambulance nearby woke Ash up. He held still, knowing from experience not to make any sudden movements until he was sure of himself. The room Hank put him in was still dark, which was good for Ash’s backlash headache.
Darn, he’d hoped he would wake up refreshed and pain-free. It seemed the backlash was proportionate to his exertion level, however, so he settled back and took a deep, patient breath.
He wanted to know what time it was behind the shut blackout curtains. He needed to see how Cooper was doing. An urge to go back to the crater gripped him.
The crater.
Did he really manage to blow the whole thing up? He’d need a confirmation on that, because the images in his mind were likely a product of a hot and hazy dream world and not a record of something that had taken place in reality. Or, in the reality as he knew it.
When Ash heard the microwave beep downstairs, he was relieved that he wasn’t alone in the house The thought of company gave him the impetus to get out of bed. A shower and a change into too-large clothes later, courtesy of Hank’s workout wardrobe, Ash was in the downstairs dining room while Hank served him a lunch of a previously frozen egg and ham bagel sandwich.
He ate it.
He drank the coffee and the water, and he downed a somewhat smaller dose of reishi, and then he looked at Hank with as much life as he could summon. “Thank you.”
Those were his first words, and he had never meant them more sincerely. “And, I’m sorry I fucked up,” Ash continued. He meant those words, too.
Hank settled his considerable bulk in a chair diagonally from him, and after he swallowed a bite of his apple, he tilted his head. “Why? How was anything your fault?”
There were so many ways this could’ve gone better. More training, more practice. More time. More everything, even people, and that boiled down to one simple fact.
“I should’ve asked for help a lot sooner.”
Hank nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “But correct me if I’m wrong, the node went bad pretty suddenly, yeah?”
“I should’ve predicted it.”
“Grandma Olga should have predicted it,” Hank corrected as he doled out his words with metronomic precision. “And if she did, and didn’t say anything, then there was a reason. Maybe no matter what we were going to do, something bad would have happened.”
Ash leaned back from his half-eaten meal. Olga Sorensen had probably known this was one of the future possibilities as soon as she had bent her mind toward him and Cooper back in upstate New York. He respected her, and he respected her unwillingness to mess with time-flow and possible outcomes, if only by providing information. Reality had a way of circumventing all predictions and precautions, she had said. “Nah,” he finally broke the silence. “I don’t envy her her talent.”
“It’s a no-win, most of the time,” Hank agreed. “Hey... so how’re you feeling? Headache status?”
“Still there. I still need to sleep. How’s Cooper?”
Hank’s face darkened. “Still out.” Then an uncomfortable grimace contorted his face. “Hey... so what happened there yesterday? I thought you guys were going to balance out the elements, then I was going to siphon the extra energy into the Void. Right?”
Ah. Finally, a chance at getting some information. “You were standing to my left,” Ash said, visualizing as much as he could. “What do you remember happening?”
Hank set his bitten apple down, and took a drink of water instead. “I, uh. I stood there, waiting for the right time. We had a plan, and we were kind of sticking to it. You were summoning water with that sword of yours, and Ellen started making wind. And then, after a lot of show, you jumped forward and stabbed the rock with the sword, and then everyone’s power began to drain into it. So, I was afraid to touch anything. I mean, had I tried to interfere, I would’ve sent all the power everyone worked so hard to generate into the Void, y’know?”
“Makes sense,” Ash said, remembering not to nod.
“So then it all went to shit. There was so much steam, it was hard to see. The rock exploded, and the next I remember you and I were knocked down, and Cooper was standing over what was left. He was, like, holding his hand over the crater. And then Jared came up and grabbed his shoulder.” Hank paused.
Ash blinked slowly, letting Hank gather his thoughts. So far, this was a lot like the dream he remembered. Just when he was tempted to prompt Hank for more, Hank spoke again.
“It was weird. It was so quiet, y’know? Just the fog, and the heat, and the guys were pouring all they could into it, which I don’t understand, because Cooper is earth with some fire, so how would that help anything? And Jared didn’t have an official element, he just had the Sight. But then Jared disappeared, and the heat went away.” Hank’s tone was as bewildered as the eyes under his bushy eyebrows.
“Just like that?” Ash said.
“Just like that. And nothing was left. I checked. Not even clothes.” Hank gave an embarrassed cough. “Like, I thought... this is so fucking dumb, but at that moment I thought it was like Star Wars or something, and when the Jedi died, they left their robes, right? But...”
“But no robes.” Ash nodded this time. His head hurt, but he’d live... unlike Jared. “You know, this disappearing act, it can’t be the first time this has ever happened. The guys even called it something. So if you hear about it in the legends, or in stories, or even in the movies which happen to be inspired by stories, maybe? Then it probably has some basis in fact.” This wasn’t the time to tell Hank that he could walk the river bottom without breathing in the conventional way, but he had read old folk tales where “magical” beings could do just that.
Except he wasn’t magical. He was just Ash.
“Maybe.” Hank shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s fucking weird, is what it is. But we all agree we don’t feel his power signature anymore, so he... he put all of himself out there.”
Ash gave a dry, bitter laugh. “I keep waiting to wake up.”
“Good luck with that,” Hank said. “I’ve been waiting since I was six.”
The glass of the living room window trembled. “What the fuck?” Hank jumped to his feet.
“An earthquake?” Ash bit back a gasp, but alarm coursed through his body nonetheless. “Cooper doesn’t have the ground stone anymore!”
“He doesn’t?” Hank asked as he strode to the window, narrowly avoiding his coffee table.
“No, I think he threw it into the pit. That’s what’s making that shield. We should go check it out...” Ash was on Hank’s heels, trying to see what was going on outside.
“It’s that nosy asshole again,” Hank said. “He was here the night we moved in, after you left. What a snide little twerp, too.”
Ash peeked past Hank. There, parked in the street, stood a sizeable truck, the kind used for carrying heavy equipment. Two big, burly men jumped out. One kicked the wire fence, which was now heavy with blossoming vines and posed an impenetrable wall of lush greenery.
A familiar figure slid out of the truck’s cab. Slight, blond, and none too welcome, Brian Clegg from the South Side gang was stomping all over his turf.
“That guy? The blond?” Ash said, pointing.
Hank growled. “Yeah. He wanted to know who owns the property.”
Ash pressed his lips together so hard they hurt. The memory of an unwelcome letter, offering to buy the whole property, came to him as though from very long ago. After last night, all events in the past hid behind the curtain of fog, unexplainable events, and sorrow.
But the letter had been real, and so had been the wild and outrageous offer, posed by an unknown party through a lawyer and a bunch of shell companies. “His name is Brian Clegg, and he’s no good. Did you tell him anything?”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “To fuck himself. Didn’t like him one bit.”
One of the big guys reached behind the seat, and emerged with a pair of bright-red, wire-cutting shears. He headed for the fence.