Wildcat Fireflies (43 page)

“Juliet. Her name is Juliet. Shall we?” He held up his arm like a formal escort for Joi to the cellar doors.

“I do want to know the rest of the story.” She dotted her eyes with a tissue. “I remember that age so well.”

Tens stood and held on to my hand. “Let’s go slay a dragon and rescue a damsel.”

“No, let’s go deliver a sword so the damsel can slay her own dragon.”

“That’s a better plan.” Tony smiled at us. “Your truck, or my van?”

A large tree rested on the hood of the truck. My heart sank. Jasper’s truck had treated us well, but there was no fixing the crumpled hunk of metal.

“My van it is.” Tony led the way, picking branches up and moving them out of our path.

“You’re not leaving me here. I’m coming too.” Joi finagled a passenger seat. “Just tell me what to do.”

Custos appeared beside the car, dry and untouched. She barked.

“Make room for the wolf?” I asked.

M
y hair, freed from its elastic and wet with icy rain, lashed my face and arms like a whip. We shivered, drenched, until he picked us up.

“Hold on.” A deep, thickly accented voice blanketed Enid and me with a lullaby while strong arms lifted us from our position, braced against the wall and floor. We all but flew down the stairs. Before I even blinked we were under the stairs, in the farthest recesses of my cubbyhole. I saw no
flashlights or lanterns, and yet the space brimmed full of the warmest, brightest light.

“You’ll be safe now.” He smelled of sugar and sun and summer nights. He turned at the little door, the light following him. “Hear them when they come bearing your story and believe in the power of purposeful unity.… ”

These last words were broken by the sound of glass and tearing metal. Thumps like God’s hammer and a rushing like the heaviest rapids filled my ears. The world blackened and I huddled there in the dark, holding Enid. We heard walls crash and metal snap. Above our heads the stairs lifted and flew off in chunks, raining bits of wood and plaster down onto my back.

The rain continued relentlessly even after the winds receded. Enid and I cried, holding each other, releasing our fear into the chaos around us. I froze, afraid to move, scared to open my eyes and find out that we had died.

I forced myself to just keep breathing.

After what felt like an eternity, the cold beat my fear and I lost feeling in my limbs. The softest fingers brushed against my cheeks and tickled my forehead.

“Child, they’re calling you,” Enid whispered in my ear. “Are you still in there?”

I lifted my head and realized I had my eyes squeezed shut so tight, my face hurt with the effort.

I heard voices calling, “Juliet? Juliet? Bodie? Nicole?”

After a moment of disbelief, I recognized Meridian’s and Tens’s voices, among several others. Trying to move was a chore as blood rushed back into my complaining knees and
shoulders. I gently moved off and around Enid, trying to keep from hurting her further. “Are you okay?” I asked, my voice a croak, a whisper.

“I’m alive. Go get them. I’ll wait here.” Enid patted me and I nodded. Shifting toilet paper and towels off of us, I climbed out of the pile.

The stairs were gone; the tops of the walls looked surgically cut. The sky was a grayish blue. I couldn’t see the horizon to know if more thunder cells were on the way. I was in a box without a ceiling.

I stumbled toward the door, which was shut tight against whatever lay on the outside. I hesitated. I’d wanted DG to disappear, but I’d never dreamed that might actually happen. The uncertainty about my future was paralyzing.

“Enid needs help.” I whispered to talk myself into movement. I reached for the doorknob.

I pushed at the door and it swung outward. Nothing was left of DG. I gasped. The piles of debris made it look like a construction site. A lone chair from the sitting room sat exactly as it had before the storm, only there was nothing around it but the floor.

I glanced around at the foundation, with the tiles and the area rugs still in the right place. But no upstairs. No attic. No kitchen or nurses’ lounge. No Mistress’s office. No Mistress’s body.

I felt my knees turn to jelly. I tried to wave or yell to the crowd walking toward the creek and the woods. I couldn’t make a large sound, but I must have made enough of one, because I heard shouts.

“There she is!” Meridian spotted me and ran toward me.

I think I simply stood there and waited for her to come.

She stopped inches away from embracing me. I could tell the devastation must have driven all hope from them, because her face bloomed with such exquisite relief. “Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded, pointing behind me. “Enid needs help.”

Meridian motioned toward others. Tens. A smiling woman who was talking on a cell phone with such animation I wondered who was on the other end. I’d do whatever she wanted.

A man came toward me. He shrugged out of his suit coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Ah, sweet-as-light Juliet Ambrose. Apple of her mother’s eye and heart that beats in the breeze.” He smiled and rubbed my arms, and I knew.

In that moment, I knew what I’d so long forgotten. “Father Anthony?” I asked, and then I fainted.

T
ens and I exchanged worried, awestruck frowns as we drove toward Dunklebarger. Tony had the radio on and we listened to reports. “The funnel cloud just missed the downtown area of Carmel, but cut a seven-mile swath. The storm cell is headed east toward Noblesville. If you have a cellar you should be listening to us from there.” Callers rang in with their eyewitness accounts, everything from “There’s a live cow stuck in our oak tree” to “We don’t have power in Fishers. Anyone know when it will be restored?”

I listened with one ear while trying to survey the
apocalypse around us. I could see the exact stretch of land that the tornado touched down on, but there was no rhyme or reason to what was damaged and what was left alone. Trees were ripped out of the ground and littered the roads with roots and power lines. More than once we bumped over fields to get around piles of houses and vehicles and dead farm animals. The fury of Mother Nature had spared nothing and no one in her path.

I didn’t think anyone could have survived this. I thought we were too late. That we’d failed.

Only the smallest bit, a closet, of Dunklebarger continued to stand. The rest of the building had disappeared, as if it had never been there. “Where did it go?”

“A farmer ten miles away is probably looking at it. Happens all the time—there was a silo dumped at the Colts practice facility last year, still full of grain,” Joi answered.

We piled out of the car shouting, searching. Tens and I headed toward the creek. Tony and Joi found a pile of debris in the woods and started trying to lift parts.

She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead
.

Then, the lone upright door swung open and Juliet appeared like an avenging angel ready for battle. Her hair hung lank and dripped down her face. Her hands were scratched and bleeding and her clothes clung to her skin. I ran to her, picking my way over branches and sheets of twisted metal.

She’s okay
. I shouted for the others to come. If Juliet had survived under the stairs, maybe Bodie and the others had too.

When Tony joined us, he and Juliet locked eyes. Hers
rolled back into her head and she collapsed. Tony caught her. Joi dialed 911 demanding help
now
.

“Breathe.” Tens leaned down and whispered the single word in my ear.

I realized I’d been holding my breath.

Joi barreled into what was left of the closet and found an elderly lady, bruised but otherwise fine. Enid couldn’t walk, and she couldn’t really explain how they’d gotten from upstairs to the closet in time. I didn’t know if she suffered dementia, or if the whole incident had rattled her beyond clarity. Directing us to do our thing, Joi took charge of Enid, to cluck over her.

Tony held Juliet, whispering prayers and comfort.

Tens and I knew Bodie, Sema, Nicole and the headmistress should have been somewhere in this mess too.

We yelled and called their names until we were hoarse. Tens, Custos, and I headed into what was left of the scraggly forest. Dumped car parts and a tractor trailer lay crumpled on the footpath. Even the creek had Sheetrock, stuffed animals, and a toilet deposited in the middle of it. The iron fence Bodie had climbed through so many times was dug up and impaled into the heart of a tree. I didn’t want to imagine what that might have done to a person.

Tens and I couldn’t find the kids by the creek or in any of the debris. I couldn’t find Minerva, either. Though Custos did her best to nose around and bark at the odd squirrels poking their heads back out, we were fresh out of places they could hide. There was no birdsong; the world was strangely silent around us.

“Supergirl, check this out.” Tens leaned down and
picked up a framed photograph. He used his sleeve to wipe mud from it.

I gasped, “Oh my God, that’s Perimo!”

Frantic honking made us look up at a car barreling around debris toward Dunklebarger’s remains. Rumi piled out of the car, hollering gibberish at the top of his lungs and waving his arms at us. He charged toward Juliet and we ran to meet him, Tens carrying the photograph.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Tony helped Juliet stand.

Rumi was red and sweaty; his eyes wildly took in the scene. “I checked the cottage. You weren’t there or at the store. When I heard where the tornado touched down, I thought, I hoped, you’d be here.” He gasped his words.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, just stared at a piece of paper clutched in his hand. “I found this tacked to the door of my studio with a knife. With the storm, I couldn’t get to you soon. I’m so sorry. So very lugubrious.”

Tens reached out a hand. “What is it?”

Rumi handed the mangled paper to Tens. “The Nocti, she has Bodie and Sema. She wants your Juliet in exchange.”

I gasped.

Juliet swayed to her feet. “The kids? Where are the kids? Are they okay?”

“Of a sort, lass.”

“Where are they?” Juliet asked. “Let’s go get them.”

“Do you know a Ms. Asura?” Rumi questioned.

Juliet nodded, rubbing at her heart. “She’s our social worker. Why are you all so upset?”

I blinked, exhaling a great gust of my own.
Of course
. How better to get close to Fenestras coming of age?

Rumi nodded. “She has the children.”

“Then they’re okay. Right?” Juliet’s head swiveled as she glanced first at me, then at Tens, and finally Tony. “Right?”

“For the moment,” Tens answered her. I leaned over Tens and saw the note.

“What does that mean?” Juliet asked Tony, puzzled.

Tens stuffed the paper in his pocket.

Rumi glanced at the new dark clouds heading toward us. “Perhaps we’d best get inside to talk strategy?” he asked Tony, as if the two older men were going to lead this charge into the unknown.

“Um, hello?” I called. “Fenestra here, remember? Protector?” I gestured at Tens, then pointed at the men. “You’re human.”

“You haven’t lived long enough, lassie, or you’d know how silly you sound.” Rumi smiled. “I know you’re the top dog. Lead the way.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Juliet asked.

“Me too,” Tony added.

A
fter we told Joi where to find us with news about Enid, she left in the ambulance to care for the elderly woman.

At some point, Juliet had grabbed my hand and hadn’t let go. There was no feeling left in my fingers—if anything, her grip seemed to tighten the longer she held on. There was only so much one person was able to handle; I worried we were pushing her past her point of no return.

I felt more complete touching her, though, so I understood her need to cling to that.

We trooped over to Rumi’s quarters. The town itself was a mess, but by and large intact. The tornadoes had skirted
the most populated areas this time. Rumi and Tony acted like old friends and kindred spirits. Maybe they were.

Rumi brewed coffee and tea, and made hot chocolate, pulling Tens and me into the kitchen. “How much can we talk about? I know it’s caliginous, murky, for you.”

I knew he was requesting permission to speak frankly, but I also understood he wouldn’t if we asked him not to. Between Tyee’s connection to Tony and Josiah’s use of him as a messenger, I felt like we could trust him. Joi too. And Juliet—well, she had to know everything, even if she didn’t want to. “The whole thing.”

“You feel okay with that?” Tens brushed my hair behind my ear.

“Do you not?” I asked.

“No, I’m fine. I have a good feeling.”

I nodded. “Like this is part of what we’re supposed to do.”

“Build a coalition?”

“So everything’s on the table?” Rumi picked up the tray and waited for my nod. “Good. We’re mightier that way.”

“Ms. Asura is a social worker?” Tony started the conversation, his pen poised to take notes as needed.

“Yes,” Juliet answered. “For all of us.”

“She’s Nocti,” I said. “A bad guy.” For simplicity.

“That’s not right. You should have multiple caseworkers.” Rumi shook his head.

Tony steered us back. “And she has two young children in her care right now.”

“Three. Nicole must be there too,” Juliet added.

Rumi shot us a look. I had seen the note. There was no mention of Nicole.

Tens held out the photograph he’d found at Dunklebarger. I handed it to Juliet with my heart in my throat. Klaus Perimo was the Nocti determined to kill me or change me on my sixteenth birthday. “Do you know this man?”