Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two (31 page)

Both Julie and Evangeline had disappeared alone, the moment that their sibling looked away. His chance had arrived.

He couldn’t think about it. He just had to go, and hope the fire hadn’t destroyed the snare, or portal, or whatever would suck him up. But the fire hadn’t reached this part of the forest, and the girls had both disappeared right along the fringes. Patrick ran back into the trees, deep enough to make sure no one could see him from the road. Nothing happened. He didn’t fall through a portal. So, he race-walked parallel to the road, waiting for the invisible monster to grab him. He had simulated the situation perfectly. He had even arrived with a sibling, who had moved out sight. If this didn’t work, he had no idea what else to try.

But then, when he looked back towards the road, he couldn’t see it anymore. He had been less than twenty feet away, and now, it wasn’t there. He only saw more forest.

Holy fuck.

He wouldn’t fall into an obvious portal or rabbit hole. At some point in his frantic race-walking, he just went through it. As he looked around himself, he noticed strange things. The brown pine needles caught on the branches hung at odd directions. He reached for one that hung straight up, and at his touch it fell again as gravity would have it fall. Patrick’s heart raced. No one in his family had any real magical training, so he couldn’t say for sure, but he couldn’t imagine any of them doing anything this dramatic.

Although his heart raced with nerves, another sensation pushed its way through, as if it came from outside him. He felt a pleasant sensation that he couldn’t describe at first. Maybe pride—seeing yourself at your very best. Feeling on top of the world.

Then, he noticed something else wrong with his surroundings. It felt nice. Not blazing hot, but a fresh cool. The air smelled of smoke, but it had a different quality, more like a campfire. Everything about the scene reminded him of camping with his family. They had gone to Garner State Park every fall…except for the last one. Away from electronics and all the other distractions of the world, they were happy, relaxed. They would cook steaks and marshmallows over the open fire. He could hear the crackling fire. The sound of talking, and laughter. The cool air. The fall leaves in the trees, a blaze with red and orange.

Then it made sense. He felt Fall. Autumn. The best parts of it. He guessed that’s why it reminded him of the best parts of himself.

Since pine trees look the same in every season, he hadn’t noticed it right away. But the forest around him had changed. He had walked right out of summer into fall. He could see the changing leaves on the oaks and maples scattered between the pines. He could feel the cool air. Water droplets hung from pine needles, from a fall rain that hadn’t happened.

So, whatever magic had brought him here had recognized him, as Nathan said. The Autumnal Equinox. And the magic had heralded his arrival with a tribute to Fall.

Patrick had to wonder if Evangeline had stepped into winter. If all the plants died in front of her, and the air became frigid. Perhaps ice hung from the pines. And Julie, well, since it was summer, maybe nothing changed. Maybe she just felt it. The best parts of summer. Watermelon, fireworks, and swimming pools.

The magic felt so welcoming, as if the forest honored him, worshiped him. But he stayed vigilant. Whether the forest honored him or not, he knew from his visions of Julie that whoever called him here had no intention to honor him at all.

As quickly as the glorious autumn feeling had hit him, it passed. He felt the heat encroaching, and the smell of burning…and not the campfire kind. The destructive kind. The overwhelming kind. He noticed a strange flutter of white that looked like snow, and then realized it was ash. Whatever illusion had made it fall had faded away, and he had returned to the real world, but this didn’t feel like the same world he had been in with Nathan at the road.

Something odd caught his eye through the trees. An armchair. Light blue, and ripped and stained. The chair faced away from him, and he could see the top of
something
sitting in the chair. Matted, dirty, brown hair. He approached the chair, and with his heart beating in his throat, he looked to see what sat there. A large Teddy bear. Like the chair, it was dirty, and damaged. One eye was missing. Garbage. That had to be all this was. A dumping ground for people who didn’t want to drive to the landfill. In the normal world, that’s what this would be. But now he’d passed through the portal, he couldn’t say for sure.

He heard a sound that made his hairs stand up on end. Music. A specific kind of music—the kind you hear from an ice cream truck. The happy, carnival-esque sound wafting across the breeze. But it didn’t make him feel happy. The music had a sinister note.

Sure enough, he passed through a clearing, and found an ice cream truck. The brightly-colored menu had faded, and brown pine needles carpeted the roof of the truck. The truck appeared empty, but he had no desire to double check. The truck had a dark and dangerous feel. One he couldn’t explain, but he knew it was wrong. Misplaced.

He continued walking, and found more lost vehicles. An empty, battered school bus that might have sat on the bottom of a lake for a decade. An ambulance. Old cars with broken windows and gutted engines. He couldn’t imagine why they would be here. He could feel the wrongness. Fear. His fear, or a fear that came from the air itself, it permeated everything.

He decided to pray then. He didn’t know what to say, so the prayer became wordless. An acknowledgment of God. He knew God didn’t need words to hear him anyway. He knew what went on. He knew what would happen. And He knew what Patrick should do. Patrick wanted to pray for safety, but he didn’t know if that was God’s plan. Maybe Patrick needed to be in danger to save the girls, even die. So, no matter how scared he felt, he wouldn’t pray for safety.

He felt her presence before he saw her. A woman, waiting by a rusted tow truck. She walked toward him and smiled. He should have found her beautiful, because by all visible signs, she was. Tall, and graceful, and glowing with life. But she didn’t seem beautiful to him. She seemed wrong, broken, repellant.

“Julie?” Even as he asked it, he knew she wasn’t Julie. She looked similar, with reddish blonde hair and green eyes, but five or six years older than Julie. And although they looked similar, this didn’t look like the girl from the photo.

She shook her head, still smiling. “No,” she said.

“What are you?” For some reason, “what” came out instead of “who.”

“I am
everything
.”

When Patrick didn’t reply, she went on.

“You see, you are one thing. You are the perfect version of that one thing, I admit. But still one thing. One brief, fleeting moment in time. And no matter how perfect that moment might be, we all know perfect moments don’t last. They may linger as memories, but time ravages them all. You are one perfect moment, but I am every moment, of every day, of every year, for all eternity.”

“Where are Julie and Evangeline?”

She laughed. “I see. You’re here to save them. Am I right?”

Her twinkling laughter made him feel nauseous. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Aww, aren’t you sweet? And handsome. I think, even more handsome than your brother. Especially, when you have a few more years on you. Too bad I won’t get to see that. Follow me.”

Patrick didn’t move.

She cocked her eyebrow. “Well, you could go back the way you came. But that wouldn’t be very heroic, would it?”

Patrick followed her. A house loomed between the trees, as misplaced and broken as the rest of the refuse.

avid headed toward the place that made the most sense. The gas station where Julie and Evangeline had disappeared. If something horrible had happened to one of his sons, it happened in that damn forest.

“We’re being followed,” James said.

“I know.”

David glanced in his rearview mirror. A royal blue Prius had followed them for some time now, a royal blue Prius containing Thea Prescott. He couldn’t get a good look at her from the mirror, but he could feel her magic and could make a guess. He didn’t see anyone else in the car with her.

“Who does she think she is?” James asked. “Stalking two dark wizards all by herself?”

“Maybe just she’s headed to the same place we are.”

James scoffed. “I don’t know.”

“Normally I wouldn’t be concerned about a lone, middle-aged woman, but I know better. If she does plan on attacking us, what do you think she will do?”

“Hard to say. If it was hand to hand combat, she’d use some kind of fire or heat. But there are plenty of other ways to attack. More indirect ways. She could cause us to be in a car accident, for example.”

“How do we stop that?”

“Don’t worry. I got it under control. You drive.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m already doing it. I have been since I sensed her close by. Using a repellant spell. Her magic probably can’t penetrate the shield.”

“What do you mean, ‘probably?’ “

“If she’s a better wizard than me, she could find a way around the spell. I doubt she can. But I’ve learned not to underestimate people. Especially, petite kindergarten teachers driving a Prius. She’s got danger written all over her.”

David didn’t know if James joked or not. They had gotten closer now, and David spotted a plume of black smoke on the horizon. His throat and stomach constricted at once. He feared he was too late. At least
something
already burned. He promised himself—if any summer wizard had harmed any of his kids, he wouldn’t worry about misdirection spells anymore. He would murder John and Thea Prescott, and anyone else who threatened them.

“Smoke,” James said.
Like David couldn’t fucking see it.
David thought he could smell it seeping in through the air conditioner vents. David’s hands shook on the steering wheel and he hoped James didn’t notice. He had to drive. He had to be active. He couldn’t stand sitting even if the car hurtled forward at ninety. He needed his own foot on the gas.

A car coming from the other direction slammed on its brakes and did a squealing high speed U-turn on the highway. David thought he recognized it as the Prescott’s Honda Pilot. Before he could react, the SUV sped up and rammed him. He heard the bumper crunch and the glass break before he registered what had happened. His brother’s car skidded into oncoming traffic and an eighteen wheeler was seconds away from pulverizing them when the car rushed forward at unnatural speed and off the road. The airbags inflated as the front bumper wrapped around a pine tree.

David’s heart hammered and his head hurt. He felt blood trickle from his temple.

“James?” David asked.

James had flecks of blood on his forehead and face as well, but could still crawl out of the broken passenger side window with the unnatural strength and flexibility of a giant spider.

Once he got out, he looked back at David. “You stay, I’ll go.”

David tried to open his own door, but it stuck. David pulled at the handle and shoved his weight against the door, but he couldn’t budge it, and he didn’t know why. He thought James’s protective spell had pushed them out of the way of the eighteen wheeler. Maybe the protective power of the spell had lingered.