The Waning Moon Page 20

  “If it’s going to be a dragon, there are a lot more gates than I was led to believe.”

  “It’ll be like the constellations. We’ll have to use our imaginations.”

  “Savannah?” Florence said, changing the subject. “For some reason, I thought we’d be hitting the northeast. You know, destroying every section of the United States.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. We know New Orleans is on the list, but maybe we’ll go north next before heading south again?”

  “We can get to Savannah in one long day of driving,” Isaac said. “But it’d be better if we broke it up over a couple of days.”

  “What’re the roads going to be like?” I asked. “Is it going to be like ‘The Stand’ with cars littering the freeways?”

  “Probably not where we’re headed. We’re out of the range of the immediate magic blast, and headed into an area where the grid is still up.”

  I wrinkled my nose, trying to get my head around what was happening. “Each of the places in which I’ve opened a gate have a circular area, with the gate at the center, in which no technologies work?”

  Isaac nodded.

  “But if there were enough power stations in the blast zone, the magical blasts caused the grid to fail? And because the circular dark zones are growing, they can’t get the grids back up?”

  “Yes,” Isaac said. “Essentially. The dark zones, as they’re being called, start as rough circles approximately 100 miles in diameter, and everything within that circle—”

  “Really more of a dome,” Florence interjected.

  “Right, everything within the dome that used technology newer than steam power failed.”

  “So radios, computers, cars, planes, anything with electricity or batteries?”

  “Exactly. The entire country runs on a series of electrical grids. There are three main grids, the east, which covers basically everything from the Mountain Time zone marker east; the west, which goes from the same marker towards the Pacific Ocean, and Texas.”

  “Texas has its own grid?” I asked.

  “Of course it does,” Florence said.

  “I’ve damaged the western grid by opening gates in Portland and South Dakota. The entire grid isn’t down, but the magic bursts make it impossible for them to get the pieces of the damaged grid and the surrounding areas fixed. And now I’ve damaged a large swath of the eastern grid with my actions in St. Louis, which was powerful enough to affect more than the immediate area, and took down most of the power for everything between St. Louis and the western grid. Is all of that correct?”

  “Basically,” Isaac said.

  “I am breaking the world.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “And when I open the gate in Savannah, that will probably destroy all power in the Southeast, including New Orleans where we’d like to go and not be killed by a band of hungry, angry—”

  “Hangry,” Florence said.

  I grinned. “Hangry vampires.”

  “Raj is going to have to do damage control. It’s good he’s with us,” Florence said. “There may be a queen in New Orleans, but Savannah is another vampire hotspot.”

  “I hope he finds us okay,” I said.

  “He’s had a taste of all three of us. He’ll have no trouble locating us,” Florence said.

  “All of us?” I looked at Isaac. “I thought you were opposed to having him bite you for location purposes.”

  Isaac looked uncomfortable.

  “Oh my god, it wasn’t for location purposes, was it? You let him bite you for sexy-time purposes!”

  “No,” he said. “It was not that kind of bite. Florence was there.”

  “I was unconscious for one night, and my new mate is already going elsewhere for pleasure.” I shook my head, trying to look sad while watching Isaac out of the corner of my eye. I’d forgotten about the bond we shared, though.

  He grinned at me. “I can feel your amusement. Stop teasing me.”

  “Tell me about the biting.”

  “We agreed it would be a fantastic idea for Raj to be able to find each of us in case we were separated. You and I have a bond and can find each other, but it’s hard for Raj to find you when you’re near a gate. He did suggest another couple of bites from you would make you easier to find for him, but since you were unconscious when he proposed that, I told him maybe it would be wise to hold off until you were capable of making your own decisions about it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it. I’m more than a little worried about what more of my blood would do to him, since I’ve already given him a silver immunity and the ability to cross thresholds without invitation.”

  “Good point,” Isaac said.

  “If you don’t want to get all the way to Savannah tonight, what’s your plan for an overnight?” I asked.

  “There’s a State Park east of Nashville we should reach around sunset. We’ll set up there.”

  We drove in silence for a while, and I fell asleep. You’d think I wouldn’t be tired, but being magically unconscious did not count as rest. Every time I woke up, someone shoved food in my face. When I looked down at myself, I could see why. The last few weeks had taken a toll on me. I’d finally achieved a level of slimness that had eluded me in high school and college when I cared about such things. My jeans were baggy on me, and my fitted shirts were no longer fitted. I was still muscular, but if I lost much more weight, that would diminish, too.

  I’d never had a fast metabolism no matter how much I’d wanted one. I managed to stay in decent shape by running, but keeping weight off was work. Not anymore—and it wasn’t all I’d thought it would be.

  “I need some weight gain 3000.”

  “You are always beautiful,” Isaac said, “But if you’re going to maintain your strength, you need to gain some weight back.”

  “The magic burns it off faster than I can keep it on. Between maintaining my shields and the constant physical activities, I can’t eat enough.”

  “Well,” Isaac said slowly, “I suppose I could help cut down on some of those physical activities.”

  I reached over and smacked him in the shoulder. “Not those activities, Wolf. The running, sparring, and shifting into a dragon on a regular basis.”

  “The sex is definitely the worst of the lot,” Florence said. “You really should cut that out.”

  I turned around in my car seat and smiled at her. “If I get sexually frustrated, I can’t be held responsible for the state of my mental shields.”

  She shuddered and smiled at me, “Excellent point. Keep on keeping your libido sated.”

  I smiled at her and finished off the bag of cheeseburgers we’d picked up in the last town we’d driven through. We drove through Nashville without stopping and left the interstate an hour later. We stopped for dinner in a small town in Tennessee. They had power, but everyone seemed nervous. They were close enough to the edge of the St. Louis dark zone and the threat of terrorism had everyone on edge. After restocking our perishables, we drove the remaining half hour to the State Park. It was closed for the season, but Florence magicked open the padlock barring access, and we headed in.

  Raj stopped by and looked singularly disgruntled with the news we were headed to Savannah. He didn’t even respond to my teasing him about biting Isaac while I was unconscious. After Isaac gave him our planned route, he took off without a word.

  “That wasn’t friendly,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s hangry,” Florence suggested.

  We went to bed early, and I fell asleep almost immediately.

  We were on the road by the time the sun came up the next morning. We stopped in another small town for breakfast and coffee.

  When we got back to the car, Isaac looked thoughtfully at our vehicle and said, “We’ll need new plates.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said.

  “License plates. We need plates from somewhere here in the South. It’ll be easier if it looks like we belong.”

  “Is that why w
e’re headed to Asheville?” The gates were getting easier and easier to find, and we already had the destination. Savannah was small enough that I’d be able to pinpoint the location quickly.

  “I have an old friend there who is in the kind of business that will allow him to help us.”

  “Is it in the auto reclamation business?” Florence asked.

  Isaac smirked. “He reclaims autos from people he doesn’t believe should have them.”

  “As long as he doesn’t try to reclaim mine. And as long as he doesn’t pass on stolen plates.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything about the last friend of his we’d relied on for help. I’d forgotten about our link, though.

  Isaac looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. I could feel the annoyance surging from him. “I’ve apologized enough, don’t you think?”

  “You didn’t need to apologize at all. Not your fault he was a dick. If I was truly still hung up on it, I would’ve said something out loud instead of squelching a thought that rose to the surface.”

  “Children,” Florence said from the back seat. “I know your link is new, but you’ll have to learn how to not react to every stray thought or feeling you get from each other. There are a lot stray thoughts and unconscious reactions you’ll need to ignore. For instance, the first time you feel a surge of lust from Isaac when he’s looking at another woman, you’ll need to ignore that because he won’t be planning on acting on it, and vice versa. The mind is a crazy place, and if you hold each other accountable for every passing thought or urge, you’ll drive yourselves crazy.”

  Isaac drove in silence for a while. Then he said, “Sorry. I overreacted.”

  “There really is no need to apologize. I was bitchy about Joseph when it first happened. I trust you.”

  He reached out and grabbed my hand and squeezed.

  Time to change the subject. “Tell me about this car reclamation artist.”

  “He’s the kind of fellow who defies description. You’ll need to meet him to truly get a sense for who he is.”

  “Shifter?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “What kind? Wolf?”

  “Nope. After you meet him, see if you can guess.”

  I pestered Isaac about his friend for a while, and then fell asleep. I woke a couple of hours later as we were pulling into a RV park in Asheville. “Gah! Why am I so tired?”

  “No idea, Princess,” Isaac said. “You’d think you’d be all caught up on sleep.”

  “Seriously,” I said, scrubbing my eyes with my knuckles trying to remove the grit.

  “You’ve totally depleted yourself,” Florence said. “Each time you open a gate and divert the magic into our weir to slow the flow into the world, you are drawing more on yourself than on the natural world and it’s sapping your magical and physical strength. The gates need Fae magic to open and there isn’t enough of it at any gate site—hence the reason for the gates in the first place. Since you’re the biggest source of Fae magic in the vicinity of the newly opened gates, they pull it out of you to power themselves as they release their surplus of magic back into the world.

  “It doesn’t help that you don’t have reserves to draw on. You’re running on fumes. The gates are pulling on your magical energy to open, and you’re letting them have whatever they need plus you’re creating additional complicated magic immediately before the opening which leaves you with even less to work with. This is why you’re exhausted and ravenous.”

  “Do you think it will get better as I get more experienced?”

  “Not unless you’re planning on using the next seven weeks to do nothing but eat and rest to top off your tank. If, instead, you’re running around, fighting off attackers, working on your magical skills, and not eating enough—it’s going to be the same, or maybe worse.”

  “The Portland gate was the hardest to find, but the easiest to open,” I said.

  “How long were you unconscious after Portland?”

  “From mid-afternoon to the next morning,” Isaac said.

  “But only seven hours after the last two,” I said.

  “You’re waking up long enough to eat your weight in food. You’ve been asleep more than you’ve been awake.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Florence said. “Maybe we can figure out a way to keep you conscious for longer. But in the meantime, you need to eat and sleep as much as you can. Your shields are weak right now.”

  We stopped at another fast food place and then at a grocery store before looking for Isaac’s friend. The shelves were barely stocked.

  “It’s starting already,” I said.

  “We knew it would. People are scared and with the majority of the country being inaccessible, people are preparing for shortages. Let’s buy the minimum we need and leave the rest for the people who live here.”

  We picked up some fresh fruit and some canned goods and checked out. I pulled out my debit card and the clerk pointed to a sign above the register. “Cash Only.”

  We drove the car a ways out of town, and I couldn’t stop gasping at the gorgeousness of the late fall scenery in the mountains. “This place is amazing,” I said. “If I’d known about Asheville, I might’ve moved here instead of Portland.”

  “It snows,” Isaac said.

  “Snow is pretty,” I replied. “It snows in Portland, too.”

  “It’s cold, too.”

  “It is a bit chilly, but I can deal. This place is great. We should stay forever.”

  “Although I admire your spontaneity, it might be better to stay at least overnight before deciding to move.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Kill my dreams.”

  Isaac and Florence laughed. Isaac turned off the main road and onto a smaller dirt road. We wound through the trees for a few minutes before he turned onto something that could only be called—if we were being generous—a dirt path. Five minutes later we pulled up to a decrepit homestead. The clapboard house was grayed with years of weather and neglect. The porch sagged suspiciously in the middle, and one of the windows was plywood instead of glass. The garage had a variety of siding, and an even wider variety of cars and car parts in and around it.

  Isaac turned off the car and got out.

  “Hello!” he yelled. Florence and I got out of the car, too. “Helllooooooo!” Isaac yelled again. His voice echoed around us.

  “No need t’ yell,” someone said. “The holler will bring yer voice t’ me.”

  I turned around. Behind me was a slight man with short-cropped hair and the biggest ears I’d ever seen on a person. He wore a blue chambry shirt under greasy overalls and worn, cracked work boots.

  Isaac strode forward with his arm stretched out. They clasped hands, then forearms.

  “Ike,” he said. “I’m mighty pleased t’ see you showing yer face ‘round here again. Guess that warrant must’ve fin’ly expired.”

  “Ike? Warrant?” I asked.

  “Tell you later,” Isaac said. He grinned at me and winked at his friend. “Might I introduce you to my companions?”

  “You’d better, or I’ll think they’re no accounts like me,” the man said.

  Isaac motioned Florence forward. “This here is Florence White Elk. She’s a powerful mage, so don’t you be messin’ with her.” The man was eying Florence with appreciation. She rolled her eyes and held out her hand. He shook it and then turned to look at me. I stepped forward.

  “And this here is Eleanor Morgan.” I held out my hand. The man reached for it as Isaac added, “My mate.”

  The man dropped his hand and took a leap backwards, stumbling over a large rusty…thing…that might have been part of an engine.

  “Are you shittin’ me, Ike? You got yerself a mate?”

  Isaac ignored him. “Ladies, this is my old friend Extra Grady Wiggins.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

  “What the hell, Ike?” Extra said. “I didn’t think you’d ever get hitched. Co
urse I ain’t seen you in so many years I’ve lost track, but hitched? To a human?” He turned to me. “No offense, ma’am.”

  “None taken.” I was having trouble not laughing.

  “She’s not human,” Isaac said.

  “Not that it would matter,” I said. Isaac grinned at me.

  “Are you going to invite us in?”

  “Yer not vamps, not out in the daylight like this,” Extra said. “Invite yer own damn selves in.”

  Isaac looked at him until he relented. “Fine. Yer my friend, and the Indian witch seems nice enough. Y’all can come on in.”

  “Extra Grady, are you insulting my mate?”

  Confusion crossed Extra’s face. “No. I would never do something that stupid. I hope.”

  Isaac raised an eyebrow and stared. Extra wrinkled up his brow, perhaps replaying the conversation in his head. His forehead unwrinkled as it hit him. He bowed in my direction. “Ma’am, please forgive me. Out here in t’ woods, I ain’t had much time to polish my manners, and my social graces ain’t what they should be. I would take it as a great kindness if one such as yerself would enter my home and partake of refreshments.”

  I smiled. “I would be delighted, Extra.”

  Isaac led the way into the decrepit house. I walked gingerly up the stairs, expecting them to collapse under our combined weight, but they were sturdier than they looked. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of spending time in a dirty, falling down house that was, based on the number of holes I could see from the outside, likely crawling with vermin.

  I was looking down at the floor, trying to avoid any sunken spots, loose boards, and random holes when we crossed the threshold. When I looked up, I couldn’t contain my gasp of surprise.

  “It’s beautiful!” The house was gorgeous. The gleaming wood floors matched the gorgeously carved vaulted ceiling. All of the furniture looked hand-carved as well. “This is amazing. Why—” I stopped myself.

  “Why don’t it match the outside?” Extra asked.

  I nodded. “Forgive my rudeness, but yes. Why not make the outside as beautiful as the inside?”

  “This way, no one ever wants t’ come in, and I’m spared havin’ to offer hospital’ty to every jackass who wanders by.”