Rebirth Read online

  Mags eyes were big, “Wow! Never that hot, melt iron!”

  We kicked the parts of the fire around to make sure it didn’t flare up. I knew it wouldn’t flare, I took the heat out.

  The ground under where the fire had been was a solid sheet of dark glass-dirt-stone mixture. Room temperature, I stepped on it. It broke and crunched. Yeah, that was a hot fire.

  “You got fire stuff. I don’t know what you do. I need a fire, can do things. You got fire somewhere waiting.”

  “It’s the necklace, Beta. That’s what happened, I wanted the fire and I had it.” Not a good explanation but all I had.

  “What else? Other stuff?”

  “I think, yeah, its Iron, you know about that, and the fire here, and there was air; I called it wind and you said it was air. And they made electricity, or lightening, at least that first time. You’re sayin’ I can pull any of that out and use it?”

  “I never see like the fire. Fire not work that way. Not know what you do. You do air? Air, water, hard to work. Most not do either.”

  “I used air on the fire. Does that count?”

  “Yes. Air does what you want, you use it. Do more with air. What you got?”

  I pressed a wave of air at her. Well. That didn’t prove anything. Air could have blown. I compressed air and sent a hard wave fast; it was just air so I pressed hard.

  Mags folded at the waist as she blasted up and away, reverse Super girl, instead of arms stretched out in front pointing where she was going, she led with her ass and her hands pointed where she’d been. She smashed into the hedge bush about four feet off the ground and continued on out of sight. I only sent the one blast, so there wasn’t anything I could do to slow it down.

  Oh shit, I killed her, no, I could heal if I could get to her in time. I needed to get her out where I could get to her. I wondered did she go all the way through and maybe into the house next door? She was hauling ass the last I seen. Worry mixed with glee, I was a superhero.

  The wind tossed Mags and showed her to me. I caught her . The wind showed her to me! I could see her with my eyes closed.

  She was scratched up, I looked inside her and her right wrist, one of the bones where it joined with the hand was split. I pulled her hand and held it to close the crack till I could get it set up a little. The rest was easy, she was doing most of that, amongst the cussing.

  “...Stupid! ‘Bout fuckin’ killed me like a, a, fuckin dirt, shit what the hell?!? This fuckin’ stupid language, IT IS JUST TOO HARD TO CUSS!”

  “Hey,” I had to catch my breath, I was laughing, “You doin’ alright, you getting’ it. Sorry!” I folded up on the ground and slapped my leg with the hand that wasn’t holding her wrist, I didn’t mean to bl” No breath left at all, “ Blow you away like that. Hey, let’s try that again!”

  “Oh hell NO, don’t you do it, I will stick a fire up yo ass, don’t you do that!” Seeing the humor, she snatched her arm away. It was healed.

  “Here, my foot work? I think able do this….” She kicked me in the ass, walked up on me with both feet and drawed back one at a time and kicked, I couldn’t get away; I didn’t have the breath or attention. She had sticks and leaves in her hair, face scratched but healing, arms both scratched and bloody where she had ripped through the hedge bushes; pullover shirt torn off except for hanging on one arm so her breasts were hanging free and scratched up. Her shorts were torn, the snap was gone, torn loose, and she had a stick through one side that had cut a gouge along her right hip a half inch deep. She couldn’t take a full step, she was staggering with her shorts hanging down like a gangbanger, she grabbed the side of the shorts with her good hand and ripped them loose from one leg so she could move. She didn’t have a stitch of underwear on so her private stuff was sticking out all over the place as she shuffled at me, cussing the whole way.

  I tried to sit up while she was kicking me – the kicks didn’t hurt, she didn’t have room to get a good swing – I came face to face with her bush, she pushed at me and it hit me in the face and covered my nose and mouth. That wasn’t a bush, it was a forest. There was no danger of seeing any skin through that thing, it had more hair than my head!

  I flopped backwards to get my face out. She kicked me another time or two and jumped on me astraddle of my belly.

  She leaned over me and looked me in the eye from about an inch away; her breasts rested on mine through my shirt, I was very aware of the weight.

  “Rose, don’t blow me in the damn bush anymore! That shit HURT!”

  “Y’all might want to finish up inside, people heard you and they tryin’ to get a look.” Carl got an eyeful of Mags. Who could not have cared less about it.

  “Yeah, ok, let’s go on inside, we can go through the back door. Come on Mags, let’s go inside…Please?”

  She gave in, got off me, and reached a hand down to help me up. We rushed her inside. She was in no hurry at all, had no problem with showing her glowing white ass, bare as the day she was born, to anyone who was looking.

  Once inside, I put on some coffee, Carl draped his shirt over Mags shoulders. It covered her like a short dress.

  “We was checking about what I could do with different things. Looks like I got more than I knew!”

  “You know, I think you got some stuff wrong. I could help get you pointed in the right direction if you wantin’ to go that way.” Carl stood at the cabinet getting some cups down from overhead, speaking over his shoulder.

  How did he think he knew more about this than Mags or I? We experienced it. I didn’t know what to say. I knew he might feel a little delicate about us having all this power and him with none of his own, I didn’t want to rub it in.

  “Carl, I wish I knew what you were talking about. You can’t know more about this sort of stuff than me and Mags, you know? You gotta experience it to know what it is like.”

  “I got experience, I mean, yeah, I can’t experience what y’all got goin’ on, but I know the mechanics of it better than either one of y’all. One thing I can tell you, if I’d been doin’ it, Mags wouldn’t have hollered that it hurt, she’d be like ‘Oh hell yeah!’” He did that last part with a fake passionate feminine voice and it didn’t make sense. He made a little muffled high pitched ‘eep’ and him and Mags looked at each other and roared with laughter, slapping hands, Carl grabbed her and hugged her and I think grabbed her ass, which she didn’t remark on.

  “Y’all are just a bunch of assholes!” but it was funny, we had a hug and a laugh and I told Mags go get some clothes on before Carl hunched her leg like a dog. Her breasts are way bigger than mine. Not that I’m jealous.

  Seventeen

  I had some money, or we had some money, but I always looked out for more. I’d been thinking for a while about, hey, I got this stuff going on with the elementals, how can I make some cash? And I had a couple thoughts.

  I sat down in the back yard and thought at dirt about pulling silver and gold up from wherever it was. I tried to be clear I would sell it for cash to buy things. I didn’t want to break some rule and get fried.

  It didn’t appear to be a problem, other than there just wasn’t a lot of gold and silver available. I could get a few pounds of jewelry that had accumulated, most of it silver or plated. There weren’t any deposits in dirt’s territory. I wondered about the jewelry and got a catalogue. It wasn’t exciting, I’d guess a few hundred dollars worth. I would need to go to each piece and recover it. Ouch.

  It had been pleasant thinking about it. We’d load up and find an abandoned gold mine. I’m sure there would be leftover stuff I could recover there. Then do something to get it into sellable form, whatever that might be, and deal with whatever rules and laws I had to deal with.

  In the meantime I got the jar of blood out of the fridge to feed the head in the basement. Does that sound as strange as I thought it did? Christ, grammaw would spin if she knew what was going on, then again, she’d see the entire picture. I was doing the right thing.

  The head, Andy, was
coming right along. It, or he, was taking to the mix of blood real well and had all sorts of things attached to the bottom, thankfully obscured by the towel.

  I gave it a little sip – which is to say I tilted the thing back, it opened its maw and I poured an ounce or so in. It was the consistency of egg yolk and just as sticky. I had all these cheerful thoughts when it made a hissing noise. I think it had done it a while before I noticed.

  “You makin’ that noise Andy? You sprung a leak?” I really hoped it didn’t have a leak, I had no way to seal it. Wait, it wasn’t under pressure, it shouldn’t leak air like that.

  “You trying to talk?”

  I listened, but not too close, there were a lot of sharp looking teeth.

  “More” he sighed more than said. Some of the stuff at the bottom of the neck must act like a lung.

  “Oh, you ready for more? Alright, I’ll give you the rest of this and we’ll get another jar ready.”

  I hoped he’d get out soon, but unless he grew some wings on his neck and flew out, I didn’t see it. If he did that I don’t think I wanted to see it. That’s too creepy.

  I took the empty jar back up. I’d tapped the last into his mouth. He cleaned up the drippings and the inside of the jar with his tongue. I bout puked when I saw it, he had the same deal Chen did, it wasn’t a regular tongue at all. More like a tentacle. Yeah, screw that.

  Mags was looking at tv. She wasn’t hooked on it, she told me she saw the individual pictures. When I checked it out I did too. It is much less enjoyable if you see it as a sequence of frames once the newness wears off. I told her about the head wanting more.

  “I will tell you again, you need to burn that thing. It’s like poison ivy, it does bad things to anyone it gets around, that is just the way it is.”

  Ok, that was new. Yesterday it was like a snake. The day before some animal I didn’t recognize from her description, but I’m sure I shouldn’t get in its hole with it from what she said.

  “I’m gonna get it back together, it was tryin’ to do right and didn’t attack any of us. It was taking care of the ghouls and cared about them.”

  “It’s a fuckin’ blood suckin’ leech, it will outlive all of us; and when we gone, it will eat ever body it comes to. That’s what they do.”

  That’s what you get when you get educated by a tv. That’s what they do.

  “Mags, I told you, if he goes bad I will end his ass or you can.”

  “Yeah, after he eats Carl and Wanda and the kids it will be a little too late.”

  Now we didn’t have to do the menstrual shit anymore; she showed me how to fix that and it was pretty easy. But it sure felt like she was into some PMS.

  “Mags, you feeling bloated today?” Here is a free tip for anyone; you want to piss a woman off, tell her she is irrational because she has PMS.

  She looked at herself, then realized the implication,

  “You know what, just fuck you. Let’s see if we can find a werewolf, you need one of those if you gonna raise vampires.” She was standing and all huffed up. Truthfully, it was just getting over tension from all the stuff we had been through lately. And being bored, trapped with each other for more than a few hours.

  Carl beat on the front door and shoved it open and came on in, “Hey y’all, what’s up?” all upbeat and happy. He was a frigging horndog and I had to watch or him and Mags would be tied up with each other next thing I knew.

  I faked some good cheer, “We all right, come on in, coffee’s made.” Mags helped, “She’s feedin’ that head, seems it is about ready to slither out and suck on a baby or two.”

  Her English was so much better. Yay.

  “Yeah, its needin’ more, y’all willin to donate? It’s fine if you don’t want to do it, I understand.”

  I was halfway thinking, maybe we should use animal blood instead of our blood. Our blood would make it too powerful. I also had no idea how to get blood from anywhere other than me. Or someone willing to donate.

  Carl said “Hey, I called the slaughterhouse yesterday, they savin’ whatever blood they get for me. I figured we could try it, its cheap, like five dollars a bucket. I told them not to do anything to it; they said they add salt if they gone sell it, I told them not to. It ought to be on ice right now.”

  “Thank you Carl! That’s perfect! Can you go get it? Here, I’ll give you the money.” Problem solved. It wasn’t often that things worked out this well.

  Carl hollered “Ok, we gone, be back t’reckly.” I heard the door shutting, and it got quiet.

  Mags went with him. They were both grown. Not my business. I looked around, the place was clean, two seconds and the cups were put away, everything in its place, and I was just standing there.

  I started up talking with myself/the necklace/Beta about water. Seems all the time the necklace laid in that nasty creek had associated it with water. Normally, fire wouldn’t have anything to do with water. I could see that. Here, with air and iron and me in the mix, there wasn’t as much of a problem.

  I thought of getting some water from the tap in a glass or pot. I’d try talking with water.

  Naw, that wouldn’t work. I needed to go to the creek or maybe the river.

  It was taking forever for them to get the blood and get back. I checked the time, it had been 17 minutes. Seemed like a lot longer.

  I locked the door and headed over to Wanda’s to see how she was doing. When I knocked, she looked out the window by the door before she opened it; she never used to do that.

  She almost hid behind the door when she let me in, and locked the door after me. Elizabeth heard me come in and poked her head into the living room,

  “Hey Rose, how you doin’? I sure am glad you come over, they ain’t a thing to do and Wanda won’t let any of us outside.” She galloped over and hugged me and whispered “You gotta get her out of here. She’s drivin’ us crazy, the kids ain’t been to school in two days and we about out of groceries.”

  “Hey Elizabeth!” I hugged her back.

  “Wanda, you doin’ ok?” I got loose from Elizabeth and hugged Wanda, she was a little stiff, then clenched her arms around me hard as she could.

  “No, honestly, I ain’t doin ok at all. I can’t sleep, nightmares are tearing me up, can’t get my head straight, can’t think. The kids are goin’ nuts trapped in here all day but I couldn’t live with myself if I let them out and they got …something happened.” She was trembled, bags under her eyes and I don’t think she was bathing regular. From, you know, the smell. That wasn’t like her, she was super clean.

  “Well, hell. Come on, let’s go to the house and I’ll make some coffee. We can talk about it, its gonna be ok.”

  She shoved me away. “I can’t go. I’ll make some coffee.” She turned and almost ran to the kitchen.

  Elizabeth held her hand out to stop me,

  “Hey, she don’t need more coffee. She needs to sleep, she’s friggin wired and she ain’t eat in days.”

  Wanda leaned on the kitchen table over the empty coffee can. She started talking when I walked in.

  “I can’t keep on like this. I know it’s wrong but I don’t know how to stop. Ever time I close my eyes I go through all that again.”

  “In all your life, did you ever even hear of something like that before, Wanda?”

  “No, and I woulda heard of it, without a doubt. What’s your point?”

  “This don’t happen all the time, or regular. If it happens one time, that’s more than it happened before, So nothin’ like this is gonna happen again, almost guaranteed.”

  “It don’t matter, it happened. I can still feel it, I can’t think about anything else.”

  “You still go to church?”

  “Yeah, ain’t missed yet. Might miss this Sunday though, I just ain’t feelin’ right.”

  “No. You gotta go talk with the preacher and come clean, maybe he can help you get past this.”

  “Rose, if I tell that man what happened, he just gone call somebody quick as he can get
to a phone to get me put away.”

  “Then we’ll just go and sit and see what happens.”

  “You goin’with me?”

  “Yeah, I missed a time or two, past time I believe.”

  “Alright, yeah, if you go, I could do that.” She brightened up, maybe we could make it through this.

  Eighteen

  I walked up to the front door and caught a glimpse, an afterimage, of something moving at the corner of the house. Maybe a squirrel or a bird, it was about five feet off the ground. It made me a little uneasy. Something or someone watched me.

  I opened the door to go in, didn’t want to waste time going around the house looking for boogers. Boogers were real, I had run into several, if there was one watching I needed to deal with it before it hurt somebody else.

  I closed the door and walked around the house. When I got off the porch I toed my shoes off so I could contact the dirt, then ran fast around the house to catch whatever it was. If it was something. Which it probably wasn’t.

  I was right, there was nothing there. There was nothing in the back either. A crow cawed from somewhere like they do on hot, still days. No strange creatures showed when I used dirt. There was nothing there, no blank spots or ghouls or whatnot.

  At the front of the house I caught another furtive movement like something had been watching me around the corner.

  Stepping inside, I left the door open. Since I lost my invisible amulet, or it got absorbed, I hadn’t tried to go unseen. It was time. I became invisible. Unsure it worked, I wasn’t casting a shadow anymore.

  I stepped back outside slow and quiet and stood trying to see everywhere at once, looking for movement more than anything in particular.

  The crow came down off the porch roof, landed on the edge of the porch out of sight of the inside, and sidled over to the door. The damn thing was sneaking! It snuck right up to me, we were both on the same side of the door; I leaned over, squatted down a little, and grabbed him with both hands, one at the top of his wings and one under his belly.