They followed the river for a while. The road was narrow with high rises and fancy restaurants on one side and a boardwalk with markets and piers along the other. It appeared relatively untouched by the chaos that reigned across the water. Street lights flipped on as they drove beneath, flooding the streets with yellow light.
Jeremy would usually chalk the calmer ambiance up to the trees lining the streets and little parks flourishing between the buildings. Even the river flowing beside them. In light of the fact that little parks were now untamed wildernesses from which unknown creatures poured forth, the serenity felt a little out of place.
Jeremy had given up on trying to pry answers out of Sean, dissatisfied with his vague responses. But Caleb continued questioning him about every little thing he could think about.
“How did you keep the monsters hidden from the rest of the world all this time?” He asked, elbow propped on his knee and chin in his palm as he twisted in his seat to face Sean. Sean looked over Caleb’s messy bun, faded t-shirt, and mismatched shoelaces with disdain. But he answered his questions, nonetheless.
“There were no monsters before a few days ago.”
Caleb’s eyebrows shot up, “So you don’t know how to deal with them any better than the rest of us.”
“If they had a solution, we would be fighting against the goblins with magical shields and fireballs already.” Moira said, “They don’t know anything. Crazy after how many thousands of years that you guys can’t even help put together some spells to help the people in hospitals and the battlefield. You have to nuke the gates instead. How many times is that going to work? You can only irradiate so many places on the earth before people are going to start running out of places to live.”
Sean listened to Moira with a small smile on his face. “I will admit that our applications in the past have been limited, but we never needed to use magic for anything like this before. There are some experts who are at St. Mary’s helping the doctors construct healing magic as we speak.”
“What do you mean construct healing magic?” Jeremy asked, drawn away from the gray ribbon of the river to the conversation, “I thought you said it was all just visualization.”
“It is, but certain tools help with visualization,” Sean said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Jeremy was beginning to understand the dislike that oozed out of Moira at the sight of the man. He wanted to strangle him a little in this moment.
“Tools like what?” He asked instead.
“Well, there is the system of runes I mentioned,” Sean said, “They can be built up to construct larger spells, rituals, and the like.”
Caleb glanced at Jeremy with excited eyes and opened his mouth to say something stupid, so Jeremy cut him off before he could tell Sean anything. He did not know if being able to see the runes was as unique as he suspected or if it would be a bad thing for others to know about, but at the moment, he did not want to show his whole hand to Sean. It would be best if he could keep a few cards up his sleeve.
“Runes like old Viking runes?” Jeremy asked, feigning ignorance.
“More like alchemy symbols.” Sean corrected. Which was exactly the type of symbols that Jeremy had been seeing, triangles and circles and the like, rather than tick marks along straight lines. That meant that Jeremy was able to visualize each spell and occurrence of ambient magic without trying. It would be incredibly useful if he could learn what they all meant.
“Do you keep a dictionary of runes? Or a spell book of any kind?” He asked, thinking about the old book tucked into his backpack. Whatever language it was written in was not accessible to the modern person. Likely, it was some relic, and there were more modern versions. Sean eyed Jeremy like he had asked him to put his hand out for a snake to bite it.
“We do have certain resources that are available to those inducted into the council.” He looked back out the window at a row of squat little restaurants. The umbrellas above the outdoor seating were folded up, and the strings of lights above them were dark. He did not seem inclined to expand upon that statement.
“What?” Caleb asked, “You are still going to harbor those resources even though the rest of the world has access to magic now?”
“Some council members are assisting with medical aid.” Sean defended.
“That’s nice.” Caleb rolled his eyes, “Handing out band-aids to people and sending them back into the world as defenseless as they were before.”
“We don’t have a wealth of combat or defensive knowledge.” Sean said, “What we do know is being shared with military command so that they can develop some useful techniques for their soldiers.”
Caleb scoffed. Even Moira rolled her eyes at this.
“But regular civilians are told that magic is dangerous and they should not practice it.” She said, “Who is giving the talking points for the press conferences? Elizabeth? I’m surprised she hasn’t gone all puritan and called all this acts of the devil to scare people.”
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“It would be dangerous for everyone to run around waving combat magic.” Sean countered.
“And some basic shields or protection charms or something would spawn the end of civilization.” Caleb spat.
Jeremy leaned his head against the window. Sean sputtered at the joint attack by both Moira and Caleb.
“This is an unprecedented situation, and we are still trying to figure out how to deal with it!” He said indignantly.
“Is anyone trying to put together a system to make magic safer and easier to understand?” Jeremy asked, not picking his head up from the window, “That would make the most sense, rather than trying to stop people from using it at all. They are going to start figuring it out on their own anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to create a guide to help them along instead of letting everyone go crazy with it?”
“Perhaps.” Sean mused.
Jeremy went back to watching the river sweep past. He could put together his own collection of runes and spells by deciphering what he saw around him, but it would be much easier if he had some type of guide to work off of. He could create some kind of spell that people could cast, which would allow anyone to see the overlays that he did. That would make visualization much easier and allow people to see the levels of potential opponents compared to their own. He mulled the idea over a few times and decided he would have to learn more about spell work to know if it was feasible.
The smoke blocked the bright moonlight that illuminated everything on the first night. Only the yellow streetlamps flashed past. Their glow reflected on the river's dark water, highlighting the little waves that lapped against the piers. This was strange because there were no boats to create a wake, and there was no wind, or else the columns of smoke would not sit so thickly over the city. He pressed against the glass and peered harder at the water.
The next streetlight flickered off as they passed it. One by one, the line of them shut off, plunging the street into darkness. The van’s head beams flooded the road with bright, white light. A few windows glowed in the buildings beside them. The rest of the city shone on the other side of the river. If it were not for these, it would be as if everything around them fell away, and they existed on an island of led light in a vast sea of blackness.
Jeremy looked at the others in the car. They were just as shocked, Sean included. He muttered under his breath and pulled out his phone. Atticus began making an awful, distressed yowling noise. Caleb tried to shush her.
“Juan,” Sean said into the phone, “We’re on 54 heading west, and something…powerful is latching onto us. … About twenty minutes. We just passed Washington Street. … Alright.”
He dropped the phone to his lap and looked back out the window. The constant smirk he’d worn since they met him dropped away into a frown. His eyes no longer held any levity when he glanced from the window to the goon sitting in the back with them. The goon pulled out a pistol, checked the clip, slammed it back home, and racked the slide. His finger rested over the trigger guard.
“Do you…do you know what this is?” Caleb asked.
“No,” Sean said shortly. Caleb nodded and shot Jeremy a look. Jeremy bit his lip and looked toward the river again. His eyes strained to make out the surface of the water again, but he could only see blackness. Then his heart climbed up into his throat, and he made a choked-off noise.
“What?” Moira leaned around him to look out the window.
Jeremy was not sure if the others would be able to see what he did. From the water rose a sleek, black horse. Its drenched mane clung to its elegant neck. With barely a splash, it leaped onto one of the docks and shook its head. He could see it because of the light blue overlay and seven glowing white rings surrounding its figure.
“Is that a horse?” Moira’s voice pitched up.
Jeremy did not take his eyes off the creature. “You can see it?”
“It’s like emanating power.” Moira said, “I can’t imagine what you are seeing.”
Caleb and Sean both shoved to their side of the car to look out the window.
“It came out of the river?” Sean asked. When Jeremy nodded, he grunted and fiddled with his phone again. He held it up to his ear and started speaking as soon as the other person picked up, “A water horse of some kind. … like a Kelpie... No, I can’t see its hooves. It’s pitch-black outside, and it’s a black horse. … Dammit, it's coming toward us.”
He shoved the phone into his pocket and pulled a pistol from a holster hidden under his tweed jacket. Moira eyed the guns with a dubious expression. They all looked back out the window to watch the Kelpie make its way down the dock toward the street.
“Are we even moving down the road anymore?” Jeremy asked. The dock did not seem like it was getting any closer or further away from them. The driver glanced back through the rearview mirror.
“The road looks like it is moving beneath us.”
Jeremy blinked. In that moment, the Kelpie moved from the dock to the edge of the road. It stepped in front of the car just as the driver’s eyes slid back down from the rearview mirror. He cursed and slammed on the brakes, spinning the wheel at the same time to avoid hitting the creature. The tires squealed against the asphalt. The van tipped onto two wheels for several heart-stopping moments, then slammed back down. They fishtailed to a stop. In the bright spots from the headlights, the Kelpie continued its advance.
“Maybe it’s not malevolent?” One of the goons offered, “I mean if it’s that powerful, it's probably intelligent. Maybe it doesn’t want to kill us? It can’t be that everything wants to kill us, right?”
He trailed off. Caleb gave him an encouraging smile that did not reach his eyes. “Sure, like the elves.”
“Yeah,” The guy nodded in agreement. Moira looked between them in disbelief.
“Are you kidding me?” She squawked, “Are you willing to take that chance? I’m not. Keep driving!”
“The engine’s stalled.” The driver said, “I can’t start it.”
They listened silently as he turned the key, and the van's engine did not even try to turn over. Not a click. Jeremy blew out a shaky breath. Moira unclipped her seatbelt. “Well, I am not waiting for that thing to come over her. Let me out.”
She tried to shove past Caleb on her other side. He grumbled and popped open the door so they both could tumble out. Jeremy half-expected the darkness to sweep into the car now that a door was open. Instead, the overhead lights popped on, and light spilled out onto the asphalt instead.
Jeremy hugged Atticus to his chest and scooted after them. He spared a single thought to the duffle bags in the back of the van. Then he heard the ominous clop of hooves. If they survived this, he could always come back for the bags. He hit the pavement running. Caleb and Moira sprinted ahead of him. Sean and his goons tumbled out of the car and followed close behind.