Juan had a thick Hispanic accent. He sounded relieved when he picked up the phone and was not too surprised to hear someone’s voice other than Sean's. That was probably low on the list of surprising things at the moment. He and another guy, who Jeremy kept hearing try to shout into the phone over Juan, had raced the wave through the streets. They barely managed to outpace it.
“We’ve already hooked up the boat and are coming to you.” Juan said, “Just let me know where you are.”
Jeremy looked at Zanie. She leaned into the phone and rattled off the building’s address and the nearest cross street. He hung up and stared at the phone.
“They already hooked up the boat?” he said slowly, “It’s been ten minutes. I cannot imagine how fast they were driving.”
“They did outpace the wave.” Zanie pointed out. Jeremy shook his head and put the phone back on Sean’s chest. He glanced at his head wound.
“It’s a good thing his head isn’t bleeding too much.” Zanie said, “You, on the other hand, have a lot of blood on you. What happened to your back?”
“Run-in with a goblin.”
She arched an eyebrow, then smirked, “This is why they are telling us to stay inside. Look at you both.”
“And yet you are up here on the roof.” Jeremy pointed out. She smiled at that. He sighed and leaned on one hand, “Not all of us could stay inside. My apartment building burned down.”
He glanced across to the lights on the other side of the river. There was no glow from any fires, so they must have controlled the flames before they spread among the buildings. “Speaking of that, now that your building is flooded, you’ll have to go elsewhere. Plus, who knows how long they will go at it.” He jerked his thumb at what now appeared to be roots writhing through the air.
“I figured I might be able to catch a ride with you guys.” She again pushed to her feet, “I’m going to go pack a bag just in case.”
She disappeared through the shadowy door to the stairwell leading down through the building. Jeremy looked at Sean. Now that he lay miserably disheveled and unconscious, Jeremy felt a little bad about being so delighted at his discomposure earlier. He could fix the bump on his head if he knew healing magic.
His hand started to reach out, but he stopped it, curled his fingers, and dropped it to his lap. Spells thus far had been largely driven by visualization and intention, or a rune if he knew it, but he did not have confidence that simply willing the wound to fix itself would work. And he did not have sufficient medical knowledge to visualize more specific treatment. It was probably best if he did not mess with the injury.
Instead, he dragged himself over to the roof's edge and peered down at the water. It lapped against the buildings, reaching just beneath the light of the streetlamp. The light caught and reflected on the surface of the water.
Jeremy was surprised no one else was up on the road. He squinted at the other buildings and thought he could see shadows moving on them. He rubbed his eyes and tried to make out if they had visible overlays but could not tell. Perhaps there weren’t really any shadows. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Zanie did say she had to resuscitate him, so perhaps his brain was addled by oxygen deprivation. Thinking back on it now, he realized he had not noticed Zanie’s overlay at all.
He slumped against the raised edge of the roof with a sigh. The graveled surface below him scraped with his movement. His feet were soaked uncomfortably inside his boots. Then, a thought struck horror into his veins. He reached for his pocket and withdrew the little notebook. What was left of it.
It had become a drying wrinkle of cemented-together pages. They gently tore when he tried to open it, sticking to one another instead of coming apart. A flush of hot frustration crept over him. He tossed the notebook aside and cradled his head in his hands.
He rationalized that it was alright. He’d been writing down incredibly basic information. Some of the runes, like the one for water, he already memorized. And most of everything else, he could find and copy again. Plus, he now had resources. The magic council might yet be useful even though Sean seemed to have a frustratingly vague understanding of magic. And the old book of runes, which hopefully survived the catastrophe by riding in Juan’s car as he outpaced the wave. The loss of his notebook was not a big deal.
But it had been his attempt to organize and understand this stupid new order of things, and now it was ruined. Just like his apartment was ruined. His car was ruined. His phone was ruined. Both his phone and notebook had been ruined by water. He needed to figure out a water-proofing spell. A mental checklist took form in his mind. First on the list was a healing spell, and second was waterproofing.
“You okay?” Zanie asked, her voice gentle and a little careful. Jeremy grunted, unwilling to raise his head while his frustrations pressed hot against the back of his eyes. He just wanted to go home and make a meal from one of his recipe cards and re-watch an old show just for the familiarity of it. But this was not the first time his control had been ripped away and his life dictated by the whims of his circumstances. In neither case had breaking down been an option. He grit his teeth and swallowed.
“Fine.” He lifted his head. Zanie stood beside him. She leaned down to examine his slumped figure, searching his eyes but tactfully saying nothing if she picked up on the shine in them. Perhaps it was dark enough that she could not see. Jeremy cleared his throat.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“Just have a headache.”
“Yeah.” She straightened up and offered a hand, “I bet you do. You’re probably not going to walk away from almost drowning without any side effects. Let’s get you back from the edge there.”
Jeremy followed her back over to Sean. “Can you get me back into his phone?”
“Sure.” She grabbed it and showed him the passcode.
“So, what are you? Psychic?” He asked as he squinted against the bright blue light, “You just know people’s passcodes?”
“Not really,” she said, “Not with people, at least. More like with computers. I’m good with technology. It just…” she paused to search for a word, eyeing him a bit warily, “…works for me.”
“Oh?” Jeremy glanced up at her, disappointed he could not see her overlay because he bet her runes would be interesting.
“Even before all this…” she waved her hands vaguely, just like everyone else did when they referred to the return of magic. Because the whole situation seemed too vastly wild to put into words. And people were too hesitant to call it the apocalypse, it seemed. “I could make a phone on 1% battery keep going for hours. Stuff like that. Ended up going into software programming because computers just speak a language that works for me. I dunno.”
Jeremy was very interested to know what her runes were. He was also interested to know exactly how magic interacted with technology. He’d thought about it a little when he realized he could not see the overlays through the phone, but there had to be other effects as well.
“What do you do?” She asked.
“Ah,” he looked back down at the phone, “I’m working at…was working at an auto parts warehouse over on the West Side. Sometimes, I work nights at the grocery store, too.”
As many nights as they would give him hours, actually. He needed the money to pay rent. He realized he had not called out of either job. It probably did not matter. It was not like he needed to pay rent anymore. The shipping industries were screwed anyway. There wasn’t anywhere for the car parts to go, and no trucks were arriving at the grocery store to be unpacked.
“Have you tried to do any magic?” He asked.
“I heated up my tea a few times.” She reached up to untie the bandana from her hair. Her curls tumbled around her face, then she pushed them back and re-tied the bandana, catching the flyaways that had come loose, “My mom would kill me if she knew. Her pastor is telling her that this is all the work of demons.”
“Maybe it is.” Jeremy’s lips twitched. He caught a glint of metal around her neck in the red light from the sign above the stairwell door. It was too dark to make out the figures, but it looked like a saint pendant.
“Maybe.” She mused, letting her hands fall into her lap, “But I don’t see how knowing a little healing magic to save someone could be the work of the devil.”
Something about the way she said it and how she looked at Jeremy piqued his interest. “Did you…” But he trailed off, unable to string together exactly what he wanted to ask. Had she used a spell to save him? Did she know healing magic? But he couldn’t get the words out. He sighed in frustration.
“Maybe.” She said, “I dunno. I was pretty panicked when I found you. I think my heart is still racing. But I don’t know CPR or first aid, and yet I got you breathing again just fine.”
“Huh.” Jeremy pinched the bridge of his nose. He wondered if magic was often driven by adrenaline, the way that people are able to lift cars off people, and things like that. They wanted something so badly that they were just able to do it.
The phone buzzed in his hand, making him jump. He forgot he was holding it. He had intended to call Caleb, but he couldn’t remember his number at the moment. He tried to think of his parents’ number. He had not called them today.
“You gonna answer that?” Zanie pointed at the phone.
“Oh.” Jeremy swiped to answer the call and lifted it to his ear.
Juan’s voice shouted over the sound of many voices talking, “We’re here. Come on down.”
“We need some help getting Sean down the steps.” Jeremy glanced at his prone figure, “He’s still unconscious.”
Juan clicked his tongue and then said something inaudible to Jeremy. Then his voice returned to the phone, “I am sending up Leon. I have to stay with the boat.”
“Okay.” Jeremy ended the call.
The man that Juan sent up to help them was perfect for the job of carrying an unconscious Sean down many flights of steps. He seemed to actually squeeze through the stairwell door, then rose to his full height with the red glow silhouetting his figure. He would be at home on a basketball court with all the other people six foot and above. And he was not lanky by any means. He looked as if he could easily bench press a person, so it was no surprise when he lifted Sean into a fireman’s carry like he was picking up a child.
When they got about halfway down to the fourth floor, which was the lowest one not underwater, the buzzing, harsh fluorescent lights in the stairwell shut off. They froze, feet split between the steps and hands frozen on the railing. The emergency lights clicked on, bathing them in a dim, yellow glow.
“They must have shut off the power to this part of the city.” Leon resumed his descent. “With the flooding and all.”
All the people from the building that Jeremy had been wondering about milled about the lower levels. They clutched whatever belongings they had managed to grab in their hands. Some were dry. Others were soaked like the drowned rats that swarmed out of the drains during a rainstorm. A few were inconsolably upset. From what Jeremy could gather from their cries and desperate glances toward the flooded stairwell, not everyone had made it off the submerged floors.
Juan had the boat in the center of the street, away from the crowd pushing at the hallway window to shout at him. The motor was quiet, and the boat was nothing more than a black smudge on the surface of the water now that the streetlights had gone dark. When Leon called out, Juan shone a flashlight at them, and the engine sputtered to life. The crowd blocked their eyes from the sudden glare.
Leon easily pushed through the people, with Jeremy and Zanie close in his wake. He handed Sean down to Juan when the boat got close enough. Juan laid Sean down in the boat, waddling around to keep his balance. All the while, he had a cigarette perched between his lips and kept blowing puffs of smoke at the crowd as he assured them that the National Guard was on their way.
If anybody was an authority to speak on this, Jeremy bet Juan or anyone else connected to the council was. Sean had a general on speed dial, so it only made sense that Juan might as well. Jeremy did not feel too bad as he put an arm out to shove some people back and allow Zanie space to go around him. Leon lifted her down into the boat, then turned to help Jeremy.
The boat rocked beneath them as they got settled. Juan puffed on his cigarette and looked Jeremy over. Then he smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
Jeremy nodded at him. He glanced around the boat. With the five of them, it was already at capacity.
“There are others that we need to go back for,” Jeremy told Juan. The man puffed on his cigarette and said nothing in response. “The two guys who were with Sean… they are still back there.”
Juan considered him for another long moment, then twisted to start the motor. He lifted his voice to be heard over it, “We’ll drop Sean off so he can get to the hospital, then go back.”