Enbarr opened a water rift back to Earthside. We huddled next to my Fastback.
I double checked my phone. Sure enough, more than a whole day had passed while we were on the Otherside. Samhain was upon us. I tried to call Mom. It was worth a shot. But of course her phone service was dead. I hoped that’s all that was.
“Time to stop Donn,” I said to my pals. “We might not see it through.” I motioned to Gavin. “Our Mom is the one in trouble. Us brothers have to handle this. Charice, Rob, if anything bad happens to either of you, I’ll never forgive myself. If you want to bow out, no hard feelings.”
“I’m with you to the end boss.”
Charice kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry about me.”
“We need to get there like now,” said Gavin.
“I’m assuming Donn’s going to have a small army with him. We’ll need to bust through their ranks with everything we’ve got.”
Enbarr pawed the ground with her aquatic hoof.
“Gavin,” I said. “You okay to shift?”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “To risky. It gets easier every time. Too easy. But maybe I could...shift partially.”
I couldn’t help but paraphrase Tupac. “Time to ride or die.”
Tain barked. Rob let out a yip. I patted Gavin’s shoulder. Stealing a moment, I kissed Charice. It might be the last one. I told her without words how much I loved her.
Then I mounted Enbarr. Gavin took the driver’s seat in my ‘Stang. Charice rode shotgun. Rob and Tain got the back seat. The ‘Stang roared to life.
Without a care of who witnessed us, we raced towards Mom’s house.
---
Enbarr galloped down the freeway, running well over the speed limit. With my guidance, we bobbed and weaved between big rigs, commuter cars, luxury vehicles, scrapers on rims, and lifted trucks. Gavin pushed the Fastback to the limit.
Behind the windows of other cars faces gawked, slack jawed. People honked at first, but when they noticed I was riding horseback, they freaked out. Some people pulled over, too in shock to drive. Others plodded along, denying what they saw and let Glamour pull a veil over their minds once more.
Along the way we blew past a California highway patrolman. Normally I’d stop and face the consequences. But I wasn’t in a car or a motorcycle, and on a night like tonight, there’d be no more traffic violations, no anything after Donn the Red destroyed the Oak tree.
I didn’t understand exactly why the ramifications were so high, but it had something to do with the tree being magical. Duh. The way Dagda made it sound was almost as if the Oak hadn’t just taken root in my mom’s front yard, nor had it simply taken root in the soil. No, the roots ran much deeper. They dug into the very fabric of this reality, this dimension. And what happens when you tried to uproot a tree? By necessity you have to destroy the land around it. What happens when you rip out a magical tree rooted in the dimension itself? You rip up the reality around it. Chunks of the space fabric that I grew up in would be wiped from this plane of existence. What would that look like? If I stopped Donn, I’d never have to find out.
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Still, the CHP followed, lights flashing, sirens blaring, commanding me to pull over. Either he’d had the veil of Glamour lifted and steeled his resolve to pull me over no matter what type of horse I rode, or he still saw me through the Glamour lens, probably on a motorcycle.
“Pull over now!”
Man, cop PA systems are so loud.
Soon backup law enforcement arrived, riding our tails. Oh well. Part of me was glad. At least we’d roll up on Donn with the armed cavalry. Under normal circumstances I’d be worried for the lives of the cops, who were just trying to do their jobs. They didn’t know about the supernatural, and thus could not imagine what they were getting themselves into. They were trained to handle and neutralize threats if need be. But the finality of this situation meant that I needed all of the help I could get, even if they were ignorant of the paranormal activity that went on right under their noses. Besides, we’d all die anyways if Donn gained the victory.
Mom’s house came into view way too early. Normally it was tucked away in a court on a flat street. Tonight, it was pretty easy to see.
It levitated in the sky. In fact the whole court did. Strange flashes of light flickered, making the floating houses glow and then blacken every few seconds.
My mouth fell open.
I was expecting us to roll up as an intimidating force, me horseback, Fastback, and CHP to boot. Hard to be impressive though when the very land around you is ripping free of the earth and rising skyward. My mom’s once flat street was now running uphill at a steep angle. The court itself was disconnected from the rest of the street on its own tier, like a nerdy multilayer 3D chess board.
My mom’s neighbors ran away, screaming at the madness of it all. Naturally they ran downhill, right towards us. We slowed to a crawl so none of us trampled or ran anyone over.
Parents clutched their costumed kids. Teenagers dressed as monsters banded together. A couple pushing walkers tried to flee, but gave up, knowing they were too slow, too old to give a crap anymore. Pet cats and dogs all blew past us as we drew closer to Mom’s.
Abandoned bags of candy lay discarded, littering the street. Homes lay abandoned except for sharp toothed smiling pumpkins. I’d completely forgotten it was Halloween. That meant more people on the streets tonight, more people for Donn and his monsters to harm or worse.
The highway patrol and police parked and exited their cars. There were too many people flooding the streets for them to keep driving. But atop Enbarr, I cut a path through. People eyed me in awestruck wonder as I sat atop a translucent flowing mare, but they kept moving. I was just another footnote on this completely strange Samhain night.
Several homes exploded, engulfed in flames. Windows shattered. Car alarms shrieked. A whole row of street lights flickered and toppled over. Trash cans slid down the street as it grew steeper by the second.
Gavin rolled the ‘Stang slowly behind me until we reached the new end of the block. Normally it went on further. Now it cut off like a cliff’s edge. Islands of floating asphalt drifted in the air. A house here, a stop sign there. The street ended, but my final fight with Donn was about to begin.
Before I could even plan a path across the floating street sections, a loud commotion erupted behind me. The cops were yelling at a large figure lumbering towards us. With his back to the flames of a billowing house and black smoke curling around his figure, I could not tell who he was, but I knew he was not human. The asphalt cracked like eggshells under each step of his huge feet.
Based on the girth of the silhouette, I assumed Donn summoned a Fomorian to bust up the block. What a way to add Chaos to the mix.
The police leveled their weapons at the hulking mass of muscle. Sensing my desire, Enbarr trotted over to join the officers.
A ranking officer took charge of the situation. “Don’t step any closer. Get on the ground!”
When the towering thing did not stop he fired a warning shot and swore. “I said get on the ground. I won’t miss next time.”
Reaching for Fragarach, I grasped nothing but the empty space in my jacket. Chills ran down my spine. Forgetfulness already plagued me. I didn’t have the magic water controlling sword I’d come to rely on so much. With reluctant disappointment I drew out old trusty, my katana, Jade. She’d seen better days, and she was no Fragarach, but she’d have to do.
Emerald Good Luck knots intertwined as they laced down the curved edge of the blade. Jade gave off a faint glow in the dim night air.
The officers prepared to light up the pocked skin giant with lead.
Wait a minute. I recognized that giant. “Stop, don’t shoot,” I yelled.
But they were in too deep, and Iarfhlaith didn’t understand.
I launched myself off Enbarr’s back into a cloud of bullets.