Chapter 7

He didn’t know if the moon was far enough, but he could just see them, the dragons had arrived. The black spot had moved, but it was smaller now. Yesterday, half the planet was smothered, today it was merely a dot on the surface. Across the ocean he could see its mirror, a speck of light that, if not for the bandages, would hurt to look at.

Amber’s guest had overstayed his welcome. He’d sat alone in his booth, sipping on the same cup of coffee she had been dutifully keeping warm, and pecking away at a laptop for the last four hours. She checked her phone again: 2:18 AM. Her shift had been over for nearly twenty minutes. Her phone screen went dark. She forced a smile at her reflection, grabbed the fresh pot from behind her, and started to make her way over to the only occupied table in the diner.

Jacob stared blankly at his computer. He’d been working between maps and math for so long he’d forgotten when he started. Harder still, everything was guesswork, based entirely on a hypothesis and his own senses. He felt it hours ago, a huge energy spike somewhere southeast of him. Not a spike from a constant, either; this was new, more like an explosion than a spike. There was no point in responding to it. Every Seer alive felt it; some of the dead ones probably did too. That being the case, George would send Scott, assuming Scott didn’t rush out on his own, and there was no one who ever beat him to anything, anywhere. No, Scott would be there and gone before Jacob could even figure out exactly where “there” even was.

Instead, Jacob worked on an alternate plan. Whatever that was would almost certainly keep the Seers busy. And if it was the first sign of one of the dragons emerging as he thought it was, then the other one might resonate off of the first. Far-fetched maybe, but everything was. This is a once-in-ever apocalypse prophecy. First, he had to find the source. Narrowing it down was difficult, but it was most likely somewhere near Atlanta, maybe. It felt like he was trying to source a sound but on a global scale. The source, however, was not fantastically important. What he needed was its echo. Which also, coincidentally, did not take long to find. Although “echo” probably wasn’t the right word. The energy was coming off of the source in waves, powerful ones. They didn’t linger either, and they had more than enough momentum behind them to circle the globe. The ones that didn’t travel east or west did so with ease, barely fading by the time they passed over him again. Focusing west, the waves traveled for quite a while before he couldn’t feel them anymore. Traveling east, however, they started fading quickly. Yes, this wasn’t an echo at all, more like a shout into the void. The work had ensued from there. How fast were the waves traveling? How quickly did they fade? When did he completely lose track of them? Now, he was certain he had an answer.

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Just then, a young girl appeared at his side, a pot of coffee in her hand. “Would you like me to warm that up for you, sir?” She indicated his recently empty cup. Jacob pushed it towards her and closed his laptop while she filled the glass. He lifted the glass and took a long pull from the drink, the first conscious sip he’d taken since he sat down. The coffee here really was the best around; he understood why Jason had spoken so highly of it. Shame. He looked at the waitress, Amber; she seemed a kind, innocent enough young girl. He was also tired, and feeling triumphant, so he decided he’d do something he’d long ago settled not to. He was going to give Amber a choice. The dragons would never ask, but today, he couldn’t force himself to be so distant. “Miss?”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you wish to do something for someone, something important, but the ‘grand gesture’ is just beyond you at the moment, is it better to do nothing, or say, drop them a hint?”

One of Amber’s eyebrows ticked up slightly. She must have noticed because she shifted her gaze to the ceiling and “hmm’d” once or twice before she looked at Jacob again. “Hints aren’t bad. If you can’t do the big thing, a hint at least shows you care, that you still thought about it.”

Jacob smiled in thanks. Amber didn’t see the fire erupt from the grill behind her; she probably didn’t feel anything as that fire erupted through the diner's windows and poured down the otherwise quiet Chicago streets. Jacob stood up from his unscathed booth and packed his computer away. He reached down for his cane before he heard a sound off to his right, where he saw a homeless man standing up in the burning hellscape from what remained of the barrel he must have ducked behind. Jacob was astounded; the heat alone should have killed the man, even if the river of flame had somehow flowed around him. The man stared at Jacob through the fire in horror, and with a wave of Jacob’s hand, the fire around the man coiled and crashed down on top of him. Jacob clenched his teeth; the man remained, without a singed hair on his head. “Magic-immunity, one in a billion? Less?” Jacob realized he was mumbling to himself, so he shouted to the man, “You’re one lucky sod! I hope you know that!” Then he turned and hobbled away; Italy wasn’t a short trip away, and he needed to pick a couple of things up from home first.