The Future Falls (40 page)

The dirt rolled up behind his claws like wood shavings as he gouged four lines into the partially frozen ground. Someday, she wouldn't come home. Someday, the restrictions of family would outweigh the benefits and, like Auntie Catherine, she'd go Wild. Someday soon. He could feel her pulling away from the center of the family. Reluctantly, and not even entirely aware she was doing it, but he could feel it. He wasn't the only one. He'd watched Allie watch Charlie and knew that half the time she called her home just to prove she still could. The rest of the time, her reasons were more obvious.

Except . . . Jack frowned up at the sky. . . . the asteroid would keep Charlie home. She couldn't go Wild unless going Wild would save the world. But after the asteroid, even if only the family survived, she wouldn't stay. He didn't know what he'd do when Charlie left. She'd said they'd always have what they had, but how long would she be willing to come around and talk to him through the fence separating her from the rest of the family? He'd finally go Wild himself, driven by frustration, and spend all his time chasing her but never catching her.

“If you want to be a Gale . . .”

What did want have to do with it? Being a Gale was a matter of blood. He might not have known he was a Gale for the first thirteen years of his life, but that didn't change the fa . . .

A dragon's shadow blocked the sun.

Pines cracked as Jack snapped out to full size and were flung aside by his downdraft as he took to the air.

The other dragon flew east, the rising sun masking his color. Didn't matter. For as long as it lasted, the MidRealm was his world. Not even Uncle Adam got a free pass.

Closer. Closer. The invader was fast, but Jack burned his frustration as fuel, shredding the thirteen years that kept Charlie from him with every beat of his wings. Closer. He opened his mouth to roar and choked, coughing clouds of smoke out his nose as bands of power clamped his muzzle shut.

The other dragon dropped a wingtip and pivoted around it. Excluding Jack's mother, this was the largest dragon Jack had ever seen. As he passed,
scales gleaming in the sun, he said, “I have a proposition for you, Jack. We should land and talk.”

“Fucking California,” Charlie muttered, dragging the blanket over her head and cutting off the beam of sunlight that had slapped her awake with sudden light and heat. It was obviously morning. She was just as obviously not getting up. Not given the time she'd gotten to sleep. Kiren had been right, the sofa was comfortable. Both long enough and wide enough and with the big, floral sofa cushions tossed to the floor, Charlie rated it in the top ten of sofas she'd spent the night on in spite of its proximity to the curtainless east window. Would've made the top five had she not been alone.

For certain values of being alone that ignored the empty place Jack should . . .

Jack!

Throwing the blanket aside, she surged up onto her feet and ran across the room to where her jacket hung on the back of one of the dining room chairs.

She couldn't feel Jack.

The connection hadn't been broken, it just
wasn't.

He wasn't dead, but he wasn't there.

Where the hell was her phone?

Shit! She'd left it in Jack's room.

“Okay, not a problem. I'll borrow Kiren's.” She spun in place trying to spot Kiren's phone, saw the backpack dangling from a doorknob and dove for it. The phone was in an outer pocket with a dead battery, but a quick run-through of Jennifer Lopez's “Charge Me Up” took care of that.

“Charlie?” Allie asked through a yawn. “What are you . . .”

“Where's Jack?” Breathe damn it! There was air. There wasn't Jack, but there was air.

“In Lethbridge, in a freezer, dealing with the Courts.”

“No, he's not.” Phone clamped between ear and shoulder, Charlie shimmied into her jeans. “I woke up this morning and he was gone.”

“You were with him?”

“No! The connection between us was . . .”

“Broken?”

“No, not broken.” She gentled her voice as much as she could. Allie loved him, too. “Gone. Like he . . . like he
wasn't
.”

“Come home.”

Her boots were over by the door. “Do you know . . .”

“I have no idea. Just come home.”

“I'm on my way.” She tossed Kiren's phone on the table by the front door, slipped out, and traced a quick charm over the lock rather than walk off with Kiren's keys. Then she paused, erased the charm and slipped back in.

Kiren was right. There was a system in place to avoid exposure and a thousand songs about forgetting. Not even for Jack could she ignore that.

Except . . .

This was different than asking Gary to carry yet another secret and keep it hidden away from those he loved. Who the hell was she to take hope away from the woman who'd given the world a chance?

*   *   *

Charlie couldn't hear Jack's song in the Wood. She stumbled, grabbed a branch, and hung there for a moment listening to the way the music—Allie and the aunties and her mother and her sisters and a hundred cousins and even Gary's bouzouki—didn't work without Jack. It edged around the empty places instead of filling them in and the silence shouted this was where Jack should be.

Allie'd said Lethbridge.

*   *   *

His Song still resonated in the walls of the meat packing plant.

“Hey, you! Yeah, you, girl! What're you doing here?”

“Piss off!” Charlie snapped and couldn't find it in herself to care when the man with the clipboard stared down in horror at the spreading damp patch on his crotch.

Asphalt and concrete both complained about the Frost Giants' passing and Charlie followed the sound of the ground cooling to the skim of ice that marked where the gate had been. Jack hadn't gone through it. He'd landed, sent the giants through, and taken flight again.

If she went to the last place he'd been heard, would she leave the Wood in midair?

Would Jack return to save her?

Would Jack return to save her? Get a fucking grip.

Could she slip between the sound of plummeting to save herself before she hit the ground? Possibly. Probably.

Maybe not.

She couldn't risk it.

*   *   *

“Was it the aunties? Were they on him about the ritual?”

No surprise Auntie Gwen answered instead of Allie. “Jack knew we wanted him to take part in this ritual, Charlotte. And it's the same reason we want you to take part. However painful it may be for the two of you to stay apart outside of circle once that line has been crossed, we have to be able to say that we were at our full strength when . . .”

“When we fail.”

“If that's what happens, then yes.” She gestured to an empty seat at the kitchen table as Allie headed toward the coffeepot. “We left any necessary encouragement up to Cameron. He's been trying to convince Jack to share the load for the last two years. The details of what happens to a Gale boy in circle are best left to another Gale boy.”

“Oh, he's heard the details,” Allie sighed, handing Charlie a mug of coffee. “Cameron has been quite eloquent in his pleas for Jack's help.”

Charlie noted the puffy half circles under Auntie Gwen's eyes, heard the absence of Graham and the twins, realized they wouldn't be interrupted by men or children, drank half the coffee, and sat down. Allie was wearing one of Graham's shirts—which she only did when he wasn't home and she needed the comfort. Growing up, she'd worn one of Michael's football jerseys nearly threadbare, and Charlie was one of four people who knew that the faded jersey remained tucked in the back of one of Allie's drawers. Maybe five people; Michael had probably told his husband.

“If something happened at Lethbridge . . .”

“No.” Charlie pulled her attention back to the current situation, no
matter how little she wanted to think of Jack being gone. “I went there first. Whatever happened, happened after.”

“Is he . . .”

“No!”

“Charlotte.”

“Tell me you weren't going to ask me if he was dead? Tell me, and I'll apologize.” When Auntie Gwen shook her head, Charlie growled, “That's what I thought. He's not dead. I'd have felt his death, and I can't feel anything. The place Jack should be is empty. The sound system has cut out in the middle of the show, and I've gotten so dependent on it I can't play acoustic any . . .” The handle of the mug snapped off. Charlie stared at the piece of broken stoneware, watched Allie's fingers pull it out of her grip and check to see that she hadn't cut herself, looked up, and said, “He's not dead.”

“The dragon didn't fly over this morning.” Allie shrugged when Charlie turned toward her. “If one of his uncles caught up to him . . .”

“I could still feel him if he was hurt or unconscious, Allie.”

“I know, but what if he was back in the UnderRealm?”

She turned the mug until she couldn't see the broken bit, and with her guitar calluses as insulation against the heat, drained it. “The Dragon Lords can't open gates.”

“Jack can,” Auntie Gwen said bluntly. “And his uncle had to have arrived here through one of the gates the Courts aren't policing.”

Charlie expected her to mention
why
the Courts weren't policing their gates, why the treaty was currently saggier than a rapper's jeans—the aunties were big on placing blame—but Auntie Gwen merely waited, well aware that if Charlie didn't want to listen to the silence, she'd have to fill it. Have to say something to drown out the absence of Jack. “There's a reason Jack might have gone to the UnderRealm.”

“To learn to be a sorcerer from the Courts so he can stop the asteroid and save you.” Auntie Gwen sighed as Charlie felt her mouth drop open. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“The aunties hunt and kill sorcerers.”

“As both you . . .” She nodded across the table. “. . . and Alysha keep saying, Jack's different. Predictably, we're not exactly thrilled by an asteroid wiping out most life on Earth, so I think you'll find that if he can learn how
to stop the asteroid, we're willing to hand wave the sorcery and call it a Wild Power.”

That sounded almost believable. “Auntie Bea . . .”

Auntie Gwen smiled. It was, in the fine auntie tradition, a smug and somewhat supercilious smile. “Let Jane deal with Bea.”

“Auntie Jane . . .”

“Will do what's necessary to keep the family alive, as she always has.”

A little annoyed by the interruptions, Charlie muttered, “Jack wants to keep everyone alive, not only family and definitely not just me. We talked about me taking him back to spend the four years he's been here with the Courts.”

“That's a great idea!”

She could hear hope in Allie's voice and hated having to extinguish it. “No, it isn't. The Courts do nothing for free and the price he'd have to pay is too high. The ritual may have forced his hand,” she continued before Allie could ask what that price was, “so now he's gone to the UnderRealm to get proof that the Courts will teach him.” If she was honest with herself, it was what she'd been afraid of since she'd felt him gone. “If he comes home with that proof before the ritual . . .”

“You'll be told to take him back those four years.” Auntie Gwen's tone left no room for doubt. That
would
happen.

“And if you refuse,” Allie said softly, “if you go Wild, you'll doom the family.”

As there was nothing to gain from pointing out that she'd doom the whole world, Charlie decided not to bother. “If I take him back, Jack will pay.”

“You'll both pay, Charlotte.”

One hand splayed over the slight curve of her belly, dimpling Graham's shirt, Allie shook her head. “It's time travel, Auntie Gwen. Jack'll be gone for minutes her time.”

But Charlie was watching the shadows in Auntie Gwen's eyes. “You'll tell me to do it after ritual.”

“As much as we're willing to hand wave, we won't turn a sorcerer loose until all other possibilities have been exhausted, and—as much as you and Jack are powers separately—the two of you together in ritual are too great a power to pass up.”

It wouldn't matter if they were able to raise power enough to stop the asteroid or only enough to help save the family, they'd spend the rest of their lives, of her life, living during ritual, during those few brief moments when the years between them would matter less than the power they'd raise. “Fuck you.”

“Charlie!”

Halfway to the door, Charlie heard Auntie Gwen murmur, “Let her go.”