Summer, page 17
Season barely had time to register it before the energy ball struck her, with a sound like a thunderclap.
The force of the impact drove her to her knees, blasting her hair like a hurricane wind, shredding her blouse. When it was past she glared up at Daniel with fire in her eyes, a thin trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth.
And another one hit her, laying her out on her back.
Season swore, scrabbled to turn over, to regain her footing. The next one slammed into her before she could stand steadily, but when she went down this time, it was on her stomach.
Daniel kept up the attack. Kerry watched in dumfounded horror. The destructive potential contained inside Daniel had always been theoretical to her—potential, not actual. Seeing it at work was terrifying. She knew it was for the best possible reasons, knew it had to be done.
But that didn’t make it easy to watch.
Daniel changed weapons now. Instead of the roiling energy balls, he spoke different words of the ancient language, and bolts of violet lightning seemed to issue from his fingertips, blasting at Season like the weapons of Zeus. Where they struck her, her clothing tore, her skin smoldered.
Still, she lived.
Still, she fixed Daniel Blessing with a murderous glare.
She hadn’t had a chance since he had launched his attack to counterattack. He had never let up, not for a moment. His plan, simple as it was, had worked to the letter.
Season Howe was finished, Kerry thought. Daniel had fulfilled his lifelong goal.
Finally, after what seemed an unbearably long and torturous assault, Season was still.
She lay on the walkway leading up to her front steps. Blood streaked the pale cement. Her body looked, in the pale remnants of daylight, as if it had lost an endurance contest with a threshing machine: cuts and tears everywhere, clothing ribboned.
Kerry started toward her, but Daniel waved her away. She glanced around her, saw that Brandy and Scott had come around from the back and joined Rebecca and Josh in the street. Brandy’s eyes were wide and glittering with fear—at last, Kerry understood, even she believed what the rest already accepted. Kerry would go stand with them, she decided, and wait for Daniels all clear.
It never came.
Season was dead, anyone could see that. She’d stopped moving long before, except for involuntary motions, her body buffeted about by the force of Daniel’s attack. Even then, he had not let up. Finally she was as limp as BoBo, the rag-doll clown Kerry had slept with from the time she was three until after her mother got sick, when Kerry had decided it was time to grow up, to stop playing with toys, because she was the only functional person left in the house.
Still, Daniel approached her with caution. Stood a dozen feet from her and watched the body, looking for any sign of breath, of life. Satisfied, he moved closer. Stopped, watched again. Closer.
Finally crouched over her. Touched her shoulder, rocking her over, onto her back, and releasing.
Limp. Lifeless.
Kerry knew Daniel by now, knew him well enough to recognize the look of relief that washed across his face. Relief, and something else.
Accomplishment. He had done it. They had done it—distracted her, made her forget to look for the real threat.
Daniel locked eyes with Kerry, smiling. Kerry tried to look into those eyes, from this distance, tried to tell him with her own gaze that she loved him. That she always had, somehow, from that first night. That she always would.
So neither one of them noticed that the witch moved her hand—just a simple move, really, a flick of the wrist, almost casual. An observer might have thought it was a postmortem reflex.
But it wasn’t. There was purpose behind it. Season’s lips moved at the same time, uttering an ancient phrase of her own.
And Season’s attack, at such close range—even through her own pain, her own seeming defeat—was devastating.
One second Kerry was looking into Daniel’s gray eyes and the next, those eyes were scrunched shut, his face twisted in agony, his knees buckling. Oh, no, Kerry thought, but the rest of her thought was wordless, just fear piled upon horror upon the misery of seeing the man she loved brought down by a sudden, treacherous blow.
Season moved again, not much more than a twitch—this time, Kerry watched her, a soundless scream on her lips—and again, Daniel was wracked with pain. He fell to his hands and knees in Season’s yard, still facing away from her, toward Kerry. His head hung down toward the lawn but he raised it, his gaze meeting Kerry’s once again, holding it, and he was trying to mouth something to her when Season’struck a third time.
The last time.
Season managed to push herself to her own knees now, and clearly she wasn’t dead, after all—should have been, anyone else would have been, but not her. Her face contorted in rage and she moved both hands this time, mouth speaking words Kerry couldn’t even hear over the thunderous roar that accompanied her motion, and Daniel—
Kerry tried to focus on his eyes, those warm, loving eyes, not on the rest of it.
—and Daniel let out a last cry, a wail of loss and longing, as Season’s blast crushed him like a squirrel under the wheel of a semitruck. His body collapsed, his spine splintered, his limbs suddenly giving out, blood jetting in every direction, landing with a wet splatter like a lawn sprinkler. His eyes shone for a brief moment and then closed, and with a final shudder he fell onto the grass.
And Season stood, rose up to her full height, fists clenched, face still showing traces of anger but also something else, something that looked like sorrow, and she ignored the others huddled in the street, looking only at Kerry.
Kerry swallowed. Season had defeated Daniel—killed Daniel, she corrected herself, she never wanted to let go of that knowledge. She would never forgive Season for that. But at the same time, she didn’t exactly want Season to unleash that power against her.
Season didn’t. Instead she spoke words Kerry could comprehend, though it took her a few moments to track them, to realize what the witch was saying to her.
“This is done now,” Season said, without preamble. “This was between me and Daniel Blessing. At long last, it’s over. He lost. I won. That’s all there is to it. Go now, and don’t concern yourselves any longer with issues far beyond your ken. Know that I could easily do to you as I did to him, but I’m not. I won’t. Just go.”
“But…,” Kerry began. “You … you killed him.”
“As he very nearly did me.” Season crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. “Go. Before I lose patience.”
“He …” Kerry felt hands on her arm. Rebecca’s voice whispered to her.
“Kerry, for God’s sake let’s get out of here. You saw—”
“I saw.”
“—what she did to Daniel. We can’t fight her. Come on.”
“But …”
“She’s right,” Josh said. “This is lose-lose. Cut your losses and let’s go.”
Now there were other hands on her, tugging on her. In her yard, standing over Daniel’s lifeless form, Season nodded her head. She looked almost sympathetic now, as if she understood what Kerry was feeling.
Maybe she did. Kerry remembered the story Daniel had told, just a few minutes ago, really, about Caleb. The one man Season had loved.
Maybe she’d just had her long-delayed revenge for that.
Well, Kerry thought, revenge can go two ways. She let the hands tug her away, toward the waiting car.
Away from Daniel, and Season.
Her eyes filled with tears, her heart with sorrow.
Daniel …
Kerry Profitt’s diary, September 1
I’m writing this at 33,000 feet, scrunched into the window seat of a 737, nonstop from San Diego to Chicago. The guy next to me is snoring, his bulk slopping over the armrest into my space. It’s a red-eye, of course—only appropriate, given my bloodshot, puffy peepers. The plan is to meet Aunt Betty and Uncle Marsh in Chicago, then spend a couple of days there together before I go on to Northwestern. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to fill the days—Field Museum, shopping on the Miracle Mile, pizza at Gino’s East, coffee in Wicker Park, etc.—enough so that B & M won’t fight with each other, or me, too much.
I called Aunt Betty and asked her to bring a few things from the house with her, most especially BoBo the clown. I’m feeling the need for some comforting, some retreat, some healing. Hoping he can help with that.
It took us a couple of days to get past what had happened enough to clear out of the apartment and separate. Josh off to UNLV, Rebecca to UC Santa Cruz, Scott and Brandy beginning the long cross-country drive back to Harvard. And me, on a plane to O’Hare, and a life that suddenly feels like someone else’s, not at all like the me I expected, a month ago, to see sitting on that plane in the dark, In my suitcase, along with my clothes and a couple of personal things, are Daniel’s journals, all of them that I could find, anyway. And the letter.
Oh yeah, the letter.
It was on my pillow when I got home, that night. It had not been there when I left the apartment—I was in the bedroom last, and Daniel didn’t go in at all after coming out from his “preparations” in his room. So, no letter then.
But letter after. Go figure. Daniel has his ways.
It’s not long, and of course I’ve read it so many times it’s committed to memory. But considering the way it came into being, who knows when it might vanish again? So I’ll put it down here, and if I have a word or two wrong I’ll correct it later.
Dearest Kerry,
I liked the way that looked, and read it several times, right off the bat. Even spoke the words out loud, much to Rebecca’s surprise. Plus, I was not looking forward to the rest of it, since I was pretty convinced it wasn’t good news.
Dearest Kerry,
If you see this letter, it means I did not beat Season after all, and that she destroyed me. If you had to watch that—and, knowingyou, I’m guessing you did; certain I couldn’t dissuade you if you had put your mind to it—I am sorrier than you will ever know.
It was, of course, never my intent to involve you in this whole business. My fight, not yours, and all of that Still, since we were thrown together, by fate or whatever you might choose to name it, I am proud and honored that you chose to throw in your lot with me.
But now it’s over for you. I know you’ll be angry at Season, and sad to have lost me, but please, please don’t get it into your head that you can somehow avenge my death. I think I told you once that Season is quite possibly the most powerful of us. I had a chance, though a slim one, and apparently not a good enough one. You wouldn’t. You are a remarkable woman, wise and mature and breathtakingly lovely, but you wouldn’t last ten seconds against Season Howe.
So put this summer’s experiences into your box of memories. Treasure the brief time we had together. Mourn me for a short while, and then get on with the rest of your life. It will be an incredible adventure, and I only wish I could be there to share it with you.
Death, Kerry, is not the end. It’s a passage, a process. In some fashion I will be forever with you, and you will always be a part of me.
In life, though I never said it—I didn’t want you to feel any obligation to me, and I knew that our time together might be short and end brutally—I loved you. In death, I love you still.
So, forward! Aspire! Achieve!
I remain,
Daniel Blessing
Yeah … so what do you do with that?
Captain just announced that he’s beginning our descent. In another few minutes, laptops will have to be put away, tray tables stowed, and all that stuff. Then Aunt Betty and Uncle Marsh will be there, and then college. Endings, beginnings. Passages.
More later.
K.
End of Book One
More from this Series
Fall
Spring
Winter
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Dark Vengeance Vol. 2
Dark Vengeance Vol. 1
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Fall
by
Jeff Mariotte
Mother Blessing was a surprise.
Kerry had begun to think she’d never find Daniel Blessing’s mother. The Great Dismal was just too big, too dense, too full of dangers. She saw a black bear her first morning out; fortunately the bear saw her and turned back the way he had come, vanishing down a trail that seemed too narrow for a human, much less a huge furry beast. She had barely reined in her galloping heart when the creek before her, wider now and flowing faster than when it had merely been a ditch that ran alongside the old town site, parted and an alligator drifted to the surface a few feet ahead of her. Kerry had a quick mental picture of it tearing into her inflatable boat with its razored teeth and sinking her, then finishing her off at its leisure. This was a bad idea, she thought, a stupendously bad idea in a lifetime chock full of bad ideas.
“I taste bad!” she shouted at the beast. “Really bad! That’s what everyone tells me, anyway. Kerry, you taste bad. And you smell funny too.”
Apparently she was convincing enough, because the gator drifted past her without biting her boat. For a couple of hours after that, she started to get used to the swamp, even to enjoy it. Tall trees arced over her head, creating an effect like a green cathedral. The fragrant forest floor was festooned with wide-leaf ferns. Butterflies and birds flitted and flew; squirrels scampered up the sides of trees; great multi-hued spiders spun webs like fishnets between tree trunks. There was a quiet charm to the place that she appreciated in a way she would never have expected the night before, when she had been so afraid that she had barely managed to sleep at all.
The swamp had turned cool during the night and Kerry had snuggled into her sleeping bag, listening to the crickets and frogs and other, stranger night noises. This morning she had crawled out, still wearing the same jeans and fleece sweatshirt she’d worn the day before. She brushed her teeth by the edge of the water, rinsing with bottled water, but felt grungy from lack of a shower. As the day wore on, her nearlysleepless night began to catch up with her, and the beauty of the swamp combined with the gende motion of the boat to lull her into a kind of stupor. So when she first noticed the men watching her from the banks, she didn’t think anything of it. After a couple of minutes, she realized that there was something wrong about it—that men shouldn’t watch her here, that she was unique enough in a place like this that any other human would hail her, not simply observe from the cover of thick underbrush. She tried to focus on the spot where she thought she’d seen one of them, but he was gone. Maybe a leaf shuddered slightly with his passing, or maybe it was a wisp of a breeze that moved it.
But Kerry was on the alert now, wide awake, senses sharpened. If she saw anything else she’d be ready.
Or so she thought.
The creek forked, and Kerry chose the right course. But though she paddled that way, the current had another idea, and it pushed her toward the left. She thought she remembered something in the journals about the right fork, and tried to fight the pull of the creek. She lost the struggle, though, and gave it up after a few minutes, concentrating on keeping the boat steady against the sudden surge, trying not to capsize, instead of worrying about which fork she should take when, for all practical purposes, she had no idea where she was or where she should be.
Just when she had the little boat settled on the water, Kerry caught another glimpse of movement through the thick trees. For a moment she thought it was a deer, or maybe—her heart pounded in fear—another bear. What are you supposed to do in the event of a bear attack? she tried to remember. Make noise? Play dead? Run like hell? Making noise seemed like the easiest, especially since trying to run might involve drowning, or a close-up encounter with an alligator or a water moccasin. For a moment she thought maybe she’d be okay if she stayed in the boat and it was on land, but then she remembered pictures of bears standing in rushing rivers, fishing for lunch. So much for that idea.
She brought the little paddle up out of the water and laid it across the boat’s stern, trying to sit very still to minimize any sound. Maybe it hadn’t noticed her at all. Through the trees, another flash of motion—something big and dark, it seemed—caught her eye. This time she heard a noise, too, a rustling of leaves.
So it’s not just shifting shadows.
As quietly as she could, she slipped the paddle back into the water and rowed for the opposite bank. The banks on both sides were sheer, with trees right to the edge, roots erupting from the cutaways. She wasn’t sure where she’d be able to climb out of the boat, but she wanted to at least have a chance if some creature came at her.
The foliage across the water shifted again, as if something with serious weight came through it in her direction. That was all it took to spur Kerry. With two more powerful sweeps of the oar she made the far bank. There was a rope tied to a ring at the boat’s bow, and she quickly looped it around the root of a tree. Then, setting her feet widely for best balance, she stood, clutching at a narrow trunk for more support. Putting one foot up on the bank, she hoisted herself from the boat and slid between two trees just as the dark figure on the far shore loomed into view.
It was not a bear, but a man.
Everything she’d read about the Great Dismal rushed back into her consciousness: a haven for criminals, runaway slaves before the Civil War and Emancipation, and hunters and fishers. If the man across the way had innocent intent he’d have said something by now, surely, not approached her with stealth and silence.
The ground under her feet was soft and spongy, the trees close together, with ferns and trailing vines covering the lower reaches and tangles of thickets tearing at her legs. Placing her feet was difficult, but she didn’t intend just to stand there and let someone sneak up on her. As fast as she could manage, she pushed her way through the underbrush and around the trees, putting distance between herself and the creek. Once she had a rhythm going, she was able to get up a reasonable speed.
