Silver Light Chapter 7 (Patreon)

The ash fell like snow through the dim light of what was meant to be an early afternoon. It fell in drifts that continued to grow, already beginning to fill the gutters and nooks of the city. The ash was not nearly as bad as the smell. Even from a few blocks away you could smell the smoke, but it wasn’t the type of smoke you’d think of when you hear the word. It was a choking, chemical smell as plastic and petrol and everything else burned and released its poison into the air.

The streets themselves were both deserted… and not. People moved furtively from place to place, keeping a wary eye on those around us. Families huddled past carrying everything they could as they fled the blaze, looking at the changing world around them with fear. It was a strange mixture of fear and silence. People were quiet, as though the silence where the sound of the city should have been was something not to be trodden on or disturbed.

“This is really creepy,” I whispered to Fiona, moving a little closer to her.

“Yeah it’s weird right? I drove down this street like a week ago. Seeing Boston like this now is just weird,” she agreed quietly.

“It’s only been a day,” I said looking around, there was no one trying to prepare the area for the fires by tearing down buildings to create a firebreak.

“Less than a day actually. Not even twenty four hours. But I guess that’s what happens when half the city is burning and the fire department doesn’t have any of their toys anymore,” she replied.

“Yeah. This is only going to get worse,” I agreed, then whipped out a hand to stop Fiona.

Coming around the corner in front of us were four cops dressed in riot gear and carrying shields and batons. They seemed to be on edge, which honestly made sense given the circumstances. People watched them warily, many backing off as they came near. What had been happening in this area that made people afraid of the cops?

“Oh shit,” Fiona muttered.

“What?” I asked quickly.

“It’s illegal to carry a blade longer than two and a half inches in Boston. I’m carrying eight of them,” she almost laughed.

As the police saw us, Fiona took her helmet off the clip at her waist and placed it on her head. If that wasn’t a clear sign that she wasn’t going to be giving up her swords, I didn’t know what would be.

The cops eyed us as they approached from behind their riot helmet visors, and I saw one of the rear ones lean over and whisper to his colleague. They fingered their batons nervously as Fiona placed her hand on the hilt of her sword. If the instant tension between our two groups had been something physical, it would have been a metal cable tightened past its breaking point. The sound of broken whipping steel would be sure to follow.

“What do you think you’re carrying there?” the foremost officer asked.

“Swords… and a mace actually. A shield too,” Fiona replied calmly, although I could hear her breathing rapidly.

“Those look like they are a lot longer than two point five inches miss. I’m going to have to ask you to lay them on the ground,” he said menacingly, placing his own hand on the handle of his baton.

Fiona looked back at me, then carefully lifted the straps of the ones she was carrying on her back, as well as the bags she was carrying. I noted idly that she was strong, being able to carry that much steel on her person. Damn girl!

She placed it all on the ground, except her buckler, which stayed strapped to her arm. The sword at her hip? She drew it swiftly, her arm whipping the blade out before anyone could move.

“Yeah, looks quite a lot longer than that to me officer. Would you mind if I carried them till we left the city?” she asked innocently, admiring the gleaming length of steel she carried.

One of the rear cops shuffled uneasily, staring at the drawn blade with a wariness he might not have displayed a day ago. His friends didn’t seem to share his fear. They stood straighter and puffed up like birds ready to fight.

“Ma’am, please put the sword on the ground,” the lead cop frowned, drawing his baton slowly.

“I’d rather not actually. I’m going to keep all my swords. The mace too,” she told them.

“We’re just trying to do our jobs ma’am,” he said with a hiss. He eyed the swords on the ground, and I saw… a flash of greed? Surely not?

Fiona took a quick look at me, motioning me back with a quick wave of her hand. Right, didn’t want to get in her way if these guys didn’t back down. I stepped a few feet further back and felt around in my mind for the single spell I knew I could cast, the lightning one. I felt the weave of it, the twists and turns of the strands and the knots that made up its structure. For a moment I felt like I could understand some of the pattern, the purpose of some of the knots.

As the magic within me reacted to my thoughts, so too did my shield. It rose up in wisps of silver light that seemed to stop a quarter inch off my skin like it had hit glass. The veins beneath my skin also lit up in the same silvery colour of the moon, and I stared at them in wonder. Shit, this is definitely not hiding my magic. Why is it reacting like this?

“What the fuck?” one of the cops blurted, staring at me with wide eyes, “Ma’am, why is your friend here glowing?”

Fiona turned back and raised an eyebrow at me, but responded to the cop, “Cos she can throw lightning dude.”

“Uh,” he frowned, trying to figure out if she was being serious.

“Look my dudes, we just want to get the fuck out of this city. We’ll be out of your jurisdiction and no longer your problem in no time alright?” she continued.

“Terry… I think we should let em go man. This is like the thing in the fire,” the scared one in the back said urgently.

“Do your job officer,” the lead cop snapped back at him.

The lead cop should have been paying attention in front of him, or his friends should have been paying better attention, because Fiona took three quick strides forward, yanked the lead cops shield out of the way and drove her helmeted head into his. There was a crack as the plastic of the face plate took the impact. He staggered into his friends, but wasn’t able to recover his balance enough to stop the sharp chop of her buckler following her headbutt.

The guy went down in a clatter of riot gear, his baton bouncing down the ash strewn pavement. The other cops reacted quickly, pulling their batons from the loops at their waists. They swung at Fiona with practiced chops, but she was out of reach again, deflecting their attacks with her sword.

I didn’t want to see more killing. Not today. I knew more was coming, but I didn’t want to see any more today. Especially not Fiona doing the one killing, or dying.

I lifted my hand, and it felt like an eternity before it was pointed and in position. The cop who had wanted to back out saw me raise my arm. He cried out a warning to his friends, but they ignored him. With fear filling his eyes, he dove to the ground.

I didn’t want the lightning to arc down, I needed this to be a lot more precise than normal lightning, I didn’t want to chance hitting Fiona. Could I do that? I reached again for that strange understanding… and found it. This knot here, and this one here… if I changed how they twisted, I could turn the energy into something akin to a beam. It was rough… I’d have to fine tune it later.

I felt the power within my core take the revised spell and flow through it, I saw it run along the lines of the weave, hitting the knots and changing with each one. The power was twisted and formed into the final product as it ran down the lines of the spell.

And then it discharged. A beam of violent  silver energy blasted out from my hand like a hunting hound released. It tore through the air with the sound of an anvil cracking, slamming into a building far down the street with enough force to throw chunks of masonry almost as far as the beam had travelled originally. When the beam let up a moment later, the air burned in a line following its path. It was only for a moment, but it highlighted how terrifying this new power I had was. Overwhelming force could probably be defined as lighting the air on fire as an after effect.

“Let us pass,” I said tiredly, lifting my finger to point it directly at them again. That had taken a lot out of me, but I could feel the ambient magic around us already flowing into my source and refilling the spent power.

“Let her pass,” the correctly scared cop said, backing to the side and letting his baton drop to the ground.

The others followed suit, and the one on the ground glared up at us both with anger flowing out of his pores like acid.

Fiona sheathed her sword again, and turned back to pick up her stuff. She casually got everything arranged on her shoulders, then nodded for us to continue. We stepped past them slowly at first, but as we kept going we sped up a little.

“Whoa… chick you are fucking badass. I felt that shit in my fucking bones!” Fiona exclaimed when we were out of earshot.

I smiled sidelong at her and whispered, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for!”

Fiona blinked once, then twice, then she shook as surprised laughter bubbled up. I couldn’t help but give her a full grin now. I’d gotten us out of that situation, no one had died… and I’d made a pretty girl laugh. Maybe I wasn’t a complete fuck up. Maybe.

****

We made it to the pharmacy first, and it had already been broken into. The place was trashed, and a lot of things that we might have wanted were already missing, such as bandages and disinfectant. Shelves had been thrown to the side, packaging was strewn randomly across the floor. The till was in multiple pieces on the ground, the money long gone.

As we made it into the back, we found a man sitting in the wreckage of the dim storage area, staring around himself in a daze. He cringed when we entered, looking up at us with unrestrained fear. I noticed now the terrible bruises beginning to swell his face and I had no doubt there were more beneath his torn clothing.

“Whoa… Uh hey man, sorry… we’re not going to hurt you,” Fiona said soothingly.

“You’re carrying weapons! You’ve come into my store! What else are you here for?” he cried accusingly.

Poor guy was shaking, he looked terrified with his glasses dangling from his nose and one ear.

I knelt down in front of him and asked gently, “What happened? I mean, I can see there was looting but this looks… excessive?”

“It was a gang. I don’t know which one. They covered their faces with bandanas and they trashed my store! They took all the… all the opiates and codeine from the safes. They… they beat me until I told them the codes,” he told us, breaking into sobs at the last sentence.

“Ah. That explains it then,” I winced, “I’m sorry man. That’s not fun.”

I stood back up and looked over at Fiona. She had a conflicted look on her face, and I felt pretty bad too. We had come here to take shit after all.

“Do you have a family?” Fiona asked eventually.

“I do… we have a house north of the.. Of the fire. I can’t get to them so I’m staying here,” she explained sadly.

“You can’t really stay here much longer,” Fiona said, her armour clanking lightly as she moved to peek at a shelf, “That fire is almost here. Only a block or two away now.”

“No! It was so far away! It’s not coming here! It was walking the other way!” he exclaimed, looking even more terrified than he had about the thugs who had taken his drugs.

“Wait… walking?” I interjected.

“Yes… I couldn’t get to my family because it was walking to cut the bridges off!” he said, really shaking now.

“Well… it’s stopped and it’s coming this way now friend,” Fiona told him.

He scrambled up off the floor and looked at us both, “I might be able to… the bridge! Did it burn?”

“We don’t know sorry,” I shrugged.

“Oh… but still! There might be a way if it’s not standing in front of it! I can try… I can… Wait why did you come here?” he asked, some lucidity returning to his eyes.

“Uhhh. I need some more of this,” Fiona said, pulling out a bottle of her meds and showing him.

He looked from the bottle to her face and back again, holding his glasses to his face so he could see. He frowned, muttered something, then turned back and went about his shelves, rifling through the debris. It wasn’t long before he found a box that rattled as he hefted it, taking it over to a countertop. From a drawer he produced a small knife, using it to open the box and peer inside.

“Ah yes I knew we’d just had a shipment in. Here, take the whole box… it’s not like I can carry most of this out anyway if it’s just going to burn. I pity those who end up downwind of the chemicals released,” he said, indicating that Fiona take the meds.

“Wow… thank you!” she said, relief flooding her expression, “Are you sure we can’t… is there anything you want?”

He looked confused for a moment, then looked pensive as he looked at what we were carrying.

“What about information?” I asked.

He looked dubious, but took the bait, “What information?”

“Information about what’s going on, advice on what your plans should be,” I smiled.

“Okay. If you know something I don’t, that will be acceptable,” he nodded.

I took a deep breath and prepared to shatter this man’s sense of safety in the world even more than it already had been.

“This is permanent. What’s happening around us. The guns not working, the cars not working, electricity not working, all of that stuff. It’s here to stay, if not forever, then hundreds or thousands of years,” I explained, “If I were you, I’d carry as much information as you can. I’m talking about how to make the stuff you sold here, anything medical related especially. As much scientific info as you have still in print form. It will be worth its weight in… well probably food.”

“Oh… yeah. And if you need a place to go when things hit the fan, come to Pepacton Reservoir in the Big Indian Wilderness roughly forty miles east of Binghamton. My name is Fiona by the way,” she added.

“Thank you… Oh my god… it’s permanent? How do you know?” he breathed, “And you say I should… right! Yes! Of course if this continues, we may lose so much knowledge. I must… thank you!”

“No problem. You would have figured it out dude,” I shrugged, “I know for reasons probably similar to that… walking fire you were talking about.”

“Ah but you have given me a head start!” he grinned, then rushed further into the store, stopping to look back and blurt, “My name is Wilkes Weelock! Thank you again!”

“Right,” Fiona and I said at the same time, glancing at each other.

He left into the back of the store, and Fiona took that as a sign to grab her meds and leave. I watched her pack the bottles into her bag in silence, then we left without saying goodbye. It we saw Mr Weelock again, I’d be surprised.