Awakenings

            The left hook caught Phelan in the jaw and he went sprawling, landing with an oof against his heavy backpack, beached like a turtle stuck on its back.
            “J.T.!  Holy shit, what did you do that for?”  I pushed past him, moving toward Phelan to help him up.  J.T. grabbed my arm and held me back.
            “Believe me,” he growled, “he deserved it.”
            “He’s right, I probably did.”  Phelan managed to crane his neck to get a good view of us before he flipped the medallion to J.T.  “Take it.  You guys can rock, paper, scissors for it.  Most of you are from that bloodline, I think.”
            Rory came over to help him up but hesitated a second before grasping Phelan’s arm and pulling him back to his feet.  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
            “Just what it sounds like.”  Phelan looked at me and at J.T. for a moment, then looked at Rory and grinned.  “I sound like I’m crazy, don’t I?  You’re all looking at me like I’m completely batshit.”
            Rory waggled his hand in a ‘sort of’ gesture, a brow arched quizzically.  My mind was still reeling.
            “How old are you?”  I finally managed to ask, though my voice sounded a little strangled as it came out.
            “Oh,” he said with a wry smile.  “That’s complicated.  A little older than Teague, younger than his late, lamented brother.”
            J.T. tensed up next to me and I touched his arm, squeezing hard.  He looked at me sidelong and exhaled, relaxing a fraction.
            “We’re being incredibly inhospitable,” Carolyn said archly.  “And it’s not right for us to be that way, not with him.”  She offered Phelan her hand.  “I’m Carolyn.  Would you like something hot to drink?”
            “I’d love it,” he said, taking Carolyn’s hand.  He either didn’t notice or ignored J.T. bristling as Carolyn headed for the fire, tugging Phelan along in her wake.
            Rory shook his hand and joined us in watching them walk.
            “He made my hand tingle,” he said in a low voice.
            “Now isn’t the time to be sharing that kind of shit, Rory,” J.T. snapped quietly before he marched off to flank Carolyn.
            “That was uncalled for,” Rory said with a frown.  He glanced at me.  “You knew what I was talking about, right?”
            “Yeah,” I said softly, slowly.  “Yeah.  Tingle in a bad way or a good way?”
            Rory squirmed.  “Now it really sounds like what J.T. thought I was talking about.”
            “Rory.”
            “All right, all right.  No, I think he’s in good people.  It was weird, though, I don’t usually get that kind of feeling from folks.”
            I nodded slowly, watching the three as they headed for the tents and the cookfire, where I could see a figure in a blue windbreaker tending to the fire.  I thought it was probably Tala.  “A good feeling about someone for once, huh?”
            “Well, he’s not all cute and fuzzy, if that’s what you mean,” Rory murmured, shaking his head a little.  “But we’re not talking fire and brimstone here, either.  Just…feels okay.  Feels right, like he’s where he’s supposed to be.”  He glanced at me.  “The Kira he was talking about—that’s Thom’s sister or something, right?”
            “His cousin,” I said.  “He’s closer to her than anyone else in his family.  Sometimes I think he loves her more than he loves me.”
            Rory shook his head.  “That’s not possible, Mar.  He doesn’t love anyone more than he loves you.”
            I smiled wryly.  “Thanks, Rory.”
            “Don’t mention it.”
            We joined Tala, Carolyn, J.T., and Phelan by the fire a minute later.  Tala was handing Phelan a cup of something steaming and grinned when she saw me.
            “Matt said you were up, but I told him I’d believe it when I saw it.  You okay?”
            “I’m okay, though if you’ve got an ounce of mercy in you, you’ll feed me before I eat the teakettle.”  I tottered a little as I dropped down into a sitting position on the other side of Phelan.
            Tala laughed and nodded.  “Give me a minute and I’ll get you fed.”
            I nodded back and turned my attention to Phelan.  “So Kira and her boyfriend sent you, huh?”
            “Kira and her husband,” he corrected absently, taking a long swallow from his mug.  “Yes, they sent me.”
            She got married?  Interesting.  Very interesting.  I shunted those thoughts aside.  “Why?”
            “They were afraid you wouldn’t know what to do when everything began to happen.”  Phelan stared at me for a moment, then grinned boyishly.  “Looks like you’re doing just fine to me.”

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            Firelight lit the stranger’s face as he smiled faintly in response to the question asked.  “No, you’re not the first group of survivors I’ve run into, not by a long shot.  It was a long ride to get here.  You’re more hospitable than a lot of the groups I’ve run into, though.”
            Next to me, Thom leaned back, frowning slightly.  “How so?”
            The man smiled.  “You didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.”
            “You crossed the wards,” Kellin said quietly at my elbow.  “Clearly, you’re one of the good guys.”
            “I certainly hope so,” he said.

            “Gods and monsters!  What kind of wards are you putting up here?  They could rattle a body’s teeth.”
            I stiffened at the voice, blinking.  At first, I thought it was part of the vision I’d just snapped out of until I realized that J.T. had stiffened next to me, rigid and not daring to look toward the voice’s source.
            I stood a little too quickly and spinning on my heel.  I started to fall sideways as I put too much weight on my weaker leg in an attempt to spin faster.  Rory caught me before I toppled over.  I leaned on him until I felt steadier, staring at the approaching figure.
            He looked like he’d been walking for a couple weeks, at least, boots and jeans spattered with mud, leather jacket battered.  His red hair was unruly with a little bit of curl, a little bit of wave, and fell in a damp tangle down to his shoulders.  He was good-looking enough, with angular features and faint freckles brought out by the sun.
            He felt familiar, though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.
            “Who are you?”  I asked.  Who are you and how can you feel these?  How do you know what they are?
            He grinned at me, a mischievous, playful grin despite the fact that this was probably a time he should have been serious.  “Sorry.  Forgot we’ve nev—”
            “Phelan,” J.T. said abruptly.  “Phelan O’Credne.”
            I startled, blinking and looking at J.T.  He was shaking, hands curled into fists as he stared at the newcomer.
            The man simply shrugged.  “I go by Phelan Conrad now, but if you insist.  Did we know each other?”
            “Yes,” J.T. said tightly.
            Now all three of us—me, Rory, and Carolyn—were all staring at him.  J.T. took a few deep, slow breaths.
            Oh, Jay.  What the hell is going on here?  How do you know him?
            “You gave me something,” J.T. continued, ignoring me even as I put a hand on his arm and squeezed, my fingers digging into the bare flesh of his tattooed forearm.  “What was it?  That day by the pyre, what did you give me?”
            The figure stared at him, a puzzled expression melting into a grim one.
            Oh god.  The dreams.  He saw him in those dreams.  I looked at J.T. in faint horror and sympathy.  He didn’t notice; he was still intent on our visitor.
            Phelan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  “Something that was meant to be passed down, not locked away in a museum someplace.”  He dug around in the pocket of his jacket and took something out, a pendant very much like the one I’d lost, though this one was larger, almost like a medallion, and on a heavier chain.  J.T.’s eyes widened and the air went out of his lungs.
            “Teague asked me to come.  Actually, it was mostly Kira that needed me to come, but I got a late start.  I was supposed to be here twenty-three days ago.  Got distracted by something shiny.”  He held the medallion up by its chain and offered us a wry smile even as J.T. walked slowly toward him.
            I don’t think Phelan ever saw the punch coming.

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            “Riders!  Riders incoming, southwest.”
            My head came up at the sound of Jack’s shout.  He had the patrol watch that hour.  My heartbeat quickened.
            Someone blew their whistle, calling everyone either to the walls or to cover.  I skidded a little on the gravel as I dropped what I was doing and took off for the walls.  Jacqueline rushed past me, hustling Angie toward cover.  Thom was shouting somewhere nearby, though he wasn’t angry, nor panicked—simply in control of the situation.
            That meant it was just men, something he knew, something he understood.  I breathed a sigh of relief.
            Then I started moving faster, with more urgency.  This wasn’t something the wards would stop.

            “Stop.  Just stop.”
            “Stop what, Mar?  We hadn’t started yet.”  Carolyn looked concerned for a moment, then simply frowned.  “Never mind,” she said softly.
            I dug my knuckles into my temples for a moment.  That was twice.  I was on my knees next to the ward, but I didn’t remember kneeling down.  I’d told J.T. to start talking, but he hadn’t had a chance yet?
            What was going on?
            Goddamn.  Why now?  They’re getting worse.  I forced myself to exhale and take another deep breath.
            “We need to take care of these wards,” Rory growled.  “Before whatever hit us tries again.  I don’t want to tangle with Angie’s Shadow Man a second time.  If I do, it’s going to be too soon.”
            I winced, nodding.  J.T. and Carolyn exchanged a long, silent look before J.T. took a deep breath.
            He started to talk as I dismantled the ward in front of my knees.
            “Shotguns seemed to do a lot of damage to them.  I asked Paul and Matt what we’d loaded them with, and they said there was some iron in the shot.  Carolyn was hitting them with cast-iron stuff and it was really effective, but I think you saw some of that.”
            I grunted, nodding.  “I did.”
            Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carolyn elbow J.T., who oofed and glared at her momentarily.  Breath hissed out of him quietly and he seemed to deflate.
            “All right, all right,” he muttered, then sighed, watching me for a few seconds as I dragged a stick across the spot where the ward had been to level out the ground.  He didn’t start to talk until I started to rebuild the ward.
            “It talked to me,” he muttered.  “The Shadow Man.  He talked to me, called me Spiritweaver, said that the Old Soul and I already belonged to it.”
            Rory went rigid and I glanced at him.  Carolyn winced sympathetically.  For a moment, J.T. looked confused, then his eyes widened slightly.
            “You’re the Old Soul?”
            Rory nodded.  “And it talked to me, too.  Said there was another, but it didn’t mention you.”
            “There’s more,” J.T. said, almost in a rush.  “It talked to Thom, too.”  He winced as soon as he’d said it, as if he’d just spilled a secret he was supposed to keep.  I stopped piling rocks and just stared at him.
            It talked to Thom?  What did it say?  My mouth tasted like ashes.  J.T.’s eyes met mine and he winced again.
            “What is a Spiritweaver, anyway?”  Carolyn asked.  I waved a hand.
            “Never mind that.”  I wasn’t sure, anyway.  “What did it say to Thom?”
            J.T. hesitated long enough that I was afraid that it was something terrible—not just something terrible, but something terrible that he and Thom were going to keep from me.  That was something I wasn’t sure I could take.
            Mercifully, I didn’t have to.  J.T. just sighed and said, “He said it offered him his life.  When he said no, it offered him your life.”
            A chill shot through me and I busied myself with the ward for a moment, trying not to think.  When I spoke, my voice was shaky.  “But he said no.”
            “He said you’d hate him if he’d said yes, and he couldn’t live with that.”
            “He would have been right,” Carolyn said softly, putting her hand on J.T.’s arm.  “We won’t tell him that you told us.”
            “Thanks,” J.T. murmured, watching me as I reset the physical components of the ward.
            “Energy dump now,” I said, trying to force my voice to be steady as I laid my hands over the stones and herbs that comprised the ward.  I even felt a trickle of energy come from J.T.  It didn’t feel like the first one did by the time we were done, but it was strong enough to hold.
            “Hopefully we taught it a lesson it won’t soon forget,” Carolyn said softly.  “If it’s not actually dead.”
            “It’s not dead,” J.T. said grimly.  Rory nodded in silent agreement.
            I shivered again and said nothing for a few long moments before I stood up.  “Well,” I said as I straightened.  “All the more reason for us to get these set and watch them.  Do you think your little friends can keep an eye on things, Carolyn?”
            She hesitated for a moment, tilting her head to the side as if listening, then slowly nodded.  “Yeah, I think so.  Sounds like they can, anyway.  It’s not going to prove anything to anyone who doesn’t believe in any of it, though.”
            Rory snorted humorlessly.  “We’re not worried about proof for them.  This is about the rest of us.”
            I nodded in silent agreement and started walking toward the next ward.

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Short update today, mostly due to the fact that it was my birthday weekend.  Sorry, guys!  Turning the big 2-9 was a little more important than…well…stuff.  I’ll make it up to you, I promise!

            I stared at Rory as if he’d grown a second head, and to be honest, I’m not sure I could have looked at him more strangely if he had.  “What?”
            Rory grimaced and shook his head.  “One of ours belongs to him, but he didn’t say who.  He just told me that I’d regret saying no, and that I should join while I could.  With the one who was already his.”  He exhaled, lacing his fingers through his hair and giving it a slight tug, as if that helped relieve some of his tension.  “I couldn’t tell anyone until you woke up.  I wasn’t sure who was going to listen and who wouldn’t jump down my throat, you know?”
            I blinked at him for a few more seconds before I found my voice.  “Who do you think it is?”
            “I don’t know,” he said, gaze flicking between Carolyn and I.  “I really don’t know.  At first I thought maybe it could be Thom and then I remembered that he doesn’t believe in this shit, so it couldn’t be him.”
            He believes.  He just doesn’t want to.  I swallowed my words and waited.
            “I just don’t know, Mar.  I don’t know who it could have been.”
            “Would we even know if it was us?”  Carolyn’s voice was very small.  “I mean, those things…I don’t know what to make of those things.  Would we even know if it was one of us?  Maybe it’s Paul and he doesn’t know it, or Thom or Matt or Jacqueline or something.”
            I stared at her in horror, dread starting to unfurl at the very pit of my stomach.
            “Guys?”
            I whipped around toward the sound of J.T.’s voice.  He took a startled step back when he saw the stricken look on my face.
            “…this is a bad time, isn’t it?”
            “Yes,” I said.
            “No,” Rory and Carolyn said in unison.  I glared at them.  J.T. just stood there, blinking.
            Finally, he sighed.  “We need to powwow, Mar.  We’ve got problems.”
            Great, more of those.  “Can’t they wait until Kellin’s awake, too?”
            “No,” J.T. said firmly, shaking his head and joining us as we clustered around the next ward.  “We need to talk about this now.  After you went down, that shadow-thing that attacked you and Thom and all the rest of us talked to me.”
            Shit.  It’s worse than I thought.  I pressed my thumbs against my eyes and tried not to groan.
            “Is there anyone else that’s going to join this party before I tell you to spill, Jay?”  I asked.
            “Thom, maybe, but I told him to stay put.”
            I grunted.  “Right.  Okay.  Spill.”
            God, I hope we’re not completely screwed.  Am I the only one it didn’t talk to directly?
            I supposed that I was about to find out.

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             “If we can figure out who was fucking up the wards in the first place, we’ll be able to stop them from doing it again,” Rory said as we headed for the next ward in the ring, this one a little further from ‘home’ than the first two Carolyn and I had checked.
            I glanced at him over my shoulder.  Carolyn had found a granola bar in her pocket, and eating it had helped restore some of the strength and steadiness to my limbs.  We weren’t going back to camp proper until we’d finished with these wards, even if I passed out at the end.
            Carolyn’s nose wrinkled.  “You really think that someone deliberately screwed them up to leave us open to that?”
            “Kellin suspected that someone was doing that,” I said, mostly to Carolyn.  “But she didn’t know who, and neither did I.  She talked to me about it but didn’t want to worry anyone else, so she didn’t really say anything.  We figured it was someone who didn’t know what they were doing.”
            “Well, she was right,” Rory said.  “Someone was deliberately screwing with the wards, but I don’t think that it was someone just doing it to do it.  It was malicious.”
            I blinked at him.  “We’ve got enough people around here that didn’t believe in all of…well, this…that could’ve been doing it because they thought that we were devil-worshipping or some crap like that, Rory.”  That’s got to be what it was, right?  Just someone kicking them over because they thought we were trying to spawn Satan or something right here on top of ourselves.  Probably the same ones that up and left.  “Hopefully we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”
            He shook his head, tone edging on insistent.  “I’m telling you, Mar, it was deliberate and I don’t think it was someone who just didn’t understand what they were for and getting scared.  They tried to cover it up, right?  The fact that the wards were being damaged?”
            “Well, yeah,” I said slowly, brows knitting.  “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  It just means that they didn’t realize that we’d be able to sense, up close, that they weren’t working quite right anymore.  Doesn’t mean they had any idea how any of it works.”
            “I’m telling you, Mar, someone working for the Shadow Man and his little friends disrupted those wards.”  Rory stared hard at me for a moment, then looked away.  There was a touch of fear lurking in his eyes.  What did he have to be afraid of, though?  Of the creatures coming back?
            We were out here to make sure that they couldn’t.
            “What makes you think so?”  Carolyn asked, walking on the other side of me with her hands shoved into her pockets.  She was frowning, thoughtful, head canted to one side as if she was listening to someone riding on her shoulder.  I caught a glimmer of blue and green and realized that she was—probably her little friend Longfellow.  “This kind of paranoia isn’t exactly like you.”
            For a moment, he seemed incredibly indecisive, staring at the trees off to one side, looking ahead to the rubble, then back to the trees.  The leaves were starting to turn, far too early, and he pretended to be fascinated by them for a moment before he looked back to us.  “It told me.”
            I blinked.  “What told you?”
            “Angie’s Shadow Man.  He told me.  He was taunting me while he went after you, Mar.  They wanted me to join them.”  His lips thinned.  “He said that one of us already belonged to him.
            “But he didn’t say who.”

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Rory joined us after I’d had a look at the second ward.  The first had been in better shape than the second, and I was still on my knees in the grass when Rory walked up.  The damp had soaked through my pants at the knees, leaving me a little chillier than I’d have liked, but it wasn’t going to be enough to send me back to shelter to change before our job was done.
“Matt told me you were up,” he said.  “Having a look at the mess?”  He glanced between Carolyn and I, then smiled a little.  “Please tell me we didn’t screw up too badly.”
“You didn’t do anything to screw them up.  Whoever dicked around with them in the first place did that more than well enough without your intervention.”  I sat back against my heels and pushed my hair back and out of my face.  “They’re a mess, though.  I just don’t quite know how to fix them without wiping them out and starting again.”
Rory nodded slowly.  “Thought that might be the case, but we weren’t going to do it without you or Kel to put them together.”  From his jacket pockets he produced a few baggies of herbs and a bit of chalk.  He thrust it all at me, smiling almost sheepishly.  “Here.  Thought you could use these.  That’s why I wasn’t out here earlier.  Had to find them.”
“Thanks.”  I smiled gratefully up at him and I took the baggies and the chalk.  It still wouldn’t be easy—not if I was remaking them—but getting wards rigged back up seemed more possible now.  I exhaled and started to erase the ring around the stack of rocks, trying to concentrate.
            Kellin and I stood next to the inner wall, built of concrete and large cobbles cemented together with concrete and mortar.  A few quick strokes of chalk and she’d added a new ward.  We each touched it, dumping energy into it.  Her lips moved silently and I could feel the energy flowing from her into the marks and through them into the stones of the wall itself.  I pulsed energy in, too, different from hers but with the same intent.
            When we finished, she looked at me sidelong and grinned tiredly.  “On to the next one.”
            I nodded in agreement, smiling back, and we turned to walk down the wall to the next site.
I pulled back from the ward, blinking.  My limbs felt rubbery, but I could feel the power rolling off the newly constructed ward in front of me.  I sat back, taking a few deep breaths.
“You okay, Mar?”  Carolyn touched my shoulder lightly.
I swallowed twice before I nodded.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I think I am.”
The ward was restacked, rechalked, ringed in a deep circle cut into muddy clay.  I didn’t remember doing any of it, but the energy was mine, mingling with hers and Rory’s, though theirs were fainter, less prominent.
“You sure?”  Carolyn pressed.  “You look a little pale.”
“Just tired,” I assured her, mind reeling.  What just happened?  Did I somehow black out and still…function?  That had never happened before, not that I could ever recall.  The idea that I could do that frightened me a little.
“Did you see something?”  Rory asked abruptly, towering over us both.
I just blinked up at him.  How the hell can he tell?  How the hell does he know?
My silence was apparently all the confirmation he needed.  He nodded curtly.  “Whatever happened, you just set that ward without thinking about it.  Told us when to energy dump and everything.”  He shivered slightly, staring at the ward.  “That one’s going to keep something really nasty out.  Already giving me a little bit of the crawlies, and I helped make it.”
I stared at the ward for a moment, took a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly.  “Well,” I said, “then let’s get on to the next one and hope it happens again.  I don’t want anything like that ever making it to our home ever again.”

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I kept walking toward Thom and J.T.  A few people paused in digging to wave as I passed, and I waved back, not quite seeing who they were.  I was too focused on my quarry.
“So is he going to live?” I asked, forcing a smile at J.T., who turned as I approached and gave me a brief smile.  Thom came upright as soon as he heard my voice, then leaned back again, putting a hand to his side and hissing softly.  I winced right along with him and reached for his free hand as I came close enough.  His fingers slid into mine, cool and strong, and he squeezed my hand for a moment.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked.
“He’s been a pain in the ass without your moderating influence,” J.T. said, giving me a wink and a smile.  I laughed even though it made my ribs ache a little.
“Not long,” I said, shifting my weight to my steadier leg.  “Enough time for Matt to bring me shoes and give me a quick overview of everything I missed.”  I looked at J.T., irrationally needing further confirmation of what Matt had already told me.  “Everyone’s going to be okay?”
“As long as they all stop pulling stupid stunts, yeah.”  He crouched to start unwrapping Thom’s ankle, making quick work of it.
“It did seem maybe a little stupid,” Thom murmured, looking up at me and away from his purpled, swollen ankle.  “But I did what I had to do.  What felt right.”  His fingers laced more tightly through mine, as if he was afraid I’d disappear if he didn’t hold on with all his strength.  “I couldn’t lose you,” he whispered.  “I was afraid I was going to.  So I just moved.”
“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me,” I said with a grin, trying to make light of it.  I really could have been killed by that thing, and I knew it, but he was already scared enough as it was.  “Now stop doing stupid shit.”
“I’ll try.”
“Succeed,” I told him, still grinning a grin I didn’t really feel, one that faded as I caught sight of Carolyn.  She was coming toward the three of us, a look of relief mingled with worry on her face.
“You’re awake!  I’m glad.”  She hugged me tightly, then rocked back against her heels, holding me at arms’ length.  “How do you feel?”
“Well enough.  What’s wrong?”
She smiled sheepishly.  “It’s all over my face, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, a little bit,” I said quietly.  Thom squeezed my fingers before I let go.  “Going to tell me?”
She gave Thom a quick look, then took me by the arm and led me away from him, away from the digging and the tents, toward the ward lines.  She kept her voice low as we walked.
“All the wards are completely destroyed.  I’ve tried to put them back together and get them set—Drew and Rory helped—but I’m really no good at this.  I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.  Someone had to do something, though.”
I felt a nervous little flutter in the pit of my stomach.  “Has anything happened since that day?  Since the fight?”
She shook her head.  “No.  But I went out as soon as I could to have a look at everything.  Drew came, too, and he tried to help me but neither of us are very sure how effective we were, y’know?  Rory went out with the both of us later for a second look.  Drew said it’s been a long time since he tried to ward anything like this.  It’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“I don’t know how much better I’ll be able to do,” I said quietly.  Nervousness continued to bubble up inside my belly, making me feel a little nauseous.  I tried to tamp it down.  “I’ve never been able to do a whole lot with that kind of thing—not without Kel’s help.”
“She’s still out,” Carolyn murmured mournfully.  “I’m starting to really, really worry Mar.  The scar and what Jac did and I…I don’t know what to make of it.  She’s got to wake up.”
“She will,” I whispered.  I’ve seen too much to believe she won’t.  She will, and I know she will.
“But when?  She needs to eat.  Real food.  We’ve gotten some water into her and some broth but that’s it.”  Carolyn sighed.  “It’s terrible,” she said softly.  “I just don’t know what to do.”
I shook my head quickly.  “You don’t have to know, Care.  None of us know!  We’re all flying by the seat of our pants.  Working together, though, that’s going to get us through.”
“Sometimes I’m not so sure.”
I smiled wryly.  “Sometimes I’m not sure, either.  But we’ll make it.  That much I know for sure.”  I gave her a squeeze.  “C’mon, let’s have a look at the wards.  Then I can eat something.  I’m starving.”  My stomach growled to punctuate my words.
We both laughed and kept on walking.  The sooner I had a look at those wards, the better—and not just for my stomach’s sake.
For all our sakes.

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            “Anyone else get hurt?” I asked him after he brought me a pair of shoes.  The temperature had dropped again outside.  Winter would come earlier than we anticipated.  He answered me as I pulled the shoes on and we started to walk.
            “Jac’s not really hurt, she’s just exhausted,” he said, sliding his arm around my shoulders again.  I glanced at his injured hand and was happy to see that the skin had knit and the stitches had been clipped.  The scar did look like I-75, though.  “Kellin hasn’t been awake, but J.T. said she’s fine.  Rory’s up and around.”
            “Something happened to Rory?”
            Matt blinked at me and nodded.  He gave me the brief version of what I’d missed during the fight.  I must have gotten some kind of horrified look on my face when he mentioned Tala joining the fight, because he frowned at me.
            “What’s the matter?  She’s fine.  She clotheslined a few of them.”  Matt grinned.  “I was impressed, honestly.  I’ve never seen her fight.”
            I shook my head a little, mouth dry.  She’s going to have to tell someone about being pregnant—someone other than me—sooner rather than later.  I could understand why she’d run in, though.  The rest of us had been in trouble by then, it sounded like, and she wasn’t the type to stand by when her friends were in trouble.  “I’m okay,” I lied, shaking my head a little.  “Just a little surprised.  Greg got into it, too?”
            Matt grinned.  “Yeah, it was pretty epic.  If it hadn’t been life or death, it could’ve been a movie.”  He squeezed me, the grin fading.  “Everyone’s okay.  Everyone that was in the fight, anyway.  J.T.’s still got Thom tied down, though.”
            “Tied down?”  I arched a brow, looking up at my brother.
            “Well, limiting his mobility, anyway.  To hear J.T. talk about it, it sounds like Thom undid almost three weeks worth of healing in the space of about five minutes, trying to get to you after the thing threw you.”
            I winced.  “But he’s okay?”
            “He’s about the same as usual,” Matt said.  “Worried as hell about you.  The first day or two wasn’t bad, trying to keep him in one spot, because he didn’t want to leave you.  Then Rory and I convinced him that he needed to be helping Davon coordinate all this digging and construction, so he’s been out here all day.”  Matt pointed ahead of us.  I could see J.T. leaning over Thom, who was sprawled in a chair with his ankle propped up on a box.
            “J.T. didn’t tell him I was all right?” I asked as my heart started to beat a little faster.
            “Telling and knowing are two entirely different things, Mar.”  Matt grinned and squeezed me, then let go.  “Go make his day, I’ve got to get back to work.  Trying to solder together some more pipes to lay into those trenches.  Heating conduits.”
            I nodded, smiling back.  “Thanks, Matt.”
            “Anytime.”  He pecked me on the cheek and headed off in another direction.
            Then I realized something.  Leah.  He didn’t say when she came back.  “Matt?”
            He turned, cocking his head to one side.  “What is it?”
            “When did Leah come back?  After the fight, I’m guessing.”
            He looked momentarily startled by the question, then frowned, shaking his head slightly.  “No, she didn’t come back.  After we got you guys settled, Drew and I went back out to look.  We found her sprawled near the wards.  Not a mark on her.  She didn’t remember a damn thing that happened that day after she woke up.”
            “Oh,” was all I could say.  I nodded a little.
            “You okay?”
            “Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  I was just curious, that’s all.”
            Matt nodded.  “It’s a good thing she was out there, though.  Can you imagine what that would’ve turned out like, if they’d hit us completely unawares with all of us clustered together?”
            My stomach fluttered.  “Yeah, that would have been bad.”  I swallowed and waved a hand.  “Go on, get back to work.  You’ve got stuff that needs to get done.”
            “Pretty sure you will, too, soon.”  Matt winked at me, waved, and headed back to work.
            I turned and started walking toward J.T. and Thom, trying to shake the feeling that at the end of the day, there was something about the whole situation that didn’t add up.

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            My body felt like someone had stretched me out and tried to tenderize me with one of those mallets you use to flatten meat.  There was a dull throbbing behind my eyes, but I was able to mostly ignore it as I started to slowly sit up.  It was dark wherever I was, but I could hear the sound of people working—digging and hammering, it sounded like—somewhere near by.  As my eyes slowly adjusted, I saw rough-hewn wooden walls and a dim light along the edges of a door.
            They put up one of the sheds, I realized after a moment, as my sleep-addled brain put the pieces together.  When did they do that?
            I could barely remember drifting in and out of consciousness for a couple of days since the fight, though I know that someone had been there to get me to eat and then let me sleep some more.  I hadn’t been the only one, but I wasn’t sure who else had been there, or where we’d been sleeping, or when we’d been moved.
            A chill draft whispered in through the crack in the doors and I shivered slightly, drawing one of the blankets layered over me around my shoulders.  I looked around slowly.  The shed wasn’t very large, but it was more than large enough for three of us to be stretched out comfortably in the center, heads to the back wall, and still have room to walk around each of us.
            Jacqueline was dead asleep to my left, curled on her side with a blanket hauled up over her shoulder.  Kellin was on my right, flat on her back, chest rising and falling with each breath.  Even in the dim, I could see a scar the width of my pinkie finger across her throat.
            But she’s alive.  I swallowed hard.  She was alive, and that was more than I’d ever expected.
            I pushed away the blankets that were spread over my legs and rocked to my knees, looking around for my shoes.  There weren’t any to be found.
            Guess they didn’t think I’d wake up and want to get out.  I swallowed a groan as I got to my feet.  One leg almost folded under me, but I steadied after a moment.  Damn, I hurt.  I hurt more than I thought I did.
            I couldn’t remember anything after the Shadow Man—I didn’t have any doubt that’s who Angie had been seeing—had grabbed me.  Cold had washed over me, through me.
            Then he threw me, and I didn’t remember anything after that.  It was like waking up in the ruined storage closet at the store all over again, except I was hoping to see something a little more heartening than devastation when I opened the doors in front of me.
            The hinges creaked as I eased the door open and peered out.  The sky was gray, but weak sunshine filtered down through the clouds, lending light but little warmth to the air.  My flesh puckered almost as soon as the air hit me.  I tugged the blanket tighter and stepped barefoot down onto a one foot by two foot slab of flagstone laid beneath the shed door.  Beyond it was grass trampled down almost completely into mud.
            They were digging ditches—trenches, really—to the left and right of the shed.  Two more were already up, one on each side.  Strings tied to stakes marked out what I guessed to be the spots where more of the sheds would stand, each with about two feet of clearance between them.  I eased the door behind me shut.
            “What’re you doing up?”
            I jumped about three feet in the air and glared at Matt, who smiled sheepishly and put an arm around me.  “Jesus H. Christ, Matthew!”
            He looked exhausted, deep circles under his eyes, but otherwise all right.  The cut on his face was healing up, no swelling, no redness.  Just a line of stitches down the side of his face.  He grinned at me.  “I scared you, huh?”
            “Yes,” I grumbled, leaning against him a little.  He was warm, comforting, and his arm around my shoulders felt good.
            “We thought if we didn’t put any shoes in there, you’d stay put.  Wrong on that one, huh?”
            I nodded.  “Just a little.  How long has it been?”
            “Three days,” he said, apparently knowing what I meant.  “J.T. says you’ll all live, which is good, because three people left that night after the fight, then two more after that.  I guess random combat with things most of them can’t see wasn’t a good explanation for why a bunch of you were hurt and unconscious when they got back.”
            I swallowed some bile and shook my head a little.  “We knew that could happen.”
            “Yeah,” he said softly.  “We just hoped it wouldn’t.”  He squeezed me tightly.  “But all of you are going to be okay, and that’s what’s most important to me at this point.  As long as the core’s together, we can make it through anything.”
            The core.  Is that what we are?  Maybe.
            Yeah.  I guess we are.

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            J.T.’s head pounded at counterpoint to his heart as he slowly came around, sprawled flat on his back in the mud next to Thom’s equally sprawled body.  Rain was light on his face, but the clouds were black as night, promising that the rain wasn’t going to be light for long.
            Constance’s ghost stood over him, an army of others behind her fading into the mist as it dissipated into the rain and the dim.  The ghost shook her head almost sadly.
            “I don’t know if we can do that again, Jameson.”
            “You didn’t need to do it this time,” he said.  His tongue felt swollen and he shivered, slowly sitting up.  He could taste a little blood and hoped it was just from a split lip or a bitten cheek.  “We were turning the tide.”
            “There were more coming.”  Her ghostly voice was distant, as if she was listening to something else, something far away.
            J.T. swallowed a couple of times, willing his heart to settle down.  He felt cold all over, from the tips of his fingers down to his toes.  “How many?”
            “It doesn’t matter, now.  You’ll have time, though I don’t know how much.”  The ghost looked at him squarely.
            “You’ll need to be careful.  Forever.”
            He nodded mutely.  Somehow, he knew that.
            The statement, he also knew, had a double meaning.  They would all have to be careful forever, but so would he in specific.
            Her ghost nodded back.  The mists slowly began to fade, the ghosts winking out of view one by one, carried away by the rain and the wind.  Even hers began to fade from his vision.
            “Thank you, Constance,” he said quietly, just before she vanished completely.
            He saw the ghost smile, and then she was gone.
            The rain got heavier as he forced his way up to his feet, shaky at first.  He looked around slowly.  The others were starting to come around.  His heart began to pound again.  Were they all still alive?
            Shit.  Marin.  Thom.  Kellin.  He spun to the side.  Thom was flopping onto his side like a fish out of water, groaning and coughing painfully, face spattered with mud and rain, white from either pain or internal bleeding—both things that J.T. would have to address as soon as possible.
            Turning toward the pile of broken furniture, he could see Marin’s fingers twitch feebly.  A relieved breath escaped him before he stumbled forward and started hauling pieces of debris off of her, muttering curses under his breath to keep himself going.
            “Is she…?”  Thom mumbled, slowly starting to sit up.
            “Alive, yes,” J.T. growled, then waved for Thom to get out of his way.  “Go sit over there and try not to do any more damage to yourself before I can fix you.”
            Thom laughed painfully and crawled to a spot a few feet away, just under cover from the rain that was starting to fall harder.
            Thunder boomed and lightning crackled in the otherwise still and silent air, alive only with the sound of groans as people came awake to find themselves either hurt or wet—in many cases, both.  Carolyn appeared at his elbow and helped him clear the bits of broken furniture away from Marin’s fallen form.
            “You look like hell,” Carolyn murmured at one point, glancing at him sidelong.  He almost laughed aloud.
            The words just slipped out.  “And you look beautiful.”
            She blushed and he caught her hand for a moment, squeezed her fingers, then let go again and got back to work.  Now, as ever, wasn’t the time.  It was never the time.
            Together, they got the debris cleared away from Marin and J.T. reached down to gently lift her from the wreckage.  She groaned softly, a dark bruise already forming on her forehead, above her eye, and a little blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
            “Is she going to be okay?”  Carolyn asked softly.
            “Time’ll tell,” J.T. murmured, then turned to carry her toward the fire.
            A crack of thunder sounded, so close and loud it shook everything, vibrated the very ground beneath their feet.  It was as if that was the sound of the heavens tearing open, because the rain began to come down in curtains and sheets.
            It washed away the blood and the signs of battle even as the survivors—all of them—scrambled for the cover of the tents that had become their home.
            It might have been tenuous and temporary, but it was certainly home.

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