THIRTY-SEVEN
Joe released Emily and raised his hands toward us, but before I could even react, the foul blue light he was generating condensed into a single point, and the stone walls disappeared from around us. We stood on a beach, the moon shining brightly from the western sky, the east beginning to show the first blush of purple. Adam collapsed to his knees, and I reached out for him.
“Do not touch me,” he warned. He bent over, his face almost touching the sand, and a wail reached out from the innermost part of his heart, disturbing the quiet of the coming dawn.
“Adam, it’s me. Mercy,” I said. I knelt down next to him and tried to comfort him.
“I know who the hell you are, and I know what the hell you are. Now get away from me.” Even though he hadn’t made his way up off his knees, his hands balled into tight fists, his right one higher and ready to strike out, his left one lower, ready to defend. He was prepared to beat his way past me if I didn’t do as he said. I stood and backed away. When Adam rose to his feet, his movements were jerky.
“Where the hell are we?” he said as he spun around, trying to find his bearings. He spotted the darkened, defunct lighthouse that loomed nearby. “That isn’t Savannah. It isn’t Tybee.”
“No,” I said. It wasn’t Tybee, with its motels and souvenir stores. The unspoiled Hunting Island Beach stretched out before us. Even though we had to travel a good hour away from Savannah, Iris had often brought Maisie and me here when we were children. I wasn’t sure if we’d landed here by hazard or design. “We’re in South Carolina. I can get you home.” At least I hoped I could. I’d never tried to slide this far before, and it would only be my second attempt at carrying a passenger. “But I will need to touch you.”
“No,” Adam said, leaning away from me. His face had contorted itself into a mask of pain. His right eye had now completely swollen shut. “No. I want no more of you people,” he said. “Your mother put a noose around my neck,” he said, pulling his still clenched fists up before his face. He drew them down and glared at me through his still functioning eye. “I am a black man, Mercy. You can’t begin to understand . . .”
“Please. I know she’s a monster. I am so sorry for what she’s done to you. Please, let me take you to Oliver. Let Ellen heal you.”
He continued to shake his head. “I know you mean well. I do. I know you aren’t like your mother . . .”
“Please then. Stay here and let me get Uncle Oliver,” I said, but Adam just shook his head.
“No. I know what’s in you Taylors now. I’ve seen it.” His good eye searched my face, as if he were trying to see through a disguise, but then he turned away. “I know what y’all are now, and I can’t bear it.”
Beneath the crashing surf, I heard that same growling I’d heard in the stone hall. At the edge of the line of trees, a retreating moon illuminated the wolf form that Joe had once again assumed. The beast padded up within yards of us and settled down, waiting for us to move so that it could give chase. Adam’s body vibrated, shivering from cold, quivering from adrenaline. “Don’t move,” I said, but my words came too late. Adam took off in a full sprint, heading in the direction of the lighthouse. The wolf looked up at me, glee in its amber eyes. Its right front paw shimmered and stretched out into a furry, human-shaped hand. I watched as each of the five fingers Joe showed me bent in toward the palm. He was counting down, giving Adam a head start. The hand shrunk back into a wolf’s pad, and Joe howled into the night, then leapt into the air and took off in pursuit.
I ran after them, ignoring the protest of my feet as the soft sand gave way to wood planks and then asphalt. I stopped on the road to get my bearings, but Adam and the wolf had already vanished from my sight. I turned in a circle, trying to hear some sign of them, but any external sounds were drowned out by the beating of my own heart. I was about to send out a psychic ping to see if I could get a fix on Adam when a beam shot out of the decommissioned lighthouse, illuminating the world around me. I saw my mother’s figure standing in silhouette on the external catwalk near the black-painted top of the beacon. Praying that Adam had managed to escape and find shelter, I closed my eyes and slid to the lighthouse’s white base.
I knew this place by heart, having climbed to the tower’s top many times over the years. Tonight, its entranceway stood wide open, and light—every bit as bright as what was shining from the beacon’s focal plane—poured out the black doorframe and reflected off the gold “1873” that adorned it. I put my foot on the first step, pulling it away again when I felt a sticky wetness. I looked down. It was blood. More had dribbled down on the next step and the next. I stepped up gingerly, trying to avoid further contact. I entered the tower, only to find more blood inside, much more, a puddle of it having formed at the base of the circular stairs that led up to the external railing where I’d seen Emily. Another drop of blood fell from above and splashed into the puddle. I looked up, but the brightness of the light and the curve of the stairs, combined with the way the tower narrowed as it went up, prevented me from seeing its source.
The silence in the tower was absolute, and the sound of my foot touching the iron mesh of the first of the winding steps echoed as loudly as if I’d hit it with a sledgehammer. “Come on up, darling,” Emily’s voice rang out in my mind. “We are all waiting for you.” I closed my eyes, focusing my thoughts on the ninth landing. When I opened them again, Joe stood there before me in his human form, completely naked. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Adam,” I said, feeling my knees start to buckle.
“Relax,” Joe said. “I only took a little taste.” He squinted and licked his lips.
“Where is he? What have you done with him?”
“He’s hanging out with your mother,” he said and opened the door that led to the external circular catwalk. “After you.”
“No, you first.” I would not turn my back on Josef. He shrugged and smiled, then stepped out the door, letting the wind slam it shut in my face. I grabbed the handle and pulled it open, a whistling sound coming through the crack. I peeked through, but could see nothing, so I opened it wider and poked my head out. Adam hung in midair, his head lolling down, his arms being whipped about in the wind. I forced the door fully open and stepped out onto the catwalk.
“Call them. Call them to you.” Emily said to me, making me jump even though I had known her to be there. “I want the whole dear family here for this event.” I considered a quick slide. Go out. Grab Adam. Get anywhere the hell away from here. Emily floated over to face me. “Don’t even consider it, darling. I’ll make sure he hits the ground before you can even blink. Now call them.”
“Do as your mother tells you. Call them, sister. Call your aunts. Call the ape’s lover.”
“You are mighty brave when you are hiding behind her skirt,” I said, my anger overtaking my fear. “You’d better hope I never catch you out alone. I will rip your big bad wolf costume right off you.”
He took a step toward me, straining so that his muscles would pop. “I am much more adept at using magic than you are.”
“I ain’t talking about using magic, little brother.”
“Enough, children,” Emily said. Josef’s taut muscles were still twitching even as he took a step closer to Emily. She ran her fingers through his hair and then trailed them down his naked back. “Shhh . . .” She soothed him and then turned toward the sea and leaned against the metal railing. She whistled three discordant notes, then repeated the sequence twice.
From out near the horizon, where by now I knew the sun should soon rise, a furious shrieking came in response to her call. The awakening sky lost all light, fading to a deep purple, the shade of Adam’s bruised skin, and then any hope of color was lost, repelled by storm clouds that had arisen from nowhere.
“A few simple sounds,” Emily said. “And not much power at all. Just enough to encourage nature to do what it already wanted to do anyway. The water was already so warm, aching for a touch to arouse it. So easy to start, so hard to end.” The winds began to whip up whitecaps. “What do you think, Josef?”
“At this rate, it will only make it to a category four by the time it hits Savannah,” he said, jutting out his head over the railing to assess the growing storm. “I want a five.”
“And so you shall have it,” she said. She whistled again, and this time the notes came more quickly, sounding shriller. She kept it up until I thought my eardrums would burst, but then the sound mercifully stopped.
“It’s building on its own now,” Emily said. “Remember, I tried to avoid this, but you left me with no choice.”
“A hurricane with no warning. No time for alerts. No evacuation,” Joe said. “The destruction will be spectacular.”
The clouds continued to thicken and blacken, and the first flash of lightening shocked the sky. “You have to stop this.”
“Oh, no, my daughter. If you want this stopped, you will have to be the one to stop it.” She smiled at me. “I know that you can . . . that is, if you are allowed.”
“What do you mean if I am allowed?”
“Ask the Duvals. They could have turned Katrina away from New Orleans, directing it to a less populated area. Or they could have used their magic to help the levees hold. But the anchors wouldn’t allow your cousins to save their home, just as they will not allow you to save yours.”
“That’s ridiculous. The storm was too powerful. If they could have done—”
“Oh, they could have done,” Emily interrupted me. “And they would have done too, but the anchors said that diverting that much power from the line would weaken it. They commanded the Duvals to step down, and they did.”
“Well, I am a Taylor, not a Duval,” I said, and another flash of lightning punctuated my words, the clap of thunder so near it caused the metal catwalk to sing beneath my feet.
“Oh, my dear, I’m counting on that. Now go ahead. Call your family. I want you to do your best to turn this destruction you’ve forced me to call upon Savannah back out to sea. My sisters and brother will give you all the help you need.” She closed her eyes and raised her hands toward the sea. “Now, I’ll give it the slightest nudge.” Her lips moved silently, and the horrible monstrosity on the horizon began to move closer to us, toward her outstretched hands. “My work here is done,” she said and reached out for Joe’s hand.
“Wait. Is it true? Is this just another trick to get me to endanger the line? Will the energy I use weaken it?”
“That’s what the Duvals believed. Tell me, do you?” A flash of lightning enveloped them, and they vanished. The world around me stopped as Adam fell.