Page 125 of Envious Of Fire
Everyone turns to him.
He rushes off the porch, goes to the curb, stares down the street one way, then the other. As Kyle watches, he picks up aburst of panic snaking uncomfortably through his body. Drake peers up at the sky for some reason, then off in the direction of the open desert, as if he can hear something. He squints, leans forward, straining.
“Drake?” Kyle calls out cautiously. “What’s going on?”
Drake comes to, looks at Kyle. “We … We need to go.” His eyes turn blank, detaching, a dark cloud of worry covering his face. No one moves, waiting for more. He says nothing else.
Kyle takes a step toward him, impatient. “What is it? Is it your brother? Are you sensing him?”
Drake snaps out of it again, then hurries back to the porch, appearing uncharacteristically flustered. “Yeah, uh … maybe I should’ve … maybe it’s better if we …”
“Pick a sentence and go with it,” snaps the chief.
Drake’s eyes light up. “Do you have a church somewhere in this town? Preferably one with a nice, snug basement?”
“The hell you need a church for?” asks the chief.
“For us to hide in,” answers Drake, like it’s so obvious. “A safe place that can protect us from superstitious vampires with too much time on their hands.” He swallows hard, glances into the distance again. “I’m pretty sure they’re coming.”
It’s now that Kyle feels the chief’s emotions shift from red hot to ice cold. “They?” he barks. “Who the fuck are ‘they’?”
Kyle wastes no time, rushing back to the front door. Elias stands there, having heard everything. “Babe, you remember all that stuff I told you to store away in the closet for me? The box in the back? I need you to get it.”
“Box …?”
“Silver,” emphasizes Kyle. “It’s why you had to handle it yourself. We need it.” Elias catches on, mutters something to himself, heads off. “Jeremy, Layna,” Kyle calls into the house. “I need you two to grab everything—the book, the candles, whatever you need. Fast. Mikey, you, too.”
The house becomes a mess of everyone rushing around as fast as they can, gathering things. Cade helps her daughter at the table, filling bags with their items. When the chief pushes past Kyle into the house, he goes straight to his son, asks him what’s going on, softly at first, then again with more urgency, and finally: “Why isn’t my son talking??” Cade tucks the spell book under her arm and pulls a linen bag of tins and jars over her shoulder. “I’ll explain everything on the way, Juan, you’ll be totally caught up. Be a doll and pack those other candles, will you? Hurry.”
Soon, the unlikely group of eight are split among two cars on their way to the church in the heart of the town, two streets from the bar, right by the park and the school. As the chief hops out to unlock the building with the others following, Drake stays by the vehicles to listen, staring into the distance. That’s when the birds are sighted, dozens upon dozens of them, pouring into the empty park, flying and landing atop the roof of the church, power lines, nearby fences, even the cars. “What?” barks Layna when her mom looks her way. “I’m not doing anything!”
The inside of the church is old and musty, certainly not at the top of anyone’s priority list of being fixed up. A simple long room with rows of pews and an aisle down the middle that leads straight to a stage with a pulpit, old upright piano, and a modest crucifix hanging overhead, circled by candles. An annex spreads off from the side with a bathroom. Tucked in the back corner of that room by a sadly malnourished potted plant is a door. It opens to a set of narrow stairs leading down to a plain, one-room, rectangular basement lined with red brick and dark wooden bracing. The space is outlined with bookshelves, boxes of church items, folded sheets, stacks of things, knickknacks, all kinds of clutter. In the middle of the room is a fold-out table with a stack of fold-out chairs next to it.
Cade and her daughter quickly get to work laying out theiritems on the table, Cade giving directions from her big, ominous book. “No, no, we’re out of time for playing around,” she snaps the moment her daughter starts to complain. “We havegotto make something happen before we run out of time.”
“What are we supposed to make happen?” asks Layna with due frustration. “We’ve been trying to figure out that ‘warding spell’ all day long and nothing happened. This is stupid.”
“We have no one here to teach us, Layna. Gran’s gone. If anything my fruitless quest through our family tree has taught me, it’s that all you and I have is ourselves. Jer Bear, be a sweetheart and light those candles, will you? The yellow ones.”
Layna makes a face. “Ugh, I’m not awitch.”
Cade looks at her. “Baby, we don’t know what we are.”
“I’mnota witch!” she doubles down.
“Then do you want to explain why you and I—only you and I—can read this weird book? I told you. Gran. All the stuff I saw her do. I told you over and over, I wasn’t crazy. All my visions …”
“Ugh,” groans Layna, looking away.
“And don’t get me started on all your damnedbirds…”
“I said that wasn’t me!”
Jeremy lights candles as he glances back and forth between mother and daughter, eyes caught in a tennis match.
Kyle heads back up the stairs to check on the others. Elias, Mikey, and Chief Rojas are gathered near the door, making for a rather strange trio of guards. The chief is sorting through cases of firearms, spread out on the back pew. Mikey paces, watching the windows, face reflecting absolute fear with his wide eyes darting to wherever he catches the slightest of movement.
Elias stands at the front window, his shape eclipsing the moonlight. Kyle comes to his side. He spots Drake standing in the yard outside the church near the cars, staring into the distance, likely still listening for his brother. The birds are scattered all around, fidgeting, hopping, or sitting perfectly still,but none come within ten feet of Drake, creating a perfect circle around him. The scene is eerie and unexplainable.
