"I just sing about them. And I don't know if I could actually hit someone with this."
Dennis picked up the ax and hung it over one shoulder with the blade facing backward and the beard and helve holding it in place. Eilir was frightened but excited; she took a light hatchet and long knife to hang from her own belt.
Her mother felt only a heavy dread.
"It'll still look intimidating as hell, if we get into any more: trouble. God forbid! Anyway, I used to do some of this stuff," Dennis said. "And I've got friends who do it steady-you do too, don't you?"
"Chuck Barstow," Juniper said. "You met him last Samhain, remember? His wife Judy's the Maiden of my coven."
Dennis nodded. "Hope to hell he turns up. I may remember enough to give you a few pointers. And damn, but we're better off than those poor bastards on the 747!"
"Amen," Juniper said.
She winced for a second; if this whatever-it-was had happened all over the world, there would be tens of thousands in the air, or down in submarines, or: Her mind shied away from the thought; it was simply too big.
"Focus on the moment," she muttered to herself as they went out into the front room of the tavern, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "Ground and center, ground and center."
Then: "Dennie, what the hell are you doing? I thought money wouldn't be worth anything?"
The heavyset man had opened the till, scooping the bills into the pockets of his quilted jacket; then he ducked into the manager's office and returned with the cash box. He grinned at her.
"Yeah, Juney-it won't be worth anything soon. I want to look up an old friend on our way out of town."
"Friend?"
"More of a business acquaintance. He runs a sporting-goods store, and sells grass on the side. Actually, he sells pretty much anything that comes his way and isn't too risky, which is why I'm betting he'll open up special when I wave some bills at him. If he were really a friend, I'd feel guilty about this, but as it is: "
Chuck Barstow stopped his bicycle by the side of the road and touched his face lightly as he panted. The glass cuts weren't too bad, and the bleeding seemed to have stopped-he'd been able to dive behind the desk when the 727 plowed into the runway about a thousand yards away. Despite the chilly March night he was sweating, and it stung when it hit the cuts.
He looked over his shoulder. Highway 99 ran arrow-straight southeast from Eugene Airport. It was nearly eight o'clock, and the fires behind him had gotten worse, if anything. The streetlights were all out, but the giant pyres where the jets had dropped towered into the sky, and were dwarfed in turn where one had plowed into the tank farm where the fuel was stored. He could see the thin pencil of the control tower silhouetted against the fire, and then it seemed to waver and fall.
I was there. Right there in that tower. Twenty minutes ago, he thought, coughing at the heavy stink of burnt kerosene.
The highway was full of cars and trucks, both ways. Many of them had crashed, still moving at speed when engines and lights and power steering died together, and a few were burning. There were bodies laid out on the pavement, and people trying to give first aid to the hurt. More were trudging towards Eugene, but there was nothing except fire-lit darkness towards the city, either.
He could hear curses, screams, there two men slugging at each other, here two more helping an injured third along with his arms over their shoulders. A state trooper with blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead stood by his car with the microphone in his hand, doggedly pressing the send button and giving his call sign and asking for a response that never came.
"Chuck," Andy Trethar said from behind him. "Chuck, we've got to keep going. They'll all be waiting for us at the store."
Before he could reply, a stranger spoke: a tall dark heavyset man in an expensive business suit, looking to be two decades older than Chuck's twenty-seven.
"How much for the bicycle?" he said, looking between them. "I have to get to the airport immediately."
"Mister, it's not for sale," Chuck said shortly. "I need it to get back to my wife and daughter. And the airport's a giant barbeque, anyway."
"I'm prepared to give you a check for a thousand, right now," the man said.
"I said, not for sale," Chuck said, preparing to get going again. "Not at any price."
"Two thousand."
Chuck shook his head wordlessly and got ready to step on the pedal. Judy would be worried, and Tamsin could sense moods like a cat-the girl was psychic, even at three years old.
Powerful God, Goddess strong and gentle, they should have been at the store long before six fifteen. They'll all be there and safe. Please!
The fist came from nowhere, and he toppled backward and hit the pavement with an ooff! Pain shot through him as the bicycle collapsed on top of him.
Someone tried to pull it away from him, and he clung to it in reflex. He also blinked his eyes open, forcing himself to see. Andy was pulling the heavyset man back by the neck of his jacket; the man turned and punched again, knocking Chuck's slightly built friend backward.
Some of Chuck Barstow's coreligionists were pacifists. He wasn't; in fact, he'd been a bouncer for a while, a couple of years ago when he was working his way through school. He was also a knight in the SCA, an organization that staged mock medieval combats as realistic as you could get without killing people. His daytime job as a gardener for Eugene Parks and Recreation demanded a lot of muscle too.
His hand snaked out and got a grip on the ankle of the man in the suit. One sharp yank brought him down yelling, and Chuck lashed out with a foot. That connected with the back of the man's head, and his yells died away to a mumble.
Sweating, aching, Chuck hauled himself to his feet; they pushed their bicycles back into motion and hopped on, feet pumping. The brief violence seemed to have cleared his head, though: He could watch the ghastly scenes that passed by without either blocking them out or going into a fugue.
In fact:
"Stop!" he said, as they reached Jefferson from Sixth.
"What for?" Andy said, looking around, but he followed his friend's lead.
"Andy, we've got to think a bit. This isn't going to get better unless: whatever changed changes back. And I've got this awful feeling it won't."
They were in among tall buildings now, and it was dark-a blacker dark than either of them had ever known outdoors. Occasional candle-gleams showed from windows, or the ruddier hue of open flame where someone had lit a fire in a Dumpster or trash barrel. The sounds of the city were utterly different-no underlying thrum of motors, but plenty of human voices, a distant growling brabble, and the crackle of fire. The smell of smoke was getting stronger by the minute.
"Why shouldn't it change back?".
"Why should it? Apart from us wanting it to."
Andy swallowed; even in the darkness, his face looked paler. "Goddess, Chuck, if it doesn't change back: "
Andy and Diana Trethar owned a restaurant that doubled as an organic food store and bakery.
"We get a delivery once a week-today, Wednesday. With no trucks-"
"-or trains, or airplanes, or motorbikes, even."
"What will happen when everything's used up?"
"We die," Chuck said. "If the food can't get to us, we die-unless we go to the food."
"Just wander out of town?" Andy said skeptically. "Chuck, most farmers need modern machinery just as much-"
"I know. But at least there would be some chance. As long as we could take enough stuff with us." Chuck nodded to himself and went on: "Which is why we're going to swing by the museum."
"What?"
"Look," he said. "Cars aren't working, right?" A nod. "Well, what's at the museum right now?"
Andy stared at him for a moment; then, for the first time since six fifteen, he began to smile.
"Blessed be. ' Oregon 's Pioneer Heritage: A Living Exhibit.' "
The restaurant's window had the Closed sign in it, but the door opened at the clatter of hooves and the two men's shouts. Chuck smiled and felt his scabs pull as Judy came to the door, a candle in her hand-one thing you were certainly going to find at a coven gathering was plenty of candles. She gaped at the two big Conestoga wagons, but only for a moment: That was one of the things he loved about her, the way she always seemed to land on her mental feet.