Catalyst (A Grace Murphy Novella)

Catalyst
A Grace Murphy Novella

Nicole Hamlett

Catalyst - A Grace Murphy Novella
Text copyright © 2013, Nicole Hamlett
GRACE MURPHY, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Nicole Hamlett.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Published by Nicole Hamlett.
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1st Edition, 2013.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

Dedicated to Ray and Troy

You kept me going when I didn't think I had the strength to breathe much less write.

In which there's a dunking, a fight and the promise of a churro

The funny thing about the Happiest Place on Earth is that at the end of the day, parents look like they've been run over by a dump truck about fifty times.  It's not that it's necessarily a tough place to hang out. It's that your senses are assaulted on all sides by a million little lights, sounds and that incessant question, "Hey can I get that?"

We'd only been here half a day and Dylan probably owned half of the crap sold at MagicHappyFuntimeLand. (Hey, even as a demi-goddess I'm not immune to the little rodent's team of copyright lawyers.)  I didn't begrudge him, though - he'd earned it. Hell, if he wanted me to buy the entire park, I'd rob a bank for him.  I looked across the bench at him and watched the wondrous grin that split his face.

I hadn't been sure that he'd still be into this but I'd been promising to take him since he was six. Eight years later, here we sat. He'd turned fourteen yesterday and I'd asked him where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do.

He'd shrugged in that noncommittal way teenagers have that make you want to wrap your fingers around their throats just to drag out a decisive and cohesive sentence.  "I don't know."

And that, my friends, was the way of the parental conversation. You ask – they don't know.

"It's NBD, Mom. We don't have to do anything."

"NBD - why would you even say that? Speak English!"

He rolled his eyes and turned away. "No big deal."

I suppressed a grimace and pushed forward. "Do you remember what you did for your thirteenth birthday?"

His shoulders tensed and I braced for impact. "Yeah, I spent it with Grandma because you were off cleaning up the mess you'd made with Hypnos."

Direct hit. Damage taken to the conscience, heart and gut. "Right. So yes, this is a big deal. I'm asking you what you want to do because for once, I have the ability to take you anywhere and do anything you want. This is your special day and by all that is holy you are going to enjoy it."

A belabored groan left his lips and he turned back to me, giving me the best sullen look he could conjure.  Well, he'd just have to try harder. I'd invented the sullen look and I told him so.  I got another eye roll for my efforts before he shrugged and said, "I dunno. We never went to MagicHappyFuntimeLand. I guess we could go there."

I stifled the pained sigh.  It wasn't easy to get into that place anymore.  Nearly one hundred miles in every direction from the epicenter of the Greater LA earthquake lay in devastated waste. The only bastion left standing was the Magic Slice of Happiness. 

Magic indeed.

People joke about the park's magic. Yeah, they shouldn't – there'd been some serious mojo that kept this place completely intact. My theory was that all of the positive energy and memories from over the years had wrapped the grounds in a protective blanket that absorbed the impact from the quake and protected the immediate area from the creatures Geb had spawned to wreak further pain and suffering on the California coastal towns. 

The fact that it was the only place left standing in a fifty mile swath of land made it the hottest ticket in the Country.  Everyone wanted to bathe in that protection – in that magic.  Getting tickets was nearly impossible.  The good news here was that because of this new exclusivity, it wouldn't be as crowded and the lines would be shorter.

"Done," I countered.  "A MagicHappyFuntimeLand vacation it is. Any particular hotel you want to stay at?"

His startled, wide-eyed gaze met mine and I suppressed a smile. He hadn't thought I'd say yes. Score one for Mom. "N-no. Whatever is fine."

"Cool. I'll have Marisol get us some reservations and we'll pop down there tomorrow after we pack.  Teleportation – the only way to travel," I exclaimed and made my way out of his quarters before slumping against the wall.

Jesus. I'd felt like a diplomat in that room asking for concessions for my country – knowing all the time that my life was hanging in the balance.  When had I stopped being my kid's best friend?

Twenty four hours, thousands of dollars and three pep talks (For me) later,
here we were floating down the lazy river of the Pirate ride.

My kid, the one I fought for, protected and adored with all of my heart had finally re-appeared and
was loving every single minute of the experience.

"Shouldn't have had that chowder," he whispered.

"Yeah, I'm feeling it too. It would help if the boat weren't rocking so much." I rubbed my stomach and sent a silent command to my innards to calm the fuck down.

It didn't occur to me that anything was wrong. We'd been flare up free for six months. The non-natives weren't restless; they weren't even making a peep. 

It should have occurred to me.

I should have been on alert as soon as I'd stepped onto that god forsaken craft and my stomach had started doing the tango with the equivalent of a two left footed Canadian middle school kid. It was, after-all, what I'd spent the last year training for.

"Mommy! Look at the pretty statues!" The toddler in the row ahead of us pointed and tugged at his mother's shirt.

"Hmm, I do
n't remember those from before. They must be new," she replied. "Shh and sit down before they stop this boat and ask you to get off. Remember, we promised to behave this time."

I looked at where the little boy was pointing and froze. 

With a hand reaching up towards the heavens in an anguished plea for mercy, a stone statue rested upon a mountain of gold. In the background, the mechanical pirates were singing and joking. This new addition didn't quite fit with the frivolity and mayhem that the Pirates had been showing park hoppers for the last fifty years.  This was a little too dark.

I went from the ambivalent parent - grateful for an air conditioned ride - to full Hunter mode in seconds.  Sure, it had been years since I'd last visited, but there were new statues and dark stains that didn't quite match the rest of the décor here.

My head swiveled back toward Dylan and I stared hard at the fingers digging into his stomach. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit!

I leaned in close and whispered, "Did your stomach hurt before we got into this boat?"

He shook his head and hunched over. I pulled him in close and continued, "Something's wrong. So when I say go, I
want you to teleport out of here and meet me back at the River Boat Ride. Got it?"

"What are you going to do?" he whispered back.

"Maybe nothing. I could be over thinking this, but something feels really off. The first priority is to make sure these people get to safety if anything goes wrong, and I want to know that you're out of danger so I don't have to worry."

He shook his head. "I can help you."

I leaned back and tilted my head. "Dylan, you just turned fourteen. It's not the time for you to prove that you're a big bad now."

He scowled at me. "You have to stop treating me like a baby. Drew was fighting when he was fourteen. I can take care of myself!"

"People are trying to enjoy the ride here, Lady. Keep it down!" A man had turned around and bellowed at me from the front of the boat.  I turned the Glare of Death on him and pulled Dylan closer. It took everything I had to not flip the asshole off.  I'd been listening to him talk into his phone nearly the entire ride. Jerk.

"Drew was fourteen in an entirely different time.  Besides, I'm not saying you can't do this. I'm saying that I've seen you
hurt enough to last me a lifetime and I just can't focus if I am afraid for your safety. "

I ran my fingertips across his forehead, swiping away the lock of hair that never quite stayed where it was supposed to. "You mean everything to me.
Every. Single. Thing.  I still have nightmares about you laying in a pool of your own blood, Bubby. Do you understand?"

He stiffened and replied, "Mom, you have to trust me some time. I can help you."

I gritted my teeth and fondly recalled a time when he'd just done what I told him to do. "Okay, I can see that you aren't going to just blindly follow orders. Remind me to let your Grandma know." He groaned and scowled. I fought back a smile. "Can you help me get people out of here if we have to?"

Before I'd finished my sentence, something bumped against the boat.  Gods, I hated sitting next to the water on this ride. The water beneath the boat was a solid black that made it impossible to see either the bottom or anything that could be floating inside.

I have this irrational fear that there are sharks in the pool at night. It doesn't matter that they couldn't possibly survive in the chlorinated water. My mind just automatically assumes that it's a realistic scenario.

If it's dark and you can't see to the bottom, then you have no business going into that water, because the probability of sharks being down there was almost a certainty.  It didn't help that I now knew for a fact that monsters lived under water.  That knowledge just spurred the fear and made me a little more paranoid.

Sure, logic dictated that the worst thing I could find beneath this boat was a bad case of
e. coli
but they call it an irrational fear for a reason.

I shook off a shudder of unease and looked into Dylan's eyes. "Did you feel that?"

He nodded, "Yeah." He looked at the small group on board with us. "I have to be touching them to teleport them out."

I looked behind me and realized that the only people on the boat were us, the mother and toddler and the asshole.  "It's just us and the people in front of us. If you get the mom and her kid I'll take care of the loudmouth up front. Cool?"

"I can totally do this, Mom." A smile lit his face.

You try to keep them insulated and protected from the world. But in the end, all you can do is watch them grow up and be amazing.  "Just keep your eyes open. I could be overreacting here."

"You?" he scoffed. "No way."

"Watch it. I know where you keep your video games," I warned.

The boat stopped abruptly cutting off my warning and the passengers were jerked forward. There was a nervous giggle and the toddler hiccupped once before belting out a piercing wail. I could feel his pain. I didn't want to be here either. The mother bounced him on her lap and tickled him a little, trying to change his mood. Yeah, good luck lady, I thought. If I was right he'd be doing a lot more crying

Puffs of air blew through the top of my hair as a pretend cannonball sailed over our heads to careen into the water off the port side of our craft. It threw me off balance. I couldn't tell if the splashes were coordinated bursts of air or something else. It heightened my panic.

Dylan and I could just teleport out and pretend that we hadn't even been here. These humans in the boat – they could ride it out themselves, right?

I could open up a Rift right now and pull Dylan through. I could let these people deal with whatever was in the water and we could go watch reruns of
Glee
. He wouldn't admit it, but he loved
Glee
.

His grip tightened on mine like he could tell what I was thinking.

Right. My job was to protect the humans from the threats like this. My backbone decided to reinsert itself and I closed my eyes to think a minute.

"Okay, wait for me to create a distraction and you take the family outside. Call your Grandma. Tell her that I'm at it again."

"Okay. Be careful, Mom."

"Like a bull in a china shop, baby."

"That doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence," he replied with a rueful smirk. "What are you going to do?"

I grinned. "I'm a badass remember? I'm going to kick some ass and then we'll go grab a churro and get a few more rides in before the evening fireworks."

I was rewarded with a smile. "Best churros ever."

"You know it. Now – watch and learn."

I stood up in the boat and yelled, "Shit! I think I just dropped my camera in the water!" I rocked a little from side to side causing the very stable boat to sway in the water.

"Lady, sit down!" the man called in front. "Your camera is toast right now. You're going to sink us!"

"It's a really expensive camera," I replied with wide eyes. "You got a thousand bucks on you? Maybe if I can put it in some rice, it will work."

"You've got to be kidding me," he spat.

The woman in front of me grabbed her child and held him close, giving me the 'what in the fuck are you doing' look. "Maybe you should just sit down," she whispered.

Boy did I want to sit down. I wanted to finish out this ride and get the hell off this boat without getting wet. A slam against the side told me that I wasn't going to get my way and I toppled over the side, drawing in a deep breath before the water cascaded over my nose and mouth.

It's a shock to the system diving into icy water when you've been sweating all day. You want to gasp, but you can't. Your lungs react, burn and start sending messages to your brain that you need to take a breath. I'd taken a breath before going in, but my body wasn't remembering that.