Destruction: The December People, Book One (34 page)

“I don’t know.”

They both spoke so quietly, David had to lean in.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked again.

“Well… no,” Amanda said. “I’m just trying to understand. I mean, you were there?”

She nodded.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Amanda said.

Please don’t
, David thought.

“I woke up and saw Jude in Samantha’s bed.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t… consensual?”

Emmy shrugged.

“Because according to what Patrick heard from Samantha, it wasn’t,” Amanda said. “But perhaps he just heard what he wanted to hear. Or maybe she lied to him. What do you think?”

Emmy stared at the table again.

“Emmy,” Amanda prodded. “This is important.”

“I know that.” She picked at her cuticles. “No. She didn’t want him to.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she said ‘Emmy, make him stop.’“

“Oh… but you didn’t?”

Emmy’s eyes reddened. “She didn’t say anything else. She tried to push him away, but then got really quiet and still. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You didn’t know what to do?” Amanda asked, her volume rising. “The house is big, but not that big. You could scream. You could bang on the wall to wake up Patrick. You could run over to wake me up, or your father. How long would that journey take? Ten seconds? Five?”

David put his hand on Amanda’s. “Don’t yell at her,” he said softly.

Amanda lowered her tone back to the barely-there whisper. “And the next day? It’s been over thirty hours. You were all together yesterday like nothing happened. Eating meals at the same table. Watching TV in the same room.”

“Samantha didn’t say anything either. She only did because Patrick guessed something was up and wouldn’t leave her alone about it.”

“I don’t understand,” Amanda said.

“I thought maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Emmy said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Amanda asked. “It is a really big deal. How did we screw you up so badly that you don’t see that?”

“Amanda,” David said firmly. “You shouldn’t be yelling at her. She’s… just look at her.”

Amanda stood suddenly. “I’m going to go find him.”

“And do what?” David asked.

“I don’t know. I just need to find him.”

David didn’t try to stop her. He knew she had to act. Staying still at a time like this would kill her.

“We’re not mad at you,” David said to Emmy.

avid felt a fever coming on. He sweat in the creases of his knees, and an achy heat settled in his joints. He turned off the heater. The temperature outside had risen to more than sixty degrees, anyway. He guessed the discomfort and achiness came from the
wrongness
, a reminder he would never feel okay again. The heat continued to nag at him, and David wondered if it signaled the start of a nervous breakdown. He felt held together by Scotch tape and chewed gum.

David opened the front door and walked out onto the porch, expecting a refreshing gust of cool, damp air. Instead, he found blinding sun and stifling heat. The sudden blast of bright sunshine turned the rain into steam. He must have imagined it, but the air felt like it had heated to at least ninety degrees. Unless global warming had taken an aggressive turn, something unnatural had happened.

“Excuse me, sir.”

It took David a moment before he could place who had spoken. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen them right away. Three people stood in his driveway, their little silver car parked next to his still decimated mailbox. They had barely moved down the driveway and didn’t move any closer to introduce themselves. They had an odd brightness about them, and David could hardly bear to look at them. After a few seconds, he adjusted to the sensation and could focus on them, but it made his eyes hurt.

Two men and a woman. The woman had her hand raised over her eyes as if blocking glare from the sun. Did she not want to look at him, either? David saw nothing obviously objectionable about them. However, they didn’t seem to feel the heat. They wore gloves, scarves, and heavy coats over their business casual attire. The woman had a pale green umbrella open, even though it had stopped raining.

He must be caught in some kind of temperature anomaly, because it took willpower for him not to take off his shirt and mop his forehead with it.

The woman clutched a large white binder, and he would have pegged them as salespeople or evangelicals, except he was one hundred percent sure they were wizards. They had the weight about them that wizards had, an extra bit of gravity he had never thought twice about. He supposed wizards could also sell security systems or pass out The Book of Mormon.

“Stand down,” said one of the men. “We mean you no harm.”

Stand down? The man made it sound as if David had weapons. Wait, did
they
have weapons? For some reason, he felt like they did, although he couldn’t see any.

“We’re here to collect Samantha Carthage,” he said.

“Who are you?” David asked.

“Come to us, dear,” the woman said. “You’re going to be safe now.”

David turned around and saw Samantha standing behind him. She had never greeted unknown visitors before. They must have summoned her somehow.

The woman appeared as kind and unthreatening as anyone could. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, with honey-colored hair, a honey-laden voice, and milky skin. But his gut felt something wrong about her, something opposing.

David held out his hand to signal Samantha to wait. “Hang on, Samantha. Do you know these people?”

She shook her head.

“We’re from the Council of Child Welfare and Protection,” said one of the men.

That rang false to David.

“I believe the organization you’re referring to is called the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.” He had visited the website several days ago, trying to figure out what to do about Samantha. “It seems like you would know that if you worked there.”

The three exchanged bewildered expressions.

“We’re not from the Mundane government agency,” said the woman.

“You mean you’re
Wizard
Child Protective Services?” he asked.

“You could say that,” the woman said.

“Where have you been?” he added softly.

“I’m sorry?” the woman asked. She looked at him with the mix of fear and pity one might give to a psychotic blubbering on the street.

“We don’t wish to harm you,” said the man who hadn’t spoken yet. “Stand aside and hand over the child, and we’ll leave you be.”

His had the voice of a cartoon superhero. It struck David that the two men served as bodyguards for the woman.

“You don’t have to talk to him like that,” Samantha said. “He never hurt me. He’s a good man.”

They shared looks again. If she had said,
he’s an elephant, feed him peanuts
, they would have looked less confused.

“This girl is in my charge,” David said. “I’m not letting strangers take her away. Show me some identification.”

“Please, you do it,” the woman said to the first man. “I don’t think I can.”

She pulled a laminated badge on a lanyard out from under her coat and handed it to the man. He approached David slowly and handed him the badge. He was a tall African-American with unusual green eyes that seemed to sparkle as if lit with fireworks from behind. The man swallowed hard but held his chin up and forced himself to look David in the eye.

David didn’t want to stand next to this man any more than the man wanted to be near David. He glanced at the badge. Sure enough, the badge read Laura Hannigan,
Case Manager, Council of Magical Child Welfare and Protection, Southwest Division
. She sparkled even in her mug shot. The badge also had a symbol that reminded David of the sun on the New Mexico flag. He tried to project his salesman magic onto them to get an idea of their intentions. He could ask to shake the man’s hand, but David didn’t think he could stand to touch him. He had trouble reading them, both from the distance and through the veil of brightness. They confused his senses. They felt threatening and welcoming, simultaneously.

“To begin, we simply wish to speak with her,” the woman said. “Would it be possible for you to wait on the porch while we do?” She smiled at him apologetically.

“No. I think I can be here for whatever you have to say.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s not personal,” the woman said. “I need to perform an incantation. I don’t think I can if you’re close. That’s all.”

Samantha touched David’s elbow. “It’s okay. I can tell they aren’t going to hurt me.”

David backed onto the porch. Patrick and Emmy also stood there watching.

“Who are they?” Patrick asked.

“Patrick, go get me my keys. I want to be able to follow if they lead her into the car without warning.”

“What?”

“Just do it. Go.”

Emmy hovered close to David. He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“There’s something wrong with them,” Emmy said. “I have a bad feeling.”

“I do, too. But I think they’re just… different from us.”

Next to the three strangers, the normally glowing Samantha looked as gray as the sky. The woman spoke to Samantha, but David couldn’t hear her. She placed her hands on Samantha’s head and closed her eyes. It reminded David of a baptism. She did this for what seemed like several minutes. Then she took Samantha’s face in her hands and looked into her eyes. Then she placed her hands on Samantha’s shoulders, with her face very close to hers. David could see Samantha’s forehead knitted with nerves. He didn’t blame her. Like all wizard readings, it appeared weirdly intimate.

Finally, the woman released her. She spoke to Samantha again, with her hand on her shoulder. Then the three people got back in the car without Samantha and drove away.

Patrick appeared at David’s side with the keys. “What did they do to her?”

Samantha didn’t turn around. She looked at something in her hands. Patrick and Emmy both started to move toward her.

“Don’t swarm her,” David said. “Just stay here for a second.”

David walked down the driveway toward her. The air already felt cooler, and it started to rain again. Samantha’s blonde hair lay in wet clumps, and her drenched, mint-green top clung to her back. David realized rain soaked his shirt, too. It must have never stopped raining. He had stood in a full rain shower the whole time he had talked to the strangers. The weather had not really changed at all.

“Samantha?”

She turned around to face him. She held her shirt out in front of her as a shield to protect an envelope from the rain.

“Why did they leave?” he asked.

“March 4th,” she said.

“What?”

“They said I was a March 4. They take only wizards who fall between the spring and fall equinox. I’m too dark for them, I guess.”

It took David a moment to grasp the meaning of this sentence, but when he did, a swell of fury went from his stomach to his heart. Deep disappointment quickly replaced his fury. He had pegged them immediately. Summer wizards. Good wizards. Despite the fact they were his natural enemies, he had felt hopeful. He had wanted to believe three angels had come to save Samantha, to take her to a better place where she would be safe and happy. He had wanted to believe something that good could happen. He supposed that was what he got for being a grown man who believed in Santa Claus.