In the dim light, he picked out what seemed to be a relatively clear portion of the floor and lowered himself carefully onto it. Down, and wincing from the jolt of pain, he used the last remnants of the spell to clear more of the area around him, pushing the piles of hardware and painting supplies away.
He sat back against the wall, satisfied that he was out of sight of any casual passerby or observer. There was no way of knowing who, or what, might look into the store and he was too weak to take any chances.
Next, he pulled the portaphone from his pocket and activated it. Immediately, a terrible, distorted squeal came from the small speaker, and he quickly turned it off. It was obviously broken, perhaps by his fall, or from the water, or…
Kyle turned it on again and listened to the squeal once more, carefully. There was nothing wrong with the telecom, he realized. It was being jammed-the squeal was the effect of a very powerful electronic countermeasure signal that was filling the airwaves. He wondered how localized the jamming was.
Kyle sighed and put the phone away, the stress of his exertions and his body's continuing fatigue pushing him toward sleep. He knew he could fight it and stay awake, but there seemed little point His body needed both rest and healing before he could get away from there. And if any threat should come along, he wasn't currently in any shape to defend himself. And so Kyle slept, barely noticing the increasing throb in his leg and the growing warmth of his own body.
He awoke sometime later, too cold and too warm, sweating and unable to ignore the pain in his leg. But it wasn't that which woke him. Somewhere, off in the distance, something was exploding. He could hear the quick series of detonations, and even felt the muffled rumble of the Shockwaves. Kyle didn't know what it was, and didn't care as he slipped back toward what passed for sleep.
When he next awoke, the light was blinding, but Kyle couldn't move or muster even the energy to open his eyes beyond painful slits. Outside, very close, perhaps on the street just beyond the storefront, he could hear the steady beat of helicopter blades. He even thought he could feel a slight rush of warm air.
But it was too bright, he was too cold, and he need to sleep more. Only to sleep.
He slid deeper into the cooling darkness, suspended there, waiting for change…
He saw haze. A gunshot sounded, echoing in his head, slowing, drawing itself out into a terrible drone. Incessant, it tore gashes in him, sending waves of pain through his body.
A girl's voice spoke, Natalie's. "Daddy, can you make it dance again? Can you make it spin more?"
Kyle fought, won, and opened his eyes, blinking against the perspiration that stung them. She was nearby, sitting in a pool of rusty water and wearing the dark dress they had bought her for her grandmother's funeral. She was trying to spin a delicate glass figurine; it would twirl for a moment and then begin to fall. But she'd catch it before it touched the ground and make it spin again.
She didn't move, but he heard her say, "Do you see the colors? The colors spin like she does."
"Natalie," he thought he said, and the glass dancer spun, twirling the light it caught. And she turned too, slower, as the figurine faltered, one leg dipping and cutting the dirty water. Half her face smiled, lit with joy at seeing him. The other half rippled, thousands of dark shapes crawling and surging across it. She started to speak, to laugh or cry, and the bugs fell from her mouth, tumbled down and struck the glass dancer as it tilted too far.
Light exploded from it, forcing his eyes shut and him away into a far deeper place.
"NATALIE!" he heard Beth scream as he felt me brush of wings and air moving past him. He reached out and touched silk, hair, warm skin, a deepening wetness, and then nothing.
Glass shattered, red and black shards fell around him. He felt the wings again, but this time they were dark and musty. Kyle opened his eyes and saw the bird. Ebony and sleek, its power stolen from him, sharp blue eyes in a face wrinkled from age. Its head tilted as it regarded him. He reached for it, but could not see his hand, could not touch it.
The bird flew into the darkness, revealing a light that grew beyond Kyle's understanding, too bright too see, too strong to contain. It enveloped him, consumed him, and he screamed, his voice echoing out into the darkness that returned…
He heard voices next, close by, and then the hard press of hands against him. He knew he should cry out, protect himself, but he was so tired and his body so numb. He thought his mouth moved, though he couldn't hear his own voice. And then he did, but it wasn't his own voice, though very close, very familiar, and something sparked deep within him and gave him unlooked for hope against the darkness.
"Don't worry." Seeks-the-Moon said, "you're safe now. I found you."
Kyle slept again, and dreamed of quiet laughter.
22
There was a breeze, and it brought to him the smell of food. Cheese, he thought, and maybe bread. And there was softness beneath him, and he was dry. Kyle opened his eyes slowly and blinked against the thin shafts of light slipping in through the curtains. Someone in the room moved, and he heard a voice: "You're awake?" It was Seeks-the-Moon.
"I think so…" Kyle remembered-or had he dreamed it?-of spinning and of a place cold and wet "Where am I?" He felt sore and tired, but whole.
"An obvious question," the spirit answered slowly, the timbre of his voice deep and strange. "You are in someone's home. I know not whose."
"I take it the owner isn't home?" Kyle turned his head slightly and saw the spirit sunk deep in a large, old chair, the light from the window cutting a bright slit from his eye to his knee. He seemed older. But also seemed to fit somehow with the shabby, sparse furnishings of the room and the fine cracks that ran down its walls. An open door revealed a narrow hallway and a faded, threadbare rug.
The longer Kyle studied Seeks-the-Moon, the more he could see that the spirit was different. His face seemed older, harder, but the eyes were brighter, more blue than he remembered. And his clothes were different, subtly; darker and more beat-up, but at the same time the colors truer.
The owner is dead," the spirit said. "I believe it was she I found down the hall."
"The bug spirits?"
“No, her own kind." Moon's face betrayed no emotion. "She did not die well."
Kyle tried to sit up slightly, but he was too weak. The pain in his leg was only a dull throb, but the rest of his body felt like it was made of wet clay. Two dogs barked at each other somewhere outside.
"You have been very sick," Seeks-the-Moon told him. "I attempted to heal you as best as I could, but I'm afraid what you taught me wasn't enough to restore you to full health."
"How long have I been out?"
"It's been two days since I found you. You were on the street for at least four days."
"A week?" Kyle said. "It's been a week?"
"Six days." There was an odd stillness in Seeks-the-Moon, a tension Kyle could not place.
Kyle tried to sit up again, and this time the pain in his leg made itself known, shooting through him and collapsing him back onto the creaking bed. "Beth," he said, "do you know what…"
"No, I don't," the spirit said quietly.
Kyle propped himself painfully up on one elbow. Even that simple exertion left him weak and nearly faint. "I have to find out if she and Natalie are all right"
The spirit didn't move, but a slight touch of sadness slipped into his expression. "You are far from where they might be, and too weak to travel. You wouldn't survive the journey."