leaned over the balcony to watch heat lightning flirt with a familiar broadcast tower.
"WTCH is to the west," I pointed out.
Ric held me to anchor us against the driving wind. "The drug cartel's cattle-drive path runs south to north."
"And that unholy traffic that destroys the earth and its beings has roused the gods of my people," Tallgrass said. "From the north comes the Wendigo. That's where the zombies drive the drug-laden cattle for slaughter. Wendigo is a giant evil spirit, a starving cannibal who dines on the greedy and devours them all. El Demonio's enterprise is a desecration deserving of death, and that restitution will come, no matter if we stand in its path, no matter what we do."
A monstrous conjunction of elements was assembling on the verdant stage of Kansas that night, no doubt. I studied the scene.
Lightning was building around three towers. Emerald City was the highest, and the most obvious target. Next highest was the broadcast tower to the west, WTCH-TV. Alma mater.
Speaking of my actual alma mater, I looked to the unmentioned east. The spire of a church was catching jagged lightning bolts. Was the lightning rod atop it cast in the figure of a gargoyle? Or a dragon?
"We have enemies converging from all four points of the compass?" Ric asked, noticing the direction of my gaze.
"Not really," I said. "The east is an ally under fire, Our Lady of the Lake."
"Why?" Ric asked. "What did we do?"
"Got what somebody else wants first," Snow answered.
Ric stared at him for a long, hard moment. I feared he would take Snow's comment personally, or Snow would mention Ric's new silver eye.
Neither spoke.
Tallgrass broke the silence. "What more does El Demonio want? His band of bad men and their dead minions have been invading Wichita for years, like a blood tide seeping up from the Mexican border killings. Now everything evil is drawn to these fantastical towers on which we stand."
"I'm no military historian," Ric said, "but if you're the center of a three-pronged attack, you need to snap one leg out from under the triad."
"Quicksilver and I will take out the west," I volunteered.
"No, Delilah." Ric tightened his grip on me. "It's insane to go out into the teeth of that oncoming physical and mystical storm. Stay."
I looked over the lurid green-lit landscape that still resembled a Fanny Farmer deluxe box of mint and chocolate squares, with caramel drizzles on top. Wheat and corn and molasses and apple pie. Kansas farmland, as it had always been. I measured the blue-black tornado twisting Emerald City way and the lightning bolts flash-dancing around Our Lady of the Lake's spire and the WTCH broadcast tower.
I saw the snarling face of Tallgrass's terrifying Wendigo in the oncoming blue norther.
And I was supposed to be scared of Sheena Coleman?
Weather witches were the weakest link in the forces arrayed against us, but one of them controlled the highest tower. Besides, it'd be a pleasure to take out the witch that blew down my house.
Who's a storm chaser?
Ace reporter, that's who.
"I have an issue with the station's lousy weather witch, and Dolly's horses know the way," I told everyone and no one in particular. I didn't want to cross any glance that could stop me. "We'll shut down that broadcast tower and be back in no time. Quicksilver! Time to do your job."
I slipped Ric a crooked smile and didn't look back, although I heard him being forcibly restrained, probably by Leonard Tallgrass.
Quick and I zipped into the open elevator and hit "M" as in "Main." We had sixty-some stories to plummet down and a bunch of flatland to cross.
You can't take me out into this monster storm with you, Irma objected. It's murder.
Eh. Murder-suicide, technically, I told her. I'm not being heroic and I'm not being stupid. Do the math.
I'd figured out the best use of personnel. Tallgrass had to remain at Emerald City to protect his tribe's investment and deal with its oncoming cannibal vengeance god. The Wendigo sounded like another Lord of the Slaughter, a Shezmou with bear teeth, the power of all the earth's winds at his back, and really bad breath. Nasty.
Snow had led the rescue party for Ric and produced a dragon to do it. I was pretty sure he'd come up with something spectacular to save the newest lynchpin of his Vegas empire, not to his mention his albino skin and the ordinary hides of everyone around him. And me, probably. Now that he knew what I could