and can’t tolerate thieves, but around these parts, scavenging is a way of life. The dead don’t need what they used to own, and if we don’t scavenge, well, we die, too. And well, there’s no real point in killing anybody around here, either. Chances are, Mother Nature will take care of the killing for us. I’d really rather you not have a temper tantrum, especially since I want to take you to somebody who can teach me how to use you properly.”
I couldn’t tell if Peace understood me or cared, but I felt better for saying it, even if it did make me a little crazy for talking to a sword like she could hear me.
As I had no idea when I’d be back again, I filled my pack with supplies, grabbed a few bottles of water, a few cans of food and one of the openers, and prepared to face a day full of death and misery.
But I lived, and knowing what I knew, I meant to keep it that way.
My magic wanted me to know the truth, and I meant to find it—and I’d use Peace to carve out some justice for the thousands dead.
That much I could do, so I would.
Monday, May 4, 2043.
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Alley.
* * *
I scoured my neighborhood, locating three different cellars using a mix of magic and my ears. The eight survivors helped me search, but we spent hours without finding anything more than debris and fresh corpses.
Of the eight, six headed for Inner Tulsa. The other two, an older couple who’d been around since before the storms had taken a particularly lethal turn, refused to leave. I hesitated, then I offered to have them join me in my cellar, but they refused that, too.
They’d moved into their home the day they’d gotten married, and they meant to stay there until the day they died. I could respect that, and before I left, I helped them clear debris away from their cellar entry, reminded them to get a shack up to stay on the right side of the law in the Alley, and promised to come help them if I could.
Shacks made it clear somebody still lived on the property and it wasn’t up for grabs by the greedy government.
Satisfied I’d done what I could, I headed towards Inner Tulsa, where the buildings still stood, bodies weren’t lying all over the streets, and there might be some hope for the future. Closer to Inner Tulsa, where the buildings were made of brick and stone and withstood the weather better, the tenacious survived, and rescue workers systematically checked for cellars, and one of them even had a dog, who barked every time he found someone who might still be alive.
It amazed me the animal ignored the dead, somehow able to distinguish who still had some life left in them. When I crossed the threshold, where workers cleaned the streets and homeowners did their best to repair the latest damage to their homes, runners and police officers worked together to organize the rescue efforts.
I flagged one of the runners, and after confirming the lad, no older than thirteen, was available, I paid him to send a message to McCoy’s to inform my boss I’d emerged from the latest storms unscathed. He’d be able to figure out the rest from there.
I always tried to help the survivors.
With that task done, I joined the other workers checking for survivors, hauling debris off the known cellar entrances, and doing my best to forget what I’d witnessed with my magic. Knowing the truth of the lethal storms wouldn’t save anybody, not unless I could figure out who was doing it and why—or how. Nobody in the Alley could work magic like that; the Alley’s brand of magic didn’t allow for such things, and not even poets could control storms.
Of the three types of witches in the East, one could manipulate storms, but not to the scale of destroying Tulsa one twister at a time. The elementalists couldn’t, either. They manipulated water.
Could an entire coven of witches be doing it if they worked together?
That thought scared me, and I obsessed over the possibilities while I worked, lugging debris to the pyre the police set up in the hopes of preventing plague from spreading through the surviving populace. I found one stick, stained with blood but the right size and shape to be carved into a katana, which I claimed for myself. I would burn off the blood in the