an hour or two, leaving me with barely enough time to scurry back to Tulsa and dive into one of my cellars before the storms hit.
I made it to Owasso, but Mother Nature took yet another swipe at the City of Storms, flinging high winds and hail at the ruins. Since the frequent twisters constantly altered the landscape, I searched for a place to hide, finding a somewhat exposed basement that might do the trick unless a funnel dipped into the hole after my furry ass.
Before my magic had told me the truth, I wouldn’t have thought twice about Mother Nature and her hatred of the Alley. Now, I wondered if the storms assaulting Owasso were natural.
I couldn’t tell.
With the rumble of thunder and the scream of the wind for company, I settled in to wait.
Tuesday, May 5, 2043.
Owasso, Oklahoma.
The Alley.
* * *
I wondered if the unexpected storm, which hit several hours before dusk and raged into the night, had caught Tulsa by surprise. I hoped not; while Owasso had fallen first, Tulsa wasn’t precisely far away, and lightning illuminated the sky in all directions.
The last thing I needed was to return home to find the place flattened by the same kind of monster twister that had flattened the City of Storms. While I waited, I touched my nose to the debris in the basement, but my magic refused to come at my call. Age shouldn’t have mattered, so I could only assume the broken stones and rotten wood hadn’t witnessed anything of value.
I could believe that. The lightning barely penetrated the sheeting rain, and before it had been exposed, only the rolling thunder would’ve been audible.
No, there was nothing for me to learn in the dark, damp basement.
Waiting tested my patience more than I liked, but I found elevated rubble that kept me mostly dry. The hail-chilled water pooling in the basement combined with pushing my luck and shifting too often might do me in, if the storm failed to kill me. The lightning masked dusk’s arrival and departure, and the torrential downpour transformed the ruins into a muddy mess. Sometime in the middle of the night, the storm died down to frequent flashes of lightning streaking across the sky, but nothing more.
It would be a long night, but I stood careful watch.
Mother Nature enjoyed killing the unwary.
Wednesday, May 6, 2043.
Owasso, Oklahoma.
The Alley.
* * *
The sun rose, chasing the storm away with its first light. In reality, the foul weather moved on as it always did, albeit a little earlier than I expected. With only a few tattered clouds for company, I began my search. As I had in Tulsa, I focused on finding fresh wood, although few trees still stood in the area.
The few that defied Mother Nature awed me, from a straggly sapling fighting for its life to a single, ancient bald cypress proudly surveying its home. I approached the tree, wondering how it had survived so many tornados. Had they somehow missed?
Or, for some unfathomable reason, had the storms been controlled to preserve it?
What sort of monster killed so many people but saved a single, old tree?
I checked to make sure I hadn’t been followed, saw no signs of life anywhere, and shifted back to human. The transformation went better than I expected, lacking the hot taste of blood in my mouth or the pain I associated with pushing my luck. As I didn’t want to number among the countless dead rotting away to nothing in Owasso, I would walk back to Tulsa despite my shift having gone well.
Forcing my focus back to my work, I began the tedious process of sorting through the debris in search of history my magic could latch onto and bring back to temporary life.
Determined to find something, I checked every scrap of wood I could get my hands on, struggling to coax my magic into cooperating with me.
A long freshly fallen stick, slightly curved and likely suitable to be used as another practice katana, caught my attention. When I picked it up, a sense of weight about it thrilled me.
Only something with history had such a weight, and I could only hope it could tell me more about the Alley’s struggle for survival—and who might want us all dead.
Bracing for what I hoped was a glimpse into the past, I closed my eyes.
Monday, May 4, 2043.
The South.
* * *
A choir sang, and their music became lethal magic, forming as an electric charge in the air, sparks flying between their shadowy