“I could go for some Pad Thai.” I looked over at Dad. “You can have that mango rice you love.”
He smiled at us. “What’s a meal without dessert?”
I started to ask what our trainer, Maren, would think of his love of desserts when an unpleasant tingle spread across my skin. My whole body tensed because I knew this sensation. My first instinct was to make sure I was wearing my dampening amulet. Then I lifted my head to look at the colored lights in the sky a few miles away.
There hadn’t been any Fae storms in New York since the big one a few weeks ago. This one had the light display and some electricity, but it was mild compared to the last storm. Thanks to my handy amulet, my feet stayed planted on the ground.
“It’s okay,” Dad called to a young couple standing by a grave a few rows over. “Looks like it’s already moving off.”
I shifted restlessly. He was right that the storm was dissipating, but why did I still feel the magic?
Mom tugged gently on my arm and whispered. “You alright?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my arms through my coat sleeves. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
The words had barely left my mouth when the tingling intensified into pins and needles. Mom sucked in a breath, and I followed her gaze to the lights that had appeared in the sky above us. Was this a second storm or the same one?
The light dimmed as if a cloud had blocked out the sun, and my scalp prickled with a new sensation. Dread.
“We need to go.” I grabbed Dad’s arm and started toward the car, pulling him and Mom with me. I would have run, but Mom wasn’t strong enough for that yet.
“Jesse, what is it?” Dad asked.
A loud crackling filled the air, which felt charged with static electricity and made my hair stand on end. The cemetery was suddenly bathed in a purple glow that caused memories of another storm to flash through my mind. Fear threatened to choke me, and all I could think of was getting my parents away from here.
Behind us, someone shouted. A second later, there was a snap followed by a small explosion. We turned to see pieces of black marble spraying out from where a headstone had stood a few dozen yards away.
“My God,” Mom uttered.
Magic surged around me again. Before I could move, a bolt of purple lightning obliterated a statue, sending stone shrapnel in every direction. I watched in horror as a jagged column of electricity scorched the grass and sped away from the destroyed statue.
Toward us.
I spun and grabbed Mom. Throwing her over my shoulder, I ran.
We’d barely gone ten feet when another explosion rocked the air. I pushed Dad to the ground and dropped Mom beside him. Throwing myself on top of them, I tried to shield them with my body as pieces of stone and debris pelted me.
It took a minute for me to register the silence. Rolling off my parents, I lay on the grass and blinked up at the puffy white clouds in the blue sky. My breath came out in ragged pants that had more to do with the adrenaline coursing through me than exertion.
“Jesse!” Dad scrambled over to kneel beside me. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” I gave him a reassuring smile and sat up.
His eyes went to the side of my head, and he frowned. “You’re bleeding. Let me look at it.”
I reached up to gingerly touch my head and realized I’d lost my cap. The area was tender, but there was only a small cut. “It’s nothing. You know head wounds bleed a lot.” I lowered my voice. “And I heal fast.”
“I don’t care. I still want to check it.” He pushed my hand away and examined the cut. “You’ll live.”
I shot him a sideways look. “Told you.”
“Caleb,” Mom said in a choked voice that had the two of us jerking our heads in her direction. She was on her knees, her face a mask of anguish as she stared at what remained of his grave.
I jumped up and ran to the edge of the crater where the tiny grave had been. Shock rippled through me when I saw the fragments of white marble littering the hole. Only a piece of angel wing identified it as the headstone that had stood there minutes ago.
My stomach knotted as I scanned the hole, praying I would not see pieces of the coffin or its contents in the debris. The last thing my mother needed in her fragile state was to see the skeletal remains of the baby she’d buried.
I let out a breath when I couldn’t find any coffin remnants. The crater looked to be about five feet deep. Maybe the lightning hadn’t reached the coffin at all. It was hard to tell with the loose dirt at the bottom.
Something glittered at the far edge of the hole, partially buried beneath a small chunk of marble. I leaned forward for a closer look and frowned when the object refracted the sunlight like a prism. A crystal of some kind?
“Help! Someone, please help!” called a woman’s voice.
I swung my gaze in the direction of the young couple Dad had spoken to. The man lay on the ground, and the woman knelt beside him. Less than ten feet away from them was the remains of a shattered headstone.
Looking behind me, I saw Dad with his arms around Mom. Neither of them appeared injured, and she needed him more than she did me.
I skirted the hole and ran to the couple. The man’s eyes were closed, and a shard of stone protruded from his chest. The woman had her bloody fingers wrapped around the piece of shrapnel, about to pull it out.
I placed my hand over hers to stop her. “No. We can’t move it.” I racked my brain for everything I knew about first aid and looked around for something to staunch the bleeding. Of course, there was nothing because we were in the middle of a cemetery.
Unzipping my coat, I yanked it off. Thankfully, I’d dressed in layers. I pulled my hoodie over my head and used it for padding around the stone shard. I instructed the woman, who told me her name was Julie, to hold the padding in place while I reached for my phone in my coat pocket.
A fortysomething woman hurried toward us. She dropped to her knees beside me, and the first words out of her mouth sent relief washing over me. “I’m a doctor. The paramedics are on the way.”
I stood to give her room to work. Shivering, I pulled on my coat and zipped it up to my chin as I got my first good look at the carnage around me. A statue and three graves, including Caleb’s, had been destroyed. A zigzagging trail of gouges and scorched grass showed the lightning’s path of destruction.
The dozen or so other people in the cemetery had recovered from their own shock and were making their way toward us. We were lucky there hadn’t been more casualties.
The doctor had control of the situation, so I went back to my parents, who now stood at the edge of the hole where Caleb’s grave had been. Mom’s face was ashen, and Dad’s arm was around her shoulders, supporting her.
“He’s… he’s gone.” Her body looked ready to crumple in on itself. I’d seen and endured a lot in the last few months, but nothing gutted me more than seeing my formidable mother so vulnerable.
“We don’t know that,” Dad said softly, his helpless gaze meeting mine. “I don’t think the lightning went that deep.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “He’s right. All I see is bits of headstone.”
She straightened a little. “How could lightning do this? I’ve never seen anything like it.”