Page 37 of Outfoxed

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 flames and hope it didn’t ruin the stick’s potential.

I wanted to keep it as a reminder of all we’d lost—and why I needed to look beyond my own troubles.

If I ran into Sandro on neutral ground, I’d make sure to ask him about the storms. While I could do nothing, maybe he could—and if saving Tulsa meant cooperating with the bounty hunter, if saving many cost me my freedom, it was a price I would pay with a grim smile.

It was one thing to have my freedom taken away without my permission, but another to bargain it away.

One was my choice.

After we hit a hundred bodies on the first pyre, the police had us start another, although we all stopped our work to offer a moment of silence to those who’d lost their lives to the storm. I torched my curved stick until all the blood and bark was gone from it, giving it a good shake to put out the flames. I appreciated the charred surface, a solemn reminder of Tulsa’s fate if nothing changed.

The runner returned by the time the flames engulfed the bodies. “The place you sent me to is all but gone, but he’s still kicking, and wants you to come see him. He has news.”

So did I, but I had no idea if I should speak a word of it. I nodded. “Thank you. I’ll go myself to save you the run.” I gave him a dollar despite knowing my boss would’ve paid his fee. “Watch yourself and keep an eye on the sky.”

He took my dollar, flashed me a grin, and bobbed his head. “You, too.”

With a heavy heart, I headed for the ruins of McCoy’s Bar and Grill.

Monday, May 4, 2043.

Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Alley.

Not much remained of McCoy’s Bar & Grill, although somehow, a few intact bottles of liquor had survived through the storm. Brent lined those up on a cleared section of sidewalk, and when he caught sight of me, he poured me a Scotch and offered it to me. I tapped my glass against his, and I sipped mine while he knocked his back.

I couldn’t blame him. Everything he’d worked so hard to build had come crashing down.

“Rode it out in the cellar?” I asked, aware the cellar underneath the bar would have made for an uncomfortable ride through a storm.

“Yep.”

I sighed. “At least your latest shipment is safe.” We hadn’t had time to stock the bar yet, and after the incident with Tom, most of the bottles on the wall had been just about empty. Small blessings, but it wouldn’t bring the building back. “Everyone else safe?”

Brent shook his head. “Gertrude, Lora, and you are the only ones I’ve confirmed got out. Most of the rest lived a few blocks down the way. It was wiped out, and they didn’t have cellars. They thought the hill would keep them safe.”

Damnit all. “Confirmed dead or missing?”

“Confirmed dead. I helped put them on the pyre myself. The police are mandating everybody be burned because of the number of deaths. The storms were worse than forecasted.”

Any other day, I would have cursed Mother Nature and called her a bitch, but the truth kept me silent. If I mentioned I thought it wasn’t the working of Mother Nature, but rather some vengeful, awful coven of witches, he’d call me crazy before giving me another drink and ordering me to get it out of my system. Instead of saying anything at all, I joined him in knocking back my shot glass and holding it out for another round.