Page 36 of Jacob Michaels is Dead

Turning to look at Lucas, I could see how pale he had gotten.

“Fire and death, right, Lucas?” Oma asked as I stared at my boyfriend. “You knew wise-ass here was comin’ back, and you saw destruction. Tell him. Tell him he’s an idiot for returning.”

“Lucas?” I whispered.

He just looked up at me, all of the color drained from his face.

“Is that true?” I asked quietly.

“I saw a possibility, Rob.” He stated softly. “That’s all. I don’t see absolutes. Anything can change, I guess.”

Oma snorted, and a cackle erupted from her throat. Whipping my head around, I glared up at her.

“What’s so funny, asshole?”

“You make wishes, and this one sees possibilities.” She shook her head, ruefully. “Shit in one hand and wish in the other—see which one fills up first, why don’tcha?”

“What are you babbling on about now?” I barked.

“Your boyfriend there knows as well as I do that what he’s seen is what’s to come,” Oma stated with finality. “Now it’s just a matter of what all that fire and death means. How much fire? How much death? All we can do now is try to control how far it spreads. We can’t stop it.”

“Mrs. Wagner.” Lucas sighed from behind me. “I didn’t specifically see any of you dying. I didn’t see anything particular on fire. You’re assuming that the destruction I saw involved this town. And us. It could mean his destruction.”

The fact that Lucas refused to say the name of the man in the black hooded cloak let me know how terrified he was.

“I can’t argue that.” She relented with a sniff. “But, I still call bullshit.”

“Something up here,” She tapped her finger against her temple, “told you that Rob was coming back—weeks before even I knew—and it told you that was bad. If the destruction and death you was seeing was Bloody Bones, it wouldn’t have filled you with a sense of terror now, would it?”

“Maybe not.” Lucas agreed. “But anytime I sense something bad is going to happen, I’m bound to not feel good one way or the other, right?”

“Suppose.” She stated simply.

Looking back at Lucas was something I hadn’t been able to do as they discussed what Lucas had seen—somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind where his magic worked. Knowing that Lucas knew things that I didn’t and not knowing how he decided to interpret them made me uneasy. How did I know if what he saw and how he felt about it was accurate? Even more importantly, I couldn’t look and see if my boyfriend was still ashen-faced and uneasy. I didn’t want to see the look on his face that told me that he expected doom for us all. Knowing that Bloody Bones was coming was bad enough. Having it painted all over Lucas’ face and seeing how scared that made him was too much.

“So,” Oma continued, “I answered your question. We goin’ inside or we all gonna sit down for a spell and wait for Bloody Bones to show up and do what he’s comin’ to do? Y’all’s choice.”

My mouth desired to spit a few more expletives and insults back and forth with Oma before I even thought about going into her house once again. However, a gust of wind blew in from the direction of Point Worth proper, carrying what could only be the sound of a wolf howling with it. Shivering, I turned to look back at the town in the distance. Of course, all I could see was the vague lights that came from town. Lucas followed my lead, his head turning to look off toward town as well.

Lights, like we were used to seeing, were not what greeted us on the dark horizon. It wasn’t large streetlights casting their hazy glow over Point Worth—it was red and yellow flickering light. Like fire. I gasped as Lucas began to shiver. I couldn’t help but wonder if Oma hadn’t already seen the fire behind us as we fought in front of her porch, yet refused to say anything. Maybe she hadn’t wanted us to look back and see for ourselves that what Lucas had seen had come to pass. Was that her trying to distract us from finding out because she had something nefarious in mind…or did she just figure it didn’t matter? Was she trying to hide more things from us, or unconcerned with everything now that everything was falling apart?

Why worry about fire when there’re no firemen?

“Well?” Oma barked, causing Lucas and me to snap our heads back around to look at her.

“Point Worth is on fire,” I said simply, my gut slowly traveling towards my knees as I stood there.

“Can’t get nothin’ past you, can we?” Oma rolled her eyes and turned towards the house.

“Oma?” I whispered.

“Ya’ got two choices, Rob,” Oma said over her shoulder, pausing for a moment. “Stay out here and watch your hometown burn—and not be able to do anything about it—or get in here, and maybe we can save something.”

Then she went into the house. Not another word about me being a wise-ass, no threats, no demands. Oma simply walked into the house, either confident we would follow as she wished, or simply not caring. Of course, with Point Worth on fire, there being no way for Lucas and me to leave Point Worth, and Bloody Bones coming…what else would we do? What else could be done? It truly didn’t matter—as far as the town was concerned at that moment—whether or not Lucas and I followed her. So, she was willing to go inside and wait for us to make up our minds one way or another.

“Rob.” Lucas sighed from behind me.

I turned to look at him. “Yeah?”