Into the Storm

On her signal, I threw the red stone to the floor of my home and watched in amazement and more than a little concern as we were engulfed by two gigantic blasts of red and orange flame.

I felt the wrenching twist of being moved suddenly from one place to another. As we arrived at our new location, the flames that had been licking at my clothing were snuffed out by an even stronger force of nature, the wind and rain of Hurricane Katrina.

You see, given her method of rapid transit from place to place, Ravyn USUALLY has the courtesy to use outdoor venues for her comings and goings. Apparently the domiciles of her (Un)Dead friends don’t receive such courtesy...but I digress. We arrived in the backyard of a modest looking, narrow, two story home that was enclosed by a high wooden fence (for the moment anyway) and was marked by a trio of large rocks that formed a sizable triangle in which we arrived.

The winds were howling fiercely, knocking Ravyn to her knees before I could catch her, and drenching us with water before the all of the smoke even had a chance to clear from our slightly smouldering clothing. “Damn, you must go through a lot of clothes travelling this way.” I had to shout over the wind for her to hear me.

Her likely smartass reply was lost to the winds as I helped her back to her feet and grabbed her backpack from her so that she could walk in the gale force winds. She pointed to the back of the house, and started staggering that way.

I had a much easier time dealing with the winds, so I shielded her as best as I could. We made it to the back wall of the house, which was marked by a couple of boarded up windows, another larger boarded up area that was likely a sliding glass door normally, and a solid-looking door that was covered by another contraption that looked like it belonged more in a prison than on a home, a sort of screen door made of reinforced wrought iron bars.

The semi-shelter of the back wall offered some measure of protection from the driving winds, allowing me to yell into her ear, “Do you want me to force open one of these doors?”

She shook her head and used one of her hands to indicate that we settle here for a moment, and yelled back, “SHE’LL...BE...HERE...IN...A BIT...BE...PATIENT!”

True to her word, a few minutes later, the wooden door was opened from the inside and then the iron gate contraption was flung outward, allowing us to scurry inside before we had even had a chance to see our rescuer.

As I scrambled inside the door, a booming voice called out, “YOU RAISED IN A BARN, BOY? CLOSE THE GATE AND THE DOOR BEHIND YOU!”

I reached back out and grabbed the gate, clanging it shut quickly. I then leaned into the door to get it shut again, all before I saw the person behind the voice.

I turned to see Ravyn embracing a taller, very robust woman of African descent with short cropped, greying hair and a weathered looking face. She engulfed the smaller Ravyn in a matronly hug.

Even with the doors now closed, the sounds of wind, water and debris crashing around outside was deafening.

The woman looked up from Ravyn and actually looked at me for the first time. Her eyes narrowed a bit at first as she studied me in the dim light of her lantern lit kitchen, “And just what have you dragged in from the storm, my little Ravyn?”

The soggy, bedraggled Ravyn responded, “This is Agent Rusty Bones, he’s the one I was telling you about last week.”

“Ah yes. Now tell me, what brings you down to see me in this mess?”