So Cold the River(127)

“Blood.”

“Yeah.”

“Just… blood. She has no idea where it might—?”

“Human blood,” Kellen said. “Type A human blood.”

Eric thought of the bottle, and his senses seemed to slam him right back into contact with it—he had a flash of the cold touch in his palm, the honey-tinged odor, the sickening-sweet taste…

“I feel like I should get sick,” he said.

“Brother,” Kellen said, “you already are. And there isn’t a doctor alive that’s going to know how to treat it, either.”

“What about the other bottle? Anne’s bottle.”

“Typical mineral content. Nothing special at all.”

“Not that shows up in a lab test, at least,” Eric said.

A few drops of rain fell around them as they stood and looked at each other.

“Wonder whose blood it was,” Eric said.

“Yeah,” Kellen said. “I’m a bit curious about that myself.”





52


JOSIAH WAS STANDING WITH his nose almost to the glass, staring out at the storm like a child. When he stepped back and looked at it from the right angle he could still see Campbell sitting there watching him, his face perfectly aligned with the silhouette Josiah had drawn in his blood. Campbell hadn’t spoken in some time, but Josiah hoped he’d been pleased by the gesture, the only thing Josiah had been able to think of that would show his loyalty, show that he would indeed listen, would indeed do the necessary work. He’d brought Campbell into this world, at least to the point that the old woman could see him, and he’d done it with his own blood. Surely Campbell saw that as indicative of respect. Of loyalty.

Now he couldn’t see Campbell, though, because he’d stepped too close to the glass. Couldn’t help himself—the storm was doing something strange. There was a massive cloud taking shape ahead of them now, shaped almost exactly like an anvil. It advanced slowly but steadily and seemed to carry both threat and calm at the same time. Like you could flip a coin and if it came up heads, the cloud would pass on by, or maybe offer a gentle shower. Came up tails, though, and God help you. God help you.

“You see the bubble?”

He twisted and stared back at the old woman, baffled both that she’d spoken at all and by what she’d said.

“Top of that big cloud,” she said, nodding, “the one you’re looking at that’s shaped like an anvil? It’s all flat across the top except for one part. You see it there? Looks like a little bubble up on top?”

He didn’t know why he would bother with this talk, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Yeah, I see it.”

“That’s called an overshooting top.”

Great, he wanted to say, now pardon me, but I don’t give two shits, old woman, but no words left his lips. He was staring at the cloud and thinking she was wrong. That aberration across the top of the anvil didn’t look like a bubble. It looked like a dome.

“What’s it mean?” he said.

“Will take a few minutes for me to know. But it’ll be the part that tells the tale. You see how the rest of that cloud is all hard-edged? Could be some serious weather in there. But that bubble just formed. If it goes away soon, this one’s no real bother. If it stays on for more than ten minutes, then we could have a gully-washer headed our way.”

“How many minutes has it been?”

“Six,” she said. “Six so far.”


Anne wished Josiah would stand back from the window, stop blocking her view. This thing rolling in was on the verge of being something special, something dangerous, and she needed to see it clearly. Instead he just stood there with his face to the window as the minutes ticked by and the storm front advanced.

She leaned to the left and looked around him, studying the cloud and trying to remember all of the signs she needed to remember. The bubble on top of the anvil formation was holding steady. That meant the updraft was strong. The storm was being fed. The body of the cloud had a soft cauliflower appearance but its edges were firm and distinct and that meant…

A shrill ringing broke the silence that had grown in the house, and Josiah gave a startled jerk before reaching into his pocket and retrieving a cell phone.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Speak loud, boy. Where in hell you been? You didn’t lose them, did you?”

Josiah bristled at the response, and when he said, “They looking ’round my property?” his voice was softer than it had been and drove a chill through Anne. She willed herself to try and ignore the words, focus on the storm again.

Josiah shifted away from his spot at the window then, and when he did, Anne saw what she’d been missing, knew that the cloud edges were no longer important. Josiah’s body had blocked the development of a new feature from her eyes. A lower formation, trailing beneath that bubble, long tapering wisps like an old man’s beard. It was called a—