Shards and Ashes

“This is Southern California. Our sunsets are always fantastic.” She kept a good grip on the gun. “You’d better tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m Alex Ritter. From Germany. Berlin.”

Despite herself, she was impressed. Eight years ago, people traveled all over the place. But fuel was getting scarce. Her house didn’t even have a car.

“I flew here,” he added, as if reading her mind. “I have a plane.”

“Holy shit,” she blurted. There were still planes in the world. And they cost . . . she didn’t even know what they cost. Too much to even think about.

He smiled faintly. His profile was sharply etched against the night. It didn’t make any sense that Jordan had let him in, just like that, and everyone had behaved as if it was no big deal. It was a huge deal. He was scary.

“Dana, please, I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, turning his face toward her. “There is no good way to have the talk I need to have with you. Let me show you.”

Before she could reply, he wiped his face with both his hands and rubbed them together. He moved his head from side to side, as if working out the kinks; then he turned to the sea and opened his arms like an orchestra conductor.

Something hummed against the soles of her feet. A couple of her dreads bobbed in a freshet of wind.

Shimmering blue crackles of energy shot from his fingertips. Then the pulsating sparks traveled to the water and hit it with a sizzle. The waves rippled and flared blue, pink, gold like the aurora borealis, which she’d seen in one of the DVDs she’d found while scavenging.

Dana jumped backward so hard she landed on her butt, and she spastically lifted her sneakers as the water swirled toward her. It took her a moment to realize that he’d clasped her wrist and was pulling her to her feet.

“Don’t touch me,” she said as she tried to yank her hand away. He was bending over her; there were rings under his eyes and his pupils were dilated. He was jittery and shaky, like he was on something.

She looked from his eyes to the water. The colors were gone. Her mind started spinning rationalizations and denials. She was spooked by the way he cocked his head and gazed at her with an odd, confused expression, like he was trying to remember what to say.

“I don’t know how else to tell you this,” he said. “But I think it was your Aunt Meg who made all this happen.” He waved his hand. “All the chaos. The . . . ending.”

“What?” she blurted. “How?” She backed away from him, now holding the gun in both her hands; behind him, the black, colorless surf rolled into the night.

“I don’t know how,” he said, so softly she barely heard him. “But please, for the love of God, help me fix it.”

Then he advanced on her and pushed down her arms. She tried to raise them again but she couldn’t. He cupped her face in his hands. Dizziness swept through her and she dropped the gun. He held her still, and she could feel him falling right into her, inside her mind. There was nothing but his blue eyes.

Then warmth raced through her, zinging through her bloodstream, and she began to sweat again. The soles of her sneakers made hissing sounds against the damp sand. Sparks skittered through her veins and arteries.

Then she shot like a comet into the air, into space, among the stars, away from the messed-up world. Suspended above the night, she gazed down and saw Los Angeles in ruins, the way it was, and a huge bloom of red surging toward the shore.

Toward her beach, just below her house.

And then she saw, in that house, two tiny dots of light. She looked at the dot in the kitchen. It was behind the refrigerator, and as it magnified in her mind, she saw Anny’s missing house key. She moved on and found Jordan’s reading glasses between the couch cushions.

She jerked to consciousness, to find that she was sprawled in the sand. He was on his hands and knees, his face close to hers, and when he saw that her eyes were opening, he leaned back on his heels with a deep sigh of relief.

“What did you do to me?” she shouted, trying to get up. But her muscles were strangely flaccid.

“I think I activated your gift,” he replied. She could hear how freaked out he was.

“You think you what?” She felt in the sand for the gun.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You know what happened.” He just looked at her, and she huffed. “I saw things. First the world, and the mess.” She thought of the mass headed for the beach. “Garbage, or something. And lost things.”

She told him about the keys and the glasses. He nodded, looking thoughtful. Then she saw a faint glow around him.

She said, “Did you make those things glow so I could find them?”

“No. I can use energy, in some ways,” he said. “Like on the dog.”

“And on me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“And you can make people like you.”

“Only when they should,” he replied.

“I don’t like you,” she said.

And suddenly she was overcome with weariness. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. As they drifted shut, she said, “I think you left your wallet in a building on my street.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Thank you,” he said finally, into the muzziness of her sleep.

When she woke up just before dawn, she liked him a little more, which was terrifying, because she didn’t want to like him at all. He had explained that he’d just found out some unbelievable things—that some kind of supernatural power ran in his family and apparently in hers, too. All his people were missing or dead, but some of them had lived in a castle in the Black Forest. And as soon as he’d gotten inside the castle, he’d turned into Mr. Electric.

Then they were in the house, and he was helping Jordan pull out the refrigerator—a useless appliance except for keeping rats out of boxed food—so Anny could find her house key. Jordan was overjoyed to find his glasses again. There was no one around to make him new ones.

She put all her own valuables in boxes and Jordan promised to keep an eye on them. Then, with shaking hands, she packed a suitcase. Alex was making her be okay with all this. She could tell. She wanted to make him stop, but she was doing it.

And then she was saying good-bye.

They got his wallet and then he walked her into an alley, where a vehicle sat beneath a protective covering. He pulled it off, revealing a beautiful candy-apple-red Corvette. She hadn’t ridden in a car in years. Something loosened in her chest as she slid in on the passenger side. The car smelled of old leather and dust. When they climbed in, he pressed his finger against the ignition, and the engine purred.

“I couldn’t find the keys,” he said. “Do you see them?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this some kind of test?”

He shook his head, watching her.

Settling back, she let her lids fall shut. A blur of light passed through her mind’s eye; then she felt a stab of sorrow, deep and penetrating. It hurt almost like a physical wound. She opened her eyes and looked at Alex.

“There’s something about the keys that’s sad,” she said.

“The keys are sad?” he repeatedly slowly. As they glided out of the alley, he knit his brows. “In the sense of . . . ?”

“I don’t know; I just felt sadness.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you put some kind of double whammy on me?”

“I don’t really know what I did to you,” he replied.

His jet was bigger than she’d pictured it. It was parked in what had once been a parking lot for the beach. Ready to go, it could cross the Atlantic nonstop. She sat to his right in the cockpit. He took off his coat, revealing lots of muscles and a black T-shirt. His right arm was completely tattooed. Tats on the left went up to his elbow. It didn’t make sense that a guy who looked like him would have access to a Corvette and a plane, and