Discord's Apple

Plank by plank, the ceiling flew away, screeching with the agony of destruction. Spaces of open sky showed through swirling dust and debris. The walls, the roof, were gone. Smelling of brimstone, howling air pulled at her, lifting her. Around her, scraps of cloth and paper, splinters and shrapnel, flew upward. Her ears popped, wind thundering around her. Alex held the waistband of her jeans with one hand and the sword with the other. He anchored her, or she might have flown away as well. Together, they crouched on the floor, protecting each other.

There, shoved far back under a bottom shelf, was a box, small enough to sit on a girl’s lap. It was made of simple wood, bound with bronze hinges. A latch secured the lid.

Stretching, she was able to reach it. She clawed it from its resting place and hugged it to her chest. She still had the sack draped over one arm, but no time to put anything else in it.

“She’s coming!” Arthur cried.

The wind’s ferocity never dimmed, even though Hera had what she wanted. But she wanted Discord and destruction, and she was getting it. Shelves toppled, boxes lifted from their places. The contents of the Storeroom were being sucked into the funnel of a tornado, which seemed to roar with a human voice.

“Now, Merlin! Now!” Evie cried.

“Come on!” Merlin said from the other side of the doorway.

Alex wrapped his arm around her middle and hauled her to her feet. They ran. Merlin pointed at them as they passed through what remained of the doorway.

“Blessings on you both,” he said, a wild look in his eyes, his hair blown in a halo around his face. “We’ll see you on the other side!”

Then the doorway disappeared, showing a rectangle of light instead. They went through it, to searing light and a room with no air. She hoped Alex was holding her, because she couldn’t feel him anymore. She tried to scream, but could not breathe. But she held the box, and the voice that told her what it was, told her that her father had died for it. All he knew, she now knew. And there was no time.

James drove. They’d gotten out just in time. Behind them, the interstate was being closed down, all traffic stopped. Homeland Security had raised the alert status to red, severe. The government expected an attack at any moment. They weren’t even sure from whom. China, India, Russia—did it matter?

Along with six people, the SUV was crammed with supplies like tents, sleeping bags, tools, and bags of groceries: canned food, bottled water, toilet paper. Bruce had known some of his friends occasionally displayed far-out survivalist tendencies—they planned stuff like this for fun during gaming sessions. Now, he was grateful. He wouldn’t have thought of toilet paper.

Callie lay against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, crying silently. Numbly, he held her. The radio blared a static-laden news report on NPR:

“—been an exchange of nuclear armaments on the Asian continent, no word yet on what targets—”

The weather had chosen to reflect the current mood of world politics. Black thunderclouds barred all sunlight; the world was dark. James gripped the steering wheel, struggling to hold the vehicle on its course against a terrible wind. It howled and battered debris against the windows.

“Holy shit! Look at that!” Tony, James’s roommate, pressed his face to the window and craned his neck, looking up. “Do you see it? Do you see it?”

Bruce looked out his own window and tried to see. He had to look almost straight up, as straight up as he could, to directly over the car.

Funnel clouds. A dozen winding, fingerlike swirls of twisting clouds snaked down from the storm, stretching ahead of them to the horizon.

They couldn’t do anything but keep driving. There was no escaping this.

“So where are they, man?” Tony said.

Bruce glared at him. “Who?”

“The Four Horsemen.”

It wasn’t funny.

A flash filled the sky. They all shut their eyes, or turned away to avoid the flare. Lightning. In a storm like this, it had to be lightning.

If a nuclear bomb struck, would they even know it?

The radio cut out with a high-pitched whine.

If the world ended, would anything come after? Would they be able to look back and know what had happened?

Bruce closed his eyes and pressed his face to Callie’s. “I love you.”

A second flash came, white hot, and he never saw the end of it.

Hera entered the Walker house. The game was in motion, the power was in play, but there were a few loose ends left here. She would leave no loose ends.