Dies the Fire Read Online Free Page B

the other side of Central Park,” he said, holding out a hand for the glasses.
    â€œSweet Goddess, it looks like it came down around Monroe and Fourth!” she replied, drawing a map in her head. They looked at each other, appalled: that was right in the middle of downtown.
    I hope the Squirrel and the Peacock didn’t get hit, she found herself thinking, absurdly—both nightspots booked a lot of live music. Then she shook her head angrily.
    â€œThere must be hundreds hurt,” she said. Hundreds dead , more like , her mind insisted on telling her. She swallowed, and added silently to herself: Horned Lord of Death and Resurrection, guide the dying to the Summerlands. Merciful Lady, preserver of life, keep the living safe. So mote it be!
    Aloud she went on: “And where are the emergency people?”
    â€œTrying to get their ambulances and fire trucks to work,” Dennis said; there was a grim tone to his voice she’d seldom heard before. “Check your watch.”
    Juniper blinked, but did as he asked, pulling it out of her vest pocket where it waited at the end of a polished chain of fine gold links. She was wearing a sort of pseudo-Irish-cum-Highlander costume—billowy-sleeved peasant shirt and lace cravat and fawn-colored waistcoat with a long tartan skirt below and buckled shoes—what she thought of privately as her Gael-girl outfit. The watch was an old one, from her mother’s father; she clicked the cover open.
    â€œWorking fine,” Dennis said, as she tilted it to catch the firelight. “But mine ain’t. It’s digital.”
    He turned and switched to Sign. How about yours, Eilir?
    It’s an electric, she signed. Quartz. It’s stopped.
    â€œAnd stopped at just the same time as that one on the wall over there,” he said, signing as he spoke. “Six fifteen.”
    â€œWhat’s happening ?” Juniper said, signing it and then running her hands through her long fox-red hair.
    â€œDamned if I know,” Dennis said. “Only one thing I could think of.”
    At her look, he swallowed and went on: “Well, an EMP could take out all the electrical stuff, or most of it, I think—but that would take a fusion bomb going off.”
    Juniper gave an appalled hiss. Who could be nuking Oregon, of all places? Last time she looked the world had been profoundly at peace, at least as far as big countries with missiles went.
    â€œBut I don’t think that’s it. That white flash, I don’t think it was really light—it didn’t come from anywhere, you know? Suzie at the bar, she was looking out at the street, and I was halfway into the kitchen, and we both saw pretty much the same thing.”
    That’s right, Eilir signed. It wasn’t a flash, really. Everything just went white and my head hurt, and I was over by that workbench with my back to the window.
    â€œWell, what was it, then?” her mother said.
    â€œI don’t have fucking clue one about what it was, ” Dennis said. “But I’ve got this horrible feeling about what whatever-it-was did. ”
    He swallowed and hesitated. “I think it turned the juice off. The electricity. Nothing electrical is working. That for starters.”
    Dennis shuddered; she’d never seen an adult do that before, but she sympathized right now. A beefy arm waved out the window.
    â€œThink about it. No cars—spark plugs and batteries. No lights, no computers, nothing . And that means no water pressure in the mains pretty soon, and no sewers, and—”
    â€œMother-of- All, ” Juniper blurted. “The whole town could burn down! And those poor people on the 747—”
    She imagined what it must have been like at thirty thousand feet, and then her mind recoiled from it back to the here and now.
    And Rudy was flying out of Eugene tonight, she thought, appalled. If the same thing happened there—
    â€œWe have to do