SCENE 3.V

Luke leans against the solid railing of the lighthouse platform and lets the cold winds whip around him. He and Reefer had spent at least three hours trying to plot out a good course of action against the phantoms, and it hadn’t gone as well as could be hoped. The only good thing was that they had killed again just that morning, so they had a pretty good idea of what general area the next attack would be in, and, hopefully, had a few days to prepare before it happened.

You know you’re going to have a difficult week when the good thing is someone died recently.

Lawrence hadn’t been kidding when he’d told them how elusive these OLs were; all they had to go on was the path of destruction they were leaving in their wake. He and Reefer had agreed, the only way they were going to stop these people was to be waiting for them when they came for a family. Only problem there was there were just too many farms to choose from, and there was no common factor between all the past victims to help them narrow it down. Even if they split up entirely, one person at each, that only covered twelve of maybe eighteen farms in the direct path, and who’s to say they wouldn’t just be mowed down right along with the people they were ‘protecting’. All they could do, really, was split into three groups, four people in each, guess, and hope like hell that they guessed right.

He sighs, and considers the empty stretch of grass and dirt below him. Carefully, he reaches out, and drafts a few clouds together, pulling them in from across the prairies, and warms them, watches them rise, all the time feeding them with brothers dragged in from miles away, and they grow heavier and darker, condensing as the water vapor is surrounded by the cooler air, forcing it higher and higher. Gravity forces the droplets and ice crystals down, and static electricity builds as Luke further warms the air just beneath the rapidly forming storm to compete with the downdrafts. The tiniest flicker of lightning, and its resounding peal of thunder, and Luke feels it seeking him out. Another puff of warm air and it builds and builds. He just laughs and forces it further up, up, drawing moisture into it, feeding its growing hunger, and another flash of lightning and the blood is racing through him. The thunder shakes the earth and the storm just swells.

Luke drags a heavy wind in off the ocean, forces it across his storm, and the air begins to rotate. Another gust of warmth below it and the updraft spins as it feeds into the heart of the storm. A lightning bolt slams into the prairie below him and it’s as though he’s got a caffeine drip straight into his heart. The mesocyclone is fully formed and throwing off cloud walls even as the thunder rolls and Luke watches with delight as it reaches, reaches for the layer of warm air he’s prepared for it, lying just above the earth’s surface, backpressure sucking it down as the warm draft rushes up, wiping it into massive rotation, a visible funnel stretching between earth and sky and it’s beautiful, just beautiful.

He watches it gorge itself on loose earth as it whips along, picking up speed. Unfortunately, it’s never a good idea to let these things go for too long, they have the unsettling habit of gaining a sort of consciousness and growing and growing until they’re beyond control, and free to tear anything in their path to pieces. While Luke himself has no problem with this, loves to watch them laying the land bare, he knows that once they get to that point, any contact with settlements would result in massive destruction and death.So he cuts off the storm’s supply of warm air and watches it choke itself and slowly die, bathing in the tingle of dispersing static.

Soon, without much prodding from Luke, the sky is once again light and bright, dappled with fluffy clouds, only the torn earth of the tornado’s path any indicator to the storm raging over the plains just minutes ago. Probably he’s in a lot of trouble, but he’s not going to worry about that just yet, because even a day with out this was a day too many, because the world’s just different when he can see the curl and flow of wind and wave, and feel the potential in even the tiniest air molecule.

He’s still dry, dry and warm and snug in his leather jacket, but he can’t say the same for the rest of the lighthouse, and his boots squelch as he moseys back down to earth, and maybe he’s humming a little, but he’ll never tell.

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Scene 3-V

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