Free Tumbling in Time by Denise L. Wyant

Tumbling in Time
    The piercing wail of the tornado siren launched Tasha to the lone window in her dorm room. “It’s about time,” she cheered. Well, not that she would wish destruction and possible death upon her neighbors. Despite the interrupting flash of morbid thoughts she murmured, “Arikk, my fine wizard, you better get ready.”
    She yanked back the dingy lace curtain, forced open the old window, and stuck her head out to scan the sky. She spotted the ominous black cloud descending towards the ground like the bony fingers of a Halloween skeleton. Letting out a whoop, she clapped her hands before searching for her favorite lip gloss – the one that tasted like cinnamon and drove Arikk nuts. Not that he would ever admit it. Well, maybe not yet . . . She pushed aside the clutter on her dresser until she found the tube and swiped some on her pouty lips. Grabbing her well-worn rain jacket, she shoved the lip gloss in her pocket and bounded down the stairs, taking them two at a time. The door flew open as though it had taken a hit from a burly linebacker. Tasha never hesitated; she was a woman on a mission to get to her man.
    Tasha jerked to a halt when a male student caught the hood of her jacket as she raced toward the storm. “Ya need to get inside now! There’s a twister headed right for us!”
    Spinning away, she broke free from his grasp. Her legs carried her towards the developing funnel cloud. She said a fervent prayer there would be a touch down. As the cloud shifted toward the farm field on the west edge of campus, she altered her course to get ahead of the storm.
    The skies opened. The rain pounded down in sheets, stinging her face and drenching her clothes. Darn it! So much for the lip gloss! She swiped at her hair while continuing towards the well-formed twister. She yelled to the sky, “Arikk, I’m coming!” While she had traveled forward in time on numerous occasions via storms, she always held her breath until she saw her demon-destroying hottie wizard in the flesh. Tasha couldn’t explain the “hows” or the “whys” which enabled her travel; she was merely grateful it worked.
    Dime-sized hail pelted Tasha as she approached the twister. Her pace slowed as she encountered and dodged obstacles, leaping over trash cans and veering around miscellaneous debris. The warning siren faded, drowned out by the wind. Ducking under the farmer’s barbwire fence, she scrambled through the mud. Despite staying crouched, she was battered by flying debris. Not willing to risk serious injury, she found a ditch and curled into a ball. The roar of the wind grew until it was deafening. Her wish came true – she was airborne. Her body tumbled end over end, drawn further into the twister only to have a jagged piece of plywood torn from the farmer’s barn collide with her. She was powerless to deflect, let alone avoid, the strike. The board impacted the back of her head, knocking her unconscious.
    ****
    “I’m getting too old for this!” Arikk huffed before sprinting from the latest batch of Riishanuap demons.
    He scrambled over piles of rusted metal, trying to put distance between himself and the purple horde so he could cast his portal and flash to safety.
    “I’m a master wizard with all kinds of special abilities. Why, oh why, couldn’t one of them be casting portals at the snap of my fingers?” he managed to grumble despite his heaving breaths.
    Luck was on his side as he squeezed into an old piece of ductwork. It turned out to be a tunnel, which led to a mechanical crawl space. Arikk scanned the room; it was demon-free. Taking a closer look at his surroundings, he noticed two ways out – a door and a vent. Opting for the less obvious choice, he popped off the metal grate.
    The silence relieved his shattered nerves. He lowered his body through the grate and landed with the grace of a cat on the tile floor of a bathroom. Well, it didn’t look much like a bathroom, but the overpowering stench of sewage