Trace of Magic (28 page)

She hesitated, distracted by the noise and dying lights. I launched myself over the null line, swinging the tire iron and smashing it into her forearm. A shot exploded and nearly deafened me. The gun clattered to the stone floor. Savannah screamed and staggered back, clutching her arm close, then broke away, running off though the maze of vehicles. One down.

I whirled to find Touray locked together with Briandi. Ostrander hovered in the background. Jason Drummond scuttled forward, going for Touray’s discarded gun. I looked down, searching for the one Morrell had dropped. Where was it?

There was no time to look. Drummond stooped. Everything slowed. I heard a fist thud against flesh, and Briandi fell backward a step before launching himself at Touray. Josh yelled something incoherent and ran at Ostrander, driving his shoulder into the other man’s stomach. He picked him up and slammed him into the side of a truck. Ostrander dropped senselessly to the ground and Josh fell on top of him, pounding the other man furiously. His arms jerked like pistons. His face pulled into a snarling mask. Ostrander tried to block the blows, but he had no chance against Josh’s wild fury. I wondered if Josh even knew who he was fighting, or if it was some monster from the nightmares only he could see.

My attention flicked back to Drummond. He’d swung himself back around, his arm extending, aiming at Touray. I leaped for him, swinging the tire iron over my head. It felt like I was caught in honey. I tripped over one of the steel null blocks and everything whipped into fast-forward. The tire iron went flying, and I staggered forward, crashing into Drummond’s side.

“Bitch!”

He grabbed me by the hair and shoved me down. I landed hard on my knees. Pain rattled down my shins and up my thighs. I struggled to get up and found myself looking up the barrel of his gun. The muzzle filled my whole world. I didn’t even have time to panic or for my life to flash before my eyes. I flung myself aside as three shots sounded almost simultaneously.

My head hit the stone floor. Gold sparks exploded across my vision, followed by a fall of soot snowflakes. I blinked rapidly, taking stock of my body, stunned that I was still alive. Where had the bullets hit? My head throbbed and so did my knees and shoulder where I’d struck the ground, but the burning pain I’d experienced when I was shot before wasn’t there.

How could he have missed? Adrenaline jolted through me, and I scrambled to my feet. Drummond sprawled in front of me, his legs bent awkwardly, his face slack with surprise. Three bloody holes perforated his chest.

For a second I stayed glued to the floor, too stunned to move. Then I spun around, searching for my savior.

I found him on the ground behind me. Price. He lay on his back, holding Savannah Morrell’s gun. His sapphire gaze swallowed me. It was like being swept into a whirlpool. I felt myself spinning and careening, sinking down into a maelstrom. My heart thundered against my ribs so hard I thought it would shatter into pieces. His eyes were full of turbulence and desperate undercurrents I didn’t understand, but they held both promises and demands. My stomach clenched in anticipation.

Touray knocked into me, and I stumbled aside, losing sight of Price. Shots rang out again and silence fell, broken only by Touray’s deep panting breaths and the thud of Josh’s fists on Ostrander’s flesh.

The man was unconscious, his face unrecognizable. Josh sat astride him, not yet tiring. I called his name. He hesitated, his fists freezing in mid-swing. His knuckles were bloody and swollen.

“Josh,” I called again and stepped toward him. “It’s over. You can let him go.”

He looked sideways at me like a dog protecting a bone, and I barely recognized him for the man I knew. This one was tortured and hard, like he was chiseled from diamonds. He turned away and gripped Ostrander around the neck. Almost gently, he lifted the man’s head and knocked it against the floor. Again. And again.

The pulpy crunching sound twisted my stomach, and I swallowed hard. I didn’t try to stop him again. I wanted to, but for the first time in my life, I was afraid of him. Mild-mannered, sweet Josh. I was so stupid. It wasn’t over for him and wouldn’t be until the nightmares in his head stopped and even then—who knew what would be left? I hoped to hell his head could be fixed, because no way was he getting near Taylor again otherwise.

“Clay, are you all right?”

It was hard to see. Lights still functioned fifty feet away, but we were at the center of a dark circle. My eyes adjusted slowly.

Touray knelt down by Price. Anderson Briandi had fled, following Morrell. Just down the row of vehicles, a truck window was shattered and another couple of bullet holes pocked the fender. Price must have gotten a couple shots off at him. I bent to check to see if Drummond was still alive. No pulse.

I stepped away from his body, and the pain of my feet along with all the other bruises swept over me in a black wave. Exhaustion netted my muscles, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball somewhere and sleep for a year.

No chance of that.

Touray tied a makeshift bandage around Price’s leg.

Price grimaced and growled at the pain. “Take it easy.”

“We have to stop the bleeding. You’ve lost a lot of blood. How’s your head?”

“I’ve got a hard head. I’ll live.”

“Good, because I’m going to need you. We’ve just gone to war. Come on. We have to get out of here before Savannah and Anderson come back with reinforcements.”

Touray helped his brother to his feet. I hung back. After my earlier realization about how much I loved Price, I was turning chicken. A Godzilla-sized chicken. I wanted to run and disappear almost as much as I wanted to wrap myself around him and not let go.

He looked haggard and gray. Blood smeared his face and crusted in his hair.

I’d almost lost him. I was still going to lose him.

No. I forced myself to be honest. I was going to give him away. Or more accurately, I was going to run away. For the first time since I’d fallen in love with him, I asked myself why my gut was still urging me to run, and none of the answers seemed good enough.

“Are you okay?” he asked me, one arm over Touray’s shoulder.

Just like before, I fell into his eyes and lost hold of reality. Tides of emotion swirled around me, pulling and pushing. I couldn’t get a breath. I was drowning in him, in his demand and the anguish twining around my bones.

When I didn’t speak, he scowled and started to say something, but his brother interrupted.

“Can you bring Josh?” he asked me, only it was more like a command. Then to Price, “Are the artifacts safe?”

I didn’t listen for the answer. As Price looked away from me to his brother, I could suddenly move. I drew in a long, shaky breath. This was it. This was my chance to run with Josh. I could null our trace with the tire iron. The storm would cover our escape. We could just jump into a vehicle and go. They all had their keys inside.

If
I could get Josh to go with me.
If
I could find someone to try to heal him.
If
Touray and Price didn’t catch us first. And the biggest
if
of all:
if
I could walk away from Price.

I looked up again to find him watching me. His jaw was knotted and white lines bracketed his mouth. He knew what I was thinking. Expected me to do it, even.

He gave himself to his brother for you.
What else do you want?

I caught myself before I could even consider. It didn’t matter. Price was never going to betray his brother. I turned away.

Josh was still banging Ostrander’s head against the ground, slowly, deliberately. Blood pooled around the prone man’s head. I went over and put my hand on Josh’s shoulder.

“We need to go,” I said firmly, pulling on him. “The others might come back. We need to find someone to help you.”

I don’t know how much he understood, but he did let go of Ostrander and stood up. His hands were swollen and covered with blood. He wiped them on his pants. I looked away, feeling green.

Touray and Price started up the row of vehicles again. I hobbled after them with Josh in tow. I still couldn’t decide what I should do. I’d befriended a lot of people with abilities over the years, but I avoided dreamers. I had too many secrets to lose, and I was terrified they’d sneak into my head without my knowing. The only dreamer I knew was Cass, and it would take time to find her. Price would guess that she’d be my destination and follow. I didn’t have a choice. I had to stay with them.

That made me happier than it should have.

Did I really want to pick safety over this amazing thing between Price and me? Even if what we felt only lasted an hour or a day or a week? Was I being a coward?

The answer to that was obvious and not one that I liked thinking about. But now I had to decide if I wanted to stay a coward. Did I want to live a long life of fear? Or did I want to grab what joy I could get and suffer the consequences?

That answer was obvious, too. If I had the courage to follow my heart. At that moment, if my arm hadn’t been linked through Josh’s, I would have jumped in with both feet and said, fuck it. I’d deal with Touray and whatever else I had to. But the reality of Josh stopped me. He’d been kidnapped and tortured by people like Touray. I could never be one of those people.

I looked at Price leaning heavily on his brother. A salt smile curved my lips. Touray was in for a surprise. Price was never going to be able to do that kind of thing either. He didn’t have to tell me he’d stayed out of his brother’s business and become a cop in order to do good. He was a tough and dangerous man, and he was a good man. I didn’t know how he was going to survive living in that shadow world. He’d have to change it. I wondered if Touray was prepared for that.

Chapter 23

TOURAY HELPED Price into the passenger seat of a one-ton Chevy SUV. I pushed Josh into his seat, bending his arms and legs like a stiff doll until I could buckle his seat belt, more to keep him from freaking out and attacking the rest of us than anything else. I hobbled around to my side and slid into my seat, shutting the door with a long sigh.

“I’m taking you to Maya,” Touray said to his brother as he keyed the engine over.

“We need a dreamer for Josh,” Price said. “The sooner the better. He’s in worse shape than I am.”

“He can wait. I want you looked after.”

“Go to Cass first. You can travel to fetch Maya.”

“Can I? My magic doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.”

Touray glanced meaningfully over his shoulder at me. I shivered at the greed and speculation in the look. Like he was shopping and had just found a Picasso in a thrift store. Not that he’d be caught dead in a thrift store, but you get the point.

Sometime in the fight I’d swallowed the quarter. It was fast reaching its limits. I shrugged at Touray because I had no idea when it would run out and when he’d get his powers back. They could sort out what they wanted to do. I was just along for the ride at this point.

I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. Royal mistake. I instantly became all too aware of my injuries. My entire body throbbed like Yosemite Sam’s thumb after Bugs Bunny whacks it with a hammer. Fifty times the size it ought to be and pulsing like a puffer fish on crack.

Touray made a frustrated sound. “Fine. We’ll go to Cass. Where is she?”

“Midtown.”

“Maya’s closer. I’ll travel for Cass as soon as I can.”

I felt his eyes on me again.

“She won’t like that,” Price warned.

His voice was a little louder. He’d turned his head to look at me, too. My fingers twitched, and I clenched them together.

“Too damned bad,” Touray said. “I’m not wasting time driving in this storm if I don’t have to.”

They started talking about the attack on the building and how the FBI had come to work with Morrell and the others. Pretty quick I drifted off to sleep. No dreams, thank goodness. Apparently my mind needed to rest as much as my body.

I woke up awhile later. It could have been all of five minutes for all I knew. We were still driving—if you could call it that. We inched along. Snow whirled around us. The headlights showed nothing but a wall of white. I wondered how Touray was even staying on the road. Maybe he’d drive over the edge of the caldera and solve all my problems in one quick plunge.

“Finally,” Touray muttered. He started to glow around the edges of his body, and the rest of him thinned so I could see through him. He began to speed up, following some sort of path his magic opened up to him.

The quarter null had sputtered out. That must’ve been what woke me. I looked at Josh. His head hung like he was asleep, but I could see the gleam of his eyes, and his lips moved.

I closed my eyes again, but sleep wouldn’t come again. I’m not sure how long we drove before Touray pulled up and stopped. I looked out the window, but all I saw was snow and darkness. Touray shut off the engine and the lights.

He opened the door and stepped out. The overhead lights blinked on and Josh’s head jerked up. His hands were sausages. I wondered if any of the bones in his hand were still whole.

Touray went around to open Price’s door and help him out. Cold air and snow gusted inside. A chill splashed over me. I didn’t have a coat. Neither did Josh. Touray at least had on long sleeves.

I fumbled open my door and stepped into snow up to my knees. Cold instantly soaked into my feet. The cold felt heavenly on my fiery feet. Getting around the back of the SUV took a few minutes. I was almost too tired to make it. Freezing to death was starting to feel like a pleasant option.

By the time I got to the other side, Touray and Price stood outside the car. Price had his arm over his brother’s shoulder, and Touray held him tight around his waist.

“Let’s get you inside,” Touray said, pulling his brother forward and past me.

I wouldn’t lose them. I had their trace to follow. All the same, I wasn’t sure I could manage Josh on my own.

“We’ll wait for them,” Price said.

“She can follow our trace,” his brother argued. “Let’s get Maya looking at you.”

“I can wait,” Price said stubbornly.

I unbuckled Josh. He hadn’t moved since we stopped. His head still dangled down as he spoke silently to himself.

“Come on, Josh. We’re here.” I pushed the seat belt out of the way and took his arm to pull him out.

He made a snarling sound and smashed me in the mouth. My lip split, and I tasted blood. I staggered backward, and he leaped on top of me. I landed on my back in deep snow and couldn’t move. His knees drove into the pit of my stomach. He punched the side of my head. Pain fractured my skull and snow clogged my eyes and mouth as I twisted to the side, unable to breathe. I tried to push him off, but my arms were buried in the snow.

Another punch, this time on the other side of my mouth. I pushed myself downward, hoping to burrow away. Abruptly his weight was flung away.

“Riley? Riley! Are you all right?”

Price grabbed my shoulders and sat me up. I made a whining sound and pressed my forehead against my knees, trying to breathe away the pain. It didn’t work. I took stock of myself. My head whirled, and my face hurt. My ears rang. I couldn’t hardly hear anything. I touched my tongue to the cuts in my mouth where my teeth had sliced. I was crying. I couldn’t stop. Josh did this to me.
Josh
. I knew it wasn’t his fault. I knew it, but the worst of my hurts was the sense of betrayal. Like he should somehow have known me; like I should have been the exception somehow because I’d come for him when no one else had.

What if he’d attacked Taylor?

I wanted to curl up and stay on the ground forever. I wanted to go back home and lock the doors and never come out again. I wanted none of this to ever have happened.

“Riley? Talk to me, baby. Are you okay?”

Price smoothed my hair, and I flinched away. It hurt to be touched.

He swore. “I’m going to kill the mother-fucking bastard.”

“Not his fault,” I muttered, and the words came out slurred. My lips were too swollen to work properly. “Your fault. You and your brother. All of you Tyet people.”

I could feel his recoil. But it was true.

He didn’t get a chance to reply. His brother joined us. “Come on. Let’s get inside. Maya will take care of her.”

He and Price lifted me to my feet. My knees instantly buckled.

Touray swung me up in his arms. “I’ll come back for Josh,” he told Price.

I shuddered. Touray was built like a Mack truck. I was pretty sure he’d knocked Josh cold. Irrational though it was, that pissed me off. I know Josh had been out of control and attacking me, but Josh’s issues were Touray’s fault as much as or more than the fault of Savannah Morrell and her friends. Josh had been through hell. Touray could obviously have called in Cass anytime he’d wanted. He didn’t. He let Josh suffer. Then Touray clocked Josh and dumped him in the snow. I started to struggle and Touray’s arms clamped tight.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I can walk,” I said. Lisped, really. “I don’t need your help.”

“Yes, you do, so shut up, stay still, and deal with it.”

“Or you’ll punch me, too?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Gregg,” Price growled warningly behind us.

“She’s a pain in the ass, Clay.”

“I know,” Price agreed.

Asshole.
When had that become more endearment than insult?

I closed my eyes because the snow was getting in my eyes. It fell thickly over me, soaking me to the skin. I didn’t have a coat. Cold sank inside me. If I hadn’t been so exhausted and hurt, I’d have complained. As it was, I just wanted to sleep and forget.

Things got fuzzy for a while. I stopped paying much attention. I was safe enough for the moment, and there wasn’t much that Touray and Price were going to let me do, so I might as well just roll with it. At some point we went inside and warmth surrounded me. I was set down on something soft with a pillow, and I snuggled into it as someone put a blanket over me. I heard a woman’s voice and Price and Touray both talking. Arguing, actually, but I didn’t pay any attention to what they were saying. I was happy to be ignored.

I woke up quick when someone pulled my boots off. I let out a scream and tried to squirm away.

“Sonovabitch!” Price swore. Then, “I’m going to kill Gregg.”

I lay panting with pain as I stared up at a green ceiling. “Why?” I asked.

He loomed into view, his expression twisted with fury. The lump and bruise on his head were gone. “Why didn’t you say something about your feet?”

“What was there to say? It’s not like anybody could help me.”

“You shouldn’t have been walking on them!”

“Did I have a choice?” The last came out with a yelp as someone tugged the other boot off.

“Impressive,” a woman said, somewhere in the vicinity of my throbbing feet. Her voice was rich and husky, with a Spanish accent. “She couldn’t have hurt herself worse if she’d been trying. These are going to take me awhile to mend. Let me have a look at the rest of her, though, and see if anything’s more pressing.”

A round, dark-haired woman in a blue and yellow Hawaiian print dress came around to nudge Price out of the way. She bent over me, running her fingertips lightly over my forehead.

“Ow,”
I said, trying to twist away.

“Don’t be a baby,” she said, her eyes clouding white.

Her magic tickled as it spread over my skin, then began to feel like worms squirming through my flesh. I tried batting her away, but Price grabbed my hands.

“Idiot,” he said, and I made the mistake of looking at him.

All those feeling I’d been working so hard to dam up and ignore came crashing back down. My heart thudded rapid fire against my ribs.

“You’re okay?” I whispered, needing to hear him confirm what I saw.

“I’m fine. But you—” His mouth twisted, and his throat jerked as he swallowed. “This shouldn’t have happened to you. None of it.” He let go of one of my hands and started to touch my face, but pulled back. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

“Too bad you don’t have some of those heal-alls that fixed me before.”

“He has me, and I’m much better,” came the woman’s tart voice—Maya, I supposed. The wormy feeling subsided, thankfully.

I turned to look at her. She was probably in her midforties or early fifties. Her eyes were still white.

“My name is Maya. I’m a medical tinker. You’ve got loose teeth, a fractured jaw and cheekbone, dozens of bruises, cuts from head to toe, and feet that look like they’ve been through a meat grinder. You lost a fair bit of blood from all the cuts, and I suppose from that barely healed bullet wound I felt, so you may be dizzy. There’s some infection trying to set in, but nothing too hard to fix. Once I work on you, you’ll need to eat and drink and rest. You’ll want to stay off your feet as much as possible for a week at least.”

“Right,” I said, like it was anywhere near a possibility.

“She’ll do it,” Price said with an arrogant smile at me. “I guarantee it.”

I raised my eyebrow at him, despite the fact that it hurt like hell. “How do you intend to do that?”

“With duct tape and rope, if I have to. Though I can think of better ways to keep you in bed.”

The look he gave me was scorching. My insides melted. My hand tightened on his, and my mind went blank.

“All right, then. This is going to be uncomfortable. Try not to move. I’m going to start at the top and move my way down. Your feet will be hardest. Have you had tinkering before?”

“A couple times. Had a broken arm when I was little. My tonsils when I was ten, and then I got stabbed a few years back.”

“Good, then you know what to expect. I’ll deaden what I can, but it’s still not going to be easy. Hold still, now.”

She pulled up a chair beside me and settled her ample body into it. She smelled of curry and cinnamon. She took my hand between hers and heat wrapped it like a glove. Needles sank into my flesh.
Ow.
Then the heat burned away the pain. More of that wormy feeling wriggled up my arm and neck into my head. I took a long breath and let it out slowly. Sweat broke out on my forehead. Next would come the feeling of things nibbling and stitching inside me. There would be sharp pressure, stretching, and squeezing. The worst of it was the feeling of someone working inside of me. It was like being the star of my own personal horror film.

Price still had ahold of my other hand. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “You were stabbed. Who did it?” In an instant, he’d turned back into the Tyet enforcer—cold, ruthless, and brutal. If the guy who’d attacked me was here, he’d be dead on the floor. “How bad did he hurt you?

“Bad enough,” I said, remembering. I’d been on a cheating spouse trace. I was reporting to the wife when the husband came home. She was supposed to talk to a lawyer and get the divorce going before she told him anything. Instead, she flipped out at him. Things got out of hand pretty quick, and he’d found himself a butcher knife. The wife locked herself in their bedroom, and he opted to take his fury out on me. I’d started for my car, and he’d stuck a knife in me. He’d been going for my heart, but he hit a rib and got a lung and an artery instead. I nearly died all the same. Luckily, Patti had come with me, and she got me to a tinker in time.