The surroundings were not quite as desolate as the desert they’d just exited, but Hettie could see no river or great source of water capable of feeding a village this size. A ring of low hills covered in scrubby vegetation kept the area contained, but the land closer to the village sported thick, tough bushes and tall cacti—a wreath of green crowding as close to the oasis as possible.
“Welcome to Villa del Punta.” Relief and uncertainty weighed heavily in Walker’s words.
Lilith tugged on her reins and started down the long road. The other horses followed readily, smelling water. Hettie looked for Cymon and with a pang remembered they’d left their beloved mutt behind.
The path was barely wide enough for a narrow cart. It was an excellent first line of defense, since traveling the winding road down the hill face would stall potential invaders and ensure they’d be seen. The glint of something in the village told Hettie they’d been spotted: what their welcome would be like, she wasn’t certain.
In due course, they reached the bottom of the hill. The air down on the plateau was much more temperate—moist, even—and the sun didn’t seem quite as unforgiving. It was almost pleasant.
“Wait.” Walker held up a hand. “Everyone dismount. I don’t want us to get shot before we’ve even said hello.”
Jeremiah squinted up at the wall and the massive gate. “You got a front door key, Woodroffe?”
“I think it’s best if we wait to be received. I’m surprised they didn’t send a posse to meet us.” The doubt behind his words had Hettie wondering: How long had Walker been away?
She stared at the high adobe wall, studying the thick, weathered planks of the gate. They could hear nothing beyond the clucking of some chickens and the wind creaking through the thatched roofs. Uncle shifted restlessly, and the horses, impatient for water and food, whinnied.
“Maybe we should knock,” Hettie said, and reached out to rap her knuckles against the gate.
“No, wai—”
A wall of wind slammed into Hettie and threw her back. She landed bottom-first in the dirt with an “Oof!”
“The village has a barrier spell over it, idiot,” Uncle muttered, helping her to her feet. Pins and needles rode all over her arms and legs, and her limbs felt like flaccid sausages. “That shield was put in place by Javier Punta himself, and there’s nothing that can take it down. It’ll last as long as he does.”
“Here.” Walker took Hettie’s hand and murmured a liquid flow of syllables. As he completed his incantation, she felt something slip over her, as though she’d stepped through a curtain of water and had been cleansed head to toe. “You have access through the barrier now. You can come and go as you please. If they ever open the gate.”
“We do not open for gringos,” a raspy voice called from the other side of the wall. “No one will help you here. Move on.”
The bounty hunter stood. “It’s Walker Woodroffe,” he shouted. “I’ve brought Diablo back to my father, as promised.”
A pause. “We don’t know any Walker Woodroffe.”
Walker’s expression darkened. “Chico, I know it’s you. Stick your tiny head over the wall and have a look, will you?”
“You could be using glamor. I stick my head out and you could shoot me.”
“I’m not armed, and your magic would’ve told you that. Now let us in. The girls and horses need water.”
Silence. A bleak anger boiled into Walker’s ice-blue eyes.
“Not exactly the hero’s welcome you were expecting, huh?” Uncle remarked a touch snidely.
“Even with my stepfather’s powers to let us through the barrier, the gate’s still physically barred from the inside, and the door is enchanted. It’ll hold up to any number of magical assaults. Short of a battering ram and the hottest fires of hell, even I can’t bring this thing down.”
Jeremiah hitched his thumbs in his waistband and shifted his stance. “Well, we’re not going to make friends standing on the welcome mat. What are we supposed to do to earn their trust if they won’t even talk to you?”
A cat walked up to the door and meowed loudly. It pushed its head against the gate, then sat, slipping a paw beneath the gap, begging to be let in. Abby stared it, then at the gate. She ran a hand across the wood planks. “It’s locked.”
“We know, Abby.”
“But it’s daytime.” She sounded genuinely confused. “Gates are supposed to be open in the day.”
“They’re not letting us in.”
“But she needs to get in.” She pointed at the orange and black cat, who looked back at her and meowed. Abby stuck her lip out and swiped her hand upward along the wood grain.
The sound of a heavy bar being lifted and dropped boomed through the village. Loud clicks followed as bolts slid from their places. The doors swung open to reveal an empty street. The cat hurried in and disappeared around the corner.
Abby beamed. “There.”
A crack of gunfire split the silence as a bullet kicked up a plume of dust inches from her feet.
Hettie dove for Abby. She summoned Diablo as she dragged her sister back behind the doorway. Bullets rained from within the village.
The bounty hunter shouted something in Spanish, and the gunfire ceased. Bluish gun smoke drifted through the gate. “I’m coming out into the open,” he said loudly. “If you shoot me, it’s on you.” Slowly he edged around the wall and stepped out, hands raised, tilting his hat up. To Hettie’s relief, no shots were fired.
“We have two dozen guns pointed at you.” Chico’s voice wavered. “And we know at least two of you are sorcerers. We want all of you to throw your weapons into the street and walk into the open, hands up.”
Hettie grimaced. “Abby, you do as the man says, all right? Soon as they know we’re not a threat, they’ll leave us alone.”
“Don’t know about that,” Jeremiah muttered. “There’s a little girl with us,” he said loud enough to be heard. “Don’t be doing anything hasty, y’hear?” It was a warning more than a plea.
“Wait.” Hettie ducked around the corner and tossed Diablo into the street a few feet from Walker’s big boot. “That’s all we got. We’re coming out now.”
Hettie, Jeremiah, and Abby walked out, hands raised. The late-day sun slanted across the buildings, casting knife-sharp shadows into the street. At first she didn’t see anyone, but then she caught a glimmer of movement. Faces peeked up in windows, and figures uncurled from hiding places. Two snipers lay unmoving on the roofs of two different buildings, their sights trained on them. Three more men pointed rifles at their hearts from behind a cart. The rest she couldn’t see, but judging by the tension in the air and the steadfast looks of the armed men, she was certain there were significantly more than two dozen guns aimed their way.
A rangy man with a short, dark beard edged toward Walker, the revolver in his hand trembling only slightly.
“Hello, Chico,” Walker said, watching the weapon waver. Hettie remembered her father’s saying: a man who let fear rule him was more dangerous than any man with a gun. Right now, Chico was both.
“The Walker Woodroffe I knew left us thirteen years ago.” The man’s grip tightened. “He’s as good as dead.”
Thirteen years? Hettie stared, wondering at the feelings flickering behind Walker’s eyes.
The bounty hunter inhaled. “When I first came here, your wife offered me a blanket that once belonged to your son. It was blue, and one corner of it had been worn through because he used to chew it.”
Chico’s jaw worked. “You could have killed the real Walker and gotten that information from him.” He slowly stooped to retrieve Hettie’s gun.
She warned, “I wouldn’t do that—”
Chico yelped and dropped his sidearm. The damned fool had almost put a bullet in his foot. “Madre.” He looked more closely at the Devil’s Revolver lying in the dust. “Es Dia
blo?”
“I did what my father asked,” Walker said. “Now put your gun down before you hurt yourself.” Chico hesitated, then holstered his weapon. As if that were the cue, the other guns pointed their way were lowered.
“You can put your hands down, girlie,” Uncle said. “They know what they’re dealing with.”
Sheepishly, she lowered her arms and, with Walker’s go-ahead, scooped Diablo off the ground and put it in her pocket. Abby was already wandering toward a stand where a shiny pile of fruit gleamed. She reached for it, but Hettie stopped her. “Not yet, Abby.”
“I’m hungry.” The look on her face told Hettie it was for more than fruit.
Walker was talking rapidly in a language that sounded mostly like Spanish. It was shocking to hear the words flow from him so fluidly, and while she was not fluent, she got that he was relaying their tale in brief and introducing them. He said their names and pointed. Chico nodded, a strange look in his eyes as his gaze rested on Abby.
“Where is my father?” Walker finally said in English.
The gatekeeper’s lips pursed. “You should have written us, Walker. Javier is very ill.”
Walker paled. “How ill?”
“He’s in a coma,” a new voice declared testily.
The man striding toward them wore loose-fitting white linen trousers and a top with long, billowing sleeves. His dark hair was neat and short, his face clean-shaven. Though he looked younger than the somewhat world-weary bounty hunter, he carried with him an air of wisdom and self-confidence. As he came out into the open, other villagers emerged—wary-looking women and wide-eyed children who peeked out from behind their skirts. The man in white stood toe-to-toe with Walker, matching his height but not his muscle, a negative of the bounty hunter in almost every aspect. “Do you have any idea what you have done to our father?”
Our father? Walker had never mentioned a brother.
“Raúl…” Walker opened his mouth but then faltered as the man glared.
“You’ve been openly draining his magic, haven’t you?” He gave him such a look of disgust that Walker actually tipped his chin down. “What happened? Your guns not enough to scare folks away?”
“I didn’t have a choice. But I’ve brought Diablo home, as promised. Father will get his powers back now.” His speech had suddenly changed, as if the husky drawl and swagger had been sucked from him.
Raúl cut his gaze toward Hettie. His eyes were as dark as the sky in the hours before the sunrise, but equally as intense as his stepbrother’s. She found herself comparing the two men, though they had little in common. While Walker was broad and square, Raúl was slender and had deeply cut cheekbones and an elongated face. He reminded Hettie of a grasshopper. Something shimmered over her skin, light as a feather, and she realized the man was using some kind of spell to read her. She glowered at him. “You want to get friendly, you can use your manners,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
Raúl was taken aback for a moment. He glanced quickly at Walker and said something to him in Spanish.
“He said he can’t believe he brought such a creature here,” Uncle murmured.
“You speak Spanish?”
He shrugged. “Enough to get by.” He addressed Walker’s brother pointedly. “So don’t go saying anything you might regret. We didn’t travel all this way to be talked about and have a door slammed in our faces.”
The sorcerer looked like he was gearing up to retort, but instead he exhaled. “Forgive me.” He bowed stiffly. “You are right. I am being rude.”
Uncle snorted.
“My name is Raúl Punta. I am the caretaker here at Villa del Punta while my father is ill.” He acknowledged Walker with a nod. “I apologize for the precautions we’ve had to take. My brother has been away for a long time and does not know how things have changed. We do not receive visitors often.”
“Jeremiah Bassett,” Uncle said, thrusting one hand out. “The ladies are with me.”
Raúl shook the older man’s hand, but his eyes strayed back to Hettie. Their dark depths flickered with banked fire, as if the flames might reach out and singe her. She held his challenging look, teeth set.
“Hettie Alabama,” she introduced herself perfunctorily. “And my sister, Abigail.”
Abby clutched her hand and leaned heavily against her. Raúl took one look at her and flinched. His features resettled quickly, and a broad, toothy smile spread over his foxy face. “Well, hello, little one. You must be the one who opened all the locks on our gate.”
Abby turned her face into Hettie’s hip and whimpered, “I’m hungry.”
“Raúl, we’ve come a long way without food or water. Surely you won’t leave our guests standing out here in the sun?” Walker glanced around apprehensively. More quietly, he asked, “Where is my mother?”
Raúl pursed his lips, and Walker went white. “Gone to the city for a few days,” Raúl said finally.
Walker sagged with relief, and Raúl smiled crookedly, slapping him on the back. Hettie thought it was a cruel trick to play, but she didn’t know anything about the brothers’ relationship. He went on, “She will be pleased you’ve finally returned.” His tone suggested he didn’t share the sentiment. Thirteen years was a long time for family to be apart, though. Raúl gestured. “Come to the great house. Your horses will be taken care of.”
They followed the white-robed sorcerer. Despite the lukewarm welcome, the other villagers would not come any closer. Their eyes followed them. When Abby sent a curious boy around her age a tentative smile, his mother pulled him back and glared at Hettie as if she’d just allowed a wild dog off its leash.
“They’re afraid of me,” Abby said quietly.
Hettie smoothed her hair away from her sunburned face. “No one could be afraid of a sweet little thing like you.”
Abby sighed.
The great house was the largest building in the village—the one with the bell tower Hettie had spotted from the cliff. The three-story adobe structure served as a communal gathering place in addition to housing the village leaders. The wood plank floors were strewn with hand-woven rugs. The walls were adorned with paintings and embroidered blankets, as well as an old, frayed poster for some kind of circus featuring a beautiful, sad-looking lady balanced on a tightrope.
They sat at a trestle table in the main hall, and Raúl spoke to a young woman, who hurried out. In a few short minutes, servants arrived carrying jugs of water and wine, platters of fruit, rice and beans and soft flatbreads, a roasted chicken, and some kind of pork stew. The delicious smells wafting from the food had Hettie’s stomach groaning.
They said no prayers—it’d been so long since she’d sat down for a proper meal, she wasn’t sure she remembered any. They all ate in ravenous silence. Hettie shoved handfuls of fragrant meat into her mouth and gulped the cold, clear water so quickly her jaw ached. Everything was delicious, if a little spicier than she was used to. After the first few bites, she forced herself to slow down, encouraging Abby to take her time as well.
Raúl watched her, the slightest crease forming between his eyebrows. She grew self-conscious, covered in dirt and worse, her dress a shambles, not to mention the wide, angry scar stretching along her right cheek up into the knotted hair at her temple. She’d never considered herself vain, but something about sitting at a dinner table with Walker’s brother had her squirming.
“Unfortunately, the harvest was not as good this year,” Raúl said as he inspected a piece of food on his fork. “The land has not taken to the growing spells as easily as before.”
Pa had paid handsomely for a growing spell for Ma’s garden one year when a frost had killed nearly all of her seedlings. It got the plants restarted, but what fruits had grown had been small. They wouldn’t have come at all had it not been for the spell, Ma had said.
Hettie stared at the laden table. If this was a modest sa
mpling of their harvest, she couldn’t imagine what a bountiful one looked like.
“So Mexico has been suffering the same magic drought as the States?” Walker asked.
“The essence of magic does not recognize any borders,” Raúl said condescendingly. “I have spent considerable time studying the matter. The simple fact is that magic is being drained from the land like water from a pond, here and everywhere else.”
“And yet Villa del Punta continues to thrive.” Uncle regarded the sorcerer with a wry look. “Doesn’t take a high-level sorcerer to know this village of yours is sitting on a magic node.”
Raúl’s smile radiated false modesty and, Hettie thought, warning. “Villa del Punta was built on a wellspring of magical energy, yes. I imagine my brother hadn’t mentioned it to you out of habit—we try to protect what is ours.” Again, that tone that suggested Raúl didn’t trust Walker in the least. “Regardless, this place is not immune to the drought.” Raúl plucked up a plum. “But there will be time to speak about this later. I am far more interested in your tales. Tell me, Miss Alabama, how did you come to possess El Diablo?”
Hettie found it interesting he wasn’t asking his stepbrother how he had tracked down the Devil’s Revolver. She chewed her food slowly, catching Uncle’s warning look. They’d all agreed it was prudent not to let too many people know they were fugitives from the law, in case someone was tempted to turn them in for a bounty. “Found it in a box. Picked it up and bonded with it accidentally. Walker found me and brought me here.” That was the truth, for the most part.
“You’ve used it, though, haven’t you?” Raúl sat forward. “You are not the age that you appear.”
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