by Jade Wolfe
He squinted at the cave entrance again, then he stared at me. "Are you sure he's up there? Are you sure this woman has him, and he didn't just wander off into the woods and get lost?"
"I'm sure."
I was so sure that it hurt. This was my domain. I was supposed to protect Red Rock, and by extension, the town of Wilding. Isadora knew that, apparently, and she was using my responsibilities against me. No matter whether I liked Tom, which I didn't particularly, he didn't deserve to die out here in the middle of nowhere. "Please, Sam? If I just show up, she'll kill us both. With your help, she'll just try to kill me."
His mouth opened. "What? This person wants to kill you? Why didn't you call the cops?"
That's the way it would work in the real world, but this was more an alternate reality than anything resembling normalcy. Also there was the fact that at least one of the cops was a werewolf, and I didn't know how he would react to something like this. In other words, was he one of the good guys, bad guys, or was he neutral? "I can't. Just trust me, OK? Will you do this or not?"
He took a deep breath. "All right. What do I need to do, exactly?"
"She'll meet you at the cave entrance, most likely, and you need to tell her that I'm here. Tell her that she needs to let Tom leave with you if she wants me."
"Why would she believe that? What's stopping us from just leaving, once I get Tom back?"
He had a good point, but I wasn't sure how to reassure her that I wasn't leaving. I was going to fight this out and may the best witch win, because the alternative was this evil witch terrorizing Red Rock and Wilding unchecked. There had already been enough death and destruction.
"I don't know - we'll just have to try it."
"And what if she tries to take me hostage, too?"
I smiled grimly. "Then she's more desperate than I thought, and I'll have to fight harder to get you guys out of there."
"Oh, good. Thanks."
I glanced around for weapons, but didn’t see anything until I noticed the travel box bolted to the back of the four-wheeler. It wasn’t locked. I flipped open the hard shell’s lid and looked through what I found there. An extra magazine for a gun, a few gel hand-warmers, a rain jacket, and, finally, a couple of sheathed hunting knives near the bottom. I tossed one to Sam. "Keep this with you. It won't do much good if she's really pissed, but it might come in handy."
He shook his head, and I wished I had time to explain more, but I just didn't. I had to assume Isadora had her eyes on us even now, and that she was making plans and gauging her options just like we were. She might be crazy, but she wasn't stupid.
Sam hesitated and then slipped the knife into his belt. Not like he was afraid - he was just thinking this through, working things out in his head. Then, with a glance at me, he turned away and started up the slope.
I watched him go, wondering if I was going to get us all killed.
I hoped not - I really liked Sam, and he still hadn't told me about the proposition he had in mind, the one that was lucrative and harmless.
He disappeared about halfway up the mountain, beyond the reach of the headlights. I watched him until I realized that I was holding my breath, then looked away.
Eyes gathered in the darkness, out of reach but watching intently. I saw the silver of the Navarro wolves, the golden eyes that indicated Myla's pack, and a few others. Those could belong to anyone - the ogres, the banshees, even just simply deer. There weren't many bobcats or mountain lions in Red Rock, but they were around. They could be watching as well. The air crackled with electricity, but lightning strikes were far off, not giving me light to see much.
From somewhere behind me, in the valley, I heard men shouting.
Damn it. I was hoping for more time before the search parties showed up. They normally wouldn't have been able to find me so quickly, but my ATV wasn't exactly quiet, and the headlights were like a beacon. I found the right button and flicked them off. The woods fell dark around me. If I hadn't known it, I wouldn't even be able to tell that I was at the base of a mountain.
They had already spotted me, though, and I knew someone would be here in a matter of minutes.
I did the only thing I knew to do - start climbing. It put all three of us in harm's way, but if I was detained for stealing the ATV, Tom and Sam were dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
The going was rough, but I didn't call up even a small fire to help me see. The men below would spot it in an instant, and then half the town, from the sound of their voices, would be in harm's way. Better to let them get their four-wheeler back and keep tracking me in the wrong direction. There were plenty of places I could go, so they most likely wouldn't expect me to head up the mountain.
The only sounds were the low hum of the banshees, more of a background noise than anything, scattering rocks from my boots digging into the rocky slope, and the distant noise of the men on ATVs somewhere below. There was nothing I could do about that, so I just kept going, swinging wide of the cave mouth so that I could maybe get a handle on what was happening before Isadora saw me coming.
I didn't need to worry about that, though. When I got the side of the cave entrance and held my breath to listen, everything was silent. Damn. That meant one of two things - either Sam had to go deeper into the cave to find her, or she had killed them and waited quietly for me in the dark.
I hoped for the former, but I didn’t know how to confirm that.
Wait - yes I did.
I quickly drew the air rune and envisioned my purpose for her. I couldn't see her, of course, but a chilly breeze scattered the leaves around me as she appeared and slipped into the cave. I crouched against the side of the entrance and listened.
Below me, the voices of the searchers moved further away, which helped.
It took a bit, and my left foot was trying to go numb by the time I heard it - Sam's voice. He was arguing, it sounded like. That wasn't a good sign, but at least he was still alive. I didn't hear Tom.
Isadora spoke next. I leaned in, wishing I could make out the words. She sounded mad, too.
That was interesting. Why didn't she just kill Sam? Why was she wasting energy arguing with him?
Movement startled me for a moment, then I realized that it was coming from inside the cave. Someone was coming this way, and they were making some noise.
It got closer, but I couldn't make out exactly what I was hearing - it was more than just footsteps, but quiet enough that it wasn't two people fighting.
Sam's voice came next, and it was clearer now. "...have to believe me. I don't even know you, but I'm taking my friend. This mountain is surrounded, lady."
A flash of light came. Silence, and then Sam's voice again. "That was impressive."
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, wondering what Isadora had done.
"Now, if you'll put him down, I'll be on my way." Sam again.
Uh-oh.
More movement, more scrabbling, and then Sam appeared at the mouth of the cave. Well, his shoulder did. He was backing out. Slowly. Then he stopped, before I could see what he was doing.
"I'll send her up, lady. I promise." Sam's voice was strained now, and he was still stopped at the entrance. Did I go in now and distract Isadora? That would give Sam the opportunity he needed to get Tom out. Or should I wait, and make sure they were out of harm's way before I faced her?
I was about to step around to the front of the cave when something nudged the small of my back. I jumped and spun around, swallowing a yelp of surprise.
It was Myla, towering over me.
"God, it's good to see you, girl." I stood up and hugged her. She gently shook me off.
What do we need to do?
“Get Sam and Tom off this mountain. I think I can deal with Isadora," I whispered.
She hesitated. I could feel it more than see it.
"I'm sure." I answered her unspoken question. "Take them down the mountain to those men, so that they can get back to town in one piece. I'll do the rest."
; With that, I turned back toward the cave entrance. Sam was moving again, and I could tell from the way his back and shoulders curved that he had a load. He was either dragging or trying to carry Tom. Good. That meant he had him.
I stepped into the entrance, startling him, and moved so that I was inside, between the men and the witch. I almost stepped on Tom at the last minute - Sam was, in fact, dragging him. Then I turned and pushed Sam's shoulder.
He staggered backwards, farther out of the cave, taking Tom with him. I didn't wait to see what he did next - Myla was out there, and I trusted her to pull him and Tom farther out and down the mountain. Instead, I turned to face Isadora.
"It's about time you showed up," she said, barely offering a glance to Sam and Tom disappearing behind me. Now that I was here, she couldn’t have cared less about them.
I stood tall and faced her, even though I could barely see her in the darkness. I pulled up a small light, enough to see, but not enough to alert the men in the valley below. Not that it mattered now. "It's a pretty ratty thing to involve innocent people in your screwy-ass plans, witch," I said.
She chuckled. "It worked, didn't it?"
Then she made a sound that I didn't recognize. It was a sharp, not-quite scream, but there were words in there, too. I just didn't recognize any of them. Was she speaking Russian, maybe? The air crackled.
The ground under my feet grumbled. Behind me, rocks started to fall. One of them glanced off my shoulder and caused me to stumble forward, closer to her. I caught myself against one wall, the stones scraping my hands, and turned to watch the cave entrance and everything beyond it disappear.
We were locked in here together.
I turned back to her and let my light flare brighter. Her face was smudged a little with the reddish dirt of the cave, but otherwise she looked fully competent to do what she'd set out to do - take my heart. I stood up straight again and walked through the rubble to face her.
I wasn't being brave. My heart was pounding, my hands were fisted at my sides, and I would have given anything at all to run the other way. But there was no other way - it was me and her, and the only way out was past her, into the darkness where the cavern split. To get out, I had to get through her. Alive.
At least I knew why she was trying to kill me. She had chased me halfway across the world to get my heart and use it in some sort of dark magic ritual in order to keep her mother alive. Probably a good cause, in her eyes. Like Lucy said, who wouldn’t save their parent if they could?
I could almost feel bad about that, but not bad enough to give up my life. I mean, Lucy would be gone one day, too. So would Miranda and Pearl. My own parents, who would still be alive if life was fair, were taken away years ago. There was nothing I could do about that, and I sure as hell wasn't going to steal an innocent person's heart to change things, even if I could.
Isadora walked closer, until her face was inches from mine. She was a beautiful woman, or at least she would be without the hard set of her jaw and the arrogance in her eyes. I raised my chin and met her gaze. "You can't have my heart, Isadora. I'm sorry about your mother, but this is ridiculous."
I had no idea why I was trying to reason with her like a sane person, but it was worth a shot.
Or maybe I was simply trying to work up the courage I'd need to kill her. I'd never killed another person before - the humans I'd destroyed last year were already dead.
Her hands twitched, and I felt a sharp jolt run through me, from head to toe. I jerked away and called up fire, setting a blaze between the two of us. It gave me time to catch my breath.
But her message was clear - she could kill me easily.
The thing was, she couldn't damage my heart when she did it. That electricity just now? That was a bluff. She couldn't chance my heart exploding inside of me, couldn't chance it being a useless piece of meat. Now how did I leverage that little piece of information to keep myself alive?
I had no freaking idea.
The flames died down, giving us a view of one another again. Her eyes sparkled with menace - she was enjoying this. She definitely wasn't worried, if the small smile on her face told me anything. She probably saw it as a challenge.
I took a deep breath and tossed a fire ball at her. Nothing so big that it would kill her - I still didn't know what Raul would say about me killing one of his - but enough to make her step back and shield her eyes. Heat bloomed in the cavern, flashing in my face.
The hem of her dress caught. She dropped her hands and it disappeared, like she'd brushed off a fly or something. I could have sworn I heard her laugh.
Behind us, I could hear voices, barely discernible, on the other side of the downed rubble. The men who had chased me down. Maybe Sam was with them. I had no way of knowing. If they got in here, she'd most likely kill them. It wouldn't take them long to break through, either.
This was my job. To protect the unsuspecting as well as the creatures who lived in the park. There was only one way to do that, and even if it took my life, it would remove her as a threat to the others. It was hard to calculate anything in darkness like this, but I had to try. I drew a rune in the air before me, then took off running before releasing it to work.
I brushed past her, moving deeper into the cave before she could figure out what was going on and block my inferior magic. I knew she would follow - it was me she wanted, not a bunch of townspeople.
I was barely past her when my rune started to work. If she wanted to start collapsing caverns, well...two could play at that game. The rocks started to fall around us. She made some noise and reached out, but her fingertips clawed harmlessly past my sleeve. For now. I kept going.
I was just at the split when I heard her call out, but I didn't stop to see what was going on. I veered right, away from the cave where my magic was no good. Behind me, the rumble of falling rock was deafening.
It wasn't enough to stop her, but then I didn't think it would be. I just needed to move, to give myself a few options. This way, I could at least face her in the larger cavern room that her mother had been in earlier. Maybe there was even something there that could help.
I was almost there when she caught me. OK, not her, precisely, but her magic. Just ahead, close enough that I barely had time to get stopped, the cave collapsed again. I stumbled to a halt and turned back her way. She was maybe twenty feet behind me.
There was no other exit. No way out for either of us.
"You might as well give up now, Indigo. You won't stop me, and you won't change my mind."
I knew she was telling the truth. Would I have given anything to save my parents? And if I was as ruthless as her, would I have killed for it?
I knew I would.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The problem was that I was exhausted, hungry, and ready to drop. I didn't know if that affected my magic, because I'd never pushed myself this hard. Would my fire fail without fuel to keep going? I didn't know. What I did know was that my knees were weak, my stomach was beginning to cramp, and I was starting to have trouble concentrating, at a moment when concentration meant the difference between life or death.
Isadora stepped closer to me, and I stepped back. The fiery desperation in her eyes terrified me - this was the expression of someone willing to do whatever it took. I could feel the force of her determination, and I wasn't sure if I had the same fight in me. One thing was certain - we were trapped in here together, and only one of us would make it out alive.
My feet shuffled back a little until my back felt the sharp stone of the cave's wall. That meant I had nowhere else to go, but it was also something to lean on, something to hold me up if my legs got too tired.
I held up my palm and let my fire flare a little. It hurt, but I needed to see. I needed options.
The heat in the enclosed space was becoming unbearable. There was no air blowing at all, and only the occasional drip of water reminded me that the outside world existed. No breeze, no sound but the ones we made, and no indication that time was moving
forward. Only the flare from my palm let me see.
I knew that my flame wouldn't last long, and I also knew that it was using up precious oxygen. I was very aware that an entire mountain was bearing down on us, waiting for the slightest jarring to snuff us out completely. I had to make a move.
I used my free hand to draw an air rune in the darkness, but nothing happened. She couldn't come, even if she wanted to - air needed room to flow.
With a snap of Isadora's fingers, my light was gone. Footsteps told me that she was moving in on me. I held to the wall and began to back away from where I thought she'd been standing. Every time my heel smacked against a stone I had to slow down and readjust.
I knew that the cavern was no more than about twenty feet long and as wide as the corridor that got me here, maybe ten feet.
I couldn't see anything. I didn't think she could, either - if she could see me in the dark, I'd be dead already.
Somehow, I wasn't exactly afraid. One on one in normal circumstances, I could fight her, and the odds were decent that I'd win. But right now I couldn't even see, much less deal with her in a way that would keep her from killing me and moving on to...do what? Take over Red Rock? Kill Miranda and the others? Destroy the town of Wilding? I didn't know what she had planned, other than collect my heart for her mother, but I knew that if she was evil enough to do that, she didn't care about something so silly as keeping order.
I was starting to feel a little dizzy, so I slowed my steps a little. When was she going to come closer? When would I feel the knife in my spine or my throat? The thought was nearly paralyzing, and in another few seconds I was struggling to move at all.
When the sound of her moving reached my ears, it was terrifying, but also a relief. Anything to help me place her.
That was, until that sound told me that she was right here, only inches from my elbow.
I flailed my arm in her direction. She caught it just below the elbow and gave it a hard twist. Then I was on my knees. Something that felt like cool leather slipped around my neck, like a snake. I swallowed to try to keep my airway open. "Got you," she whispered.