by Dana Davis
She focused on the tiny point of light, feeling more herself now, and envisioned Jason and her home. The desert. Food. Yes, food. She would kill and eat a javelina if one walked by right now. Not even that dangerous pig would get the best of her hunger. And she could probably drink an entire lake. She checked her pockets for something, anything edible. But like the last time she’d looked, they were empty.
If only I’d stuck an energy bar in there. Should’a, could’a, would’a. Stop that crap, Zoey Anne Vega. This is just his way of trying to get you to give in. Letting her feel her body’s needs and not satisfy them was one sick form of torture. She wondered how long the box would protect her here. How long it could protect her. Had there ever been a Catcher trapped in the underworld before Zoey? She didn’t think so.
She struggled to her feet, ignoring her protesting muscles as best as she could manage, and staggered toward the light. Jason’s face popped into her head again and she held onto the thought of him. His warm embrace, his muscles contracting and releasing as he made love to her. Yes, it was love, not just sex. If she got out of here, he wouldn’t throw her away. He wanted to marry her. The light began to flicker and pulse until it grew slightly.
Zoey hurried toward it as fast as she could manage, then stopped abruptly. It was like a dream, running and running and getting nowhere. She’d walked toward that light several times, making what should have been some kind of progress, closing the gap between it and her. But it still looked the same distance from her, like a star in the night sky. I can’t get to it this way.
She flopped onto the floor and stared at the light. How the fuck do I get to it? Despair threatened her again and she shook it off, not wanting to give herself to this awful place now. Not wanting to stay here any longer. She stared up at the light, forcing her thoughts to come up with something, anything she could do to get to it. One hand went to her baby ring. She tilted her neck down until she could see the ring hanging from the chain, a tiny silver rope around her neck that held a piece of her past. A piece of her father. A piece of his love. Connection.
“I’d lasso the moon for you, sweet Zoey,” she uttered. Her father’s writing on the back of the photo. Realization hit her like a fist in her gut. Lasso. Of course. I can’t get to the light. She narrowed eyes on the pinprick in the distance. It has to come to me.
With new fire, she concentrated on bringing the light to her. Hopeful thoughts, wishes, dreams. She put them all out there, directed toward the light, to her salvation, like a rope to a drowning victim. A lasso around the moon. She held the images, adding to them to make her rope longer, and it suddenly appeared in the darkness. A long silver strand fluttered and waved toward the light, like a kite string. Similar to a dream ribbon, only stronger and full of life. Her heart leapt when the light began to shimmer and shiver in the darkness.
Then it finally happened. The light expanded, growing closer and closer, and she fought the urge to giggle and cry out as she got to her feet. Depression and despair waned. The light grew to the size of a beach ball. Large enough that she could see into it. And what she saw was the vortex. The dreams and wishes of humanity. Hope. A beautiful sight! Zoey latched onto the vortex and pulled on the silver rope with her mind.
A face appeared in the light, startling her. At first, she couldn’t make out the shadowy visage. Then she finally recognized it. “Daisy!”
“Zoey! I hear you!”
She didn’t abandon me. Joy lifted her heart and she straightened with courage. I can do this. She’s helped me enough. “Stay there, Daisy! I’m coming back. Through the light.”
“Light? What light?”
Her cousin couldn’t see it. Of course. Only a Catcher could see what resided inside the box. “Never mind. Just send good thoughts to me and keep the portal open.”
“You got it!” Daisy’s image brightened.
Zoey smiled and prepared to send out as much of her aura as she could manage when something struck her shoulders and sent her sprawling to the living floor. Her concentration and her connection gone. Severed. The silver rope dangled in the air above her, drooping like a kite losing wind and the light faded back toward its pinpoint in the distance. No!
Chapter 32
Come Back Sweet Zoey
“Damnit, I lost her!” Daisy prepared to utter the spells to open the portal again, when Bridgette grabbed onto the Native dreamcatcher and pulled it from her hands.
“It’s still too soon. You’re not recovered enough.”
She shot to her feet. “Damnit, Bridge. She needs my help. Now. I can’t wait.” She made a grab for the circular catcher but Bridgette pulled it high above her head, out of Daisy’s reach, its dangling feathers blowing in the path of the a/c vent. When they were children, Daisy always lost to her cousin at keep-away. A brief thought of using a spell against the redhead flitted across her brain. No, you idiot. She’s one of the good guys. “Bridgette, she’s being attacked again.”
“If you’re not fully recovered from the last conjoining, what makes you think the Anguisher is?”
Daisy had no answer for that. She made another attempt to get the Native dreamcatcher from Bridgette but missed.
“You have to wait, Daisy. She’ll be fine for a while.”
“You can hear her?” Bridgette’s telepathic powers hadn’t worked through the box before.
“No. But he won’t kill her. Remember?”
“He won’t have to.”
Daisy closed her eyes as Noah wrapped arms around her. “Listen to Bridgette, honey. You’re still exhausted. The Anguisher can’t be much better. Can he?”
The worry in his eyes caught her off her guard and she hugged him. “I guess not.”
“You said Zoey was being attacked. How?”
I love you, Noah. Always the voice of reason. “The Anguisher hit her in the back. With his fist.”
Bridgette moved closer and stated the obvious. “Then he hasn’t recovered his powers enough to conjoin.”
“He can still hurt her, Bridge. If he sends her into despair again, she might not recover.”
Bridgette let out several curses under her breath. “All right. We’ll try another conjoining. But I won’t let you kill yourself. The Anguisher doesn’t need you alive.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Bridge. Always bringing the joy.” Before her cousin could respond, she said, “Let’s get to it then.”
* * * *
Zoey closed her eyes and struggled for breath. When she finally looked up again, the Anguisher and the Gorgon stood over her. How did they recover so fast? Time had no meaning here. Had Zoey been working with the light and the silver lasso longer than she’d realized?
She coughed until her lungs stopped hurting and she could breathe normally. She prepared herself for the next onslaught, for the pain the Gorgon claws would inflict on her. But the woman didn’t move. An illusion. To frighten her into submission, into thinking the Anguisher was conjoined again.
When she didn’t back down, Becka Lipner’s image appeared in front of her, a blurred figure. She lay lifeless on a hospital bed. Her parents sat near her, holding her hands, black smudges beneath their eyes. It took only seconds for Zoey to realize what the Anguisher was up to. And he was conceited enough to show it to her. She immediately set her mind on the prone woman, the dying woman. Her school archenemy. The one who had attacked her in the parking lot. Put her into a coma. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was saving Becka’s life. Saving her from the ravages of despair. Saving hope. The woman didn’t want to die.
What if I’m wrong? Zoey shoved those doubts away with great force, focused on Becka, and gave power to the woman’s dreams. Surprisingly, it worked. Her previous attempt at escape must have given her a connection to the box. The dreams unfolded in a mist around her, the colors pale yet visible. But blackness filled the dreams and Becka grew weaker.
“No!” Zoey cried out toward the encroaching darkness. Rage increased her power sending and her aura pulsed from her body l
ike a solar flare, hot and dangerous. She couldn’t see it, of course, but she could feel it. She gave and gave to Becka’s dreams until her energy waned dangerously and she groaned with the effort.
Each time she thought she’d severed Becka from despair, darkness crept, worm-like, into the prone woman’s dreams, eating its way through the wishes and weakening the vortex.
“No, you bastard! I won’t let you take her!” Zoey focused everything on Becka, giving more than she knew was safe.
Another Gorgon suddenly appeared—the real one this time—and those claws moved toward her. Zoey was too involved with trying to free Becka to move out of the way. Shit! She screamed out as she pushed her entire self toward the dreams and felt a touch of power from someplace. Daisy! Thank the Fates! She sucked at the conjoined power to boost her own, making her hot and lightheaded at once. This time she saw her own aura as it flared out toward the dreams.
Then, as though she’d been snuffed out, the Gorgon wailed and disappeared. The Anguisher screamed with rage, but Zoey kept her focus on Becka, gasping for air that may or may not even exist here, and sucked power from Daisy. Her limbs ached and trembled, her stomach roiled, her head pounded, her bladder screamed. But she didn’t give in. She stood that way for what could have been a moment or eternity.
Slowly, the darkness receded and the rainbow vortex brightened. Becka’s image came into clear focus within the vortex. The woman stirred and opened her eyes as her illicit tie to despair dissolved away. Zoey’s heart jumped when Becka looked directly at her, and the ill woman’s eyes widened in surprise. A sudden flash of light hurt Zoey’s eyes and she slammed them shut. Her legs gave out, her strength depleted. The sound of a door shutting somewhere knocked into her senses as she fell to her hands and knees on a hard surface. Hands touched her.
“Oh god, Zoey. Are you all right?” Daisy’s voice came in a breathless tone. “Bridgette, get her some water.”
Without answering, Zoey crawled as fast as she could manage to Daisy’s bathroom.
* * * *
Daisy and Bridgette stayed by Zoey’s side, casting occasional healing spells to help her get her strength back. Though still weak, Zoey insisted on doing things for herself.
“I’m fine, you guys. Honest. I don’t need a nanny. I can pee all by myself.” She tried to pull from Bridgette’s grip but the witch either had been eating her spinach or Zoey was weaker than she thought.
“You’ll let us help you, Zoey.” Daisy eyed her much the way Aunt Mena might have in this situation. “You’re still weak and I don’t want you hurting yourself. You still have to feed that damn box.” She sounded a touch angry now.
“Oh, nice, Daisy. Use the Catcher card against me.”
Bridgette snickered as she escorted Zoey from the king-size bed to the master bathroom. Once Zoey had no desire to sleep in her childhood bedroom any longer. So, she’d taken over the master bedroom, getting yelled at by one cousin or other every time she traipsed around the house to retrieve some decorative item to put in here. Her Native dreamcatcher hung over this bed now. Not that she needed it against the Anguisher any longer. But it was a testament to her survival and triumph, as were the faint marks on her chest from the Gorgon’s awful claws.
From the bathroom doorway, she glanced back at the Catcher box that now sat on her nightstand. Humanity’s dreams and wishes were safe. Hope would live on. The bridge between hope and despair had dissolved upon Zoey’s act of giving herself unselfishly to Becka. That task had thrust her home, trapping the Anguisher in the underworld where he belonged. She had heard that door shut behind her, and he now gave his despairing energy only to those seeking it, as the Fates had intended.
The Gorgon, well, either she had been destroyed or sent back to wherever she resided. Either way, Zoey didn’t care. The woman didn’t scare her now. Yeah, she had some badass claws, but Gorgons tended to shy away from humans. That little tidbit had come to her while perusing through the Council’s information. Her laptop sat on the other nightstand and she glanced at it. She’d been logging her experiences in the underworld and forwarding them to Connie, so they could be archived for future generations. She doubted the Anguisher would ever suck another Dream Catcher into his domain, but why take chances?
She eyed Bridgette, who still had fingers around her arm. “If you try to come in and help me pee, I’ll show you a nice kickboxing move right in the ass.”
The redhead smirked and released her just as Daisy said, “Be nice, Zoey.” The witch was smiling.
“I’ll help her.” Jason grinned as he entered with a tray of coffee and snacks, Noah on his heels. Perky trotted in behind them, tail swishing side to side.
Daisy turned on him. “You just stick to kitchen duty, buster. She doesn’t need any more excitement just now.”
Jason winked at Zoey and began setting up a TV tray.
Zoey took care of business and when she came out, Bridgette was right there, ready to escort her back to bed. She was about to make another snide remark when Jason’s parents entered the bedroom.
“I just talked to Becka’s father,” George said. “She’s going to make a full recovery.”
A relieved breath escaped Zoey’s lungs as she walked toward the bed. She wouldn’t admit it, but the activity tired her a bit. “I’m glad.” And she truly was. The woman had been cruel to her for years but that didn’t seem to matter now. Zoey had even forgiven her for the attack, since it wasn’t her fault. In fact, she didn’t think anybody could ever be as cruel to her as the Anguisher had been. And I survived that bastard. She climbed into bed and took an offered cup of coffee from Jason. “What about my earlier vision? Did she really see me?”
“We had one of our own check that out,” Connie said. “She did see you that day, but the doctors think she was hallucinating. There was so much alcohol in her system—I don’t think she’ll ever convince them otherwise.”
Relief pulsed through Zoey as she sipped the hot liquid. Becka had nearly died from alcohol poisoning, courtesy of the Anguisher. He had misinterpreted the two as friends and hoped seeing Becka near death would push Zoey into despair, when in fact, it had done just the opposite. Though she had defeated him and found her way home, she fought a shiver at the memories of what he and the Gorgon had done to her in the underworld. A business card sat on the nightstand next to her laptop. Daisy’s shrink. She had promised the witch she would make an appointment once she recovered. She’d been gone from this world less than three days, though it had seemed much, much longer from the underworld perspective.
Daisy sat on the bed, jiggling it. “Well, Zoey Vega, looks like you’re an official superhero.” She toasted with a cup of coffee. “Welcome to the fold. I’d give you a cape, but mine are at the cleaners just now.” She smirked and cocked her head so that her hair swung with the movement.
Zoey toasted back. “Well, that’s disappointing. How can I learn to do homework through osmosis if I don’t have a cape?” She motioned to her computer and the diamond ring on her left hand caught the light briefly. She couldn’t wait to be fully recovered so she and Jason could celebrate their engagement.
Before Daisy could retort, a man appeared at the foot of the bed, and Zoey nearly spilled her coffee. The figure was transparent and without an aura. A ghost!
The witch sucked in a quick breath and said, “Uncle Ian?” She turned to her husband. “It’s my great-uncle.”
Noah squinted. “Really? I don’t see him. Hey, Uncle Ian. How’s it going?” He waved in the general direction of the entity.
Zoey studied the transparent figure. “Shit, is he really a ghost?” Right here in my own damn house. And no medium around this time. Scarlet had gone home once she knew Zoey would recover.
Daisy eyed her. “You see him?”
“Yeah.” He wore a hat and suit, much like the ones men sported in vintage TV shows. His face was somewhat hidden by the brim of his hat. His mouth moved but nothing came out. At least not that Zoey could hear.
Daisy l
eaned forward. “I can’t understand you, Uncle.” She stood, placed her coffee on a tray, and moved toward him, putting her ear close to his ghostly mouth. After a moment, she let out a frustrated grunt. “I got nothing. Bridgette?”
The redhead frowned. “I can’t hear him either. And I’m no good at reading ghost lips.” She crossed her arms and glared at Ian. “Haven’t you learned to speak up yet, you old spook?” Zoey chuckled then stifled it when Bridgette’s green eyes snapped to her for an instant.
Noah crossed to his wife when she frowned at the ghost, who was still making soundless speech. “What is it, hon?”
“I’m not sure. But the last time Uncle Ian appeared was when something was wrong.” Ian nodded frantically, then, as if something had startled him, snapped his head to one side and disappeared. “Well, shit.” Daisy focused on Bridgette and blew a noisy breath between her lips. She shook her head. “If we’re going to keep up this superhero shit, maybe we should come up with proper names.”
Zoey raised a hand. “Ooh, I’ve got it. How ‘bout Witcherines.” She grinned.
Daisy studied her with a smirk and a raised brow. “Remind me to help you when you start picking out baby names.”
Look for Desert Magick: Day of the Dead
(Book 3)
Other SynergEbooks Titles by Dana Davis:
Desert Magick: Superstitions (Bk 1)
Teadai Prophecies Trilogy
Deadly Fate: Book One of the Teadai Prophecies
Sage Truth: Book Two of the Teadai Prophecies
City of Gods: Book Three of the Teadai Prophecies