More Than Magic (Books of the Kindling)

by Donna June Cooper

  Nick dove sideways. He slammed into the ground hard on his back and reached for his gun. Annie, eyes wide with surprise, snapped off a shot even as she stumbled sideways. Nick’s gut caught fire and his fingers suddenly felt like thick sausages, but he managed to fire a round in Annie’s direction just as someone fired a shotgun. He didn’t wait to see if he had managed to hit her, but started crab-crawling backwards into the rocks then fired two rounds in Mitch’s general direction when he had some cover. He would have preferred to nail Boyd, but his vision was already starting to blur.

  “Hellfire and damnation! Didn’t ya search him?” Annie screeched. “Who knows what else he’s carryin’! Get in there and—”

  There was more gunfire, and rocks splintered above him on the outcropping. He tried to push himself backward into the crevice faster, squeezing off a few more shots. It was only when he ran into the rocky dead end in front of the lab door that he looked down and saw the blood. Damn.

  He had forgotten what it felt like to get shot. And that had been a leg wound. This felt like the damn bullet had ricocheted around inside him. Shit shit shit. He had to get somewhere safer before he lost enough blood to pass out right here.

  Should’ve been wearing your other vest. The nice bullet-stopping one.

  The edges of his vision started to go gray. He grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it on his face. The heat had ebbed into pounding pain now and his legs and arms felt numb and heavy. Stay awake, McKenzie.

  There was more gunfire and yelling. His head wasn’t clear enough to figure out why they were still shooting and yelling at him. He might manage to hit someone if they came around the rocks straight at him. But that was doubtful.

  Dying in a hospital bed sounded real good about now.

  Stop it, Nick! Remember, you want to see Grace again. He shook his head to clear it and managed to focus on the door of the lab. The entire cave entrance, small as it was, had been boarded up a long time ago and a regular door set into the wall. And your Nan and your mom and Alison—you want to see them all again. A dim light glowed in the dark recesses. And you want to see the Taggarts off Grace’s mountain and in a Federal pen. Or dead. Dead would be good. The air that blew out was moist and oddly warm on his face, but damn, it smelled of meth, the stuff of his nightmares.

  It can’t hurt you any more than it already has. Get in there. Move!

  He gritted his teeth, willed strength back into his limbs, and rolled in the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Grace discovered that everything really did seem to go in slow motion when horrible things were happening. But it was a strange slow motion. Some things stretched out forever, while others sped by too fast.

  Nick threw himself down too slowly, but it surprised Old Annie, who stumbled sideways as she fired. Grace’s finger seemed to take eons to pull the trigger with Old Annie Taggart in her sights and Old Annie went to her knees with fluffy white holes in her stupid puffy coat.

  Annie had shot Nick.

  Grace saw the bloom of dark red at Nick’s waist—soaking through his clothes as he crawled for cover, shooting at where Annie had been, shooting at Mitch. Annie was behind cover now, but Mitch went down with a squeal.

  Grace ran out of the trees where she had taken position—too damn far for her buckshot to do much damage. The closest cover was in the outcropping above them, but getting up there would have taken far too long.

  Nick was crawling backwards toward the rocks, but he wasn’t moving fast enough and Boyd was taking aim.

  Sliding to a stop in the snow, Grace took a shaky deep breath to steady her aim, and fired in Boyd’s direction.

  Boyd flinched before he pulled the trigger. His slug ricocheted off the rocks. He spun around and looked up where she stood, bringing the shotgun to bear on her as she took fresh cover. Mitch had clambered back to his feet, running to his grandmother, who was up and leaning against the rocks. She could see blood on all of them, but couldn’t tell how badly they’d been hurt.

  There was another shot from inside the rocks, then only the muffled echoes of the gunfight all around them.

  Nick was safe behind the rocks. Probably in the cave. Still breathing. Still bleeding.

  She couldn’t fight the three of them to get to him. But she couldn’t leave him there with all of them outside like that. If he passed out—

  She heard Daniel’s worried voice from this morning. “You both go missing in the storm, without a trace.”

  Grace pulled the shotgun strap tightly over her shoulder, and lunged into the trees. Oh, I’ll leave a trace all right.

  “Get her!” Annie yelled at Boyd.

  A slug struck a tree nearby, sending splinters and bark splattering in the snow.

  She ran, not looking back. She could hear Boyd behind her, breathing hard, his feet thudding on the fresh snow.

  Nick was shot. He was bleeding. He might be bleeding out on a cold cave floor with no one there to—

  She stumbled and slid and nearly fell. Focus, Grace. She pushed off of a tree and looked around as she ran. She considered dropping the backpack, then thought better of it. She’d need the supplies in it. If she couldn’t make it to Nick with the pack—No, she didn’t want to think about that possibility.

  Remember what you told Jamie. Nick will be fine.

  It was snowing harder now. The snow that made it through the bare canopy hissed all around her. The forest was getting darker. She wondered what time it was. How long before the sheriff and his men arrived? How long before an ambulance could get up here in this weather?

  “Princess!” Boyd called out between pants in an eerie sing-song. “Come on Princess.”

  But underneath Boyd’s taunt was other music—the mountain’s music. A rhythm that she felt like a second heartbeat.

  Another shot, this time he didn’t even hit a tree or anything close to her. Every time he fired, he had to stop. He was falling behind fast. Even with the pack, she could stay ahead of Boyd Taggart. Pops had seen to it that all of them were able to move quickly in these woods with a well-balanced pack. She might not win a race, but with Boyd’s lack of stamina, and possible buckshot wound, she could win this one.

  But she had another advantage over Boyd. She knew this mountain like her own body and she knew exactly where she was. And the mountain knew her—she was sure of it now. It was singing to her, urging her on. She clambered up an incline and slid down the other side, then left and around some brush, then right again.

  She could lose him easily, but something told her to head straight for the ginseng bed. She did, listening to the mountain’s song instead of Boyd’s.

  How long could Nick last back there? What if they got through the door and he was too badly hurt to fight back? What if he was out of ammo? Or if Annie followed through on her threat to use explosives?

  Remember what you told Jamie. Nick will be fine.

  But she needed to get back there. If she had to, she would take them out one at a time, starting with Boyd.

  There was a muffled curse from behind her. Further back this time, but still too close. She wanted to stop, take cover, and shoot him as he approached, but something pushed her to keep running.

  And the mountain sang beneath her feet.

  At first there had been a lot of yelling outside the door. Whenever it sounded like anyone was getting close to it, Nick took a shot. Eventually they stopped trying.

  He hadn’t heard Boyd’s voice though. And he couldn’t remember shooting at Boyd. Then again, everything was getting a little fuzzy. Like all the down feathers he’d found stuck to his hand when he reach down to check for the wound. Tiny feathers and blood. Annie was going to think she nailed a goose.

  She clipped the bottom of your vest. The one that wasn’t meant for bullets.

  He wasn’t doing very well. If there was any chance at all that he could survive this, which he doubted, he needed to get out of the middle of the floor and away from the door. But he really did not want to move. The voices in h
is head kept disagreeing with him, and he desperately wanted them to shut up.

  The idea of rolling over on his stomach to attempt to crawl really didn’t appeal. He would most likely pass out from the pain. However, since Annie planned to plug up this place using explosives, given the choice, he’d rather be out cold for that experience.

  He managed to holster his gun, then pushed with one elbow and slowly tried to roll up onto his side.

  For a moment, his leg refused to budge and he wondered, just briefly, if she had clipped his spine. No, he remembered kicking the damn door shut. Dammit. Move!

  And somehow he was on his side, the edges of his vision going white and blurry. “Shit. Shit.” He pictured Old Annie’s expression when he took that stupid pearl-handled gun of hers and shot her with it. That helped. But not much.

  Finally he just fell over onto his face on the filthy floor, his hands under his chest. Damn. It smelled like the worse meth lab nightmare he had ever had.

  Don’t throw up, Nick. You wouldn’t like the feeling. No. Not at all. Not with a hole in my belly. Move while you can.

  Tucking in his hands, he dug in his elbows and crawled, just like back in training, aiming for the wall he could see at the back of the cave. But his legs weren’t cooperating. He was dragging his entire body along with his arms, and every time he dug an elbow in, he grunted through the pain.

  He had to stop and rest twice before the top of his head finally hit something. With an effort he looked up. Wood. He had managed to reach something made out of wood across the back of the cave where the ceiling would eventually reach the floor. Someone had built shelves here. Nothing on them, though. Only junk and dust. Ages worth of dust. This wasn’t part of the lab. It looked like it had been here when they had distilled moonshine.

  Something burned in his eyes. He wiped at them and realized it was sweat dripping down his face. It was a lot warmer back here, away from the drafts at the door.

  Should he roll over on his back again, or stay like this? He almost laughed. These are the big issues in your life, McKenzie. Die on your face in the dirt or die on your back in the dirt.

  He could try to sit up. Dammit. If someone came in that door, he wanted to shoot them before they could even see him.

  Now that he was looking away from the light shining in under the door, he could see that he had come right up against the corner where the cave wall met the shelves. There was a slight angle to it where he could tuck in. If Annie tried to bring down the ceiling, the tall bookshelf might offer some protection. But how would he pull himself up into that corner? And even if it worked, then what?

  Squinting, he realized there was something leaning there next to him. He reached out and touched it. Smooth twisted wood, with a rubber tip on the bottom and something that glinted silver at the top. A walking stick? Probably the one Mitch had left behind. Didn’t matter. With the wood curling upward, it was a perfect way to get himself vertical.

  He reached for the first twist, braced himself, and pulled up.

  Grace scrambled up the steep embankment and thought about the rocky outcropping where the Taggarts had hidden their lab—the cave. There was a cave on her mountain that she had never seen. A cave the Taggarts had known about for decades.

  Pops had always told her to stay away from what he called Taggart land, but really it was her land. Woodruff land.

  That cave was hers. And Nick was in it. And Nick was going to be fine.

  “Prin-cess!” Boyd sing-songed again as if they were playing hide and seek. But she could tell he was badly winded.

  Why hadn’t she trusted her instincts and told Nick her doubts about Annie? Why hadn’t she trusted her gift?

  Because she hadn’t been able to trust her own senses, much less anything or anyone else. And Nick wasn’t even Nick. He was some other Nick. A DEA agent. Dying on a cave floor on her mountain.

  But he was her Nick. His last name didn’t matter. He had a Nan who embroidered handkerchiefs with his initials—his real initials—and a sister named Alison. She knew he hadn’t lied about them. She just knew. And she knew that he cooked wonderful Italian food and he was good with kids and dogs. She knew him in a way that she had never known anyone else. She knew the taste of him, the feel of his hands on her. His last name didn’t matter.

  Just when her pace started to lag behind the mountain’s steady rhythm, a familiar rock formation appeared through the trees. She stumbled and slid, but staggered on. She was safe here. She had always been safe here.

  Grace ran up to the edge of the huge ginseng bed, then followed the well-worn path around the edge to the rock formation. The gold-leaved plants were only gray mounds in the snow now.

  She pulled her hood tight around her head and slid into the rocks, covering as much of her face as she could. Against the rocks she should be nearly invisible. She pulled up her shotgun, loaded another shell, and aimed.

  No one but Pops had ever been here with her, and it made her sick to think of Boyd Taggart stepping into this place. But the idea of any of the Taggarts spending another moment on this mountain made her shake with anger.

  And she was shaking—all over. Between the adrenaline and the cold and the exertion, she couldn’t stop.

  She strained to listen for the sound of Boyd approaching.

  Maybe he’d given up. Maybe, like everyone else, he’d gotten lost trying to find this place.

  Then she heard his awkward progress in the distance, out of step with the mountain’s rhythm. He was panting hard, out of breath, and stumbling in the snow.

  It was like some horrible nightmare—running through the woods followed by a monster. A monster who’d tugged her hair as a boy and called her “Carrots”. A monster who had been making drugs on her mountain and was trying to kill her.

  The next sound she heard made her stand up out of hiding.

  An inhuman shriek, long and drawn out like a woman’s scream. But it was no woman. The painter had followed Boyd up the mountain. It hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. The old cat knew his prey was weakening, slipping and sliding in the snow, gasping for breath. Then there was a very human scream that was cut off all too quickly.

  Grace took gulping breaths of cold air and tried not to think of what the big cat was doing to Boyd. He would have killed her. And then he would have gone back after Nick.

  Nick.

  She turned to run back toward the lab, but slipped on the snow. She fell to her knees and the shotgun dropped from her grasp.

  Her knee stung where she had slammed it against a rock and for a moment she saw stars. She blinked, rubbing at her knee, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The stars flashed in time with the music building beneath her feet.

  They looked like fireflies in a winter snow storm, dancing and glowing in the warm currents from below.

  Warm currents rising from the cave. Her cave.

  Tink pointing down at her feet. At the cave. “You can fix it, Dr. Grace.”

  She gingerly got up and walked to the edge of the crevice. The blinking lights had disappeared, but she thought for a moment of how far she had gone in that cave, how long she had explored, and the direction those twists and turns had taken her, then looked in the direction of the Taggarts’ cave.

  It wasn’t their cave. It never had been. It was the far end of her cave.

  She picked up the shotgun, made sure the safety was on, and lowered it by the strap into the crevice below. Then she turned around and clambered down, making sure she and her pack would fit.

  Just as when she was a child, she felt welcomed and safe. Even with snow sifting down into the crevice from above and the cave entrance looming pitch black at her feet, she was more certain of that than ever. The old magic would get her to Nick faster than running back down the mountain, because Nick was at the other end of this cave.

  All the safety lectures about caves that she had ever given Jamie went through her head as she knelt down in front of the opening. But she couldn’t do this by th
e book. She had to trust her feelings and do it. Nick was bleeding. The old magic had led her here. The old magic would lead her through.

  Grace yanked her backpack off and pulled out the first-aid kit, getting the headlamp she kept in there. She threw back her hood and adjusted the lamp over her hat. There was a crank flashlight in the pack and glow sticks if she needed them, plus the small flashlight in her pocket.

  She checked the safety on the shotgun again and attached it to her pack. Chances were she’d have to leave something behind somewhere, but she would make that decision when she came to it.

  Taking a deep steadying breath, she switched on the headlamp, shifted the pack out in front of her and pushed it through the opening. Then she crawled through after it, and, as she remembered from years before, it widened out and sloped downward.

  Closing her eyes, she reached. In the warm dark, she could hear and feel the mountain thrumming in the rocks around her. Far beyond, she could hear the faint throb of Nick’s heart inside it—beating in counterpoint. He was in pain and weak, and his heart was beating too fast, but it was still beating. She held on to that connection and moved forward as fast as the cave would allow.

  “Sing to Nick,” she said. “Tell him I’m coming.”

  Nick knew he should lie down, but he was determined to stay upright as long as he could. He had managed to wrap himself around the walking stick, propping his chin on one twist and using another to steady his gun arm.

  There was a noise, but not from the door. This time it came from the ceiling.

  “Mr. Revenuer Man.” It was Mitch’s whiny voice, calling down through one of the ventilation holes.

  Nick peered up and spotted the other holes in the cave roof. Large enough for ventilation, but not large enough to drop anything substantial through.

  “If you’re still alive down there, Memaw wants to tell you somethin’.”

  Nick stayed quiet.

  “Boyd’s got Miss Grace out in the woods, havin’ some fun with her afore he brings her back for us,” Mitch relayed gleefully.