Crossroads Burning

by Nash, Layla

  “She’s not contaminated,” Lucia said. Her knuckles whitened where she held the rifle. “And if she is, we’ll deal with it at home. After we clean up around the cave. And since it’s getting so fucking late, we’d appreciate it if all your people get the fuck away from here.”

  Hazel’s eyebrows arched. “Not my call, sister. He’s the boss.” She tilted her head toward Lincoln and the big man, then stepped back to watch as Lucia marched herself over to the two men.

  I still felt hollow as I watched and listened to Lucia, but she planted a seed of warmth somewhere down in the depths where my heart had been. I might not have had as much support as Luke, but Lucia was still on my side.

  She ignored Lincoln and instead squared off with the big stranger, who was at least a foot taller than her. “You’re the one who thinks you’re in charge here?”

  He folded his arms over his chest, voice so deep it practically vibrated through the air. “I’m the one who is in charge here. Can I help you with something?”

  I could practically see her hackles rise. “Nice try. You need to take your... people,” and she flicked her hand to take in Lincoln and everyone else except me. She said “people” like something we scraped out of the chicken coop. “Out of here. Immediately. You’re not welcome.”

  Lincoln cleared his throat and slid a warning look at her. “Lucia, this isn’t—”

  “This isn’t a fucking bit of your business, O’Connell. Get it?” She glittered with magic and rage, and reminded me of one of the furious hens, puffed up and clucking, when someone tried to take her eggs.

  Lincoln held his hands up and took a step back. “Okay. Choose the behavior, choose the consequences, Lucia. Good luck.”

  Montgomery Whitehouse, Lincoln’s supervisor, watched Lucia without blinking. “I believe you were trying to tell me how to do my job.”

  “No, I was telling you to get the fuck away from my sister and me. We have business to take care of and none of it has to do with you or your people.” Lucia had to back up a step so she could glare at his face instead of his chest, and Whitehouse might have smirked about it, but I knew from long experience that he was still in the danger zone.

  Heathrow marched up from where his team untied Ronan and Newton fucked around with the GPS and other gear, taking measurements and all kinds of stuff that would wrest control of the Crossroads away from us, and jabbed an accusatory finger at Lucia and me.

  “They’re both criminals, Montgomery. Those two... witches attacked this man. They claim he was a werewolf and they turned him back.” He scoffed, clearly back in the camp where such a thing was impossible. Heathrow’s lip curled as he looked at me. “And that one attacked me multiple times, and attacked my team. They have lied to us and misled our investigation, and she is—bewitching one of your subordinates!”

  Bewitching. I started to laugh, but even that sounded hollow. Once I got started, though, I couldn’t stop. I had to brace myself on Lucia’s shoulder as my knees weakened, resting my forehead against my hand, and didn’t bother to even look at Heathrow. The idea of me bewitching Lincoln... it felt so absurd it hurt.

  “Something funny, witch?” Whitehouse asked, though his tone wasn’t nearly as accusatory as Heathrow’s.

  “She’s not a witch,” Lincoln said quietly. “Not entirely. They’re bandrui, all of the Lucketts.”

  My laughter trailed off a little and I had to wipe tears from my cheeks, but I couldn’t tell what caused the tears. Maybe all of it. Lucia got indignant for me. “We’re witches, always have been. And we’re not interested in your opinion, O’Connell.”

  A muscle in Lincoln’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth and stared at her. I wished I could have read his thoughts, although I suspected he would tell me if I asked what he was thinking. “On the contrary, Lucia, your ancestor”—and he pointed at where Newton crouched over Ronan—“was a druid. Is a druid. Either way, that means you descended from a druid line. You are bandrui, not witches, although you’ve got some witch magic. There’s no telling where that came from.”

  “And coyotes,” I said quietly, staring off in the distance at where Luke and his people had disappeared. “From very far back.”

  Maybe that was why Luke’s chanting called to me, how I heard the eerie drums. Temperance had a child with her beloved warrior, so somewhere in the Luckett genes were the marks of a coyote.

  Lincoln didn’t look at me, his attention still on his boss and my sister. “Either way, this location is sacred to the tribe. Luke Mankiller speaks for them, and requested we vacate immediately. We cannot take any readings or information from this site without violating the agreement between the tribe and the federal government. He was very specific in his directions.”

  Whitehouse didn’t like it, eyes narrowed as he studied Lucia. I silently thanked Luke for having the presence of mind to tell the feds to get off his land before he left to bury Nona. I sucked in a breath as I remembered she’d died and it hit me like a punch in the gut. Again.

  Lucia slid her arm around my waist, letting me lean against her, and opened her mouth to argue more. I took the opportunity to murmur, “Save it.”

  She huffed an exasperated noise, ready to battle the impassive giant in front of her, but she pressed her lips together and didn’t start another fight.

  Whitehouse looked at Lincoln, his expression cool. “We still have a great deal to correct in your official report, it seems. I want to meet with the tribe tomorrow so we can share our condolences for the members they lost, and review any charges that need to be forthcoming in that case. We will continue this in town.”

  Before Lincoln could speak, his supervisor looked back at me. “There are a handful or more of serious federal charges levied against you. We will get to the bottom of them. If you try to run, there is nowhere in this world you can hide that I would not find you. Do not leave town.”

  And again I laughed, exhausted all the way to my bones.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, eyes narrowed still more. “Or have you lost your mind completely?”

  Lucia gave his imperious look right back to him. “The witches of Rattler’s Run are bound to the town. We cannot leave.”

  “Then that’s good news for me, isn’t it?” Whitehouse held her gaze long enough for it to be a bit of a threat. Then he turned on his heel and strode off to issue a bunch of orders to Heathrow, Newton, Ronan, and Hazel.

  Which left Lincoln in front of us and everyone else out of earshot. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure his boss wasn’t listening, then took a deep breath and reached for my arm. “Mason and Nelson are at the house guarding Olivia. She’s getting better but she’s still a little disoriented. Hazel will be able to give her a cleansing tea that should get the extra magic out of her aura and balance everything out. I need to escort Whitehouse back to town, along with those five werewolves you turned, and keep an eye on Heathrow.”

  “And Ronan,” I said. His name tasted like ash in my mouth. The rain drizzled to a halt and the sky began to clear, the stars winking overhead. I wondered where the naked former werewolves were, and if any of them remembered being human. There was no telling when they’d been turned. Maybe a few were from interesting time periods. Hopefully none were like Ronan.

  “There’s not really a reason to keep an eye on him,” Lincoln said. His head tilted as he watched me, a curious tightness in the lines around his eyes. “You completely stripped his power, Sass.”

  “I what?”

  “You stripped his power.” Lincoln’s voice lowered and he eased a step closer, his fingers warm on my arm even through the chilly clamminess of my soaked shirt. “He’ll never work magic again. It’s a small miracle he’s still alive.”

  Fitting, maybe, that he’d survived centuries only to end up a powerless druid, hamstrung by his sister’s descendant—knowing he’d been powerful but that it had been taken away by women. By bandrui. By Temperance’s granddaughters. The granddaughters of the woman he’d tried to burn, to bury, to f
orget.

  It made it easier to breathe. “Keep an eye on him anyway.”

  “I will.” Lincoln’s thumb brushed my cheek, then he straightened and called for Hazel to approach. Before she reached us, he asked, “Can you get back to your house okay? You both look…a little ragged.”

  Lucia wasn’t feeling charitable. “We feel like we got run over by a fucking semi, but thanks for reminding us we look about the same. We’ll be fine. Get your people out of here, and tell Whitehouse he can go fuck himself. Sass didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know that,” Lincoln said, his jaw clenched once more. “But it doesn’t help her case that you’re deliberately rude and antagonistic. You need Whitehouse’s help, Lucia. You want him to be sympathetic, not blind with rage. Think about that. I’ll be in touch tomorrow afternoon so we can all sit down and you can tell him your side of the story.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but Hazel had heard enough of his last comments to pick up before Lucia could jump in. “He can bring charges against all three of you, and there is a prison that will hold all of you behind walls you can never escape. So keep your shit together and figure out how to get rid of the hostility before we meet tomorrow.”

  “I can be civil,” Lucia said through gritted teeth. Not one of us believed her. It almost made me start laughing again.

  Hazel didn’t exactly look scared, but there was enough fear for us in her eyes that I started to get nervous. The witch’s lips pursed. “Just…don’t get overconfident. It isn’t always innocent until proven guilty with the bureau, okay? And Heathrow can get his people to swear statements about what you might have done, and if there weren’t any other witnesses, it’ll be your word against theirs. And I know exactly how that balance falls, and it won’t be in your favor.”

  What little energy that remained started to drain out of me.

  Lincoln must have seen it, because he nodded to the both of us and turned back to where Whitehouse oversaw Heathrow’s solicitous questioning of Ronan. They all got ready together, then Heathrow jumped with his witch and one of the naked semi-conscious strangers, disappearing into nothingness. Lincoln took Ronan and two of the strangers, Hazel flashed herself and the last two former werewolves, and left Whitehouse standing there watching us. It occurred to me I had no idea what he was—druid, sorcerer, witch, shifter... He could have been any of them, or something else entirely.

  Maybe something worse.

  We watched him silently for a long time, then Whitehouse pointed at us. “This isn’t finished.”

  I sucked in a breath to tell him it was, that we’d dealt with Ronan and avenged our ancestor, but he tore a hole in the world and stepped through it.

  Lucia cursed under her breath and released my waist, so I dropped to the ground in a heap. “He isn’t going to let this go.”

  I rolled to my back and stared up at the sky, wondering where the moon hid. “No kidding.”

  “I don’t like him.” She shook her head and limped to the cave, dragging a few stones out of the way so nothing blocked the entryway. “You got enough juice left to help with the glamour?”

  I forced myself to sit and eventually get to my knees so I could push upright. “I’ll try. We might have to get the basics done and come back in a couple of days with all three of us to do a better job. We need something new to make sure none of them can find it again.”

  She nodded and got some salt out of the backpack, setting the useless rifle down. “Then let’s do this so we can get home. You really do look like shit.”

  “You look like soggy shit,” I muttered, limping after her. “Bitch.”

  Lucia smiled with half her mouth and smacked my shoulder, her voice cracking just a touch. “I really didn’t know if you’d still be here when I got back.”

  “I know.” I sighed, feeling a thousand years old as we made a circle around the cave. “I didn’t think I would be, either.”

  She squeezed my hand and we got to work.

  Chapter 63

  Afterward, I couldn't tell anyone what happened next or for the rest of the night. Somehow we got back home and I guessed we flashed through the lines to make it there, but I didn’t remember doing it. I didn’t remember doing anything, even though I knew we must have protected the caves and cleaned up as much of the bad magic as we could have, since Lucia wouldn’t have left until it was done right. It might have been the fatigue and exhaustion, or maybe it was grief, but I didn’t mind losing those hours. They were filled with pain and grief and nothingness, wearing down to numbness, and I was better off not remembering.

  Everything was an unintelligible blur until sometime later when I woke up in my bed, my clothes a wet pile on the floor that I stepped in on my way to the bathroom. A tray on the floor just inside my door held a couple of bottles of water, sandwiches, and a bowl of lukewarm soup. Nothing else moved in the house and the sky looked pretty dark from behind the window shades, so I went back to bed after inhaling everything on the tray and leaving the dirty dishes out in the hall. It was dark outside but I couldn't have said whether it was very early or very late.

  Temperance's book had made its way under my pillow, though she didn't give me any more dreams. Everything else faded into unimportance.

  I didn't want to face the day the next time I woke and found sunlight streaming into my room. Too many difficult and unpleasant things waited—the criminal charges and Ronan and Lincoln and Whitehouse and Luke. Apologizing to Luke for Nona dying. Begging his forgiveness or at least asking if he could somehow eventually not hate me. I didn't know which made me feel sicker. Regardless, it didn't make it easy to get out of bed.

  I lay around and felt sorry for myself for a good long while anyway, and only the need to go to the bathroom and heed the call of nature finally got me moving. Then it was easier to just keep moving, even with the still-warm sheets calling me back. My bones and muscles ached with the deep burn of long days of hard work, and I creaked almost as loudly as the floorboards as I shuffled down the stairs one at a time, like a toddler or a puppy trying to navigate a terrifying drop-off. I'd made it halfway to the landing before Mason popped his head around the corner near the kitchen, and grinned at me with relief.

  "There you are," he said.

  "What time is it?" I looked around at the closed doors upstairs and the empty foyer behind him, then rubbed my eyes and took a breath. "What day is it?"

  "Four days later," Mason said, his smile never slipping. "And it's just after two in the afternoon. Are you hungry? You look hungry."

  "I'm confused, mostly." Concentrating on making it down the stairs without face-planting and breaking an arm took all of my attention until I reached the rug at the bottom, only a few feet away from him. "But also hungry. What are you doing here?"

  The tall shifter led the way into the kitchen and pointed me at the table as he went to the fridge and retrieved several containers of food. "Technically, Nelson and I are guarding you. When Whitehouse asks, that's why we're here. And we're fierce enough to scare you witches into cooperating." He leaned around the open fridge door and scowled fiercely, showing me his teeth to demonstrate. Then he winked and got a couple of soft drinks and some juice out before kicking the door closed. "But it also means we can help a bit. A lot of stuff happened while you guys have been sleeping."

  "Us guys?" I sat up, feeling suddenly awake. "Lucia and Olivia? What's wrong with them?"

  "Tired out, just like you." Mason heaped what looked like beef stew into a bowl and put it in the microwave, then started cutting bread and chopping up fresh fruit. "Olivia woke up yesterday for a couple of hours, ate her weight in pizza, then passed out again. Lucia has been up every day, spitting mad but no idea why she's so pissed off and incoherent about whatever it is that’s gotten under her skin, and she lasts about an hour before she's down for the count."

  He snorted, shaking his head. "Except she refuses to acknowledge that she's exhausted and starting to fall asleep, so she passes out in place each time. Nelson and
I carry her back upstairs every day." He slid me a sideways look as he retrieved the stew, stirred it, and put it back in the microwave. "But you... You're the one we worried about."

  "I find that hard to believe," I said. I planted my elbows on the table and rested my chin in my hands, propping myself up so I wouldn't doze off again. "You can't tell me Nelson isn't curled up in a little ball at the foot of Olivia's bed."

  Mason grinned but focused on getting the chopped melon into a bowl. "I can't speak for my brother, and I've learned not to even try. So that aside, Luckett... you just kind of disappeared. You were there, all right, breathing and moving and occasionally hollering in your sleep, but you didn't get up. You didn't smell right. You still don't smell right, but I can't explain what the difference is. Nelson and I both noticed."

  "I don't know what to tell you." I picked up one of the soft drinks he'd brought over and cracked the can, hoping the caffeine would give me a boost, and I didn't comment on the whole "not smelling right" thing. Mostly because I didn't want him to try and explain what I smelled like normally, since there was no telling how shifter noses worked. "Did Hazel have anything to say about it? I thought she was going to give Olivia something to make her better."

  "She did," Mason said. He juggled bowls and silverware on the way to the table, sliding it all over to me before retrieving a clean glass for juice. "You all got it. That's why Olivia was up longer. Hazel thinks Lucia is waking up out of sheer spite."

  "That's my sis," I said. Using the spoon took far more dexterity and concentration than I remembered, and I frowned as I fumbled it for the third time. "Damn it. What the hell is going on?"

  Mason leaned back in his chair, glancing over his shoulder as something else stirred toward the front of the house. "Hazel said there might be some side effects from using that much magic and everything else that happened during the storm. All your senses are coming back, but they don't recover at the same speed. She said to take it slow."

  "Great." I gave up on the spoon and took a deep, soothing breath. "So you and Nelson are guarding us. I'm guessing Hazel and Lincoln are still in town?"