by Evelyn Snow
I was trying to be positive because I needed his help.
Before I left last night, Dylan Maddox reminded me again that the MBI would not have access to the site until every Greater World authority had finished. I wasn’t allowed to consider placing a perimeter spell. They didn’t want a replay of Wichita. My efforts to explain how what happened could have been prevented fell on deaf ears.
What did Maddox assume MBI cleaners would do when they arrived? Play hopscotch on the sidewalk until ODiN gave them the all clear? I consoled myself with the knowledge I’d get a message through in the morning. Then Maddox and his rules and regulations could square off against Sullivan Shield.
Only the bridge hadn’t reopened on schedule. Whether it was due to a simple delay or something bigger, there was no way to tell and no way of getting a message to the other side.
I’d thrown a few random spells at Wolfgang, mostly to see what would happen. The answer was nothing.
I don’t know what I expected. Until last night, it had been nothing more than a hunk of living room decor and a relic from my childhood. It would have been nice to know how it worked though. At breakfast, I’d asked Uncle Delano. He claimed he didn’t know. Even if he did, he said he wouldn’t tell me, and furthermore …
My ears were still ringing from his rant.
One thing was clear: I needed help. Although I’d heard Ecuador had some awesome zip line tours, an enforced vacation wasn’t on my calendar.
On my way to the bus stop, I’d detoured past the burned house. There’d been an SUV parked out front bearing the logo of the Montemar Fire Department. Two people in navy windbreakers picked through the ruins. They didn’t appear to be armed. There was no sign of Maddox or anyone else from ODiN. On top of all that magic, the humans were sitting ducks. Scavs wouldn’t let a badge get between them and the haul of a lifetime.
In case things turned ugly, I hung around, keeping out of sight, until the fire inspectors left. A few minutes later, a Montemar PD squad car pulled up. The uniforms were stocked with white breakfast sacks from a drive-through and tall paper cups of coffee. I left them to it and headed for the nearest bus stop.
“Morning, Evie girl!” My eyes found Gunny sitting on a bench with his feet propped on his giant duffle. He had one of his map books open on his lap and a pen in one hand. It looked as though he’d been writing across the page, using it for a journal.
“Isn’t it hard to use a map after you’ve written over it?”
“Oh, no, that’s how I remember where I’ve been. Life happens in all directions, not merely north and south or east and west.”
He turned the page and lifted the volume for me to see. It looked like any page—blues and greens and tans interrupted by black and yellow lines for highways and roads—but covered by his chicken-scratch printing. He flipped the page again, this time back one to the previous page. The writing I’d seen a moment before had vanished. He turned the page again. This time, the script reappeared. He grinned. “Neato trick, huh?”
“Good one. Next time you’re going to have to show me how you do it.”
The #14 bus lumbered to the curb, hydraulics groaning as the chassis lowered. The doors opened. When Gunny didn’t move, I shot him a questioning glance. “Are you coming?”
“Think I’ll hang here a while. You be good now.” He tipped an imaginary hat and then bent to his book once more.
I’d spent most of the forty-minute ride plus the walk to Holden’s house trying to figure out how Gunny had managed his trick.
“You should have stayed last night.” Shane Blackwood’s voice boomed from the living room archway where the two single-wides came together.
I was still perched on the edge of the sofa and didn’t know how long he’d been watching us. The eclipse had been kinder to him than his son. He looked well-rested.
When I gave him a faint smile, he added, “Tony said he ran into you last night. He should’ve brought you back with him. You missed a good time.”
Holden’s dad had been nothing but nice to me. There were moments, though, when his comments left me feeling off-kilter. Shrugging off my unease, I asked Holden, “Did you win?”
“I always win,” he countered.
“We didn’t make it easy on him.” Shane picked up a stack of greenbacks from a round table surrounded by six folding chairs. “He won fair and square. This is your share, little girl.”
Little girl? Ugh. Two words that set my teeth on edge. Gunny called me Evie girl all the time. Somehow, it wasn’t the same thing.
“Fair and square?” Holden echoed. “Nice to hear you admitting it now. Can I get that in writing?”
“Down boy,” Blackwood warned in a low tone. “I’ve had enough of your accusations.”
Holden let out a rumble that came from deep in his throat. Tension rippled through the room. Finally, Holden backed down. Something had triggered the change. Whatever it had been, I’d missed it.
I shot Holden a sharp look. He ignored me.
His dad waved the cash. It was fat enough to make me forget whatever was going on between them. “What’s up with the money?”
“Your winnings”—Holden faked a cough—“from yesterday when you staked me for the poker tournament.”
“Oh, those winnings. I forgot.” Yesterday seemed like a long time ago.
Shane Blackwood’s brows flew upward. “You must be on a roll, little girl, if you’re raking in enough to forget how much.”
Holden watched through narrowed eyes as his father crossed the floor and handed me the wad. There had to be … I thumbed the stack.
Anticipating my question, Holden said, “Five thousand.”
“Dollars? Are you kidding?” I sat there in stunned amazement. “It’s too much. I can’t.”
“Go ahead,” Holden said. “I’m good.”
“You’re serious?”
“One of these days, you’re going to realize I know what I’m doing.”
“I never said you didn’t.”
“Evie, doubt is your middle name and questions are your weapon of choice.”
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
His dad chuckled. “There’s more than one kind of magic in this evil, old world. Good thing my boy has his fair share.”
“You’d be the expert on that, wouldn’t you?” Holden shot back.
Ignoring his son’s animosity, Shane said, “Be good, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then he sauntered out of the room, Holden’s dark gaze tracking every step.
When the front door slammed, Holden rose from the floor and stretched, his pants sinking dangerously low on his lean hips.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. Go take a shower. Your smell is making my eyes bleed.”
He ran a hand through his messy hair. “What do you need my help with?”
“Dark magic and a dead wizard.”
Chapter 17
“What about this?” Holden held up an antique tire iron for my inspection.
We’d discussed the situation at the house on Mulberry. Holden agreed the risk of dark magic falling into the wrong hands was greater than any potential fallout for breaking protocol. Doing nothing would be worse.
It was almost noon now. The bridge opening was six hours late, so it wasn’t looking like I’d have backup any time soon. That meant I’d have to DIY equipment to record and document everything, release and contain the wizard’s soul, and then collect and store the dark magic where it would be safe from scavengers and thieves. Just that. And it wasn’t like I could run over to Magic Depot and pick up a few tools.
Holden’s barn was stacked to the rafters with all kinds of stuff. He was optimistic about the possibilities while I was feeling hopeless. The tire iron didn’t help. “What do you expect me to use that for?”
“The wizard.”
“Newsflash—he’s already dead—and if he wasn’t, embarking on a murder spree do
esn’t seem like a smart career move with an agent from ODiN hanging around being nosy and useless. Not to mention the fact it’s made from cold iron.”
The substance was notoriously difficult to work with and had a tendency to repel magic. Instead of smoothly prying the wizard’s soul loose from the site of his death, it was just as likely to fling him to parts unknown. “I can see it now. They’ll drag me before the Wheel. Fiona Storm will ask what happened to Dead Guy’s soul. I’ll be forced to tell her the last time I caught a glimpse, it was rounding Jupiter and heading for the outer solar system.”
“Don’t be so doom and gloom. At least you’d know which universe he was in.” He tossed the rod from one hand to the other and back again. It was about two feet long, an inch in diameter, and featured a sharp curve on one end. “You’ve got a knack for metals, which means cold iron isn’t off-limits for you like it is for other witches and wizards.”
“Okay, the tire iron is very literal, but, you’re right that it might work. I can use it to pry the wizard loose from the scene. Assuming I don’t lose him immediately, what then?”
“Store him inside.”
I blinked.
“Cold iron B&B.” Spinning the length like a wicked majorette’s baton, he added, “Then you can turn him over to whoever takes care of the souls of dead wizards. Do you know who that would be?”
“No, and thanks for illuminating even more aspects of my complete ignorance.” He’d been doing exactly that for the last hour. It wasn’t a short list, and I was down to my last nerve on the subject.
“It’s a big job,” Holden admitted as he placed the tire iron on top of a carton. “Who else is going to do it?”
“Since we’ve moved on to obligations, I should point out we might be wasting our time.”
He scrambled over a stack of boxes. “Are you worried Sullivan will show up and take away your Friendly and Helpful badge?”
“Jerk. I was ordered to check out anomalous readings at the location, nothing more.” Some might call my tone defeatist. I liked to think of it as realistic with a hint of maturity. Knowing I had to deal with the magic and the dead wizard didn’t mean my head wasn’t swirling with doubt. “The last thing I want is for Sullivan to start thinking he made a mistake siding with Devi yesterday. There’s too much I don’t know. Something will go wrong. It’s bound to happen. You know that as well as I do.”
He let out a disgusted sigh. “Evie, knock it off before your doubt monster eats you alive. Sure, you might screw up, but what’s worse? A mistake or letting scavs and sniffers fall into a mountain of dark magic? I know I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“True,” I agreed. “But what if the bridge opening is merely late, and I’m jumping the gun?”
“It won’t open any time soon,” Holden said flatly.
“How do you know?”
He smirked. “There was a raven from Castle Black.”
I snorted. “Seriously—why?”
He picked up the old journal we’d used making our first crossing. Since then, Holden had continued observing bridge behavior, adding detailed notes. “Based on past eclipses—even the full lunar variety—the bridge should have reopened a few minutes after six this morning.”
“Check.”
He ran a finger down a page, stopped on a line, and then held the open book for me to see. The calculation had something to do with the duration of last night’s eclipse plus or minus a fudge factor.
“Just tell me what went wrong.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Pretty much. I keep thinking about the purple light on the spire. It had something to do with it, but what?” He shook his head. “All I know is that something’s wrong.”
Panic coiled in my stomach. I shoved it down and said, “There has to be a reason for an extended shut down. If Kerri’s right about more business dealings between the two realms, then it’s more important than ever to stick to a schedule.”
“Exactly,” Holden agreed. “That’s what we have to go on.”
“Nothing is not anything to go on.”
“Nothing is something.”
I held up a hand. “Have you been reading 1984 again? Because I am in no mood for—”
“Think about it,” he urged. “Ballard Kepler is as squirrelly as they come, but even his detractors wouldn’t call him stupid. That bridge is his life or what’s left of it since he lost his sister. That’s why he sweats the details like no other. The pattern might be tricky to predict from this side, but it’s never random.”
“So, you’re saying he’s going to follow his schedule, weird as it is, without fail. If he’s gone off—”
“It means there’s a big problem on the other side,” Holden closed the journal and tossed it on a stack of old books, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “Remember the time the state sent Cal Guard to take control of the bridge?” The incident occurred not long after construction completed on the new bridge. Disclosure had just happened, and state authorities were terminally freaked out over a gateway to another reality in Sacramento’s backyard—a la-la land that owed nothing to Hollywood. “Ballard had the bridge closed and everything locked down a full twelve hours before the troops and Humvees arrived.”
“Was that the first time he changed the schedule?”
“I doubt it. It was the first time I noticed, though. That was back when my dad first started making regular trips across selling stuff in the Nightingale Lands. He was furious to find the bridge closed because it cost him money. That’s why I started paying closer attention.”
“How could Ballard have known the state had dispatched Cal Guard?” I couldn’t see why the long-ago event mattered.
“Who cares?” Holden countered, leaving me befuddled. “The point is that for the first twelve hours before Cal Guard arrived, the closure appeared random. In the end, it turned out it wasn’t. We’re in a similar situation now that looks random. I’m suggesting it’s not random. All we know is that we don’t know. That fact isn’t much, but it’s something, and something is always better than nothing.”
“You make my head hurt. Staying closed for a good reason is still closed. We have no idea for how long.”
“It is what it is,” Holden replied with an expression that was hard to read. “You can’t do anything about the bridge any more than the state of California could a long time ago. The difference is that you know what you have to do. The only issue left is how you’re going to do it.”
I hated it when he confused me; I hated it more when he was right.
As much as I didn’t want to deal with dark magic and the dead wizard, they’d landed in my lap. Worrying—about the bridge or Sullivan or Cassandra—was a delaying tactic, as if worrying might protect me from unwanted consequences.
“Okay.” I jumped up from the box where I’d been sitting. “No more whining. We’re doing this thing.”
Picking up the tire iron, I tested the weight of it in my hand, probing it lightly to see how the metal responded. As expected, it opened for me. Dead Guy wouldn’t like being stuck in there. It would be dark, all hard edges and little elbow room. On the plus side, the cold iron would prevent him from using magic to escape as well as prevent any other witch or wizard from extracting him—unless it was someone like me with an affinity for metals. As far as I knew, witches with that ability were rare.
I looked up, realizing Holden had been staring at me. “What?”
“Last night,” he said in a considering tone, “didn’t you think it was strange that it was the bridge tender who contacted you? Why Ballard and not Devi or Sullivan?”
“I don’t know. Add it to that list you’ve been compiling of everything I don’t know. After Wolfgang came to life, I was too busy dealing with my aunt and uncle to think about anything else.”
“The way you overthink everything, you have to have a theory.”
Guilty as charged. “So, why Ballard?” I set the tire ir
on on the floor next to my backpack. “He’s constantly monitoring the energy flows in the vicinity of the bridge. The neighborhood where the fire happened isn’t that far away from the bridge, plus he’s super careful. It makes sense he’d want someone to check it out.” I left out the part where Ballard insisted, I owed him one. I had enough unknowns to deal with already.
My theory left Holden dissatisfied. “I still think it’s weird he was the one who contacted you.”
“Weird? You’ve met Ballard. I rest my case.” Shifting gears, I asked, “Got anything I can use to document the scene?”
“How about this?” He displayed an antique hand mirror. “It’s silver-backed.”
“What would be handy is a proper Twilight Grimoire. You wouldn’t happen to have one of those lying around, would you?”
“Oh yeah, I keep them in stock all the time because who wouldn’t want ODiN and the MBI shutting down their business for dealing in contraband?” Holden made a face.
“So, you have had one in the past?” I asked hopefully. “Where did you find it?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Oh my God, you did! Why is now the first time I’m hearing about it?”
“Maybe it has something to do with the way the MBI can be the teensiest bit harsh on dealers in contraband, you know? ODiN, too. Those guys have no sense of humor. Call me crazy, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life in a dungeon or a jail cell.” Holden tilted his head, eyes wide for emphasis. “Not that I’m admitting to dealing in contraband. Because I’m not. At all. Period.”
“Got it. You wouldn’t dream of placing risky bets or taking a sketchy side gig. All those rumors about shifters working as sniffers for scavengers are nothing more than dirty lies.”
“I’m not kidding, Evie.” Holden dropped his snark. “This is serious. Everything I’m doing these days is on the up-and-up. This is important. Tell me you understand.”