A Kiss Before Doomsday

by Laurence MacNaughton

  Dru was so lost in thinking about Greyson that she barely noticed when she slipped into the spell. Some deeper part of her mind reached out through the crystals, out into the airy distance beyond her consciousness. Searching for him. Reaching for him.

  In the far distance, a spark of life flared bright. Greyson.

  A jolt of energy flashed through her, at once cold and unbearably hot. She gasped.

  Smoke tickled her nose. She opened her eyes to see the circle of crystals glowing like hot coals. In the center, the candle burned with a steady flame.

  Curls of smoke swirled up from the flame, changing colors as they rose. Each strand of smoke shimmered a different hue, from emerald green to ruby red, sapphire blue, and a hundred delicate shades in between.

  With ferocious intensity, Dru watched the smoke rise, scrutinizing its motions for the merest indication of a direction. Which way was Greyson? Before today, she had never even heard of this spell, and had no idea how subtle the results would be. She couldn’t afford to miss anything.

  As it turned out, this spell was anything but subtle.

  The smoke swirled around the candle flame, gathering thick enough to snuff it out. The moment the flame was gone, the smoke streaked away as if fired from a gun. It stretched out through the length of the shop, leaving a comet-like trail past the cash register, down the main aisle, and toward the front door. Instantly, the smoke slipped around the doorframe and vanished.

  Dru shot to her feet and stumbled after it, unsteady from the spell. By the time she reached the door, the smoke was long gone. There was nothing outside but a plumber’s van parked next to the empty bus stop. The smoke left no trace.

  The other two ran up and crowded in the doorway behind her.

  Rane pointed at the parked van. “So, you think he’s in there?” she asked dubiously.

  “No. West.” Dru pointed. “The smoke headed almost due west.”

  “So, maybe he’s in Lakewood?” Opal tilted her chin up and stared into the distance.

  Dru shook her head. “I don’t know how far away he is. All I know is the direction. So, he’s somewhere to the west of us. That’s a start.”

  “So he could be . . .” Opal’s brow wrinkled. “. . . in Golden?”

  “Hey, let’s try the Coors brewery,” Rane said. “Do they still do free beer tours?”

  Opal covered her face with her hands. “Oh, my God. We are never doing that again. Promise me from now on we’re keeping magic and beer tours completely separate.”

  Rane looked offended. “What? I don’t know why you’re still mad about that. We caught the monster. We got free beer. Good times.”

  “Would have been better if you’d caught that thing before it chugged down all that beer. And then you beat it up inside my car.” Opal glared at her. “I still can’t turn on my air conditioner.”

  Rane tapped her temple. “Mind over matter, dude. You just have to decide what matters.”

  “That’s enough. We need to go,” Dru said, flipping the sign over to Closed.

  “Go?” Opal said. “Where?”

  “Hello? West.” Dru headed into the back of the shop again and started deconstructing the circle.

  Opal followed close behind. “West? West? That’s not a destination. West could be anywhere. We need to try something else. Something a lot more specific.”

  “I don’t have anything else. This is it. We don’t have any other options left.” Dru carefully packed the crystals into her bag, cushioning them so that they didn’t scratch each other or the candle.

  “Hold on, honey,” Opal said, catching her eye. “Are you sure about this?”

  Rane towered over her, arms folded, looking equally unhappy.

  Dru took off her glasses and fixed them both with a serious look. “Greyson is alive. I know it. So we’re just going to have to head west and see what we can find. If you have another concrete idea, I’m all ears. Otherwise, this is it.”

  Rane met Opal’s worried look with a shrug. “You know she’s not going to give up,” Rane said. “How much gas you got?”

  Opal sighed in resignation.

  “Load up. Gas, weapons, magic amulets, whatever you can think of,” Dru said, stuffing her bag. “We have to be ready for anything.”

  15

  WHERE THE SKY ENDS

  Dru spent the rest of the warm June day trapped in the car with Opal and Rane, driving west out of Denver, past the suburbs and golf courses, through foothills dotted with horse ranches and small towns, and eventually up into the ear-popping heights of the Rocky Mountains.

  Every so often, Opal pulled off the road onto a sandy shoulder, surrounded by jagged cliffs and pine trees. There, Dru laid out the copper wire and crystals, and then focused her thoughts until she could cast the spell again.

  Each time, it was harder. She wasn’t used to casting powerful spells like this without Greyson’s presence boosting her magical power. Doing it alone, she felt as if the well of magical energy inside her was quickly running dry.

  But she had no choice. She needed to find him.

  Every time the candle went out, the smoke blew steadily west, higher into the mountains, heading directly into the clean pine-scented wind.

  Greyson was up here, somewhere. Dru was sure of it. She stared apprehensively up into the endless, unforgiving ranks of mountain peaks. Greyson, where are you?

  Only after they had gone through the tunnels that led them to the other side of the Continental Divide did Dru start to truly worry. She didn’t know how far west the smoke would lead them. It could be taking them as far as Utah. Nevada. Even California.

  Heck, Greyson could be on an island somewhere in the Pacific, for all she knew. There was no way to tell until they got there.

  Opal and Rane were apparently too busy bickering with each other to reach the same conclusion, and Dru didn’t see the need to worry them just yet. She kept staring out the window at the slowly passing mountains, trying not to let her dark thoughts push her over the edge into panic.

  How far was she willing to go?

  A small voice inside her told her that she barely knew Greyson. She had met him only a week before the Four Horsemen tried to lay waste to the world. In that time, she had barely started to figure out her feelings about him. She still didn’t know much about his past or what he was really like.

  But every time her doubts reared up, she remembered one crucial thing: he had given up everything to save her. He had offered up his soul to the Four Horsemen to give her the chance to live. And because of him, because of his bravery, she had been able to stop doomsday. At least for the moment.

  So how far would she go?

  For Greyson, she decided, as far as it took.

  She looked across the wide front seat at Opal, who caught her eye and nodded slightly.

  Opal had already figured all of this out, Dru realized. She was just waiting for Dru to come to the same conclusion.

  Heart swelling, Dru reached across the seat and put a hand on Opal’s warm shoulder, which elicited a broad smile.

  Behind them, Rane leaned forward between the seats. “What? What did I miss?”

  Dru didn’t answer. She just let Opal’s long purple Lincoln carry them higher and higher into the mountains.

  At the very next stop, the smoke changed direction. This time, it pointed up the side of a mountain. Dru looked up, breathless.

  This was it.

  As Dru packed up her crystals, Rane and Opal surveyed the mountain with different degrees of unhappiness. Stiff from so much sitting, Dru joined them. She shaded her eyes with one hand and leaned back to look up at the imposing slope of the nameless mountain.

  Even a dirt hiking trail would have been something, but there was nothing. For the first few hundred yards, the mountain offered only a steep, trackless expanse of dry brown grass and occasional scrub brush.

  Above that, the slope split off into a maze of pine-forested ridges broken by jutting brown outcroppings of rock. Far above, the
barren peak of the mountaintop soared above the trees, just one mountain among the ranks of peaks that marched off into the distance, some frosted with the last vestiges of winter snow, the farther peaks turning blue in the distance.

  “He’s up there somewhere,” Dru said, scarcely believing it herself. “That’s what the spell is telling us.”

  Opal folded her arms resolutely, shaking her head. “Uh-uh. This is not happening. Sorry, but I didn’t sign up for any outdoor adventures.”

  “You have to,” Rane said, as if it was some kind of rule. “We have to follow the smoke.”

  “Maybe Greyson is up there, maybe not,” Opal shot back. “He could be anywhere around here, and that’s a big mountain. I didn’t come all this way just to fall off of it.”

  Rane snorted and pulled her backpack out of the car. “You’ll be fine. Just watch your step.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the one wearing those steel-toed Russian clodhoppers.”

  “Cool, huh?” Rane clomped one foot up onto the bumper of Opal’s car, showing off a pair of olive-green military boots with treads that would put a Sherman tank to shame. “Got ’em on eBay. They came with a free gas mask.”

  “Okay, let’s just think about this,” Dru said, pacing between them. Then she caught sight of Opal’s apricot-colored suede open-toed sandals and their sparkling copper fringe. “Those are definitely not the right shoes for this.”

  Opal gracefully turned her ankles to showcase her shoes, making the copper fringe sparkle. “See? Everywhere I go, it’s a disco.”

  Rane rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. We all knew this was coming. I put on my camos and everything.”

  “Camo doesn’t look good on me,” Opal said indignantly. The look in her eyes said she didn’t think it looked good on Rane, either, but she didn’t say it out loud.

  “Fine,” Rane said. “You stay here. We’ll go have all the fun.” With that, she turned and marched up the slope.

  “Wait! Let me switch shoes.” Dru didn’t really want to hike, but she had no choice. Quickly, she pulled her hiking shoes out of Opal’s trunk and laced them up.

  “You go on,” Opal said, getting back into the car. “I’ll be your getaway driver, in case you come running.”

  Dru took another look up the side of the mountain slope and snorted. “There’s no way anybody could actually come running down that.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Opal said, with an air of certainty. “We’ll just see about that.”

  “Definitely not running,” Dru muttered, and set out after Rane.

  As they made their way up the mountain, Dru came to realize that keeping up with Rane was a challenge even under the best of circumstances. Hiking up the wild side of a mountain, lugging a bag full of crystals and rocks, already exhausted from casting spells, was pretty much the opposite of the best of circumstances.

  Far above, Rane stood astride a craggy boulder, silhouetted against the coppery clouds as she tilted back a bright pink water bottle and drank.

  Dru, meanwhile, struggled to make her way up the steep slope without slipping, scraping her ankle on a rock, or having her legs forcibly exfoliated by thistle.

  “I can see why people invented trails,” she muttered, panting.

  “Don’t forget to listen for rattlesnakes,” Rane called down, less than helpfully. “It’s much better if you don’t get bit.”

  By the time Dru finally reached the rocky outcropping, huffing and dripping with sweat, Rane was sitting in some kind of yoga pose, stretching.

  Dru collapsed next to her, convinced she would die before she reached the top of the ridge. “Not enough oxygen up here,” she gasped.

  “Yeah, everybody says that. I don’t know what they’re complaining about.” Rane held out a thumb-sized foil packet. “Energy gel?”

  “I’m okay,” Dru wheezed.

  Rane waved the packet at her. “You’re going to need this more than me, trust me.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” Dru took it just to keep the peace. As she focused on trying to get her breathing back under control, Rane finished stretching and sat up, watching her closely. As the seconds ticked by, Rane gradually leaned closer and closer, still watching.

  Dru shrunk away and ate the energy gel, thinking that would end Rane’s scrutiny. It actually tasted pretty good.

  But that wasn’t the problem, apparently. Rane kept leaning closer until Dru could feel the heat radiating off her muscles.

  “What?” Dru finally demanded.

  “You really think he’s still alive,” Rane said with uncharacteristic calm. It wasn’t a question.

  “I know he is,” Dru said, after she finally rearranged her thoughts. “I can feel it. Besides, I saw Hellbringer.”

  Rane shrugged and looked away.

  This time, it was Dru’s turn to stare. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Dude, you believe it, and that’s all that matters,” Rane said. “Doesn’t matter what I saw back in the netherworld.”

  With a sinking feeling, Dru asked, “And what did you see?”

  Rane brought her fists together and then burst them apart, fingers waggling. “Boom. That’s what I saw. Big-ass explosion, and Hellbringer went flipping end over end. With us inside it. Lucky for you and me, I had a good grip on you, kept you from flying out. But then I reached for him, and—” Rane abruptly stood up. Her face showing a rare glimpse of pain. “Look, you believe he’s still alive. Okay?”

  A knot of fear hardened inside Dru. “He is alive. I can feel it every time I cast that spell.” She hated how small her voice sounded.

  “Yeah, that’s cool and all but . . .” Rane paced. “I know how it is. When you want something so bad—”

  “No.” Dru shook her head. “I’m not making this up. Don’t even go there.”

  “I’ve lost friends, okay?” Rane pointed both fingers at her own chest. “Good friends. Powerful sorcerers. This thing that we do, fighting monsters, trying to keep the world safe, it’s tough. Sometimes we lose.”

  Her words stung Dru like a slap. Because in a way, they were true. She turned away, blinking her eyes as they filled with hot tears.

  “Sometimes,” Rane repeated in a low voice, “we lose. Okay?”

  “Not this time,” Dru insisted, her voice thick with emotion. “He’s alive. He’s up here somewhere. He is.”

  “Yeah. Or maybe, just maybe, that spell doesn’t work. Okay? We’ve been driving all day, and this smoke keeps changing directions. I’m just saying. We don’t know.”

  “I do know,” Dru snapped, rising to her feet. “How long have I been doing this? How many books have I read? How many crystals have I researched? You told me one time that the only way I was ever going to get anywhere in this world was if I embraced being a sorceress. Right?”

  Rane nodded, somewhat reluctantly.

  “And I’m embracing that right now.” Dru pointed uphill into the trees. “Greyson is alive. He is in these mountains. And I am going to find him.”

  As the echoes of her voice died away, she realized she was shouting.

  “I’m sorry,” Dru added, more quietly.

  “No worries.” Rane’s jaw set in a tough line. “Dude, you know I have your back. I so have your back. Right now, I’m standing on top of a freakin’ mountain for you. Okay?”

  “Okay. Right.”

  “And you know why? Because I’ve met you. I know you’re not going to give up on Greyson. I know how bad you need to find him,” Rane said. “So bad, you’re liable to dive right over your head into trouble. And someone needs to be there to watch your back and make sure you come out of this thing alive. I’ve always done that. I always will.”

  Dru bit her lip. There was an unspoken “but” in there. And it was the last thing she wanted to hear.

  “But,” Rane said finally, “at some point, somebody needs to tell you when it’s time to go home.”

  Those words hung in the thin mountain air between them, cold and unforgiving.

  Dru took off
her glasses and wiped her eyes, trying to stop from crying and not exactly succeeding.

  “Oh, D.” Rane lifted her arms for a hug.

  “Don’t.” Dru stopped her with an upraised finger. She fought to sort through the storm of emotions that ran through her. Anger at Rane for not believing her. Fear that they might never find Greyson. Shame that this was somehow all her fault. She put her glasses back on. “I’m going to cast the spell again.”

  “Again?” Rane looked surprised. “You look like you’re about ready to fall over. You sure you’re up for that?”

  “What, you have another plan? Because I’m fresh out,” Dru said, unpacking crystals from her bag. The candle was burned down to a nub.

  Rane looked up at the setting sun, shielding her eyes with one hand. “Going to get dark soon. Trust me, we don’t want to be stuck on the side of the mountain overnight. We don’t even have a blanket to share.”

  “I’ll hurry.” But the setting sun didn’t worry Dru as much as the idea that she might have exhausted her magic. If she didn’t have enough strength left to cast the spell, one last time, then she would never find Greyson.

  16

  NEVER GO HOME

  It felt like it took an hour to lay out the copper wire on the flat-topped boulder and get the crystals properly aligned. Meanwhile, the sun sank until it barely peeked over the top of the mountain. They were running out of time.

  Careful to avoid skewering her legs on the tines of the spiky yucca plants that surrounded the boulder, Dru climbed up and sat cross-legged beside the crystal circle.

  She had lost count of how many times she had cast the spell. By now, when she shut her eyes and focused, she could practically see each differently colored crystal through her closed eyelids. But her energy was at an all-time low, and part of her balked at the idea of trying to summon it up again.

  She took a deep breath of the painfully thin air and concentrated, clearing her thoughts of everything except trying to find Greyson. She let go of her anger, her doubt, the fiery ache in her tired legs, her worries about the vanishing sun. She acknowledged each of those thoughts and willfully set them aside.