“Then, I’m going, too,” Winter said. “You might need some muscle in the Old West.”
Colt stood, a gentle shimmer of red-copper light spilled from his eyes as he focused on the flow of time, determining where to get the best grip.
Julia said, “You’re not leaving me behind this time. If you’re taking Colt, you’re taking me as well. I have my gun and everything.”
“It’s not that I’m taking Colt,” I said. “He’s taking me. Without his power…”
A wash of red-copper light swallowed us all. We were in an energy vortex with spinning walls, falling, not so much moving through a portal as being violently tossed across time and space.
My inner dragon woke up for the show, watching me from the back shadows of my mind. He said: Wouldn’t it really be funny if you wiped out the future and we had no place to return to?
Funny isn’t what I’d call it. I’d better be on my best behavior.
My dragon yawned, showing me jagged teeth. Knowing you, we’re probably doomed.
The vortex spit us out in the middle of desert. We hit, rolled, cursed, and picked ourselves up, except for Colt who always landed lightly on his feet. I wished I knew how he did that.
Angie dusted off her red dress, growling over a few rips. “You couldn’t have let me change into some sturdier clothes and shoes first?”
Ignoring the comment, Colt said, “We’re there, the Beale Wagon Road.”
Winter said, “That would put us sometime just after 1857. Hey, look!” He pointed across some rough terrain, at a dirt road where a couple wagons had stopped, one with a busted rear axil. Two men were puzzling over how to fix it. There were women folk by a campfire, and three kids, one a boy. The people wore plain clothes. The men wore guns. Some oxen were there to pull the wagon, and some saddled horses for riding were tied up.
“None of them have noticed our arrival. Given the flashy way we arrived, that surprises me,” I said.
Colt smiled. “I’m bending light, like a mirage, throwing our images elsewhere so they don’t see us. I’m a strategist, too.”
“So, what’s about to happen here?” Angie asked.
Colt said, “A mixed bunch of Indians led by a Mohave medicine man will be riding by soon. These people will be killed. Later, travelers will bury them in a wash where the digging is easier. Floods will move the bodies and rebury them where Cleo’s Mom is building her house.”
“Uh, Colt?” I stared at my son until he looked me in the eyes. Which wasn’t long.
“Yeah?” he said.
I kept my tone mildly curious. “Where’s Julia?”
Winter swung around, scanning for the child he hadn’t realized was missing.
Some detective you are.
SIXTEEN
“I do the things madmen only
dream of, and I do it with style.”
—Caine Deathwalker
“I didn’t bring her,” Colt said,
I stared at him. “Why not?”
“I didn’t want her to see these people die.”
Colt continued to avoid my eyes during the explanation. I figured I’d only gotten half of the truth. “What’s your other reason? You know she’s going to be mightily miffed when we get back. And she’ll blame you.”
“Let her. I came to your time to change a few things. She needs to know she’s not the boss of me.”
“Back up,” Winter interrupted. “You said these settlers are going to die, but we’re here. We can save them.”
“Can we? That will change time,” Angie said. “I feel sorry for them, but what if their deaths are necessary in some grand design of the cosmos? Wouldn’t we be messing that up?”
Colt looked at her. “You asking me?”
Winter said, “Letting them die violates my prime directive, to protect-and-to-serve, but if we have to…”
“We don’t have to,” I said. “They can be saved. But we’ve got to do it a certain way or it’s no good.”
Angie narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m listening.”
“First, we fix that axil, and get them on their way. Second, we say fuck you to the universe, and chose not to care about the consequences. If there’s a God with a capital Gee, he will compensate. The design will find another way to achieve whatever is important. And if there is no intelligent design, nothing’s messed up. That means I should do just the hell whatever I want.”
Winter looked at Angie. He shrugged. “Actually, that makes a strange kind of sense.”
“His logic is as scary as his irrational impulses,” she said. “I don’t know which to fear more.”
As if logic can’t itself be an irrational impulse. I sighed. “Why does everybody always have to bust my chops?”
“Welcome to my world,” Colt said.
“I wasn’t done numbering my plan of attack, guys,” I held up three fingers. “Colt, while Winter and I distract them, find the Eyes of Bastet and hang onto them. Use that light-bend thing you do to keep the settlers from seeing you.”
“I’ll try, but there’s a temporal cloud here, an interference that’s keeping me from seeing the near future.”
“Sounds like the relic is magically hiding itself, but you can probably pierce the veil once we’re right there,” I said.
Colt shrugged, sounding doubtful. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“Hey, you’re leaving me out!” Angie said.
I held up four fingers. “Colt is going to hide you, too.”
“Why, you think I can’t figure out how to fix a wagon? I’ll have you know I have a finely trained legal mind.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but for the eighteen-hundreds, you’re dressed like a whore d'oeuvre.”
She glared at me. “A what?”
“Tasty crumpet. Soiled dove. Lady of the evening. A wet-dream walking…”
She looked down at her hip-hugging, plunging, vee-front party dress. “Oh, right. Okay, I can see where they’d get the wrong idea. Things could get awkward.”
I smiled at her. “Besides, you’re our secret weapon. I want you on the trail, ready to intercept those Indians if they get here too soon. A werewolf in a red dress will scare them away; Indians are a superstitious lot. If nothing else, smelling wolf will spook their horses into running.”
“I am not going to turn wolf and run around in this dress. It will get ruined!”
“A half-turn is better, a cross between woman and wolf. You’ll want the dress. If they mistake you for a common wolf, well, they kill those and use the hides, remember. You could even get sold to a skin-walker. Imagine that, the same skin letting a walker be a hot female lawyer, or a wolf. Talk about options.”
“But if Colt is bending light, they’ll never see me,” Angie said.
“Yeah, but there’s magical interference. What if Colt loses the cloaking field at an inopportune moment? Your choice. Do what you want. Just growl loud and let their horses smell you.”
A sour smile settled on her face. “Fine I’ll half-morph and wear the dress. If we have to jump suddenly back to Vegas, that won’t stand out at all.”
“An over-sized wolf would stand out just as much,” Winter said, “and probably cause more of a panic. People seeing a wolf-lady in a slutty dress will only think you’re part of a movie shoot.”
Angie’s eyes flared wide. Her mouth opened in shock. “Slutty dress? I thought you liked this outfit.”
There was amber heat in his stare. “I do. I’ve been wanting to rip it off you ever since I first saw you in it.”
Colt pointed at me. “Guys, there’s a child present. Let’s focus.”
I resented his implication, but he was right. “We need to hurry. The Indians are coming.”
Colt said, “And I feel something looking at me that I can’t see.”
“Let’s go.” I led the way across the rough, broken ground, watching out for rattlers that bite, and gopher holes that could turn an ankle. Colt stayed by my side. Winter brought up the rear. Angie delayed following. She needed tim
e to shift half her DNA into a wolf-like state, and didn’t want to do that near the wagons where the animals would hear and smell her.
I murmured to Colt. “When we get close, drop the light-bend thing off Winter and me, but don’t scare the settlers. Wait until they’re not looking our way.”
He murmured back. “Gotcha.”
With my dragon hearing, I caught occasional grunts, gasps, groans, and soft snarls as Angie changed. She’d have to leave her red “fuck me” heels behind, but her altered feet would be a lot better on this terrain. Getting closer to the wagons, we went with more care, staying silent as possible. Fortunately, we moved into the wind so our scents didn’t precede us.
We waited on the trail. In a moment, when nothing looked our way—except maybe the Eyes of Bastet—Colt nodded, his signal that Winer and I could be seen.
Colt left us, going toward the back of the broken-down wagon. If the Eyes weren’t there, he’d have to hit the second wagon next.
I called out in a friendly voice that I channeled off of old western movies. “Hey, there. Seems like you fellas dun run into a passel o’ trouble.”
Everyone swung our way, staring. Weapons came up reflexively. When they saw we were unarmed, making no threatening moves, they relaxed. The rifle muzzles lowered a bit, but didn’t completely move away from our vicinity. One of the men was big, broad-shouldered, with leathery-bronze skin, and a hard stare; a man forged by harsh wilderness and perilous times.
He took a couple steps our way and rested the heel of a palm on the butt of a .44 Colt in a western holster. The holster was tied down. He asked, “Where’d you folks come from? This is the middle of nowhere, and I don’t see no horses. That’s usually a death sentence so far from civilization.”
I think that was his way of asking if we were going to try and steal their horses. I jerked a thumb, pointing along my backtrail. “We have a prospecting camp that way. Found a little silver and turquoise, but not much gold in the dirt.” I looked up in the sky where three black turkey vultures floated on the hot winds. “We noticed the birds eyein’ you, and thought we’d see if we could help.”
Those birds are going to lead the Indians straight here.
The big man gazed up at the vultures, then back at me. “Makes sense. And you don’t have the wear-n-tear that says you’re on the run from anyone. Sorry to be so suspicious, but these are wild lands. Better safe than sorry.” He came closer and held out his hand. “I’m Obadiah Sackett. My family is with me.”
We shook hands. Winter shook the man’s hand next.
Sackett nodded to the other man. “That’s Clay Poole. His family has the other wagon. Clay stayed to help when the rest of the train went on, short on water.”
“I’m Caine,” I said. “My friend is Ever-hard.”
The ex-detective glowered at me. “That’s Eberhard. Eberhard Winter. Ex-lawman.”
Clay nodded and spit a stream of tobacco onto the parched ground. A black-shelled scorpion flinched aside and headed another way. “Yeah, you got the look of a man that’s carried a badge.”
I looked at the wagon with the detached wheel. I don’t think any of the settlers noticed the little shimmer of red-copper light that played over the split wood, drawing it back into shape, fusing the cracks and splinters into place again. The same light warmed a broken piece of hub, fixing it as well.
I said, “I don’t see the problem. Seems to me you could put that wheel back on and just drive on out of here.”
Clay went all bug-eyed. “What? Are you blind or stupid? That there axel is as busted as—”
I walked to the wagon and picked it up by the corner using my dragon-born strength. Winter followed, picked up the wheel, and slid it on. He turned to Sackett. “You’ll have to put the hub back together. Not my line of work.”
Obadiah Sackett came over, got down on one knee, and looked a long time at the axel. He shook his head, as if waking from a dream, and got to work. When he finished, I set down the wagon. The settlers continued to stare at me.
Sackett said, “There’s something not quite natural about you two.”
One of the women came up, herding two children in front of her. She clutched a worn black bible in her hands. There was a feverish light in her eyes. She whispered loudly to the men. “’Course they ain’t natural. They always come in twos, sent by Providence. Where’s your manners? They done us a good turn. Show some gratitude!”
Winter smiled at her. “Don’t think anything of it. You folks still have a long trail ahead. You should get moving before more adversity comes along.”
The woman reached out a shaky hand. “Wait, before you go, do me one favor, and say a blessing over my children.”
Winter backed up, looking at me. “Go ahead.”
Oh, you ripe bastard! I’ll get you for this.
I looked down at a girl and boy, roughly the same ages. I reached out, a hand on each of their heads. I drew golden dragon magic from my core and channeled it to my hands. A soft, heavenly glow crowned them. I didn’t try to do anything with the magic, just let it dance on them, but I noticed that their blue eyes went green, then yellow.
Damn. There goes the temporal stability of the multi-verse. I willed the eyes to go back to normal. Double damn. Can’t fix it.
I cut off the magic. The glow died. Their eyes darkened to an antique gold tint. I stared hard. “Listen to me. It isn’t easy to be marked, to be different, and have more common folk wondering about you. Whispering. A life is open to you that should have ended here. Be strong! Others will need that strength.”
“Did you bless them, or curse them!” Clay demanded.
“Sometimes,” Winter said, “one can look an awful lot like the other. It takes a discerning heart to know the difference.”
I said, “Indians are coming. Reload the wagon and get out of here.” Clay and Sackett understood that. They got to work with a vengeance. I caught the woman as she was about to go and put out the fire. “Hey, wasn’t there another child here before?”
She turned back to me. “No, we have only the two among us,” a sly expression crossed her face, “but another child wouldn’t be unwelcome.”
I offered her a weak smile and a lie. “I’ll, uh, see what I can do.”
She smiled and hurried off.
Winter strolled up to me. “There was a third child, a girl. She had dusky skin, maybe Mexican. These people don’t seem to know she was travelling with them.”
“Maybe Egyptian. The Eyes of Bastet had to be carried to this country by someone.”
“Someone who doesn’t want to be found,” Winter said.
I said, “Makes sense if she’s the Voice of Bastet in this timeline.”
He drew in a deep breath. “There is a strong scent of bobcat.”
“Could be leopard. Do you know the difference?”
He shook his head no. “I don’t meet many wereleopards. The Prides of our time have traits that are more from domesticated cats.”
“No such thing,” I said. “House cats only pretend to be tame until their so-called owners aren’t around.”
I walked along the rough road, getting some distance from the wagons and settlers. Colt faded in. He said, “I’m bending light. The kids just saw you vanish into thin air. At this point, I don’t think it matters.”
“What about the missing girl?” Winter asked.
“And did you get the Eyes?” I asked.
“No, and no. She’s using them to hide from me. At times, I can almost see a shadow moving off to the side. I turn, and there’s nothing there, except I know there is. Anyway, she’s gone now. I spotted some tracks heading off into the desert. I hope she’ll be all right.”
I nodded. “The Eyes won’t feed her, or keep the sun off her, but they might show her where to go to stay alive. Cat shifters do eventually show up in Sacramento, Kat’s ancestors.”
“So, what do we do about the missing girl?” Winter asked. “Especially if she doesn’t let us find her?”
&nb
sp; I shrugged, listening to the wagons moving off at last. “It might not matter that we didn’t get the actual eyes. All we have to do is go back and put word out that we did recover them. The skin-walker’s thinking we have them is just as good as us actually having them, so far as laying a trap is concerned. We can probably manufacture a fake and imbue it with enough magic to make it feel authentic from a distance.”
Colt stared at me a little desperately. “But the girl. She might die. And I’m the one who drove her off. It will be my fault, like I killed her.”
I lifted my brows. “And?”
He frowned at me. “We’re staying until we find her, or I know she’s somewhere safe.”
I looked at Winter.
He glared back at me, looking just as determined.
If Colt went off on a tangent, there wasn’t much I could do. He had the leverage since I needed him to get back to my time. Also, I knew better than to give an order to subordinates that wouldn’t be obeyed. I didn’t want to start that precedent.
I sighed. “Fine, but don’t you think we should deal with these Indians first?”
Light stopped bending, making Angie visible on the road. She was humanoid, covered with reddish brown fur, with her knees turned backward as she stood upright in her lovely red dress. Coming straight at her, galloping down the road on their mounts, were six Indians. The one in the lead was a Mohave Indian, distinctively painted with white bands up his limbs and torso. He grimaced at Angie, flailing his horse savagely to keep it moving against its better instincts. The Indian intended to ride her down.
“Not as scared as I’d hoped,” I said
SEVENTEEN
“Why do people, who aren’t me, have
to use so much magic all the time?”
—Caine Deathwalker
Winter and I ran toward the confrontation.
Angie leaped over the lead horse, using his screaming, foam-flicked head as a stepping-stone. She slammed into the white-banded Mohave Indian, sweeping him backwards. They fell over the rump of the horse, tumbled to the dusty trail, and rolled to avoid the pounding hooves of other horses. From their fearful squeals and rolling eyes, none of them wanted anything to do with a wolf in a red dress.
Moonstone Shifter (Demon Lord Book 8) Page 13