Elizabet was waiting for her in the bathroom, standing by the counter, when she emerged again. Kayla accepted the wet paper towel from her and wiped her face, then rinsed her mouth out with water from the sink.
“I think I’m okay now. It was just an awful shock, that’s all.” Kayla dried her face with another paper towel. “I want to go see Billy.”
The woman at the front desk directed them to Room 416 in the children’s ward, where Billy was staying.
Walking through the children’s ward was harder than she’d thought it would be, with sudden pain and shock pummeling at her from behind every closed door, striking without warning. She walked stiffly beside Elizabet, tense and wary, waiting for each new assault on her senses.
Elizabet placed her hand on Kayla’s shoulder as they walked down the corridor, a warm touch. A wave of calm flowed over her, holding the shrieking pain at bay. Kayla stopped, looking up at Elizabet in surprise.
“It’s an old trick,” Elizabet said, and then she smiled. “I’ll teach it to you sometime.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise,” Kayla said as they stopped in front of Room 416. “Damn,” she said without thinking about it.
“What?” Elizabet asked.
“He’s asleep. We probably shouldn’t wake him up.” She pushed through the door anyhow, wanting to see how he looked.
Billy was lying on his back, breathing steadily. An IV needle ran to his left arm, clear fluid dripping into the plastic line. He looked very young, asleep and in a hospital gown, not at all like the tough guy that had taken care of Kayla and Liane for so many weeks.
Even from the door, she could sense the steady beating of his heart, the torn muscle slowly knitting itself back together in his leg. Kayla backed out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. “He’s okay,” she said. “I’d like to come back here later, though, when he’s awake. And I want to ask the nurses if Liane’s been here. I haven’t seen her since … since what happened last night, and she’s probably scared out of her wits.”
The nurse, when asked, only shook her head. No one other than Kayla and Elizabet had even called to check on Billy Johnson, except for an officer from the Detective Headquarters Division.
“Liane … that’s your other friend, who ran away from the foster home with you and Billy?” Elizabet asked. “I think we should call the police to go pick her up, Kayla. It wasn’t safe for the three of you, living on the streets together—it’s far more dangerous for her, now that she’s alone.”
“You’re right,” Kayla admitted, and told her about Suite 230, the abandoned office building where they’d been living. She felt like a traitor, telling Elizabet about their secret hideaway, but just the thought of Liane alone, without Billy to protect her from people like Nick, was terrifying.
I just hope she’s okay… .
Kayla was silent on the drive back to Elizabet’s house, thinking about Liane and life on the streets. It had been so easy for her to get used to the idea of living in a house instead of a trashed office building, to hot showers and clean clothes and good food. Sure, they’d survived just fine on their own, but it wasn’t anything she wanted to go back to. At least, not now.
Besides, she couldn’t go back to what they’d been. She was different now, with this strange magic simmering inside her, twisting her mind with pain and power.
The sun was setting, turning the hills to shadowy outlines, as Elizabet drove into the driveway of her house. In the house, she went to the guest bedroom and sprawled out on the bed. In the other room, she could hear Elizabet dialing the telephone, talking to someone about Liane. Elizabet walked in the bedroom and sat down on the bed next to Kayla, watching her thoughtfully. “Want to talk about it?” she asked at last.
Kayla clenched the blanket in her fingers. “I hate this,” she said. “I feel sick all the time, and people keep calling me ‘witch’ and worse, and I wish it would all go away.”
“You know it won’t.” Elizabet shook her head. “No, all you can do now is learn how to live with this.” She glanced at her watch. “I need to head off to work shortly, Kayla. You’re welcome to go through my library while I’m gone, or watch tapes on the VCR. I’d suggest you call it an early night, though; you do still look exhausted from everything that happened last night. Is there anything you might need?”
“More milk,” Kayla said promptly. “I finished almost all of it this morning.”
Elizabet smiled. “I’d better make a complete shopping run on my way home—you seem to be working hard to clean out my refrigerator.”
“I—I can eat less,” Kayla said, suddenly alarmed. I don’t want her to send me to Juvie!
The woman laughed. “No, that’s not a problem. I guess I’ll see you in the morning, child.”
“Good night,” Kayla said awkwardly, watching as Elizabet gathered up her blazer and briefcase and walked out to her car. She stood at the open door for a few minutes after Elizabet’s car disappeared down the hill, then closed the front door and turned back to look at the room. She must really trust me, to leave me here all alone.
If I really wanted to, I could clean this place out before she gets back, be back in Hollywood in another two hours.
Back in Suite 230, eating canned chili and stolen sodas, just her alone now, unless she could find Liane somehow. No Billy to take care of them, keep the slimeballs like Nick away …
No. I don’t want to do that.
She wandered to the bookshelf and took down an old hardcover book, something about dragons. In the guest bedroom, she made a small nest of pillows and blankets and curled up inside, opening to the first page of the book.
“Carlos, she’s leaving. Without the girl.”
Carlos sat up and stretched, looking out the car window. The black woman drove past in her convertible, obviously alone. “Good. Go tell the others, Ramon. We’re going up to the house.”
Kayla looked up from the book, hearing the sound of breaking wood. There was a sudden crash from the hallway; she was off the bed and through the door a half-second later. The first thing she saw was one of the glass dolphins, lying shattered on the floor. The fact that she was surrounded by a group of young men, all wearing jeans, plaid shirts, and bandannas, registered a split-second later.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, and then she saw the switchblade in one man’s hand. Kayla couldn’t hear anything beyond the pounding of her own blood.
The man holding the knife smiled at her. He was very handsome, Kayla thought as he moved toward her. A dark-haired, dark-eyed Hispanic man, maybe twenty years old, very handsome and completely terrifying. “This is the girl, the bruja,” he said to the others, gazing into her eyes.
Kayla backed up toward the window, into the arms of one of the other young men. She twisted to look at him, the youngest of all of the strange men. He held her by the shoulders, but she could feel the nervousness in him, the tension in his hands.
“How do you know that she’s for real?” one of the other young men asked.
“I’ll prove it to you, Ramie,” the handsome man said, standing very close to Kayla. The knife glittered in his hand; she watched that hand, afraid to breathe. There was a strange small smile on his face. Then he lowered his hand, and Kayla breathed a sigh of relief.
The pain hit her an instant later, a shock that took her breath away. She thought she heard someone shout, but she wasn’t certain—everything was happening too fast. She saw the man pull the switchblade free, wiping the blood off on his jeans, and then she was falling, the world going white around her, everything blurry and very bright.
“Madre de Dios, Carlos, you didn’t have to do that!” someone said from above her.
“She’ll heal herself,” the handsome man said, and she could hear the laughter behind his voice. “Or she won’t, in which case she doesn’t matter to us.”
Bastard, she thought, the wooden floor rough against her cheek. The pain was falling on her in waves, each wave higher than the last.
Kayla closed her eyes, feeling the warm blood against her skin, and wondered what dying would be like.
Through her closed eyes, she saw the light brightening. Her hands, and then her entire body, now felt like they were on fire, burning from within. She opened her eyes to see all of the men staring at her, at the patterns of blue light that coursed over her body.
She caught at the light in her hands, holding it against her middle, aiming it at the pain. The light poured into the emptiness of the knife wound, drawing out the pain and closing it back up again. A moment later the light was gone, except for a few bright sparks that flickered over her hands before finally fading away to nothingness.
Everyone was still staring at her.
The man they’d called Carlos knelt beside her. She tried to pull away, but was too weak and exhausted to move. He lifted her shirt, looking for the knife wound. A moment later he stood up, a satisfied look on his face.
“Ramon, carry her to the car,” he directed. The youngest man nodded, easily lifting her up and moving toward the door. Kayla tried to pull free, struggling weakly. No, this can’t be happening to me!
Kayla’s last glimpse was of the shards of the broken glass dolphin on the floor, as the door closed behind them.
Chapter Four
Elizabet turned on the Volkswagen’s radio, listening to the light jazz that was playing on KWAV. The traffic wasn’t bad at all, as she headed down Laurel Canyon into Hollywood. At 9 A.M. on a weekday morning, it would’ve been another story, with cars backed up all the way to Van Nuys. But now, it was quiet enough that Elizabet could let her mind drift as she drove down the narrow, winding road.
Kayla. She was still uncertain about the girl, very uncertain whether she’d still be at the house when Elizabet returned after work. It wouldn’t surprise her to find that the child had left and taken all the valuables she could carry. She hoped the girl had better sense than that; Kayla was a danger to herself and everyone around her right now, with that bright pool of magic simmering inside her. Serious magic, more than Elizabet had ever seen in one person before, and of course the child had no idea how to use or control it… .
Thinking about Kayla’s magic, it was several seconds before she noticed the sensation of power in the hills behind her, a magical flare that was suddenly too bright to ignore.
“KAYLA!”
The girl was doing something with her magic, Elizabet couldn’t quite tell what. In half a second, she made a snap decision and yanked the steering wheel hard, the Volkswagen skidding in a sharp 180-degree spin. Car horns blared, and she thought she could hear someone shouting at her, as she floored the accelerator and drove at top speed back toward her house.
She could feel the rising levels of power and a sense of desperation. Something’s wrong … something’s very wrong… . Elizabet hit the brakes as she came up behind a large truck, moving slowly up the road. She wanted to scream in frustration, but instead watched carefully for a break in the traffic on the other side of the road and made a quick illegal crossover of the double yellow line to get ahead of the truck. But that had wasted valuable seconds, and already she could feel the magical power fading, dying away… .
They shoved her into the back seat of one of their cars. She lay on the seat, trying to catch her breath and pull free from the dizziness that made it impossible for her to think straight, let alone run or fight. To make things worse, her head was pounding again, the same awful headache.
When she could sit up, they were already driving over the top of the crest of Laurel Canyon. In the last moments of fading sunlight, the lights of the San Fernando Valley were flickering into life, like a million bright jewels scattered over the valley and surrounding hills. She leaned her head against the window, wincing every time the car bounced over one of the many potholes in the road.
“Are you all right?” a soft Chicano-accented voice asked, startling her enough that she opened her eyes. “Are you still in pain?”
It was the young man now driving the car. In her dizziness and pain, she hadn’t noticed who was in the vehicle with her. She shook her head, not wanting to answer. The young man spoke again, saying something in Spanish to the man in the front seat next to him. They talked for a few minutes in that musical language, then it was silent in the car again.
They drove down from the last hill, into the flat urban maze of the San Fernando Valley. Kayla thought about leaping out of the car and making a run for it as the Chevy paused at a stop light, then thought better of it. I don’t think I can walk real well right now, let alone outrun these guys. I’ll have to wait, find a better opportunity to run like hell… .
God, why are they doing this? Kidnaping me. I can’t believe this nightmare is really happening to me, I can’t believe it… .
The young man parked the car in front of an old apartment building, on a quiet street with young children playing among the dead cars and garbage cans. The other man had to pull her from the car; her legs didn’t seem to be working right yet, and she would’ve fallen but for his hands holding her up. Leaning on his arm, she managed to stay on her feet. The two men walked her into the apartment building and up three flights of stairs.
Kayla was certain she was going to die by the time they reached the top of the stairs; her insides felt like they were on fire, every movement ripping pain through her. The young man unlocked the door of an apartment and helped her walk through.
Inside, the living room was sparsely furnished with an old sofa and kitchen table, rock star posters on the walls, a television on a low table across the room. Someone had left a radio on, playing Spanish pop songs.
Down a short hallway was a bedroom. The men let her fall onto the large bed in the corner of the room. She just lay there for a few minutes amid the rumpled sheets and blankets, remembering what it felt like to breathe without pain. Several minutes later, she felt like she could sit up again without dying. She still felt awful, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it had been.
The young man was standing at the doorway, watching her. Why did they bring me here, what do they want with me? She stared at her feet, not speaking, then glanced up at him.
He was still standing there, just looking at her. He wasn’t as handsome as the older guy, who was breathtaking in a Hollywood star kind of way, like a twenty-year-old Richard Gere with wavy black hair. And a real bastard, too. This younger guy’s black hair was very curly, looking like he’d never really succeeded in combing it down. His dark eyes were thoughtful when he spoke. “Rest now, querida. Carlos and the others will be here soon.”
He started for the door, then stopped. Walking across the room, he unplugged the telephone on the wooden dresser and took it with him, closing the door behind him. Kayla lay back on the bed, thinking: I don’t want to rest. I want to get the hell out of here… . Her eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep to the sound of the Spanish music playing from the other room.
The Volkswagen’s brakes squealed as Elizabet pulled up in the driveway. She was out of the car a split-second later, heading for the front door.
The door was slightly ajar, and Elizabet saw the ripped wood where someone had forced the lock and felt a chill run through her. Very quietly, she slowly pushed the door open.
She listened, hearing nothing but the faint sound of traffic from down the hill, and stepped into the room. The first thing she saw was the broken glass sculpture on the floor. She skirted it carefully, looking around the living room.
There was no sign of Kayla.
She walked to the open guest bedroom door and saw the pile of pillows and blankets, and the abandoned book. She turned back to the living room and saw the blood on the floor near the window.
Fighting the impulse to panic, Elizabet knelt beside the pool of wet blood. Someone had been badly hurt here, or possibly died; she tried to hold back the terror, forcing herself to concentrate. She held her hands out over the blood staining the wooden floor and closed her eyes.
Another person’s emotions flickered th
rough her mind, flashes of pain and terror. Kayla, lying here on the floor, her life bleeding away. Then the bright fire of magic and more terror. Images of faces, a darkly handsome man in his twenties, and being lifted, carried away somewhere.
She’s survived it, Elizabet thought with a wave of relief. Whatever they did to her, she survived it. And then they—whoever “they” are—they took her away.
She straightened and crossed to the phone, dialing with shaking hands. “Detective Cable, please.” She waited for an endless several seconds, until she heard the police officer’s voice answer on the other end of the connection. “Nichelle, this is Elizabet. Someone’s kidnaped Kayla. I don’t know exactly what’s happened but she’s gone… .”
She was standing in a park with Elizabet, in a meadow bright with early morning sunlight and colorfully costumed people. All of the people were strange, wearing glistening metal armor and odd clothing. And there was something else about them, something she knew but couldn’t quite remember, about who they were and what they were doing here. It was something important, she knew that, she just couldn’t remember exactly what it was… .
A group of musicians were standing together on the damp grass, playing strange melodies. It was a kind of music she’d never heard before, wild and haunting.
Elizabet was with her, which meant that everything was all right, she was supposed to be here.
:Of course we’re supposed to be here,: Elizabet said silently. :It’s what the An Caillach Beara told us, that we needed to be here. That we needed to meet these people at the Whoopie Donuts shop at precisely 7:15 A.M. That if we weren’t here, something awful was going to happen to all of Los Angeles. That it might happen anyhow, but if we were here, there was a better chance that it wouldn’t.:
:Why can’t people read the future as something more concrete than a lot of “What ifs?”: Kayla asked. :I mean, you’d think that the ogress would be able to read the future like the Sunday L.A. Times sports page, wouldn’t you? I hate all that mystical bullshit.:
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