Chapter Seven

The next day was grim. The sun beat down, the car needed gas, we didn't have coffee or tea or much water, breakfast was sketchy, and the two grigoris were stiff from sleeping on the ground. Paulina out and out ordered me to drive. I slid behind the wheel. Though the land was changing, becoming hillier, with more places of concealment, I didn't protest. If they wanted to get shot more than they wanted to drive, I was in the mood to oblige them. We jolted and bounced across the land, following what was more a track than a road. I knew we were going in the right direction, but Eli felt he had to pull out a compass to show me that we were. Paulina's quick eyes picked out my exasperation, and it pleased her. She didn't want me to like Eli. She would love it if we quarreled. I could not figure out Paulina. I thought, When she was underneath Andy, maybe she called him Eli. Or maybe Paulina and Eli were related somehow? If I asked them, she'd know I'd been thinking about their relationship, and that would make her hackles rise. Better not to risk it. Around noon we stopped to get out of the car for a while. By sheer luck, I spotted a huge jackrabbit. I brought him down with Marcial Montes's rifle. It would be dumb not to eat while the meat was fresh. I built a fire and put up two little towers of rocks, skewering the carcass on a stick and laying the stick ends on the little towers. While I went a short distance away to pee, Eli turned the skewer. Paulina had taken off in the opposite direction. She returned with some green stuff she said was edible and good for you. It was a plant I'd seen before but never tried to eat. I watched her take a bite first; that was how much I trusted Paulina. The leaves didn't taste bad, a little peppery. Since they were fuzzy, the feeling of them in my mouth was not pleasant. But fresh green stuff is hard to find the farther south you go, and my mom had always told me it was important to include vegetables in your eating habits. I hoped I was healthier after I'd made myself swallow a mouthful. It was like chewing a caterpillar. The jackrabbit tasted even better after the leaves, though. It was done just right. I cut it into pieces with my knife and shared it around. Only the bones were left when we got back into the Tourer. This time Eli drove, so I was in the back seat. I tried to stay alert, but the long day and the heat and the jolting made me feel stupid. I hated the car by the time we stopped. We'd have to spend another night on the road. We'd been going south-southwest steadily, and the plants and scrubby trees were getting farther and farther apart, though the hills were higher and closer together. Eli located some water by his witchy ability, but it was not clear water. We filled up our canteens but had to let the particles in it settle before it was fit to drink, and it was warm and bitter going down our throats. But any water was better than no water, and any food better than no food. That night I killed two snakes it was safe for us to eat, and they weren't too bad after roasting. Not a lot of actual meat, though. I was about to wrap up in my blanket, since the night was getting chilly. I heard something that made me sit up so sharply that Paulina jumped. I held up my hand, telling the grigoris to be silent, and they did, for a wonder. I listened hard. I heard the sound of metal clicking against metal. That wasn't going to happen unless people were around. I stood and drew my pistol. A strange woman stepped into the firelight. Her hands were empty and held wide apart, so I didn't shoot her. She smiled at me, then at Paulina, and then at Eli. That was just creepy. Most people didn't smile at a gun unless they were simple, or unless they knew something you didn't know. I didn't like either of those ideas. We all waited for the stranger to speak, but she didn't. She had rippling black hair and big, dark eyes. Her white blouse was spanky clean. Her silver earrings made tinkly sounds. She looked like a woman men dreamed about. The newcomer crossed her arms over her chest in a deliberate way. It was a signal. Not one I recognized. But Paulina did. After a long hesitation Paulina said, "Welcome to our campfire. I'm Paulina of the Fire Guild, and this is Eli of the Water Guild." Paulina was well aware this creature was not regular, not at all. There was badness all around us. I wanted to shoot this woman. But I held off, thinking Paulina would give me a signal if that was what she wanted. Paulina and Eli were too completely focused on her to spare me a thought. At least, Paulina couldn't seem look in my direction. But then, neither did the newcomer. I glanced at Eli and grew more worried. Maybe they couldn't spare me a thought for real. Eli seemed to be under a spell. His face was blank and his eyes half-closed, and from the state of his pants I could tell he was physically ready to jump on this stranger right in front of us. "I can tell none of you will harm me." She smiled with a real awareness, kind of I'm so beautiful. "Wizarrrrd," she said coaxingly, "come herrre." She swung her head, and her earrings clicked. An alarm sounded inside me as I felt a horrible, creeping fuzziness in my head. It was like the leaves we'd eaten had gotten into my brain. Moving with terrible slowness—at least in my mind—I drew one of the Colts and I pulled the trigger. She gave me one totally amazed look as a big red stain spoiled that white blouse. Eli screamed. With a huge effort Paulina broke free from whatever had grabbed her to launch herself forward. She grabbed the witch's skirt as if she feared the woman would run away; instead the witch fell backward. Paulina sprawled on her stomach—way too close to the fire, still clutching the skirt—and panted for the space of three breaths. But after that, flinging off whatever had held her still, Paulina leaped on the witch, her face right above the witch's, like she was going to kiss her. Instead she began sucking out the few moments the witch had left. I could see the remnants of life flowing out of the dying woman's mouth. I could see her ghost, a white, shadowy thing rising up out of her, being sucked into Paulina's open lips. I was sickened. Paulina had stepped across some line in my head. She should die, too. My finger was actually tightening on the trigger when Eli threw himself on me, much the way Paulina had thrown herself on the witch. At least he didn't seem to want to take my soul. His interest lay elsewhere. I could feel . . . oh, God, he was hard as a rock. I did not move even a tiny bit. His arm was pinning down my gun hand, but I could still manage to shoot him if I had to. "Eli Savarov," I said. He blinked. "Eli Savarov," I said again. "Get the hell off of me." I watched his personality flowing back into him. "I . . ." Eli's expression was dazed. He could not come up with words. "Off." Eli stared into my eyes a moment longer. It was a very long moment. Then he rolled off and lay panting like a dog, looking up at the stars. I looked at them with him. He took my hand and squeezed it. He released it quickly. It was an apology. "Not like this," he whispered. While Paulina finished her spiritual cannibal act, I calmed down. If Eli's breathing was anything to go by, so did he. "You okay?" Paulina was standing over me. "I am." "Why are you lying on your back?" It was real clear Paulina had been totally wrapped up in her soul-sucking, since Eli landing on top of me with a big hard-on was not something she'd miss or let pass, ordinarily. "It seemed like a good idea," I said, and struggled to sit up. Paulina reached down to help me, and it didn't feel like a good idea to refuse to take her hand. I looked to my right. Somehow Eli had already resumed his seat by the fire. I'd lost a minute or two. "When I signed on to do this, I didn't realize I'd be so damn busy," I said, trying to reenter the world as I knew it. "Out in the middle of this nothing, that thing pops up acting all I'm so sexy. How?" "Look," Paulina said, pointing at the body. Though I didn't want to, I followed her finger. A woman in her eighties stared at me sightlessly. It was the same woman. She was still dressed in a white (but red-stained) blouse and a blue skirt. My stomach gave a lurch. "Is that the way she really looked, or did she wither when you sucked her soul out?" My question startled Paulina, and Eli, too. They both stared at me. Shit. I'd said something interesting again. "You could see that," Paulina said thoughtfully. If there was anything I didn't want, it was for Paulina to think about me. "I saw a cloudy something," I said. "I'm not going any farther than saying that." I'd already said too much. "When one of us is dying," Eli said, "we can take the power." "Like I take the gun," I said. "Just so," Paulina said approvingly. "The gun is your weapon and your livelihood. Magic is ours." Well, I just loved being like Paulina. I was so glad she'd noticed. "How'd she find us?" That was the most important thing we had to settle. I walked a few steps to the rock I'd been sitting on before the witch had shown up. I sat down a little harder than I'd planned on. "In the morning Eli and I will find out." After I'd become sure I was in the here and now, the witch was dead, and Paulina and Eli were unharmed and in their right minds, I lay down on my blanket and wrapped it around me. I'd folded up my jacket to be a pillow. Shortly, the other two did the same. The fire was dying out, but when I turned on my side, I could see Eli was looking at me. I looked back. He'd landed on me when the witch had made him horny. Not Paulina. He'd gone where he had thought about going. I couldn't unthink that. I didn't want to. Then I willed myself to close my eyes. After a few minutes I slept. "How come Lizbeth didn't fall under the spell?" Paulina was saying, very low, when I woke up. "She has no power. She should have been out of the action completely. The witch took you under in a few moments." "Maybe she's a null." He didn't appreciate being ranked just above me, his voice said. "Maybe. But the witch slowed me for a few seconds, and I'm very strong." Paulina wasn't bragging. She was stating a fact. "Don't tell me Gunnie has any magical blood," Eli said. He meant it—he doubted it—but he wasn't entirely certain. Shit. I should never have agreed to come with these two grigoris. It had seemed like a good idea, tracking down my maybe-sister, finding out why my father's half of my blood was so interesting to these people. Now I wondered if I'd set my own death in motion. I imagined Paulina hovering over me, her mouth open. It made me wanted to throw up. Or kill her. "No," Paulina said, but after a pause. "Of course she doesn't. How could she? We saw her mother. That man who looks like a bulldog is her father. No magic there." They did not know Jackson was my stepfather. A huge wave of relief rolled over me. I felt better all of a sudden. My smoke screen was still up. I would find out what I needed to know. Then I would go home to Segundo Mexia, and the wizards would return to the Holy Russian Empire, and all this craziness would vanish from my life. The relief was so great that I did go back to sleep for a very short while, enough to make it credible when I yawned and stretched and told them how sorry I was for oversleeping. I was lying through my teeth, especially when I saw that Eli had started breakfast preparations, and the witch's body had been dragged several yards away, two things I wouldn't have to deal with. Eli had some oats and some dried apples. We had enough water—assuming we could find another source later today, and there were towns on the map—to boil the oats and apples together in a metal pot, one I hadn't even known Paulina had. We each had a bowl of sweetish cereal that would fill your belly and make you feel strong. I felt able to face today, and face Paulina, after I'd eaten. There were some questions we had to answer. "Where did she come from?" I kind of talked to the air between the two wizards, because I didn't want to favor either one. "And how did she find us?" "We don't know," Eli said. "But we're going to find out. We're going to search the car." "Tell me what you want me to do." Assuming guns would not be involved, I stacked Montes's rifle and my gun belt with the Colts neatly by the rock I'd been sitting on last night. "We'll start going over the car inch by inch," Paulina said. "It would have been easier to put something on the car than on our bodies. I'll take the front seat, Eli will take the back seat, you take the trunk. Then we'll all examine the outside." The day was getting hot by the time we'd peered at every inch of that car. We went over the seats, the cavities behind the seats, the trunk, the floorboards, under the seats, in the glove compartment, under the engine, in the wheel wells. I'm no mechanic, but I'd spent enough time watching Tarken and Martin to at least recognize I was looking at the normal innards of a car. We found nothing. The grigoris tried with their own eyes, and they tried magic. Paulina took a pinch of this and that from pockets in her vest, and said a few power words and tossed the stuff from her pockets over the car. I was really hoping to see something happen, but nothing did. So the car search was a bust. Next we all emptied our bags, though since those had been under our eyes continuously, I couldn't see how they'd have been tainted. Then we searched the icebox Jim Comstock had sent with us After another hour we'd come up with nothing. If we wanted to reach anywhere by noon to refill our canteens and check the car, we had to be on our way. I gathered Jackhammer, my pistols, and the rifle I'd gleaned from the hired killer. "Wait," said Eli. I stopped. I'd been about to toss the rifle into the leather bag I'd brought with me. "That's a new thing. The dead man's rifle." I handed it to him as quick as I could. I hadn't had a chance to clean it, as I would have if we'd been in a hotel last night. "It's a good rifle," I said. "A bolt-action Winchester, like Jackhammer, but newer." Eli looked blank, but he nodded to show he accepted my opinion. "Is it loaded?" he asked. Good to be cautious. "Yes," I said. "Then while I'm holding it out, you look at it, and tell me if you see anything odd about it." I'd never thought of checking the rifle, a tool of my trade and one I was glad to have, for . . . well, I didn't know what they were looking for. Some extra item added to something familiar, something magic could stick on to. A map we couldn't see, one that led right to us. Now that Eli had suggested the rifle might be the bearer of the homing device, I found it right away. "On the stock," I said. After I glanced up at the grigoris, I pointed. "This here is the stock. The shiny wood. Mine is walnut. This Winchester is stained darker. You see this little pimplelike thing? This bump?" They bent over to look at it. There was a bump in the wood, close to the bolt action—not something so big you'd notice it, if you weren't a gun person, if you weren't looking, if you weren't in the bright sunlight. "Better unload it," Eli said. I did. "Look down the bore," I said, just so he'd be reassured, and he peered down the barrel. Eli nodded. The rifle was unloaded. I laid the weapon on the hood of the Tourer. With the point of his knife, Eli gently nudged the rough spot while Paulina squatted down to get very close to the rifle. Eli dislodged some crumbly brown stuff, almost the same color as the wood but not the same texture. This dab amount of brown, whatever it was, had covered a tiny piece of metal, thin as a shaving, sticking it to the rifle. "That's a piece of tinfoil like you wrap food in," I said. You couldn't get anything by me. Except a sabotaged rifle. The tinfoil came out, too, very delicately. We all peered at the shallowest scrape in the wood. My eyes were sharper than theirs. "There's hair in there," I said. "From when you had that shave in Mil Flores, I bet you." "But you killed the man who had this rifle very soon after Eli left the barbershop," Paulina said. "If he had this little hole prepared, he could have nipped in, gotten the whiskers, stuck them in place, and pressed this brown stuff over it to hold it all still." "How could he know that we would end up with the rifle?" "I got a reputation," I said, trying to hit the middle between boasting and being overmodest. "But still." I had another idea. I was sharing them right and left. I might have kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to live through this plagued expedition. "So . . . you two would know if you were with another wizard, right? You'd put out your magic feelers and know what they were?" I looked off in another direction while I waited for an answer. I didn't want to know if their eyes were on me. "You think the person who put the hairs in the rifle was Belinda Trotter," Eli said. "Not the gunman." I shrugged. "Her or the traveling salesman. My money's on Trotter. She had a wagon handy. She had no reason to be there. She was way too helpful." "You think she hired Josip. He failed. Then she hired the ones who ambushed us," Paulina said, thinking as she spoke. "And when that missed, her gunman was waiting in Mil Flores for her directions. But by then she knew your reputation, so she stepped into the barbershop to get some of Eli's whiskers. I'm not sure how she knew Eli'd go in. Maybe she was simply waiting for any opportunity to get something off one of us, and that was a golden one. Then—she'd have to be prepared for this part—she stuck the whiskers, as she might have fixed any other tiny thing, on the rifle. She went up to the rooftop where Montes waited and gave it to him. So that if he missed, and you killed him, we'd take the rifle with the find-them spell." Paulina did not sound angry at herself—or at me, which surprised me. She sounded very, very thoughtful. "So was that creature last night the real Belinda? Or was it another hired hand?" "I guess we'll find out," I said. "What do you mean?" Eli asked. "If someone else tries to kill us, we'll know Belinda Trotter is alive." "Maybe there's more than her in this conspiracy," Paulina said. I took the rifle over to the body of the witch, which was drying out into a mummy real quick. Of course that wasn't normal, but was anything with these two, in their world? I used Eli's knife to scrape out every tiny whisker. Then I spat on the knife blade to make sure anything on it would be wiped off, and I rubbed the blade of the knife against the witch's blouse. I was leaving a message . . . if anyone came to read it. My whole life I had hated the magic world. I knew grigoris were unreliable and dangerous, if not outright evil. Now I was surrounded by the very thing I hated. But I'd gotten myself into this fix. I had to get myself out. And I also had to do everything I could to protect the lives of Paulina and Eli, because that's what I'd contracted to do. You don't have to sign a paper to have a contract. I might be a crew of one right now, but I was still bound.