The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(20)

He replaced the canteen on his saddle and pulled his hat down farther over his forehead, which she’d learned meant he didn’t want to talk any longer.

She studied his profile, then turned her attention back to the mountains above them, trying to listen, trying to hear something deeper than her own breath, or hoofbeats against grass and stone.

The lack frustrated her, made her feel a failure, failing the boss, failing her Contract.

Shhhhhhhh.

Slowly, the frustration was replaced by the memory of having a fever as a child, wrapped in heat, cooling cloths over her skin, the murmur of soothing voices rolling over her, warm comfort telling her to rest, to not worry, to sleep and all would be taken care of. But when she pushed further, underneath that murmur was the roiling stink of illness and fear, the fever-burn and sweat-chill, something queasy-making in her gut, pushing to escape. . . .

no! Something flared in her chest, like a chicken trying to escape the hammer, wings beating furiously.

A massive cloud of butterflies erupted from the grass ahead of them, swirling in a mass before disappearing into the sky. Gabriel swore in surprise even as Uvnee danced a little, shying away from the dozens of wings. Then there was silence, too quiet, the greenish hush of the sky before a tornado, and Flatfoot’s sudden loud bray nearly sent Isobel out of her skin.

“God have mercy,” she heard Gabriel say, before the ground disappeared under Uvnee’s hooves, sending the mare scrambling for footing, Isobel nearly falling out of the saddle, her fingers digging into the mare’s mane, her legs wrapping around the mare’s body even as she tried to adjust to help the mare stay upright, trying not to do anything foolish, knowing that something was terribly wrong but too busy to figure out what.

And then it was over, the ground stilling again, the world righting itself. Isobel knew it was over, could feel it was over, but unlike the quake the day before, this one echoed in her own body, a sharp and sudden pain that only slowly faded to a dull ache.

closer too close

“The blazes was that?” Gabriel, his voice far away, faded.

Isobel couldn’t answer, tucked in on herself, Uvnee at a full stop below, confused by why her rider had pulled the reins in so tightly, now that the earth had stilled again.

Show me, Isobel demanded.

“Isobel? Iz?” Gabriel’s voice faded in and out, the dull hot ache pushing at her, pushing her away, out of this meadow, off this hill, pushing her away. . . .

Then there was pressure on her skin to match the ache inside, hard warm hands pulling her down, and she cried out when her boots touched the earth, the pain tearing through her again until she was scooped up, cradled like a child, and a familiar, soothing voice in her ear.

Eventually the fog cleared from her eyes, and she could think again, without the ache or pain.

“I’m all right. Put—” Her voice cracked, and she tried again. “Put me down.”

Gabriel hesitated, and she managed to unclench her fingers enough to pat his arm, the fabric of his jacket rough against her skin. “I’m all right.”

Her voice cracked a second time, but he eased her to her feet, keeping one arm wrapped around her shoulders in case she crumpled again.

Isobel winced as her legs straightened and her foot touched the soil again, but the earth lay quiet below her, the only pain a faint lingering echo in her flesh.

“Isobel?”

For the first time, she thought she heard fear in Gabriel’s voice.

Isobel thought fear might be better than the numbness she felt, the odd hollow emptiness. She shook her head a little, unsure. “Did you . . . did you feel anything?”

“Other than the ground trying to kick us back onto the plains? That wasn’t enough?” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, leaving tufts of it sticking up, like the feathers of an upset crow. She didn’t feel even the faintest urge to smile at the sight.

Uvnee, her reins dropped, had started grazing peacefully as though nothing had ever disturbed them. Isobel stared at the animals, wishing she could forget things so easily.

“Mayhap,” Gabriel said finally. “Like an itch, the worst itch I’ve ever felt, somewhere I couldn’t reach. It started just before the quake hit, and ended . . . I’m not sure when. But you felt something more. Worse.”

It had felt like every bone in her body was breaking, cracking under some sudden shock, and she wasn’t not sure, entirely, that nothing had been broken.

“Duck said . . .” Isobel let the words trail off. The native woman had said that the earth was sorrowing. But that had not felt like sorrow to her. It had felt like rage. Rage so tightly controlled, she wasn’t surprised the earth itself shook. But what caused it? What felt it, to cause that?

“It has to be part of the Spaniards’ spell,” she said. “Splintered off, landing here. It was meant to unnerve and disturb, to make people doubt . . . to doubt that the boss can protect them.”

She was convinced that the Territory had somehow altered the spell as it came over the Mother’s Knife that spring, changed it from bad medicine to . . . not good, but less harmful. That was why she had allowed the creature in the hot spring to live, even after it attacked him, because the Territory had claimed it. But Isobel had no idea what else the spell might do, what sort of creatures it might sow, or how they might act.

“Wonderful. And us without a magician this time.” Gabriel’s voice sounded . . . amused? She swung around to look at him, leaning against Steady’s bulk for support. His face was turned up at the sky, his brimmed hat back on his head and his eyes closed against the sunlight, but his mouth was curved in a tight-lipped smile.