The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(56)

“Ward yourself and the animals, too,” she said. “Just to be safe.”

He nodded, holding up the flap of cloth to show that he’d crumbled enough salt for that, too.

She waited until he had hobbled the animals and warded the circle around them, before she settled herself at the center of her own warding, her legs tucked under her, skirt wrapped around her legs to keep them warm, her spine as relaxed as she could make it, shoulders rounded and soft, head bowed until the line from the back of her neck to her hips was a soft arc. Her hands rested palms-down on her knees as she breathed in and out, in and out, feeling her heart ease and her pulse steady and slow, feeling her blood rise and fall with the movement of her chest, her thoughts thickening and clearing, leaving her soft and strong.

She thought Gabriel was wrong, but he had a point about being careful. Too often they’d been unready, unprepared when she needed to act. This time, she would be settled, as secure in herself as she would be in the saddle before a gallop.

Her hands slipped from her knees to the grass in front of her, fingertips curling into the ground below. Her body followed, leaning forward until she was bent over her knees, her head bowed, her breath barely moving the grasses in front of her.

The boss’s voice rolled in the back of her memories, the lessons she hadn’t realized were lessons, listening to him speak while they did their chores, at night after the saloon had closed. Power—medicine, magic?—lingered where it had been used, like ash after a fire. Anyone with a patch of silver and some sense could tell if power lingered and avoid it. Avoid anything that used it. Like magicians.

Like her. The thought was bitter in her mouth.

But magicians took from more than crossroads. They took from one another—no loss to the rest of the Territory, so long as they kept their battles somewhere isolated. But they were greedy, hungry. They’d take from anything they could. Farron had been ready to consume the spell-beast they’d found if Isobel hadn’t warned him off. He’d threatened to consume her if she faltered.

She might have been able to fend him off. One magician. Maybe.

Isobel let that thought go, feeling it ease out of her, sliding down her spine and fading away, leaving her thoughts thick and clear again. She wasn’t trying to defeat magicians nor steal from them. She wanted to help them.

Even they, even crazed, would not be so foolish as to try to steal from the devil once they recognized the source. But the power within her would draw them close enough.

Her palms made contact with the grass, then the dirt below. There was a sting against her, like a sharp blade slicing down to bone, a queasy shock, and she had learned not to push too deep, half-anticipating that void, that refusal again.

I don’t want you, she told it. I will not interfere with your captive. Let me pass.

There was a timeless hesitation, suspended, and then she slipped through the barrier, careful not to touch it and risk rousing the spirit. Safely inside, Isobel set the lure of her own spark, inviting the restless dead to come to her.

They swarmed.

push shove grab hold tug push. the sharpness of insubstantial fingers digging into her clawing at her, nails scraping claiming pressing. A flash of heat warned them off, the devil’s sigil flaring in the nowhere-place they were, a waft of tobacco and sulphur, soap and spice, the flickerthwack of cards turned on felt, the clink of fine glassware and the soft murmur of voices speaking needs wants secrets, the feel of blood welling on her fingertip, pressed against fine parchment, the touch of the Devil’s hand on her own, and the grabbing, grasping sensation retreats, not to disappear but to wait, impatient, overeager, for another chance.

Five, she counted. Five sets of hands-that-weren’t, five greedy, hungry mouths wanting to suck the marrow and the power from her bones.

Five magicians, dead and trapped under the grass, trapped under the soil.

Do you know who you are? she asked them. Do you know who you were?

Anger responded, anger and frustration wrapped around a pulsing core of need, without conscious thought or function, and it lunged at her, no longer five but a single entity, only aware that they needed and she had.

These things had been human once; she knew how to deal with them. The sense-of-Isobel skimmed just out of reach, resting within the dry bones of the cage, and then raised the ante.

She waited, waited waited an infinity of waiting, tracing the loops of the devil’s sigil in her mind, dark green flame flaring along the curves and lines, the loops and lines tarnishing and silvering in its path, turning and turning until they were all dizzy with the turning, dizzy with greed. They took the bait, then she turned and slipped into them—

Sensations filled her, overwhelmed her, and she forced them into some kind of sense, some frame of comprehension. Hunger, the ever-driving hunger for more, for more knowledge, more strength, more understanding. The sensation of being driven by the winds, hither and yon, chasing the scent of power, the lure of understanding. The crooked finger of invitation, suggestion. An Other, speaking of secrets unknown, power unclaimed. A sensation more than a knowing, an awareness rather than a vision; not trusted, never trusted, warily they gathered, driven/lured/prodded to this place, this valley, gathered to circle, bearing ritual and power, to reach up and pull, beyond their capabilities but together, together, with ritual and power. . . .

It stirred, and they pulled; it flew, and they chased; it dove, and they pounced.

Power. Immense, impossible, overwhelming. A chorus of voices singing alleluia, screaming alleluia, binding and rending, binding and rending, over and again, clawing at their own flesh, tearing out their own thoughts to find space to gorge themselves. . . .