The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(67)

Magicians. Isobel recognized it with a gut blow, their power rising and swirling within them like too-strong perfume, making her gag. And within that swirl she tasted a now familiar scent lingering in the heart, the hot burnt smell of sorrow, and madness.

She had found two of the surviving magicians from the valley.

Her skin prickled, nausea rising into her throat, but they did not look up, did not look away from each other, didn’t notice she had come thundering over the ridge. They were trapped, she realized, watching them circle each other like wolves over an elk carcass, caught somehow within a makeshift crossroads, the power within both bait and trap.

But how? Isobel rested her palms on the mare’s neck, reins forgotten, and breathed steadily, trying to calm both the animal and herself. Magicians were drawn to crossroads like bears to berries, but only for the power within them, and a crossroads gained that power slowly, over time. Something so new-drawn would have nothing within it to pull; even Isobel, at this distance, could tell that the only power there was what the magicians had brought themselves.

But that power . . .

Isobel stiffened even as she urged the reluctant mare closer, and her mouth went dry. Magicians . . . they were not mortal any longer, but they were born so, born human. Even when they gave themselves over to the winds, they were still human. But what swirled within these two figures was not.

A sliver of understanding fell into her hands, fitted into the space that had been empty. They had escaped with their lives, these two?—but they had taken the ancient one’s medicine with them. And more?—the pounding of her pulse echoed the thundering of hooves within them, their coats the shadow of ancient wings; the sacred blood of the Territory poured over their hands and splattered their faces. She could see it on them, fresh as the moment of slaughter.

Her palm burned and her eyes itched, and Isobel realized she had urged the mare even closer, until Uvnee balked, planting hooves and tossing her head, white-rimmed eyes and trembling sides telling Isobel in no uncertain terms that she would move no farther.

Isobel slipped from the saddle and took another few steps forward, drawn by her rage, only to feel herself yanked backward, a hard hand on her shoulder. The hours of training Gabriel had forced her through kicked in, and she broke free of the hold, throwing herself backward?—away from the crossroads—and reaching for the blade in her boot.

“Hold,” a voice commanded, and only then did Isobel realize that she was not the only one outside the crossroads trap. A figure glared at her, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a long leather coat over shirt and trousers much like Gabriel’s, down to the worn leather riding boots, but the shape . . .

The woman seemed to realize Isobel was female at the same moment, but other than pushing her hat back to better study the newcomer, she did not react, her attention only a quarter on Isobel, the rest returning to the scene within the crossroads.

Silvering hair glinted under the sunlight, a high forehead and sharp bones below, and Isobel realized that she knew that face, although she couldn’t place it. Had this been someone who had come through the saloon, someone she had read for the boss? That didn’t seem right, but she couldn’t figure it closer until the woman reached up and tugged at the lapel of her coat, revealing something that also glinted silver in the light.

“Stay where you are,” the road marshal told her calmly, her attention still on the crossroads. “Don’t be a fool; you don’t want to get any closer to this.”

Isobel’s memory for faces placed her then. The dining hall in Patch Junction. The woman had been seated at a table with another woman, the only table without a man at it, and Isobel had noted that. It had also been the first time Isobel had ever seen a woman in trousers. Months later, Isobel understood the appeal when most of your day was spent in the saddle.

“We’ve been tracking the same prey,” she said to the woman, careful to keep her body still; this woman had the look of someone who slept with both eyes open and a hand on her weapons, and only a fool would give her cause to violence.

“Then you’re a fool, girl, and like to be a dead one soon enough.”

Isobel didn’t react to the insult, digging her fingertips into the flesh of the sigil to remind herself of what mattered, keeping her gaze on the marshal, with only a flicker of her eyes sideways to where the magicians still circled each other. “No fool, and not dead yet. Unlike you. How long do you think you can hold them there?”

Isobel knew the answer already; she could feel where the makeshift crossroads was already beginning to fray under their assault. It might have been enough to hold one, but two, driven to an even deeper madness than usual? The marshal was fortunate it had not broken already.

The owl had done them all a good turn, directing her here, and she thanked it silently, hoping it would hear.

“That’s none of your concern,” the marshal replied, “and nothing a posse should be poking at.”

Isobel almost laughed, even as she heard Gabriel ride up behind her, the creak of leather telling her he’d swung down out of the saddle. She lifted a hand to tell him to stop but didn’t look away from the marshal, willing the woman to listen to her.

“We are no posse, following no bounty,” she said, and then turned her hand so that the palm faced the marshal. It was perhaps too far for her to see the mark etched into her palm, but as the woman had shown her sigil, so too would Isobel.