Chapter 15
The narrow street was bumpy, and I held on to the open window of Benedict’s sports car to even out the jolts.
We were taking the back roads to the records building to avoid the busier, commute-jammed roads.
The memory of the rain falling through Pluck drifted peacefully in my mind, easing my tension and coloring my mood—reminding me that there was good here. And yet…
“This would be faster on my bike,” I muttered, and Pluck, currently a thin black snake wrapped around my wrist, fizzed a cold agreement.
He was avoiding his new amulet despite the sun as he couldn’t sense Thoth as quickly while within it.
I thought we were safe enough in the daylight, but there was no reasoning with the shadow.
Benedict chuckled, his eyes firmly on the road. “You’ve seen me on a bike.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” I smiled, then slowly pulled my hand from the glare hitting my knuckles.
The come-and-go flickering through the low buildings made an irritating warmth.
Shadow spit. Am I becoming a vampire? I mused darkly, and Pluck fizzed, his thoughts mostly hidden.
The sun seemed unusually hot. It wasn’t bothering Benedict or Marty, the woman silent and pensive in the back, and I flipped the visor down to get the ball cap I’d left there.
Benedict turned onto a wide thoroughfare, and the light shifted to right in my face.
Grimacing, I tugged the cap lower. The records building was just ahead, a black panel van with the sweeper logo on it taking up two of the three parking spaces.
The side door was open and boxes filled it, spilling out onto the lot.
There was more activity than I was comfortable with, and I twisted in my seat to reach my phone to see if Herm had sent me an update.
He would have called if they’d caught Thoth, wouldn’t he?
Thoth hasn’t been here, fizzed as Pluck wrapped tighter around my wrist. There are no ambulances.
Right, I thought, mood darkening when I read Herm’s text: Went to check on the marshal. Ryan and Dana are watching the vault. Your call.
I closed the phone down. My call. My call to tell him Thoth had the ability to destroy not just a weaver’s ability to do magic but anyone who used a field—or keep my mouth shut and risk that Thoth might damage someone else.
“Lev and Herm went to check on Cameron,” I said. Guilt rose and fell. How could I have just left her there? “Ryan and Dana are watching the vault.”
Benedict jerked in surprise. “Is that a good idea?” Slowing, he flicked on the turn signal.
“No, but it does account for the increased activity,” I said, not wanting to scare Marty.
“Are you going to tell them about…” He left his sentence unfinished, and I shrugged.
“I haven’t decided yet. He’s got plausible deniability right now.”
Thoth is only interested in you, Pluck fizzed, but it didn’t make me feel any better. His goal isn’t to destroy shadows or vaults, only weavers. He knows what will happen if it gets out, seeing as he was the one who orchestrated it before.
Benedict’s grip on the wheel tightened briefly before he put the car into park. “I say we keep Ryan in the dark until we get control of Thoth.”
I nodded, uneasy as I reached for my door and got out.
Marty practically bolted out after me, and I waited in the shade for Benedict, breathing in the cool, damp air smelling of desert.
The universe was a constant thrum behind the noise of traffic, and eyes closing, I fingered Pluck’s new amulet around my neck.
The shadow had turned dross dust to energy all night, and it was almost black.
“Wow,” Benedict said, and my eyes opened to see him staring at the building. “Look at that. No wonder Ryan and Dana came in.”
My gaze followed his to the glowing bottles stacked up along the low wall outlining the property, the latent energy glinting brighter than the sun, burning. “It’s better than it sitting in the gutter,” I said, stifling a shiver as I headed for the door.
Marty followed, eyeing the bottles with a wary caution. Her hand was in her pocket, and I would sell my panties online if she wasn’t holding her lodestone to find a sense of relief.
Head down, I continued up the narrow cobbled walkway and the front steps.
I thumped my stick before me as I walked, first before my right foot, then my left as if I were blind, surreptitiously collecting any dross drifts that might have been drawn to the growing mass of glowing bottles.
There was enough here to create a pull nearly a block wide, and I wondered if Ryan had considered that before inviting everyone to leave their dross.
The building’s shade felt good, and my mood brightened when the door opened and Nog came out. “Here to help?” the somewhat raggedy man called out, a welcoming grin on his face. “We could use it.”
“Old habits die hard.” I fist-bumped his weather-beaten knuckles. Worry for the sweeper drifted through me, and I hoped Pluck was right that Thoth would see no threat in the older man.
“Ryan is in the front room.” Nog glanced behind him to the low two-story building, then hesitated as he studied me. “Did you get a haircut?”
I touched my hair, bemused as Benedict and Marty waited at the open front door. Everyone seemed to be seeing me differently lately. “No.”
The sweeper bobbed his head and eyed me. “Maybe it’s that red lodestone cord. No dross in those knots, eh?”
“Not anymore,” I said as we parted ways, and Pluck fizzed and bubbled, his thoughts carefully hidden. I wasn’t sure what had sparked Nog’s question. Sure, the lodestone cord was new. And yeah, it was kind of bright for my tastes. I had been wearing black a lot lately, but it felt more than that.
Benedict’s brow was furrowed when I caught up to him, and he gestured for me to go first. “We’re agreed? Don’t tell anyone about me not being able to make a field,” I whispered, and he sighed as he pushed the door open.
“Hey, hi!” I called out as we went in. The row of hooks in the hall was empty, but the stick trios and their associated knotted dross cords filled the racks taking up one entire wall in the old living room like katanas at a dojo.
I propped my stick against the wall beside them, my fingers reluctantly leaving the reddish wood.
My dad had made a set of five. I had one, Ryan had three, and the last was missing.
As promised, Ryan and Dana were in the front room, the low table between them covered with dross bottles.
Spiky inert-dross nuggets filled a box at Ryan’s feet, and even as I watched, he taped it up and set it on a stack by the archway.
Clearly they’d been fixing dross into inert nuggets for a while.
“Herm told me you were here. I didn’t know you were going to take a shift. Quiet night?” I asked when Ryan looked up, the tired man clearly glad to see me as he nodded. “For us, too.”
Guilt twined with the urge to tell Ryan what Thoth had done, but it vanished when Benedict whistled long and low and I followed his gaze into the kitchen.
Full dross bottles were stacked on every available surface, glowing to make it look as if the sun were setting between the fridge and the stove.
Pluck darted for the safety of the overhead light, the shadow nothing but a hazy blur.
“That’s what came in last night?” Benedict said, and Ryan straightened where he sat, his back audibly cracking. “Thoth won’t show with this much dross here.”
“None of it is going downstairs.” Ryan folded a box closed and set it beside the low table. “Nog is moving it out nearly as fast as it’s coming in, but we haven’t seen the top of the bell curve yet.”
“Benedict. Great.” Dana tucked a strand of limp hair behind her ear and blew her breath out in fatigue. “Let me show you what I’ve been doing. You aren’t going to sit and play with your phone while you’re watching the vault.”
Benedict’s eyes widened. “Ah…” he stammered, and Dana patted the couch beside her.
“Benedict didn’t come here to turn dross inert,” Ryan said. “It’s not his job.”
“It’s not my job, either,” the woman complained.
Ryan chuckled, his tired expression scrunching into a smile. “True, but now that you know how tedious and skill-worthy it is, maybe you’ll attach appropriate compensation to the job.”
“He invented it,” she said indignantly. “I want to see if he can do it better than me.”
I knew for a fact Benedict could. There was one heck of a big nugget under the auditorium that said so, and my fingers touched his in a silent thank-you. He had saved Pluck’s life, and by doing so, mine as well.
“Ryan, it’s fine.” Giving my fingers a squeeze, Benedict edged between the rows of bottles to reach the couch, leaving Marty and me in the hall and out of the way and out of the mess.
Ryan stood and stretched, ending the motion by scrubbing a hand over his morning bristles. They were more white than black, making him look even more tired. “I could use some good news. And a coffee.”
“Breakfast is on me.” Dana edged into the hall, clearly eager to leave.
I supposed I could pack up the spiky dross nuggets, and I edged out of the way, waiting for them to clear out so I could get in there.
Marty, too, seemed to be waiting, and she turned from the dross-go board she’d been studying.
“I froze a glass of water last night,” she said shyly, her fingers touching her pocket as if she needed to confirm she’d done it with magic, not simply put it in the freezer.
“Ah, I used my own amulet. You can have yours back.”
“Marty! Congratulations!” Beaming, Ryan shifted his path, his relief almost palpable when he took his Spinner stone as she extended it, and looped it over his head.
“That is fabulous.” His brow furrowed. “Even if you decide not to stay with us, that new stone of yours belongs to you,” he added, but I could tell he was truly happy for her.