Chapter 20 #3
“She saved my life!” Cameron insisted, angry now. “Despite your interference. It’s a militia matter now, not university. I expect you to surrender your findings and resources to me immediately. Thoth is the main suspect. Do I have your compliance?”
Lev winced. “Yeah. That ought to do it.”
“You do not,” Dana said, stiff with anger. “By your own words, you are compromised.”
“Dana, she’s right,” Ryan coaxed, and Dana spun, her lodestone twinkling.
“You seriously expect anyone to give an ounce of credit to anything Cameron Owens says she learned while in a coma? That Petra and Pluck are innocent because they ‘helped’ her escape it? The coma they put her in?”
My jaw clenched, but I managed to stay quiet. It was just too stupid.
“That’s Marshal Owens,” Cameron intoned. “And I might have gotten my information while in a coma, but I did talk to Thoth. This is his doing, and he’s setting Petra up to take the blame. He followed Marty here to destroy the rising balance, and failing that, the weavers themselves.”
My gaze went to Marty slowly retreating to the van.
“It was a dream.” Dana put a hand on Marty’s shoulder in support, stopping her. “A nightmare. Nothing there was real, and I’m not going to act on it.”
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Ah, Dana? That’s not entirely true.”
Herm motioned for me to leave. Pluck, too, was fizzing in indecision, but I couldn’t move. Dana couldn’t protect Marty. She was coming with me.
“If anyone should be detained, it’s you!” Cameron shouted, shaking as she stood before Dana. “Don’t you dare tell me I am misremembering.”
“Marshal, your memory is compromised,” Dana said. “By your own words, your witness is immaterial.”
Cameron’s jaw clenched in defiance. “I will immaterial your ass from here to DC, you smug, entitled—” And then she hesitated, furious as she tugged from Lev’s support.
“That bastard of a shadow put me in a coma,” she said, pointing to the hospital.
“Trapped me where I couldn’t be reached, then used me to try to kill the only two people who could stop him.
He will destroy anyone and anything he sees as a threat to get what he wants.
I am a marshal of mage law, and you will—”
Petra! Pluck warned, and I yelped, my foot suddenly engulfed in fire. Dancing free, I instinctively swung my stick down to draw it off me, almost passing out at the agony.
“Dana, don’t!” Ryan shouted, and I looked up, freezing when I saw the woman holding a mass of threads, weaving them into a field between her hands.
Alight with the creation of the universe, the weft and weave was singularly beautiful.
Pluck had said spells looked recognizable to him, but never had I dreamed they’d be so stunning.
And so I stupidly did nothing as Dana harnessed the energy… and threw it at me.
Herm’s lodestone flashed, but Ryan was faster and his spell smashed into Dana’s, the two energies hissing and bubbling as they twined together and canceled each other out inches from reaching me.
She’s trying to hurt you, Pluck said in anger, and Cameron stood weaving on her feet as she shouted at everyone to stand down.
“I’ve been hurt before,” I whispered, but at least I knew how far she’d go.
“Calm down, Dana,” Ryan soothed, hand raised as the magic they had both thrown flickered and went out. “Everything is circumstantial at this point. You can’t—”
I yelped at the sensation of spiderwebs breaking on me. It was that damned dross again, and I shook my foot like I was doing the Hokey Pokey, trying to get it off.
Tune it, Grady. Dump the energy!
It was far more than the dross dust, but I frantically allowed the energy to filter through me, shunting the organized dark matter into the amulet as it burned and hissed. Little licks of flame burned the both of us from the inside out.
It was too much, and I smacked the stick into the ground to get rid of what I could.
With a thump I felt more than heard, the sidewalk cracked. Cold flashed through my arms, then heat, vanishing with little tingles. I gaped at the curls of spent dark matter rolling up from the new crack, shocked.
The stick felt hot in my grip. Everyone was staring at me. Marty was gone. That hadn’t been weaver magic, and by the way Herm was frowning, he knew it. I had tuned an entire drift of dross, stored some, used the rest to break the walk. It was shadow magic. “Uh…” I started.
“You still believe in Petra’s innocence, Ryan?” Dana accused, clearly oblivious that I’d just done something utterly unprecedented. “Maybe I should bring you in for questioning as well.”
“Get out of here,” Herm mouthed, and then his expression changed to a jovial cajoling as he stepped between me and her. “Dana, we all want the same thing.”
Marty had left. Maybe I should, too, and I began to edge away. Expression grim, Lev took Cameron’s arm to pull her into a slow retreat. Holy crap. Did I just…
You did, Pluck thought, his pride washing through my doubt. The fear, though, remained, and I didn’t think it was mine alone. You tuned an entire drift, Petra.
Scared, I reached for the stone about my neck. It was warm in my grip, but my fingers were blue with cold…How? I’m not a shadow.
No, he agreed. No shadow can touch that much dross, much less tune it. But you’re not shadow. You’re a weaver. Petra, you are still a weaver.
“Dana, I’ve had enough of your conspiratorial garbage,” Herm said, his back to me as he held his hands behind him and gestured for me to go. “You’re not touching Petra and Pluck without solid evidence.”
“I don’t need…” Dana’s words faltered as she realized Marty was gone. Worry flickered, smothered by a hot anger. “I don’t need evidence to detain. Just probable cause. Grady and Pluck were here when the vault cracked. They are coming with me.”
Petra, run! Pluck’s thoughts thundered through mine. Stunned, I froze when Dana’s lodestone gleamed and I felt the threads gather.
“Go!” Herm shouted, throwing himself at Dana.
The woman shrieked as she hit the ground, her spell sputtering to nothing.
Never! Pluck frothed, and I gasped when the shadow poured from his amulet, growing into a snarling, snapping dog from hell.
“Now would be good, Ryan!” Herm yelled, grunting when Dana shoved him off.
“Dana, stop this!” Ryan demanded, wading into the fray.
Bending low, Lev flung Cameron into a fireman’s throw over his shoulder and began to run. The small woman protested, an odd huff-huff to her words in time with his thumping steps.
“Pluck!” I pleaded, unable to leave him. Savage and wild, he stood between Dana and me, his skin torn and pus dripping from where bone protruded. Shaking his mane, he roared; the echo coming back from the surrounding buildings made it sound as if we were surrounded.
Ashen, Dana stared at Pluck. He was as she saw him, and she saw a monster.
I suddenly realized why she was so hell-bent on blaming me.
For all the platitudes and smiles, she was scared of me.
I was the one who she wanted bound by law.
I was the threat to her peace of mind. No wonder she has all those lodestones…
My old roommate, Ashley, had been the same.
“There is your truth, Ryan,” Dana whispered, and I reached for Pluck, my grip falling through him with scintillating tingles of cold. “Detain her, or I will.”
“Pluck, not like this!” I shouted, and a third eye formed at the back of his head, looking at me.
I hadn’t seen a third eye from him in a while, and it threw me.
“Cameron,” I said, hoping she and Lev had made the car.
“She’s our only alibi.” I reached for Pluck again, this time feeling some resistance. “If Thoth finds her, Lev can’t—”
Pluck’s third eye vanished. His presence swirled, caving in on itself until he faced the other way. Muscles bunching, he sprang after Lev.
“—protect her,” I finished. Dark matter from Pluck coated my hands, and I shook them. The cold spat of energy hitting the hot stone brought a gasp from Dana.
“You’re wrong,” I said to Dana as I began to back up again. “About everything.”
I spun, dodging drifts of dross as I ran through the parking lot following Cameron’s shrieks of anger. From behind me, I heard a disgusted, “Dana, you are a first-class idiot,” and then my side went cold as I caught up to Pluck.
Pluck loped along beside me, his feet never really touching the ground. I have forgotten how useful fleeing is, he said, and I choked down a laugh, worried it would sound hysterical.
“Do you know where Lev’s Hummer is?” I said as I jogged through the cars, and the shadow dog flicked an ear in indecision. A wisp of him twined about me as I ran, and my pace faltered when his rising emotion of protection flashed into warning.
“Dana, no!” Ryan yelled, and then the asphalt turned to liquid beneath my feet.
Gasping, I went down, palms scraping the hot pavement as I was suddenly calf-deep in the earth.
It was as if I’d fallen through the ice, and I panicked, lurching to pull myself out of the spell before I was trapped here.
Dana, I remembered, was a world-class airologist—air not as in flying, but as in able to manipulate the spaces between mass.
“Go!” I shouted to Pluck as the tingling wave of threads snapped through me.
Eyes wide, I got one foot free, then cried out when her spell solidified around my other.
Frantic, I twisted, my butt hitting the pavement.
Two cars away, Lev froze in indecision. Behind me, Dana’s low heels thumped as she closed the distance between us, and my fear for Pluck intensified.
If they caught him, they’d kill him. It wasn’t illegal to kill a shadow.
“I said go!” But neither Lev nor Pluck moved, my big, beautiful shadow standing between me and Dana running toward us.
“Pluck, Thoth’s plans are wheels within wheels.
He wanted us here to take the blame. We have to get ahead of him.
Keep Cameron safe. Aasta will let her stay if you’re with her.
Come and get me when you can. They won’t hurt me. ”
His shaggy head dipped and he breathed stardust into my soul. I can’t.
Tears pricking, I held his ruff, our foreheads touching as I breathed his ice in.
“I will be okay,” I said, my breath coming back warm.
“They won’t hurt me. They’re just going to put me in a box.
” Fingers fumbling, I took my phone from my pocket.
“Give this to Lev. Call Benedict. Please, Pluck. She can destroy you in thirty seconds and the law will let her.”
Ice cramped my hand as he took the phone, and I felt Dana’s charm redouble, the pavement under me becoming putty. If she hurts you, I will drive her insane. Slowly.
I tugged, unable to free my foot. “Go!” I said, and he vanished in a swirl of sparkles.
“Lev!” Cameron yelled from the Hummer. “Don’t you dare leave her!”
Lev floored it, the engine noise drowning Cameron’s protests until they were gone.
Dana paced forward in the new silence. Hands at her hips, she stared down at me, and I looked up at her, one foot stuck in the pavement. “Hey!” I protested when she bent low and yanked my lodestone from my neck.
“They left you,” she said as if that proved she was right. “Even your shadow,” she added as she stuffed the moldavite into a pocket. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Maybe because you’re a one-talent hack of a cretin,” I said, and her eye twitched.
“Dana!” Herm protested, but her hands wove a net of the universe and hit me with a sleep charm. She could have done a lot worse, and yet all I felt was a frustrated anger as my consciousness snapped.
Benedict was going to be really pissed.