Chapter 23
Benedict drove through St. Unoc’s night-emptied streets with one hand, looking as comfortable behind the wheel of Herm’s dusty truck as he was in his own sporty go-faster car.
Maybe more so. Pluck was nothing but a haze of possibilities, his glow eddying into a tiny coiled snake beside me.
We were only a few minutes out from St. Unoc’s bus station, and the buildings had begun to get that wide space between them that said city’s edge.
The desert beckoned, and a part of me longed to just keep driving.
“It’s too bad I don’t have her phone number,” I muttered. “Not that she’d pick up.”
“I don’t know. She might.” Benedict glanced at me, and I took his free hand—the one with the cut—and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze.
“She ran off to get away from Dana, not you. If she hasn’t left, we can at least trim our search down to St. Unoc.
” Benedict’s eyes roved the dark side streets as we passed.
“Unless she rented a car or bummed a ride.”
Pluck fizzed at the top of my brain, his opinion a slurry of concern. “We’ll find her,” I said, talking to both of them but mostly Pluck. His hard and ugly past with Thoth colored his mood, but my hope blended smoothly through it. We would find her.
My elbow slipped into Pluck, and the sudden chill woke me up fast. The night already glittering with dross became brighter.
If it wasn’t truly bad luck made real, I’d say it was pretty.
“Thank you for trusting me,” I said, and Benedict turned his hand to grip mine, bringing it to his lips for a quick kiss.
Little streamers of Pluck’s essence fell from my elbow, sparkling to my more sensitive eyes.
“Petra, there is little you could ask of me that I wouldn’t do.”
So says the mage…Pluck bubbled sourly.
The truck’s lights suddenly threw back a haze from a pothole full of dross. I took a breath to warn Benedict, but it was too late and he drove right through it, the thump loud and obvious. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the hole that usually caused damage but the dross hiding it.
“Yeah,” I continued when our ride smoothed out.
“But I can tell you’re worried about what comes next.
I know I said we need her, but I won’t push Marty into this once we find her.
” I fiddled with the hole in my jeans, right at the knee.
“She doesn’t owe us anything, even if Thoth followed her here. ”
Her want to flee is well-founded, the shadow mused, and my shoulders dropped as his agitation eased. Thoth might not be her shadow, but he’s been manipulating her as much as he’s been manipulating you.
“I say points to her for running away from Dana,” I added, gazing at Benedict in the come-and-go light.
“Herm told me to trust your gut feeling. I told him I already did.” His grip on the wheel tightened. “Me accidentally giving Pluck the tool to blow up the auditorium was lesson enough.”
Pluck hazed a brilliant green, his snakelike head hooding as he stared at the man. You find yourself dropped into a live volcano and see what you’re willing to do to get out.
“That wasn’t your fault,” I said, talking to both of them. “And you know it.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying, but that’s not how it feels.” He hesitated. “Why do they always put the bus station in the worst part of town?”
“It’s not that bad,” I said as Benedict slowed, both hands on the wheel as he eased to a halt under the single glaring light at the bus depot.
Set between two distant manufacturing buildings and a shuttered food truck, the depot was little more than a twenty-by-twenty building at the edge of the desert.
There was a quick-eats place across the street, closed, and a laundromat next door, open but empty.
I would be willing to bet the camera focused on the small parking lot was recording us.
Dross levels weren’t bad, but it probably didn’t get a lot of traffic.
I will see if Thoth is here, Pluck fizzed, and I stifled a shudder when he slithered out my open window. Looking like a snake with pricked dog ears, he wove past the dross drifts to vanish inside.
Thoth, Pluck had thought, not Marty. I just hoped his gut feeling was better than mine. After all, he knew the shadow.
Unfortunately, hazed through me, hardly discernible, and I smiled. Our reach had grown.
“Pluck is doing a quick check,” I said, and Benedict nodded.
“Thanks, Pluck,” he whispered as he got out, his motions slow with fatigue.
The truck door shut with a loud thump…and he rested his forearms on the hood to stare at the building as we waited.
The front glass wall made it a veritable fishbowl.
There were restrooms in the rear and an empty counter that might have once sold tickets.
The vending machine looked old, but the ticket kiosk tucked into the corner was probably new.
“That was fast,” I said as Pluck slithered out under the door and headed our way.
His entire body glittered as he crossed the parking lot, his form growing until, ears slapping, he took his customary dog shape.
I knew everything was fine by the way he carried his thin, whiplike tail curved up over his back.
He might not be a dog, but he had a canine’s mannerisms down to perfection.
But then again, it was how he chose to communicate. Almost everyone could speak dog.
Worry and guilt that I was holding him back flickered through me.
I told you, tingled through my mind. Being a dog is easier than being a human. I don’t want to talk to anyone else, and no one expects anything of me.
I reached for my stick and got out. But you’re not a dog, I protested. I would totally be okay with you as a person.
At the curb, Pluck’s one eye focused on me, and then he dissolved into a puddling, dripping haze.
I took your dog companion from you, fizzed through me, his embarrassment twining equally with my own.
I’m not Pluck, but you feel good when you remember him, and you remember him more when I wear his shape.
“Lev shot him, not you,” I whispered.
I frightened the mage into it.
I grimaced, wondering why we were having this conversation now. Only because I saw you as a slavering beast, I thought. That was totally not your fault.
Perhaps, he thought. It was his way of saying agree to disagree, and I slumped when he hazed to nothing, sinking into the dark to pretty much vanish.
Fine. Be that way. “Pluck says it’s clear.
” Mood bad, I ran my stick around the truck’s wheel well, my lip curling when I pulled a good-size burning blob from hell from it.
My hands ached as if the energy was looking for a way to break on me, and I angrily spun the stick to send the hazy heat flying into the night to hit the dry desert earth with a momentum-laden splat.
“Ah, thanks.” Benedict came around the front, keys jingling. “Here,” he said as he handed them to me. “In case you need to leave fast.”
Clean stick in hand, I eyed him sharply as we headed for the front. “What do you think is going to happen?” I asked as I stuffed them in my pocket. It wasn’t only Herm’s truck keys but about six others, not one of them similar to the next.
Benedict bumped my shoulder with his. “No idea,” he said cheerfully. “But you run faster than me. Get it started. I’ll catch up.”
Head bobbing, I shifted my hand so our fingers would touch. He was headed right for a glowing dross drift, and I surreptitiously pulled him clear.
“Thanks,” he whispered as he gave my hand a squeeze and let go, clearly embarrassed. Most mages could see dross, but Benedict had always had problems. Maybe, I thought suddenly, it’s because his fields are so damn strong.
Possible, Pluck agreed as we followed Benedict to the door. But you could see dross even when you could make them.
Not like this, I thought as I studied the pockets of light glowing in the desert. Even the saguaro cacti sported a fine haze of dross dust. My sensitivity had increased tenfold since I’d lost the ability to make fields.
“The kiosk should have a video record of everyone who used it,” I said when he opened the door and gestured for me to go first. It was an ugly room, and I lagged behind as Benedict strode forward.
The floors were dirty and the lights were bright.
A dross trap disguised as a trash can sat overflowing with both mundane and magical garbage, and I gave it a wide berth.
Benedict faced the machine, ignoring the screen asking for the requested destination as he studied the lock on the front panel and access to the video-monitoring equipment. “I suppose I could bust in with a spell.”
Tell Ben there’s a USB port to access the video log once past the panel. The cable Herm gave you to charge that phone will work, and you can watch it on your screen.
“Pluck says there’s a video port inside,” I said as I felt in my pocket for the coiled cable. “I bet the charging cord will work.”
“Inside. Good.” Benedict put his palm to the lock.
I stifled a shiver at the sensation of spiderwebs brushing my mind, then took a step back at the drift of dross snaking down from the machine.
There was a sudden click of breaking metal, and Benedict pried the panel open.
“Sorry about the dross,” the mage whispered as he peered at the inner workings.
Pluck huffed, the shadow dog flicking an ear in annoyance before dissolving to a ribbon of energy and going to an orange chair to sulk. I gathered the dross with the butt of my stick with a sigh.
Totally oblivious, Benedict fitted the phone cord into the USB port, then his phone. Immediately both screens lit up, and he frowned. “I need to get an app.”
Of course you do. Tired, I went to sit in the chair directly over Pluck. My ankles went cold, and I eyed a drift of dross rolling like a slime mold in the far corner. The dross I’d gathered from Benedict glowed, and I smacked the stick on the floor until it fell off.