Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Brogan?” she asked.
“Can’t see,” I said. “Give me a minute.” I pulled the glasses off and rubbed the back of my hand over my eyes. I shivered, even though it was sweltering. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I dropped the book. I’m not going to pick it up yet, so don’t step forward. It’s close to your feet.”
Her hand rested on my arm. I pulled her to me in an awkward hug.
“You okay, Card? Abbi?” I called out, my arms around Lula, both of us shaking.
“Card is lying down,” Abbi said. “But I’m okay. The room is okay. I don’t hear anything bad outside.”
“I’m fine,” Card said, his voice coming from somewhere near the floor. “I just need to catch my breath.”
“We need a break,” I said.
“Card said five. We have three more pages,” Lu said, not moving an inch away from me.
“Maybe we need a snack?” Abbi asked.
“I can do three,” Card said. “Brogan?”
My sight was returning from the edges inward, as if I’d stared too long at the sun.
“Not until I can see,” I said. “But, yes.”
Lu nodded against my chest.
Abbi made encouraging noises, helping Card back to the chair and getting his tea. My throat was dry as if I’d been talking non-stop. I could drink a gallon of water, but we’d all agreed bringing food or drink inside this protected circle spell space was a terrible idea.
“Okay,” I said, “I can see. Just three and we take a break. Yes?”
“Yes,” Lula agreed.
She leaned away but held my forearms so she could study my face. “How many fingers?” she asked holding up her hand.
“Five. But you’re holding up two.”
She smiled briefly. There were shadows under her eyes, shadows that hadn’t been there this morning. Holding the book, turning the pages was taking more of a toll on her than she was admitting.
“Three pages,” I repeated.
“I know,” she said. “Are you ready, Card?”
“I am. Brogan, put the glasses back on first. Let me see if they are damaged.”
I did. “Good?”
“Good. Lula?”
“I’m picking up the book.” She held it carefully in her hands and squared off in front of me. “I’m opening the cover.”
I nodded, took a deep breath. I had no idea how far we’d gotten into the book, but somehow Lula did. She opened the cover and several pages at the same time. The page she opened too was not one I’d seen before.
“Three,” I said.
A soft wind brushed across my skin, and moonlit petals filled the space.
“Nice,” Card said, “but not a lost god spell.”
“Two.”
Lu turned the page. There were words there, all of them squirming and thrashing like worms caught in a blow torch.
“No,” Card said.
“One,” I said.
Lu turned the page.
The page was covered from corner to corner in black ink, the words written in a tight, precise script.
No other magics or sensations radiated off of the page. It just looked like ink on paper.
“Break time,” I said.
“No,” Card’s voice was thready with excitement. “Stay there. Don’t close the book. I think that might be what we’re looking for.”
Lu looked up at me. “Can you read it?”
I focused on the text. It wasn’t a language I’d ever seen before, but I knew how it would sound if I spoke each word.
“I can. I think so. I don’t know what it says, though. Don’t know what kind of spell it is. Card, you got some insight on this?”
“I can’t see god power attached to it. Not active. I can’t sense the god who made it. This is a lost god spell. I think it is.”
“Think?” Lu and I said at the same time.
“I know magic,” he said, “but I’ve never seen a spell from a lost god. But this…this could be it.”
“How do we know?” Abbi asked. “How do we know for sure?”
“Brogan and Lula cast it,” Card said.
The silence was unsettling, then I couldn’t help it, I snorted. “Fuck. All right. I need a drink of water first, and another cup of coffee. Lu, do you think you can find this page again?”
“I can.”
“Let’s put it back in the box.”
She closed and locked the book and put it in the box. I shut the lid and draped the cloaking cloth over it.
“Step out at the same time,” Card said.
We did so. I shivered like I’d just crawled out of the storm into a warm house.
“You did it!” Abbi bounded over to us. “You found the spell!”
“We found a spell,” I said. “Still don’t know if it’s the one we need.”
“I’ll consult with Ricky, the Crossroads, and a few books I have there.” Card was already headed to the door. “I should be able to figure out what the spell is meant to do.”
He waved his hand across the door, releasing the wards he had set before stepping out.
“That was good,” Abbi said. “You did really good.” She beamed up at Lula and me. “I bet it is the spell you need.”
“Are you just saying that because you’re bored and don’t want us to go through the rest of the book page by page?” Lu asked.
“Yes,” she said simply. “That book is too much…everything. The power and magic…” She shook her head. “I want that spell to be the right spell.”
“So do I,” I said. But I had a gut feeling it was not the right spell. There was nothing about it that made it seem powerful enough to kill a god-created monster. There was no sense of violence in it.
If anything, it felt blank, empty, as if it were nothing more than a laundry list written in plain ink.
We closed the door behind us, Lu tugging to make sure the latch was set.
Lorde trotted down the hallway, her tail wagging.
Abbi let go of my hand and jogged to meet her. “We found a spell, Lordey. It might be the right spell, too.” She petted Lorde’s back then jumped off to the control room.
“It’s not the right spell, is it?” Lu asked.
“I don’t know. The first lost god spell we find in the book just happens to be the right one?” I asked. “How often does a coincidence like that go our way?”
“More often than it does for other people,” she said. “With all the forces and powers and magic messing with our lives? It could be the right spell because Fate decided we’re going to find it now.”
“I’d like to stay well beneath the notice of her or any other gods.”
“If wishes were horses,” she said.
“Then beggars would ride.”
It was an old nursery rhyme. I was surprised I remembered it.
We strolled into the control room.
Pamela was reading on a screen. She looked up. “Snacks in the kitchen,” she said. “Fresh drinks, coffee and tea if you want it.”
“I’m getting a drink, you want anything?” I asked Lu.
“Tea?”
“Earl Grey?”
“Please.”
She pulled out a chair and sat, propping her boots up on the opposite chair. “Any movement outside?”
“All quiet,” Pamela said. “Grandpa did another check on the perimeter. We’re snug as bugs.”
“Scout still out there?”
I didn’t hear her reply once I pushed through the doors into the kitchen. Abbi was (surprisingly) not there, but evidence of her strafing run was clear in the huge slice of pumpkin pie that was missing and the half-empty marshmallow bag.
I found the mugs, started the kettle for Lu, and turned on the tap for a glass of water, which I downed in one go and refilled.
I poured coffee, thinking I might go for a snack of the cheeses, smoked meats, and nuts they’d set out, when I heard Lu’s phone ring.
It wasn’t loud, but it was a silly little tune that managed to carry, even over other noise.
Lots of people might be calling her—Ricky, for one. Raven, because he was like that. Maybe even Dot from the B&B back in Illinois.
But I knew from the chill that shot through my bones, it was none of those people.
Whoever was on the phone was not a friend.
I barged into the control room.
Lu was on her feet, facing me, but from the look on her face, she didn’t see me.
Pamela was on her feet too, but she leaned over her tablet, her fingers flying.
“Speaker,” I said. “Lu, put it on speaker.”
She snapped out of her daze and put her phone down, turning on the speaker function.
Insipid orchestral music played. The caller must have put Lu on hold.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Headwaters,” Lu whispered. She swallowed and scowled, color coming back to her cheeks. “His secretary put me on hold.”
“Why?”
“Because Headwaters wants to talk to me. Directly.”
“He knows,” I said. “Knows we’re on to him.”
Card came down the stairs, moving silently, a book open in his hand, his tattoos glowing softly.
The music stopped and a woman’s voice said, “Headwaters will speak with you now.”
A click sounded, and I knew something evil hovered on the other side of the connection. An evil we’d been hunting for decades.
“Lula Gauge,” a slow, low male voice said. “I know you have the spell book of the gods.”
My heart hammered so loudly, I could barely hear his words. This felt like a nightmare. One where I was locked in place. Frozen.
Lu’s breathing was fast, both rage and fear. But her voice when she spoke was calm and without inflection.
“We will find you,” she said. “And we will kill you.”
The pause on the other end was long. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the phone screen, Lula didn’t move.
It felt like not even a single grain of time fell.
“You know what I am? Who I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know that if I had wanted to kill you, all these long years, I could have ended you in an instant. Wiped you off this earth. You and spirit-out-of-spirit, Brogan.”
“Ate wouldn’t allow it,” Lu said.
Headwaters made a considering noise. “Not all gods are powerful,” he said. “Nor do all gods remain in control of the power they think they have. You have the book.”
“Meet me and I’ll tell you.”
It wasn’t a laugh. But it was a sound that conveyed humor—and derision.
“And kill me, I presume.”
“Meet. Me.”
“Do you think you have power? Over me? You are nothing. You cannot kill me. No weapon can. Gods themselves have built me, and only gods can tear me down.”
“Name the place,” she said, “and we’ll find out.”
“Bring me the spell book of the gods. Or I will no longer find you useful alive.”
That, the overwhelming statement of bravado was what finally snapped me out of it.
I broke a hard sweat, but adrenalin still pumped through me. Headwaters was like every other god and creature we’d run across.
He wanted the spell book of the gods.
And he couldn’t use it without us.
“Where?” Lu asked. “When?”
“Tomorrow, dawn. The Continental Divide.”
Lu’s gaze flicked up to me. She wasn’t asking for my opinion. She was warning me she wasn’t going to say no.
“Dawn.” She thumbed off the phone.
“Call was from out of state,” Pamela said. “I’m going to say it’s a burner phone. That was his—” she looked over at Lu, “—his? voice.”
“Does he know where we are?” Card asked. “Can he have pinpointed this place through the call?”
“No. You would not even believe the magical redirects we have. He might know you’re in New Mexico. Probably why he suggested the Continental Divide.”
“We don’t have much time,” Lu said. “We have to try that spell.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of meeting that monster at dawn?” Card asked.
“I am dead serious we are going to kill that monster at dawn.” Her eyes were narrow, and I caught a flash of her sharp canines.
Fury that burned for nearly a hundred years did not fade. No, for Lula, for me, it became a concentrated, explosive inferno.
But using the book to kill Headwaters when we could barely hold it, could barely read it, was madness.
“We need to talk,” I said. “Lula, you and I need to talk.”
“No,” she said. “We need to work. I know you don’t want to use the book.
You’ve told me that over and over. But I am not going to let your fear get in the way of me killing that monster.
You have to just deal with it right now, Brogan.
There is no more time for you to be afraid.
There’s no turning back. We kill Headwaters tomorrow with the book. ”
She wasn’t yelling, but her voice was loud. Hard.
“Of course I’m afraid,” I said. “I’d be a fool not to be. Use your head, Lula. We aren’t ready.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I know the risks.”
“Risks? This is madness. We don’t even know what that spell does.
Is it a weapon? Something that can kill Headwaters?
We don’t know. And if it isn’t? Then how many more spells are we going to have to go through to find one that will work?
We turned a dozen pages today and were attacked and nearly blinded.
There are hundreds of pages in the book.
You can’t think we can get through them and somehow miraculously master a spell that will kill Headwaters in the next few hours. ”
“I think,” she said, her voice cold and shaking with anger. “That one of us damn well better find out. You can just stay out here afraid, Brogan. Card, you come with me.”
She turned and strode out of the room, Card following behind.