Shotgun Sorceress (34 page)

We stepped out onto the thick maroon carpet of the twenty-fifth floor, and almost immediately encountered the first real, live, soul-intact human in the building: a startled-looking Hispanic woman in stained, pale blue hospital scrubs who was clutching a pair of plastic IV bags. She was in her late twenties, and something about the curve of her jaw and the set of her shoulders seemed familiar.

“Are you Sofia Ray?” I asked her.

Her eyes grew big. “Yes. Who are you people?”

“I met your father at his store; he asked me to find you.”

“Papa is still alive?” she breathed.

“He was when we left his place a couple of days ago,” I replied. God, had we been in this godforsaken town for only days? Quick math told me we had, and I continued: “Miko seems to be gone now, so if you could show us where she’s keeping her prisoners …?”

Sofia led us down the hall into a big room that was set up with hospital cots outfitted with restraints; I counted thirty Talents strapped down to the cots, IVs dripping into veins and catheter tubes draining nethers. Some wore hospital gowns, others were mostly naked under sheets. Fine silver chains connected their feet, forming an unbroken circle of trance-bound spellcasters.

“Well, here’s the source of our antimagic, antifire field,” Cooper said.

“Interesting,” Pal said behind me. “They’re networked together like computers. That would be rather clever if it weren’t a completely horrible thing to do to people.”

“Lynn!” Sofia called. “Lynn, get up, help finally came!”

A woman who at first glance seemed to be part of the circle popped awake on a nearby cot and threw off her sheet. She was also dressed in scrubs, and wore a nurse’s sensible white shoes. Her expression turned from surprise to joy and then to fear when she saw Pal, who hadn’t shrunk himself down much for the elevator.

“Don’t be afraid of my spider,” I said quickly. “He looks scary, but he’s good.”

Cooper was touching the nearest length of silver chain, frowning. “I’ve heard of thrall circles like these. Someone here is acting as the pacemaker, and the others are just echoing the spell he or she is casting. If we can wake the pacemaker up, the others should come out of it, too. But if we break the chain before then, the shock could kill some of them.”

Closing his eyes, he limped around the circle, holding his hands toward the enthralled Talents. And then stopped, right in front of a sandy-haired young man who looked to be five or six years older than me. “This one.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, stepping toward the young man. “I think that’s my brother. How does he need to be awakened?”

“Gently, if possible,” Cooper replied. “Shock to the system and all that fun stuff if you jerk him right out of the spell.”

I went to the side of his bed and looked down at him. His face was puffy from all the IV fluids and drugs he’d been filled with, but he did look a whole lot like our father. And me.

“Randall,” I called, not too loudly. “Randall, wake up.”

He made a slight moan and stirred in his trance-sleep. I started patting his hand, and spoke just a little louder: “C’mon, dude, wake up. We gotta go home. You want to see your dad, don’t you? Wanna take me to see Magus Shimmer?”

“Mugus shummur …” he slurred. His eyes fluttered open, rolled, seemed to focus on me.

“Whoa. Sis.” His voice was a hoarse croak. He smiled at me. “I dreamed you’d come. What took ya so long?”

    Sofia and Lynn helped us unhook the rest of the Talents, and after Pal and Cooper performed a healing spell on Randall, my brother was alert and almost hyper.

“Yeah, I can totally get us out of here,” he told me. “This town is full of seams; I couldn’t get ’em myself, not while Miko had me anyway. I played along with her after she ambushed my team; figured I could maybe get the drop on her, but I just didn’t luck out. Man, I could use a burger. Fries, too. Fries would be
great
right now. There’s this cool diner up in Dallas I should take y’all to. Hey, you’re an opener, right?”

“What?” I asked, his sudden conversational switchback confusing me momentarily.

“An opener. Good at opening portals?”

“Oh. Yeah. I think so.”

“Awesome-sauce.” Randall grinned at me. “We are totally out of here. Dad’s got a really cool place, you’re gonna
love
it.”

“I need to take Sofia back to her dad’s place,” I said. “I promised him I would.”

“Sure, whatevs,” Randall said. “Gonna take a while to get everybody healed up and back on their feet, anyhow.”

    Sofia was afraid to ride Pal at first, but I finally convinced her to climb on behind me. The flight back to Rudy Ray’s Roadstop was uneventful, and toward the end of it, Sofia seemed to be enjoying herself. Flying way up high in the open air is exhilarating if it doesn’t give you a heart attack.

We touched down in the shade of the gas pumps, and I had just helped Sofia down onto the pavement when I heard the store’s front door whish open.

“S-Sofia?” old Rudy stammered as he stumbled into the parking lot. He looked like he’d just awakened. “Is that really you?”

“Papa!” She broke into a broad smile and ran over to him. They caught each other in a strong hug.

Tears ran down Rudy’s craggy face. “Thank God, thank God, thank God you’re okay. I was so scairt I’d lost you forever.”

He looked at me, blinking away the water. “Thank you, miss. I don’t know how you done it, and I cain’t ever repay you for this …”

“It’s okay,” I said, simultaneously touched by their joy and feeling a bit like a voyeur. “I don’t need to be repaid, I just … want y’all to be happy.”

I looked at Rudy and his daughter and thought of all the meat puppets I’d seen since I got to Cuchillo. Remembered Henry’s death. Remembered what Charlie said when she refused to bury David. And I made a decision.

We can’t leave this town
, I thought to Pal.
I have to go find Miko
.

“What? Why on Earth do you want to do that? You defeated her.”

No, I didn’t. Not really
, I replied.
The Goad’s not nearly strong enough to kill something like her. Having it in her drove her mad, yes, but maybe only for a little while. And then she’ll go right back to mass murder, maybe do this to another town someplace. I can’t let that happen
.

“But perhaps her madness is permanent,” Pal countered. “Perhaps having a devil inside her is the one true weakness she had left.”

Then that’s just as bad
, I replied.
Because that means I’ve just condemned thousands of immortal souls to hell. If it wouldn’t have been right to abandon Cooper’s brothers, then it surely isn’t right to abandon the souls inside Miko
.

I looked Pal square in his eyes. “I’m not leaving until this thing is finished. Are you with me?”

He nodded. “I’m with you.”