Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (30 page)

Izzy couldn’t bring herself to fault him. She still felt wobbly, and she couldn’t blame the darkness for how her vision was disturbingly unclear. But closing her eyes to get rid of the tears was worse: she could see the fanged mouth darting forward, heard the meaty thunk as it connected with the magician’s flesh, and she was aware of the fact that it was aware of
them
, that they were ignored, not unobserved.

Her hands slipped on the leather, jabbing herself with the buckle hook, and she swore, forcing herself to concentrate. The horses would calm themselves only if she were calm.

She felt Gabriel behind her, likely carrying their packs. Her hands stilled, and she tilted her head to look up, looking not at the brightness of the waning moon rising on the horizon but the deeper black overhead. She wished for the warmth of the oil lamps of the saloon, the sulphurous reassurances of the blacksmith’s forge, even the steady flicker of a tallow candle.

“What was that? What did he do?”

“I don’t know.” Gabriel’s voice was terse, his words bitten off. “I don’t . . . I told you, this is beyond me, Iz. He wanted to show how strong his medicine was, so he probably called on a dust-dancer, or maybe it was what was made lunch out of Clear Rock. I don’t know. He was a magician; who knows what they do or why. Whatever it was, whatever came when he called, it was more than he could handle.”

It had torn his chest out and eaten it.

“That . . . that thing wasn’t what I saw before. In Clear Rock.” Her voice wasn’t as even as she would have liked, but Izzy was proud of the fact that she got the words out at all.

“Wonderful, so there are two things out there eating people?” Gabriel moved to double-check Steady’s gear. Izzy didn’t take it as an insult; he needed to do something too, same as her. She finished checking Uvnee’s girth, pushing the mare’s stomach a little to force her to exhale before tightening it a notch again, then scratched Uvnee once on the poll just between her ears in reassurance, and went to mount. By the time she was settled, Gabriel was already moving Steady back onto the road, the mule’s lead rope tied to his saddle for the first time since they’d left Patch Junction.

Izzy had seen death before, she’d watched people die before, but never like that. The sheer swift violence of it, the lack of warning—had the magician thought he could control it? Had he even known what he was calling up?

“You pushed him into it,” she said, returning to the last thing that had made sense. “You goaded him. Why? He could have been useful! He
wanted
to be useful.” She felt anger flare, a satisfying burn. If she was angry, she had no room to be afraid.

“Iz . . .” It was difficult to see his expression; he was a silhouette beside her, from the brim of his hat to the cut of his long coat over Steady’s flanks, and his voice was nearly as blank. “What are magicians?”

She sighed, but somehow the fallback into question-and-answer settled the last of her nerves, as did moving away from the stink of the campsite.

“They’re white men who style themselves on medicine men, on dream-talkers. They’ve given themselves to the wind in the crossroads, eaten the power there until it fills them entire.” She knew that, everyone knew that, the same way they knew that magicians weren’t the same after that. Not bad, not evil, just . . . different. Unreliable.

Just run.

She’d been fooled by the magician’s appearance. Had seen the surface and discounted what was below, even though she knew better, had grabbed at the idea that someone could help her, carry her responsibilities for her. She’d failed, and Gabriel had been right. And the magician had died for it.

A small, disloyal voice in her thoughts said,
Because Gabriel had goaded him.

“In civilized places”—listening to his voice in the darkness, she thought that Gabriel sounded tired, like he knew he’d goaded the magician into it, as well—“magicians—conjurors, witches, wind-talkers, whatever name you settle on, those who claim the same skills—they’re driven out, same as the rest of what roams wild in the Territory. White or native makes no difference. There’s no place for that in civilized places. But the Territory isn’t civilized, not yet. Maybe not ever, if your boss has his say.”

Tired and regretful, like he wished it were different. But Izzy couldn’t tell
what
he wished were different.

“You meant to drive him out?” After she’d invited him to come with them—Izzy felt insulted, then betrayed, then felt a sudden rush of relief that her mentor had been able to overrule her if the magician had been that dangerous, if she’d made such a terrible misstep. And then she remembered how the magician had died, and felt guilt at her relief.

“No. But I knew he was dangerous. Prideful, arrogant.” Gabriel
tsk
ed with his tongue, a sharp, wet noise. “Maybe they’ve a right to be, magicians. They can do things most of us can’t, and if they pay a high price for it, well, that’s their business. We all make our bargains for
what matters to us. But my obligation is to protect you, Isobel. And if
he
was looking to us for something, adding to all we’ve already seen in recent days? That made me wary.

“Challenging him the way I did, I knew he was bound to show off, to prove to us—to himself—that he
wasn’t
afraid. I was testing him, under as controlled a situation as I could manage. Testing his control.And I won’t apologize for that or for what happened.”

For a bit, the only sound was the clop of hooves on the road and insects singing in the grass, broken once by a distant howl echoed by several more. Too far away to be a worry, Izzy judged, and moving away from them, not toward.

“What was it?” she asked, finally. “The thing that took him.” It hadn’t been the thing she saw at Clear Rock; she was near certain of that. It had
felt
different.

“I don’t know,” he said again. “The tribes have stories . . . All I know’s there’re things out here that nobody’s ever seen, at least not to talk about it. Maybe your boss knows. I’m just hoping that eating what summoned it was enough and it doesn’t feel the need to come back and find
us.
”

Wasn’t much to say to that, so she didn’t.

Despite all that had happened, the familiar motion of Uvnee’s walk eased Izzy back into a sort of sleepy calm, her hands easy on the reins, her body soft and comfortable in the saddle. Part of her knew she was half-asleep; the other was alert to everything around her, the sounds and smells of the night air. She tipped her head back and studied the glittering sweep of stars, the moon now a bright silver glow casting down a hazy light. Izzy had never ridden at night before. Despite the conditions, she thought she might like it. But they were moving in the wrong direction.

Izzy frowned, then pulled Uvnee to a halt. Gabriel rode on a few paces more, then stopped, sensing she was no longer following.

Why had she thought that? She pulled at the feeling, kneading and stretching it under her hands until it firmed. The words came to her,
certain and firm. “I need to do something. About what happened in Clear Rock.”

Even in the moonlight, she could see the stubborn clench of his cheek. “You’re not going back there.”

“No, I know.” She didn’t want to go back there either. Just the thought of it made her chest hurt. “But what the magician said . . . He was telling the truth. He really was worried that something’s come into the Territory that’s scaring . . . that’s that scary. And it’s not enough just to leave it be and hope it doesn’t get hungry again.”

She didn’t want to go anywhere near that thing, didn’t want to even think about it, but saying the words eased some of the discomfort she’d felt all day, maybe for days now. “That’s . . . that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Not to run away, not even to run back home with warnings, but to
do
something about it.”

He shifted, the saddle’s creak too loud in the thin night air, interrupting the insect chorus around them. “Do what?” He wasn’t challenging her; he wasn’t dismissive. He was asking.

And she knew. As simple as kneading bread or folding linens, she knew. The way the cards flipped onto the felt, the pattern of the deal, the shuffle and fold of the pasteboards between the boss’s fingers, one at a time but each one part of the whole, she felt something rise inside her. Not the twisting, tossing sensation of before, but a grounding, her backside firmly in Uvnee’s saddle, her awareness stretching through the mare’s legs and hooves into the ground, even as the breeze touched every inch of her skin and the coyotes’ distant howl was clear and close in her ears.

“I need to clean the town.”

Gabriel might have said something; she couldn’t hear. Her left palm rested against the fabric of her skirt, but it was touching the ground, too. Connected. Listening. More than listening, some sensation she couldn’t name, couldn’t grasp, fire under her skin, stone grinding against her bones, and it
hurt
but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t break away.

The moment when she had seen the storm-thing descend remained with her, remained within the stones and bones of Clear Rock. She reached for it, stretching the connection tight between them, flipping a single card from the boss’s deck into it. Low card: dealer wins.

Flickerthwack
. The card landed, a line of flame circling it, racing inward. When it reached the center, a silent explosion filled her awareness, trying to rock her out of the saddle. Some part of her held firm, touching the stones below, wrapping the wind around her, and her inner vision cleared.

In the town of Clear Rock, every external wall now bore the boss’s sigil, pulsing with power.

I did that,
she thought with awe, then the need to do more pushed through her. She gathered the sigils together, imagined the medicine in them like a coil of hair braided into something stronger, wrapping around the town, and then she set it on fire.

The sigils flared like the blacksmith’s forge, so bright she half thought it would be visible from where they stood, racing from the external walls inward, until the conflagration met at the center and went out with a brutal snap, only cold ash left behind.

The town shuddered and was still. Cold, empty. Safe.

Izzy was allowed a flicker of satisfaction, then her own body resurfaced, screaming in agony. She swayed and fell forward onto Uvnee’s neck, bumping her nose hard enough to send shock back down her spine. When she steadied herself, her left palm spasmed, all the pain centering there. She looked down, and her eyes widened. In the center of her hand, where the burning sensation had been, where it had prickled before, pale red lines picked out a sigil. The same sigil she had left on the town of Clear Rock.

The devil’s mark.

“Oh.” Her voice was faint, weak, stunned, her fingers curling over the mark, skin stretched tight and hot.

“Isobel? What did you do?”

She could only shake her head, unable to answer. The power that
had flowed through her, the knowing—it wasn’t hers, nothing she’d done. She had no power. It was all his. She had given herself entirely to the boss, had signed a Bargain that could never be broken.

She was the devil’s tool, nothing more. Would never be anything more. The bitterness of it rose in her throat, gagging her.

“Iz?” Steady was pushing against Uvnee’s side, his square head at Izzy’s elbow, while Gabriel leaned in, trying to take her face in his hands. She shook him off, tipping her head down to let the brim of her hat hide her face, refusing to show weakness. Not there, not then.

He took the hint, pulling Steady back a pace but still watching her. “It’s done?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” And he turned Steady back and started down the road again.

The set of his back, his shoulders, reminded her: regret was pointless. She was what she had chosen to be. Had done what needed doing.

Izzy lifted her chin and pushed Uvnee forward to follow.

Something was screaming. Lightning strikes rained down into rock, and flesh burned. A coyote howled and a shadow swept overhead, and deep within the earth, something shifted and groaned . . .

Izzy woke within the echo of her dream, her heart pounding and her face bathed in sweat. Four mornings now, the same not-a-dream, and annoyance was starting to win over the fear. Gabriel wasn’t sleeping well either, the shadows under his eyes deepening, the tension in his shoulders increasing. They didn’t mention it to each other. They spoke of very little beyond what was necessary, making and breaking camp with practiced efficiency, riding toward some point Izzy assumed Gabriel knew, south and westerly by the sun’s track.

They were riding to see a friend of his, he’d said. Someone who might be able to cast light on the things they weren’t speaking of.

Despite all that, despite what lurked unmentioned behind them, Izzy felt strangely comfortable. The saloon, the press of people around her, the everyday noise of life in Flood, seemed impossibly far away and unthinkable now. Where the quiet had been oppressive at first, now it allowed her to hear the yet-quieter noises, the creak and groan, squeak and scream of the smaller life around them.