“This is how . . . she killed Martin,” Caryl gasped. His name fell from her lips like “Mommy” from a lost child’s, and for the first time I realized the depth of her love for him.
I had to look away. It wasn’t the blood at the corners of her mouth that got me, or the corpselike tinge to her skin. It wasn’t even the grief for her mentor, or the fear that made her eyes look so young behind their dark liner. It was the trust mixed into it, the way she looked to me with irrational hope simply because I was the only person pretending to be calm.
“Vivian could undo the curse,” I said.
Caryl shook her head. “She would have to . . . be here.”
“We can call her.”
“No,” Tjuan interjected forcefully. “She’d kill all of us and have our bodies paved over.”
“Also, she’d have to take the 405,” added Gloria with a -sniffle. “It’s a parking lot this time of night.”
Tjuan frowned. “Wouldn’t she just take La Cienega?”
“Still, it’d be forty-five minutes at the very—”
“Shut up!” I snapped. To my surprise, they did. I turned, forcing myself to make eye contact with Caryl. “What do you want to do with the time you have left?”
She set her jaw, staring at the soundstage. “I’d like to . . . unlock that door,” she rasped.
“That’s my girl.”
She looked up at me. “I’m your girl?” She didn’t sound nineteen; she sounded nine.
“Damn right.”
Caryl started to get to her feet, one hand positioned as though to keep her heart from bursting out of her rib cage. I reached to help her, hesitated out of habit, then remembered that the damage had already been done and gave her my hand.
Caryl gasped as she stood up straight. A deep gasp, a sweeping inhale of relief. It took me a moment to realize why.
“I fixed you!” I said breathlessly, my fingers tightening convulsively on hers. Her hand was as soft as a baby’s.
She shook her head and laughed, tears glistening on her lashes. “No,” she said. “It’s like the facades. You interrupted the circuit.”
An incredulous snort escaped me. “So you can live a long, full life, so long as I never let go of your hand?”
“Something like that.” She actually giggled, giddy as a cheerleader.
“Well then, this will work out dandy until one of us has to pee,” I said, just to hear her laugh again. “Come on.” I tugged her toward the soundstage.
Even with all things considered, Caryl managed to pull together enough focus to rot the wood around the door latch, allowing her to force it open with a well-placed shoulder. I immediately tore off my fey glasses; the golden radiance of Seelie magic that spilled from inside the soundstage was like staring directly into the sun.
Something powerful took hold of us both, compelling us to cross the threshold and shut the door behind us. By the time I processed that it was yet another ward, it was too late to do anything about it. We both looked around, blinking, and then swore in unison.
The pair of us stood holding hands in the middle of a broiling desert, white sun beating down on us at the apex of a faded sky. Behind and beside us was nothing but jagged horizon; ahead of us stood the remains of a classic Western ghost town, bleak and picturesque.
“I know what this is,” I said. I tried putting on my glasses again and nearly burned out my retinas for my pains. I slid them on top of my head, since the dress Foxfeather had given me had no pockets. “Bottom dollar says David painted the walls in here; this is a location from Black Powder. I just have to touch the—”
A sound behind me, like approaching thunder, made me turn. Caryl crowded me, hanging on my arm, as we spotted a posse of a dozen men on horseback riding straight toward us. Black-and-white Appaloosas, skewbald pintos, bay mustangs, all gleaming with sweat under the desert sun and kicking up great clouds of dust as their riders spurred them into a frenzy.
“They’re not real,” I said, backing up slowly. “I’m eighty percent sure they’re just painted on the wall behind us.” But I was already adjusting the valve on my hydraulic knee.
“Millie . . . ,” Caryl said, tugging my hand as the posse continued toward us. They clearly intended to ride us down. “Even if it’s psychic spellwork,” she said, “it will still feel like being trampled.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Keep hold of my hand, don’t pull ahead, and don’t talk to me. Running is hard, so don’t distract me.”
“Millie . . .” A panicked note crept into her voice as we began to feel the ground tremble under us. One of the riders reached behind him to free the rifle that was slung across his back.