She closed her eyes, brought her hands to her mouth, and told herself she wouldn’t panic. She was a wild thing. Wild things didn’t fear other predators. She took several more breaths, and when she was sure she wouldn’t lose her mind, she dropped her hands.
“Hello, Westie,” James said, his carefree smile dazzling. As the shock wore off, she noticed more and more details. The bloodstains down the front of James’s and the Fairfields’ clothes but not the mayor’s, and the bag of gold beside James that she’d hidden under the loose floorboards beneath her bed. He must not have been asleep after all when she’d crawled under the bed to take the gold for the trip to Sacramento.
“Alistair was right about you all along,” Westie said in a strangled voice. “You won’t get away with this.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” James said with a dismissive shrug. “I might.”
Westie shook her head. “No. I won’t let you.”
“Now, Westie,” Lavina said, walking toward her, careful to avoid her machine, “this doesn’t have to get ugly. We just want to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk. You’ve got your gold, so why don’t you just go on and leave us be?”
“It’s not about gold or money. Never was.”
“It’s about Emma, isn’t it?” Westie said. She knew Lavina was desperate to get the machine, but she still hadn’t figured out why. “I don’t understand why you want that machine if not for the investment. Without the aid of magic, it’s not worth a damn thing except for the copper it’s made of.”
“Why don’t we go outside? I’d like to show you something,” Lavina said.
Westie didn’t want to go outside, but when Lavina raised the point of a knife in her direction, Westie gathered it wasn’t a question needing her answer. She led the way, with Lavina’s blade pointed at the middle of her spine. The others followed. Westie glanced back to see if Nigel would be left unattended in his chair and felt a spark of hope for the man with a million gadgets hidden on his person. But Hubbard grabbed the back of the chair, easily dragging Nigel’s weight along with him.
It was still light enough out to see by, but that wouldn’t last long. There was a strong wind kicking up. Westie thought maybe, when it was dark enough, there was a chance the torches would blow out and she could make a move. Until then she would mind her manners. There was no sense putting her family at risk if the situation weren’t absolutely dire.
“The blue trees,” Lavina said, pointing at a line of them beside the cave. “That’s the edge of the Wintu magic ward, correct?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Westie said.
Lavina handed her lamp to Hubbard and walked up to the line of trees. Westie could just barely see the shimmering surface of the magic dome. Lavina took a visible breath, shoulders rising and falling, before stepping through the watery membrane. Nothing happened at first, just Lavina standing there, looking at Westie from the other side. Then, after a few seconds, the color drained from Lavina’s face. She bent to vomit. Her back arched like a hissing cat and she vomited black liquid that gathered into an oily pond at her feet. When she looked up, making eye contact, Westie saw that Lavina’s pupils were a murky white color, like pearls set in pools of mud.
Westie gasped and took a step back. “What the hell . . .”
Hubbard rushed to his wife’s side, helping her to stand. Once they were back in the confines of the magic ward, the symptoms quickly subsided.
Westie’s heart clenched. “You’re turning into the Undying?” She recognized the signs immediately, remembering all those people back in Kansas when they’d first gotten sick, the look in their eyes, the black vomit.
Lavina struggled to catch her breath. “Such a nasty affliction,” she said through coughing bouts.
“But how? Everyone knows eating creatures of magic will turn you into the Undying.” She wanted to ask if Lavina was as dumb as she was ugly but let that dog lie.
“Yes, well, it turns out young werewolves in human form don’t give off a musk like their adult companions.”
Westie laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You ate a werewolf?”
Lavina coughed and spit gray mucus onto the ground. “Someone likes them young,” she said, turning her glare on James.
James smiled unapologetically. “The meat is much more tender that way.”
The amusement drained from Westie when she thought about them killing and eating Isabelle.
“There’s no cure for the illness,” Lavina said, “But there’s a suppressant if caught in the early stages.”
“Magic,” Westie said, remembering the stories from her childhood.