But something lingered outside the second circle, behind where Gabriel sat with his hat pulled down over his eyes, his body propped against the bulk of his kit, the horses and mule behind him, stirring restlessly. The remains of their fire, the warm smell of chicory dumped over coals still lingering in the air. And the smell of something else, sulphur and yeast and warm, sweet smoke.
Isobel reached for it, then hesitated. Nothing died as quickly as a fool in the Territory. Another one of the boss’s sayings when he was feeling particularly acerbic. Isobel could see him leaning back in his chair, unlit cigar tucked between his fingers, a glass of whiskey at his elbow, watching the people watching him out of the corner of their eyes, that half-smile on his face as though she were listening to him tell stories while she swept the floor, a child of ten again.
If this were the haint that lingered, it was no friend to her. And if it were the presence that she had felt lingering around it . . .
She had no proof it was a friend to her, either.
But stopping here accomplished nothing.
She closed her eyes, feeling the snap and spark of the sigil within her, molten under her touch, filling the lines of the infinitas drawn in the ground, filling the black lines on her palm, filling the shape of it within her. Then her eyesight blurred and her head spun, something more than herself taking over her body.
Isobel resisted, scrabbling for control, until she felt a faint familiar brush across her ear, not words but sensation, impulse. Command. Come.
She knew it, knew it as her own blood, as the sound of sunlight and the weight of rain, trusted it as she had not trusted the winds. She let go, let it wrap around her, let it show her what it would.
Dizziness rocked her, then her sight sharpened again, painfully bright. The grass covering the meadow was still green and healthy, tiny flowers scattered throughout, but where insects should have chirped and birds hopped after them, there was nothing. Where animals should have burrowed and hunted, there was emptiness.
No, not emptiness. Not the void she had thought it before. The animals and insects had not fled but been pushed, the space left behind filled by such rage and sorrow it became impossible to remain, impossible to exist in its presence.
This was what she had touched before. The emptiness that had rejected her—had pushed her away rather than allow her to be consumed.
She did not attempt to speak to it this time, did not engage, but let the wards Gabriel had drawn sustain her, let herself breathe against the awareness of them, then past them, sinking into the sigil drawn around her, the hot breath of what commanded her.
And then she let herself sink into that space.
Wind. Fire. Restless, scorched heat, enough to darken the soil, set an entire mountain aflame. Not lightning, nothing so mindless, but more powerful, alive, drawn by force from the skies and driven into the stone. Nothing human, nothing even once-human. Something angry, something lost.
Something old.
Gabriel Kasun hadn’t survived a childhood in the Territory, nor studying law back in the States, without learning how to deal with situations he did not like. The first rule was to take as much control as he could and let go of everything he couldn’t.
After completing the circle of salt, he paused until the warding clicked into place, then pulled his pack over to make a seat and settled himself to wait. Often things happened fast, sometimes they happened slow, and there was no force of his making that could decide which it would be.
He looked for the wapiti, but if Isobel’s guardian was still around, it was not showing itself. That was either reassuring or worrisome.
He checked Isobel next; she had seated herself on the ground, her right hand now resting on her knee, her left hand on the ground beside her. Her face was calm, eyes open but seeing something he could only imagine, wisps of hair floating loose from her braid and framing her face. He turned and looked over the rest of the meadow. Nothing soared in the sky, nothing rustled in the grass, and he had the sudden disturbing sensation of being the only living thing between the mountains he could see and the river he could sense.
Then the mule brayed and Uvnee called back, a scuffle indicating that someone had bitten someone else, and the sensation broke.
“The worms are still here, at least,” he told himself. “If we die, they will have a suitable feast.”
It was a thought he’d had before; it still didn’t help.
Restless, he took out his boot knife and checked the blade, noting that the silver inlay had tarnished again already. He pulled out a strip of linen and cleaned the discoloration away, then tested the knife’s edge and, satisfied, slid it back into its sheath. As he bent forward, something caught his eye, glinting in the sunlight.
Caution warred with curiosity. Anything here and now would be suspect; something that called to him now, when Isobel was vulnerable . . .