Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (51 page)

Farron hadn’t been able to explain how the storm-beast had changed, saying only that what he touched in the spring was not the same as what had touched down in Clear Rock, that it
felt
and
tasted
different. Isobel was half-tempted to reach into the road to see if she could feel it too, but fear of what she might find—or wake—kept her from doing so. Instead, she allowed Bernardo to take lead, walking the horses to stay behind him and ignoring the way his chest puffed with arrogant pride at finally taking what he clearly considered his rightful place.

But when the instrument told them to leave the road for a smaller, rockier trail, Bernardo, as Manuel had predicted, turned difficult.

“You must stay here. This is my purpose. I hold the spell that will be its undoing; I will go on ahead and bring the fell beast to God’s mercy.”

And take the glory home to his people, along with whatever else he could claim along the way. Isobel didn’t begrudge him that, but she thought—she
knew
—he was a fool.

She refused to stay behind, not her, and not Gabriel or Farron, either. “This is not your land; you have no idea how to call this thing from its lair. It will come to us.” She managed not to shudder at the thought. “And if your prayer-spell does not work, we must be there to finish it.” Not that she had any idea as to how she might do that; it was her responsibility to
try.

“Nonsense.” His puffed-up chest moved too close to her, and Isobel stared until he took a step back, but he continued to bluster. “The Holy Father has said—”

“Your holy father isn’t here. Your holy father has never been here, has not seen what I have seen. Has not faced the beast your greed and
ignorance unleashed on us.” She bit off each word, feeling her temper rise, the memories of Clear Rock, of Widder Creek crashing through. All this, because of them. “You are asking us to trust you when it is we who are suffering. No.”

He drew himself up, hands clenching at his side, expression caught somewhere between indignant and indigestion. “You cannot—”

The sigil flared, and she clenched her own fingers into a fist, then forced them to relax, letting the heat slide into the rest of her, warming her from the bones. “You keep saying that and do not seem to learn that yes, I can.”

There was silence after that, as though they were both astonished at the words that had come out of her mouth. Bernardo stared at her, his face set in hard lines, then raised his still-fisted hands as though barely restraining the urge to hit her.

“Oh, do it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Cause offense just once.”
Please
, she thought, watching his face. If he did intentional harm, if he acted against the interests of the Territory, against someone within the Territory, she suspected she would no longer feel obligated to protect him.

But he seemed aware of that, muttering something in Spanish and turning away, stalking off. His brothers followed him, Manuel casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure that she was all right. She’d managed a smile, then turned to find Gabriel waiting behind her.

She said the first thing that came to her mind. “We can’t take the horses up there.”

“We can’t take anything up there save ourselves,” he said with a practiced glance at the narrow trail. “They’ll be fine here for now.”

Isobel heard what he didn’t say: either they would return for them, or after a sufficient time, the local tribe would take them and their belongings.

She thought of the things in her pack, then thought of the pile of things she had left on her bed back in Flood, the shed skin of her previous life. There was nothing in either place that could help her now.

The trail led up, and around, and she would have thought Bernardo was leading them into a trap were he not so determined to find the thing. But eventually, midafternoon, they came to the spring Farron had mentioned. It was half-hidden in the rocks, but a clear-trod path that led to the lip showed someone had been using it recently. The waters smelled clean, not of sulphur or rot, but there was a faint steam rising from the surface that could indicate heat. Or, Isobel thought, something living within it.

She remembered how the creature in the crossroads had exploded from the ground, the thing at Clear Rock forming seemingly out of thin air. And now this, hiding in water. There was no part of the Territory that was safe.

They had done this,
Spaniards
, and she felt the warmth within her burn more intensely, making sweat bead on her upper lip. But Marie would not let anger rule her, and neither could she.

She studied the spring, judging the distance from where they had stopped. “How close do you need to be for your prayer-spell to work?”

Manuel shook his head. “As close as possible. It requires the application of holy water, and I am not certain how strong Bernardo’s throw might be.”

She glanced at him to make sure that he was not joking. He wasn’t. She took a deep breath, unclenched her fingers, and tried not to imagine how the boss or Marie would handle this. Neither of them were here; she was.

“You’re all going to die,” she warned him.

“We were shriven before we left Las Californias.” Manuel smiled at her, and there was humor and resignation in it. “Did you not wonder why we carried so little with us?”

“I thought you were fools.”

“Holy fools, perhaps. Bernardo may think to survive, perhaps also
Fray Esteban, who is young. But they hide those thoughts where they think God cannot see them. We have surrendered all to preserve God’s will.”

Isobel simply shook her head, his thinking giving her a headache. Her braid slid against her shoulders, and she thought she might pin it up for the first time in weeks, mindful of Gabriel’s warnings about long hair in a fight. “If you think it’s your God’s will, then why did your God allow your viceroy to do this?”

“To test us, perhaps?” Manuel made a helpless gesture. “Ours is not to question God’s will, only to do as we are called.”

“That’s an excellent way to get yourself killed,” Isobel agreed.

“And are you that much different? You are here, facing a beast we cannot hope to match, filled with evil power, because you have been sent to do so by one you cannot hope to understand.”

“We question the boss all the time,” she said defensively.

“And does he give you answers?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Sometimes. Sometimes he makes us figure it out on our own.”

Manuel patted her hand gently. “Perhaps, if we live through this, we may continue our discussion. But for now, Bernardo begins to pace, and your guardia is no less tense. It is time.”

He moved off to join his brothers, and she raised her chin and tilted her head, calling Gabriel to her side. “He needs to get close enough to douse it with holy water,” she said. “And then, I presume, time to perform whatever ritual the unspelling requires.”

“That’s not going to end well.”

She looked at him, and he ran both hands through sweat-sticky hair, then replaced his hat, pulling it down over his eyes even though the sun was behind them now. “All right. I’m assuming the friars will be useless, outside of praying?”

“That seems a safe way to bet.”

“So, we need to rouse it from its lair,” he said. “You think Farron will be willing to play bait, instead of you?”

“No,” the magician said from behind her left ear. “But I would not have her die pointlessly, either. Might I suggest a distraction rather than a lure?”

“We need to put a bell around your neck,” Isobel said, irritated that he’d once again managed to come up on her without a sound.

“If we survive, little rider, you may
try
.”

“You’re thinking to call it out?” Gabriel asked Farron, curious.

“That is how such things are done,” Farron said. “Power to power. We might spend our entire lives without acknowledging one another, but when the winds blow us together, only one leaves.” His gaze flicked sideways at Isobel, and she pretended not to notice.

“Neither of you won, last time you challenged it.”

“And the time before that, it ate me,” the magician said. “Clearly, I’m learning.”

It had been the same creature, that first night? But even as Isobel was forming a question, he leaned forward, speaking directly into her ear. “Little rider, this must be done, and it must be done here. I can feel it pressing against its constraints, pressing against the winds that brought it here. It has already changed, and it wishes to grow. That must not be allowed. Allow me to be your distraction. It may be enough to hold it, empty it of power.”

“The way you did the demon?”

“The way I would anything with power.” He smiled then, an older, grimmer smile than she’d seen on him before, the whites of his eyes so bloodshot now, they were more red than not. “Everything you’ve ever been told about us is true, little rider. Use it.”

Before she could comprehend what he meant, he reached for her left hand, pulled her down, and pressed her palm to the ground. “Call it, then stay very still.”

It terrified her, or it would have if she allowed it to, how swiftly the earth swallowed her up now, without hesitation or dizziness, sliding under her skin, bones grinding against bones. The cool tang of water brushed against her skin, under her skin, and she thought she heard
something mouth her name before she lost all sense of self, spread into the
thumpthumpthump
of the road above and the long exhale of the bones.

It was there. Waiting-not-waiting, curled at the bottom of the spring, the waters rising up around it, slow breaths exhaling and inhaling. She found it, knew it. Not-breath caught in not-body, the shock rattling the bones, cracking them, and she reached out even as it reached out,
panic fear need hunger
touching her, trying to consume her, fill the gaping
need
inside it.

She fought back, her instinctive response not the burn of power in her palm but the smell of the blacksmith’s forge in her nostrils, the
flickerthwack
of cards on a felted table, the pulse of hooves against the ground, the low hum of insects, the harsh-sounding languages she didn’t understand, the feel of the rain on her skin and the mud between her toes, the smell of smoke rising from a cookstove, the feel of a coalstone in her hand, midday sun and midnight chill, the low murmur of too many voices like a lullaby.

For half a heartbeat, they were evenly matched, a pulse-pulse-pulse of negotiation, and then something else hit it from above, taunting, teasing, calling a challenge, and it let go of her, pushing her away, and it
screamed
.

Isobel was thrown back into herself, opening her eyes to realize that the magician was gone from her side and the beast had risen.

On the other side of the spring, the friars scrambled down the rocks, and their utter clumsiness might have been amusing any other time and place, but here and now Isobel could only clench her fingers into her hands and wait, cursing the robes they insisted on wearing, even less suited to the road than skirts, tangling their limbs and slowing them too much, taking them too long to get into position.

Tension scrabbled at her, pulling her too tight, making her skin thrum and sweat bead across her forehead and the back of her neck.
Something was wrong, it told her. She’d missed something, done something wrong. . . .

No. This was what they’d planned. Farron stood by the edge of the spring, his hair loose and flowing round him, the south wind wrapping around him, lifting his hair and fluttering his sleeves. She could smell it, the warmer, wild scent cutting through the cooler, damp air, and she could hear his words in it, soft but clear.

“Farron of the Eastern Wind calls you out, unnamed beast. Farron of the Eastern Wind challenges you. Take your form and come face me in fair debate.”

She felt the wind rise, although it did not touch her nor any of the others, only wrapping itself around Farron, thick enough she could see it now, shimmering-clear and painful to gaze on too long. The winds were not stable, were too changeable, without stone and bone to ground them, and Isobel could taste Farron’s madness rising like ice on her tongue.