Switchblade Goddess (16 page)

“You’re a filthy, lying bitch!”

“Ask your cats if I’m telling the truth! Ask ’em!”

A shadow of doubt crossed her face, and she looked down. Her expression froze for two heartbeats. Then the cats scattered away from her as she fell to her hands and knees, bawling and screaming as if her world had come to an end. Her plastic cowboy hat slipped off her head and rattled on the blacktop. She was sobbing so hard, turning so red I wondered if she was going to give herself a stroke.

I shifted my feet uncomfortably, not knowing what to do. The crowd was just staring at us, everyone silent and keeping their distance. Charlie’s face had
gone white with fear. It seemed like I ought to say
something
to try to comfort Sara.

“Miko’s gone for good, and Bob’s—” I began.

“G-get out of here,” she said, hiccupping, staring up at me with teary, baleful eyes.

The air pressure abruptly dropped, and my ears popped painfully. A sudden swirling wind raised a dozen small dust devils in the streets as the sky abruptly darkened. The people in the crowd started murmuring, stepping back, looking alarmed, but Sara didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll c-count to ten,” she stammered through her tears. “After that … if I see you ever again, I’ll kill you!”

At first I thought the ominous change to the air and sky was Sara’s doing, but then I saw a series of slate-gray spirals like budding miniature tornados forming in the clouds, spaced as evenly as the bumps on the bottom of an egg carton. My stomach clenched: the Regnum had removed the isolation barrier around the city, and they were opening portals to send in their dragon-mounted troops.

This clearly was our cue to get the heck out of Dodge. I looked up at the fancy front doors of the Saguaro and remembered the beach.

Follow me!
I thought to Pal as I grabbed my pack and shotgun and began to sprint through the crowd for what I hoped would be safety. My straw cowboy hat blew off and I didn’t try to grab it.

As Sara choked out a shuddering “One” we were already on the marble steps. We slammed through the front doors by “Three,” rushing past Poppy and Callie, who called after us with concern; the confusion
in their expressions told me they didn’t know what was going on outside.

“Miko’s gone! Sara’s pissed! Regnum’s coming! Gotta go!” I hollered back at them.

I had the lobby portal open by “Eight.” By “Nine” I had helped Pal through and we were standing on the isolated stretch of beautiful Pacific beach. By my count of “Ten,” I’d closed the portal invisibly behind us. Both of us were panting for breath on the sand. But there wasn’t a single Regnum agent or Virtus in sight.

I dropped my pack and shotgun and let myself collapse onto the warm sand. It felt softer and more comfortable than any mattress I could remember. Rest. Sweet, blessed rest. I was melting like spilled ice cream. The air was an ideal seventy degrees, and the sun was gentle love. It would have been a perfect moment if Cooper had been there with me, but I’d take what I had and be glad for it.

“Thank God that’s over,” I murmured. “Wake me if the crabs start eating me, would you?”

And just as I started drifting off to sleep, the wind shifted and I felt a slight chill, as if a cloud had obscured the sun.

“Oh no,” Pal exclaimed. “Jessie, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“
I
t’s a Virtus! We’ve got to run!” Pal reared up on his back legs, gesturing frantically at the sky with his forepaws.

I scrambled to my feet, following his point, my heart in my throat as I expected to see the sky opening, a cold black eye surrounded by lightning—

—but the sky was blue and calm. There was no giant guardian spirit coming to smite us. A small, spent rain cloud was cruising past the sun. That was all.

“Pal, there isn’t—”

“We’ll be slaughtered!” His telepathic voice was loud and shrill. He began to sprint toward the cover of the palm trees, but his legs gave out after just a few yards and he went tumbling.

“Whoa! Calm down!” I ran over to him and put my hands on his back, trying to keep him from thrashing and hurting himself. He’d never been this hysterical before; hell, I’d never seen him anything but self-assured and ready to take on all comers. What was going on with him? “Pal, there’s
nothing
dangerous here.
Look
.”

I grabbed the sides of his shaggy head and pointed his snout at the sky. “It’s just a cloud. See?”

He stilled, trembling, blinking his four eyes at the sky in confusion. “Oh.” His voice was small, embarrassed. “I was sure I saw a portal opening up there. I’m … I’m feeling rather strange at the moment.”

I knelt beside him, examining his forelimbs. Some of the lacerations that my father’s spell had seemed to heal had reopened, looking more like ulcers now than scratches. “Do these hurt?”

“Everything hurts, actually: my legs, my head, my stomachs. If it didn’t seem so very unlikely, I’d think I was coming down with influenza. I was feeling quite energetic after your father’s spell, but … I suppose I overdid things after that.”

“No doubt.” I retrieved my pack and got out the squares of gauze and brown plastic bottle of peroxide and began to blot his wounds. But the peroxide didn’t foam up as I expected it to. Had Bettie given us an expired bottle? I poured a little on the back of my flesh hand, and the solution frothed vigorously when it mixed with Miko’s dried blood. Weird. If Pal’s ulcers weren’t the result of a bacterial infection, then what was going on?

“Listen,” I said, feeling anxious at the thought that there could be something seriously wrong with him. “Just stay here for a while and rest, okay? I’m going to go sneak back into the hotel and see if I can find someone to take a look at you. Maybe Poppy or Callie can help.”

“Okay.” He curled up on the sand, looking perplexed and unhappy.

I gave him our third-to-last bottle of Aquafina to tide him over and walked back to the empty space where the portal was. My ocularis showed the outline
of the doorway, seemingly just the same as we’d left it. I pulled off my glove, stuck my fingers in the edge, and pulled.

Instead of the lobby of the Saguaro Hotel, I faced a featureless plate of rolled steel. The surface hazed over for a moment, and then Callie and Poppy’s images resolved in the mist. They weren’t quite lifelike, and they didn’t seem to actually see me. Magical recordings, I realized. Both women looked solemn.

“We’re so sorry, girl,” Poppy said.

“We distracted them, but the Regnum agents were going to find this portal before long,” said Callie.

“So we had to block it and hide it.” Poppy pursed her lips. “For your sake and ours.”

“We hope you can find another way to wherever you’re going.”

The apologetic recording looped and started over. I punched at the magical steel with my flame hand and pried at the edges with my fingers, with no effect. Next I closed my eyes and tried an opening chant. Nothing happened. So I took a deep breath, took a moment to gather all my wits, and tried for truly ancient words, more powerful opening magic. Nada, zilch, zippo. Their blocking spell was good and strong.

“Well, crap,” I muttered. I shut the portal and turned away, scanning the beach.

Pal had fallen asleep. The only company we had was the fiddler crabs and a few sandpipers dancing away from the surf. I walked closer to the water so I could look up and down the beach. No buildings were in sight.

The compact mirror in my pants began to vibrate. I pulled it out and opened it.

Randall grinned at me broadly from the metal. “The guys
finally
got out of their meeting with your local boss lady, just like two minutes ago. It looks like everything’s good now. Cooper and the Warlock wanna go with the kid to his new home and make sure he gets settled in okay, and then we’ll be heading back to Cuchillo to meet up with you.”

“Um. Wait. There’s been kind of a problem.” I told him what had happened.

Randall frowned, his expression a mixture of worry and disbelief. “Wow. That Sara chick is really crazy.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I agreed.

“Do you think she’s a danger to the town?”

“Well, yeah … I mean, she’s not a monster like Miko, but she’s certainly possessed by a devil. Devils, I guess I should say. It seemed like Poppy and Callie were making some headway with her, but who knows what’s going to happen now that the Regnum’s there. Maybe they’ll get her under control, but maybe they’ll just make her worse. I don’t think the safety of the people in Cuchillo is much of a priority for them.”

Clearly it wasn’t; otherwise the Regnum would have done more than slap an isolation barrier over the area when Miko took over.

“Damn.” Randall drummed his fingers on his chin; I could practically see the conflicting thoughts knocking around inside his cranium. “Dallas Paranormal might be able to get a sociomancer out there to help … gotta mirror Javier … but we need to get to you and Pal, too. And I don’t have clue one where you’re at right now …”

My brother trailed off and was silent for just a moment. Then a look of determination crossed his features.
“Okay. I’m gonna call Dad and see what he thinks. He can probably figure out where that beach is. Sit tight for a few; one of us will call you back.”

“Okay …”

The mirror went dark as he cut the connection. I closed it and sat down on the sand to wait, watching seagulls wheeling in the distance. I pulled off my jacket and boots. The smell of the blood was really getting to me. I spent a few minutes scouring my dragonskins with handfuls of dry sand; not all the crud came off but most of it did. Until I learned Pal’s cleaning charm myself it was likely the best I would be able to do. If I had the money or the opportunity, at that moment I would have gladly spent two grand for a nice hot hotel shower. But clearly that wasn’t going to happen.

Feeling gross and itchy, I stared out at the rolling ocean waves. Maybe in a few hours I could wade out and scrub my shirt and face and hair off. The sun was still high in the afternoon sky, and I didn’t want to burn during my skinny dip. Dry seawater wasn’t going to smell very good, but I decided I’d rather stink of seaweed and salt than of Miko’s rancid gore.

Just as I was starting to wonder if I had the materials to craft a decent surf fishing pole, the mirror started vibrating again. I popped it open.

My father smiled at me. “Well, you’re certainly having a busy day, aren’t you?”

“They’ve all been pretty busy lately,” I replied. “Do you have any idea of where I am?”

“You’re on Lorikeet Island, a hundred nautical miles to the north and east of the Pitcairn Islands.”

I wracked my brain, trying to remember my South
Pacific geography. Perversely, all my brain could summon was the image of Vin Diesel whispering “Bora Bora” at the end of some action flick. “I … haven’t heard of that one.”

He laughed. “Practically no one your age has. It used to be the domain of a line of powerful Polynesian shamans who permanently hid the island from mundane eyes once the British showed up. A decade or so later, they allowed wealthy Western talents to use the beaches for parties, but all that stopped about sixty years ago when the last shaman died in a duel. Since then, there’s been a legal wrangle among his distant relatives about who gets to possess the island. All that’s quite tedious, if you ask me, but the upshot is that the island you’re on is outside the Virtus Regnum’s jurisdiction. I’ve been taking some steps on my end to make sure they don’t detect you there.”

“Oh. Wow. So … what now?”

“I believe that once your brother and your swain have done what they feel they must to fulfill their respective duties, we should all meet here at my castle. I’ll send your brother to fetch you once he’s finished.”

“How? The portal’s blocked.”

“Don’t worry, it can be reopened, and even failing that, there are other portals on the island. And we have other transportation at our disposal. Your familiar can fly, can he not?”

“Right now, no, he probably can’t,” I replied. “He’s gotten sick; I guess your healing spell didn’t take as well as we thought it did.”

“What?” My father frowned. “That seems
highly
unlikely. Show me.”

I got up and walked over to Pal and turned the mirror on my sleeping familiar.

“Closer to those wounds on his legs, please … hmm, most curious. Let me see your face.”

I flipped the mirror back around, anxious. “What do you think?”

“I think we must wait to see how his illness progresses before I can make any sort of useful diagnosis.” He frowned thoughtfully; clearly Pal’s mysterious illness had set Magus Shimmer’s mental gears turning. “I suggest you camp there on the beach for the night; you should be safe where you are.”

My stomach twisted. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? He’s already hurting, and what if he gets worse?”

“You can mirror me at any time if there’s an emergency,” he replied. “And I will send a potion that should make him more comfortable.”

“Can you send a shower with hot water, too?” I asked, joking.

“Certainly,” he replied. “And you look like you might enjoy a proper bed and a change of clothes, as well. Hang on.”

There was a blue flash in the sky, and suddenly a small tan box was falling gently toward the beach as if supported by an invisible parachute. The box landed a dozen yards away from me, high on the beach near the palms. I ran over to it; it was about the size of a footlocker, featureless except for a waxed cotton cord poking out from one corner. Attached to the cord was a small cardboard tag that read “Pull Me.”

I paused. Then I grabbed the cord and gave it a
good hard tug. The sides of the box opened with a pop and a structure inside began to unfold and rapidly expand like a self-inflating raft. But this was much bigger than a dinghy, and I had to hurry backward to avoid being bowled over.

When the structure’s walls and roof finally snapped into place, I was looking at what appeared to be a garage, maybe fifteen feet wide and twice as long and about ten feet high, with adobe walls that matched the color and texture of the beach sand perfectly. The wide sectional door in front of me had matte-finish windows that wouldn’t reflect any sunlight. I grabbed the tan handle of the door and rolled it up into the building’s ceiling.