spell?”
Nash didn’t have much knowledge of magic—only what he’d learned, reluctantly, from me and Mick—but he was good at grasping essentials.
“I think so,” Cassandra said. “Some hexes can outlast their creator, but this one is so intense, it needs big magic to keep it up. If the ununculous dies, I’m sure this hex would go or at least weaken enough for someone like Mick to break it.”
“Then we kill him,” Pamela said. “Simple as that.”
Cassandra wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “If it were that simple, someone would have killed him a long time ago.” The Cassandra I knew would never wipe her runny nose with anything but an antibacterial tissue. She looked awful, her hair dangling loose from its French braid, her eyes red-rimmed in her sallow face. “No one here is strong enough to best him, except maybe Coyote, and the hex has made sure that Coyote can’t fight.”
“Could we conjure something else, then?” Fremont asked. “Someone bigger and stronger to kill the ununculous for us?”
“With this hex in place?” I rasped. “Who knows what would go wrong if we tried that? Besides, if Cassandra is right about how powerful the sorcerer is, we’d have to summon something with enormous power, like a god or one of the demon deities.”
“And then we’d be left dealing with the god or demon deity,” Mick said. “No thanks.”
Nash nodded. “It would be like asking the leader of the strongest gang to take out the leader of a weaker one. Then we’d just be in debt to the top gang leader. Not a good idea.”
“I was thinking something more like an angel,” Fremont said.
Coyote, sitting, still naked, against the wall, finally contributed to the discussion. “You start calling gods, and you risk messing with the vortexes. Gods come when they want to. They don’t like being summoned.”
“No kidding,” I muttered. “Sometimes they won’t even answer their cell phones.”
“I heard that.”
“I’ve conjured angels,” Fremont said. “Well, one. Once. Sort of.”
I had my doubts about that—I wasn’t sure Fremont had enough magic to summon anything, but even if he had, lesser beings could pretend to be angels.
“Maybe we don’t have to kill the sorcerer,” Nash was saying. “Couldn’t we contain him? Force him to remove the spell?”
I couldn’t help laughing, sounding a bit drunk. “What are you going to do Nash, arrest him?”
“Not a bad idea,” Fremont said, animated. “Do a binding spell—I can help with that—and then Mick threatens to burn the man’s balls off if he doesn’t drop the hex.”
“True,” Maya said. “Men are very attached to their gonads.”
“Unless they have ice in their veins,” Cassandra said. “Like this ununculous.”
Nash cast his gaze on Mick. “Could you do it? Could you restrain him with magic?”
“Possibly. Cassandra can help.”
Cassandra pressed her lips in a tight line and shook her head. “We won’t be able to. But it doesn’t matter. Summon him, and I’ll die. I’m ready.”
“Cass—” Pamela began, and I joined in the protest. Coyote cut us off.
“Before you all go getting excited,” he said, “what Cassandra’s not telling you is that calling a dark sorcerer doesn’t simply involve drawing a pentagram, lighting incense, and doing a little chant. A summoning like this one, strong enough to keep the hex from interfering, will take a sacrifice. A blood sacrifice. A death. And I’m not talking about a chicken you later make into stew.”
My mouth went dry, and Fremont’s eyes widened. “You mean a
“You got it.”
I hadn’t known that. I thought of my crazed plan to slip off on my own and summon the sorcerer myself and felt cold. No wonder Coyote had given me the evil eye.
“I know,” Cassandra said, resigned. “I figured the sacrifice would be me.”
NINE
THE ROOM ERUPTED IN NOISE. MAYA’S VOICE rose above the others, first in English, then in Spanish. Inside the saloon, the mirror kept on singing. We’d graduated to
Pamela leapt away from Cassandra in fury, her fearsome mouth in a bloodred snarl. “Is what we have that bad, Cassandra? That you’d walk away from it and
“I’d be dying for you, sweetheart,” Cassandra said. Her calling the seven-foot walking nightmare “sweetheart” made me want to giggle hysterically, even with my headache.
“I vote we sacrifice the Nightwalker,” Pamela said. “Get rid of two threats at once. What’s Ansel doing but waiting to drain us dry?”
“Typical,” Ansel’s voice came from the kitchen doorway. He leaned on the doorframe, his stance unthreatening, but I saw the red shine to his eyes. “Changers. Half animal, half human, not one thing or the other. You think like animals. Rut like them. You must be fun in bed.”
“She has a point, though, Janet,” Fremont whispered to me. “He is the most dangerous of us.”
“Ansel is not being sacrificed,” I said in a loud voice. Ansel would have heard Fremont anyway—Nightwalkers had terrific hearing. “It’s not Ansel’s fault he’s blood frenzied. When the hex is broken, he’ll revert to normal.”
“Sure about that?” Fremont asked worriedly.
No, I wasn’t sure. Nightwalkers were unstable by nature. Ansel might decide he liked the taste of living blood and be unable to give it up again.
“Don’t anyone look at me,” Maya said irritably. “I know I’m the only one here without so-called magical abilities, but the fuck I came here to have someone stick a knife in me.”
“Yeah, me either,” Fremont said.
I sat up. “No one’s getting sacrificed, because we’re not calling the sorcerer. We’ll think of another way.”
Coyote huffed a breath. “Like you blowing up the building? Forget that.
Everyone stared at him in silence. I opened my mouth to object, but Mick beat me to it. “No, they’ll need you once the hex is broken. The logical choice is me. As long as I become dragon after I get stabbed, I can heal from it.”
His words worried me. Mick was so far into his dragon bad-ass I’ll-do-anything-to-nobly-save-you mode he might just let himself be killed—permanently. “Too risky,” I said. “What happens if there’s too much time between the knife thrust and the sorcerer removing the hex, or us killing him? I’m pretty sure you’d have to shift right away, and you can’t do it while we’re locked in here.”
“There’s not much choice,” Mick said.
“There is,” Coyote said. “Me.”
“Stand down,” Nash began, but Maya cut him off.
“Don’t you dare volunteer, Nash Jones. You do, and I’ll kill you myself.”
“Listen to Maya,” I said to Nash. “Magic won’t kill you, but I guarantee a foot-long blade to the heart would.”
Coyote raised his voice over ours. “There’s no more argument. I’m doing it.”
“But your powers are gone,” I said in alarm. “You might die for real.”
Coyote’s smile became genuine. “Aw, Janet. You mean you’d miss me? I’m touched. But I’m a god, sweetheart. Sacrifice, life and death—it’s all part of the job.”
“He’s right,” Cassandra said in a choked voice. “His blood would boost the spell through the hex.”
“No!” I tried.
Coyote stood up, walked to the middle of the room, and lay down flat on the floor. “Sorry, Janet. It’s got to
