“Still…”
“Plus, she has a broken leg. I will not carry her traitorous ass through the desert.”
“We don’t leave allies behind,” insisted Mike stubbornly. He was entirely too nice for this kind of work.
“There’s no way we can bring her with us. Unless…” I waited.
“Unless?” Mike and Ariel asked at the same time.
“Unless she submits to me and acknowledges me as her alpha. Then I could share enough energy to heal her, and I could sense betrayal through our pack link.”
“Never!”
“Never it is. Let’s go, Mike.” I turned away. “She can rig that parachute as an awning, survive two or three days until the moon is stronger, then heal herself and make it through the desert to get home.”
Mike looked downfallen. “You’re the boss. Since she has a chance…” He turned back to Ariel and said, “Good luck.”
I was already halfway down the dune, heading toward our destination. Mike hurried to join me.
“She does have a chance, right?” Mike fretted.
“One in a million, but yes,” I said—loudly enough for her to hear.
We were at the crest of the next dune, heading into the morning sun, when I heard a faint, “Wait! Please wait.”
A quick glance at Mike showed he hadn’t heard. I could just keep going and leave her to her fate.
Should Mason have left you to your fate?
Damn conscience. I put a hand on Mike’s shoulder to stop him, and called out, “Are you going to submit?”
A pause long enough to convince me she had changed her mind, then, “Yes, I will submit.”
We trudged back over the dunes. We approached her warily, walking about ten yards apart to prevent her from pulling any tricks—me because I knew she was a traitorous bitch, Mike because of inborn caution.
Ariel sat on her butt, her left arm propping her up. Sand covered her left hand. The slightest tensing of the muscles of her arm was all the warning I got. She pulled her hand out of the sand to reveal a Jericho 941 pistol wrapped in a plastic bag.
Smart woman. The bag would have kept the sand from jamming her pistol. Too bad I had already rendered all bullets in the area inoperable.
She bared her fangs as the hammer clicked on a dud. Then, hampered by the plastic bag, she frantically tried to eject the dud to try again.
I was on her in an instant, kicking the weapon away with my steel-toed combat boot. Her ulna cracked under that blow and the pistol flew away.
I stomped on her arm, holding it down with my right foot, and put my left foot on the center of her chest to keep her from attacking with fangs. She snarled impotently and tried to snap at my leg.
“I should never have come back for you,” I said. “You have too many tricks to trust.”
Even with her left arm and right leg broken, she was still dangerous. Mike moved in to her right and bent down to help restrain her.
Ariel swept her free hand up and slapped Mike on the forehead as she screamed a curse in Hebrew.
The blow shouldn’t have hurt Mike; his skull was tough as iron. But he stepped back dizzily and his eyes went blank. There was a strange glowing symbol on his forehead.
“He’s my golem now!” shrieked Ariel. Then she barked an order in Hebrew.
Mike bent over woodenly and pulled his silver knife from its sheath.
I froze for a second, unwilling to believe that my comrade would attack me. The deadly silver blade was inches away from my throat before I reacted by rolling backward, followed by three backflips to gain distance from him.
Mike followed with plodding steps, as if resisting the spell that enslaved him. The symbol on his forehead glowed more brightly with each passing moment, and Mike’s movements became quicker as the spell took greater control.
While I dithered, Mike leaped. His jump pushed me onto my back as the silver dagger slid into my chest. I grabbed his wrist and stopped the progress of the blade only an inch from my heart.
I had my clawed right hand on Mike’s throat, and my left hand was holding his wrist to keep the blade from plunging into my heart. My muscles trembled with the effort it took to keep him from killing me.
I was stronger and faster than Mike. Even with the silver poisoning my blood, I could kill him in an instant. But I couldn’t bring myself do it.
“Mike, you need to fight this compulsion. You don’t want to hurt me.” And I don’t want to kill you.
Mike’s push eased for a second, then increased as the symbol glowed even brighter than before.
Dammit. There had to be a way to break that spell. Could I scrape the symbol from his forehead? No; magical vision showed it had penetrated to the bone.
I had a wild idea and acted on it instantly. There was only a tiny chance it would work and let me avoid killing Mike, but it was better than nothing.
I kneed Mike in the groin, which elicited a groan. He pulled back slightly. Under Ariel’s spell, he was almost impervious to pain.
Instead of trying to roll away, which would have exposed my back to Ariel, I pulled my hand from Mike’s throat and reached into my invisible handbag. I pulled out a nickel-sized gold coin, one of Mason’s inventions. He had created them to use on our vehicles to prevent anyone taking control and causing a crash.
Would this work on a human like Mike? Could Mason’s magic overcome the golem spell? Only one way to find out.
I slapped the coin onto Mike’s forehead and held it there with my palm as I spoke the invocation spell. Magic flared brighter than the sun, and Mike jerked as if electrified.
Under my palm, I felt the coin vibrate madly as it wormed its way into Mike’s skull.
Mike spasmed on the sand, his jerking limbs throwing sand everywhere. His forehead was a mess of
