Sakhmet looked up, scrubbed tears from her cheeks, smearing the ashes streaked there. Her eyes were wide, golden, and she looked wild. Quickly, she got into a crouch, gently settling Mohan’s body, arranging his hands at his sides, stroking his hair one more time and kissing his forehead, a lingering farewell.
Then she moved to me. “I don’t have a passport or visa. I can’t let them find me.”
I blinked at her. “But … wait a minute. Ben’s a lawyer, we can get help—”
She took my face in her hands and made me look into her eyes. She had decided, and I wasn’t going to talk her out of it. “I’ll always know how to find you, Kitty. I’ll call.”
She kissed my cheek, hugged me quickly; unconsciously I reached for her, to try to hug her back, but she was already slipping away from my arms.
“Sakhmet, wait a—”
“Samira,” she said, then turned and ran. Barefoot, skirt trailing, hair slipping from its braid in flying strands, she was around the hill and gone in moments. Gone, leaving me with her dead lover, my only solid evidence that any of this had happened. I had so many questions, and nothing to say.
Other figures appeared, a pair of men in dark green forest service coats, a man in a blue state patrol uniform. Wow, they’d really been looking for me. My phone, the message, I’d left it outside so Ben would find it—they must have been able to track the signal. Or the sound and fury of the collapsing mine had led them here. Both, working together, probably. I’d ask Ben about it later.
Dawn was creeping into the sky. The light faded into a tinny gray, the shadows grew thin. Features of the landscape revealed themselves, but seemed wash+ been ceshed out. The slope of the hill had changed, and the trees seemed to loom. I had a pounding headache. Eventually, about half a dozen officials and a search crew arrived on the scene and fanned out over the area, playing flashlights over the ruined mine entrance, investigating the surroundings. I squinted when they shone lights on me, but Ben intercepted them before they could actually approach me. Keeping me safe. I’d have to talk to them eventually. But not right now. I could sit here for a while, not thinking about anything. Just sit. The sky grew brighter.
The state patrol guy called in a coroner for Mohan. At least I could tell them his real name now. The official marking and documenting of the site began, and I was asked to move out of the way. I did, finding a tree to sit against while Ben continued running interference. I hoped we could leave soon. But oddly enough, part of me didn’t want to. I wanted to make sure I had my memories firmly in place first, or I’d never be able to hold on to them. I found myself clutching three items that had gotten tangled around my arm toward the end, which I’d managed to hold on to as I escaped: Kumarbis’s coin, Zora’s spell book case, and the demon’s goggles. More evidence than I thought. Pieces to a strange puzzle.
Cormac tracked where I went and walked toward me. Strolled, almost, his steps slow, as if giving me a chance to tell him to go away. I didn’t. He slouched to the ground, resting his elbows on his knees, looking out at the view, sunrise through a snowy forest. I waited for him to say something; he didn’t. The movement of him coming over was his simple way of asking how I was.
I untangled my mess of artifacts, cords and straps wrapped around my arm, and handed them over to him. He held up the goggles first. “Is this what I think it is?” I nodded, and he frowned, concerned. “The demon—she was here? What happened?”
“She’s buried under that mountainside, I hope.”
Shaking his head, he said, “She’d have gotten out like she did last time. And what’s this one?” He shifted his grip to the coin, rubbing his finger over the damaged surface. “One of Roman’s? Where’d this one come from?”
“A vampire who claimed to be Roman’s progenitor. Who was conspiring against Roman in a very roundabout way. He said this was the first coin Roman made.”
He grunted, a response with a dozen meanings. Amazement, disbelief, calm acceptance. Maybe even amusement. He wasn’t going to make demands; he had the patience to wait for further explanations. “And this?” He turned the tin box back and forth in his hand.
Reaching over, I popped open the lid, revealing the thumb drive. “It’s Zora’s spell book, I think. She’s the magician behind this mess. She worked on a laptop, and that’s her backup. There might be something there you could use.”
“We’ll check it out.” He tucked the case into a jacket pocket. “This magician—was she any good?”
I had to think about that one. Empirical evidence said no, based on the amount of damage she’d done. Empirical evidence also said yes. She hadn’t accomplished what she’d intended, but I couldn’t argue against the sheer chaos she’d created. But when it counted, she’d battled the demon without flinching.
“I don’t know. She was powerful, at some level. Did some really impressive stuff. But I think she was also more than a little crazy. I’m not sure she really knew what she was doing with a+ing and ceshll that power.”
“Crazy and magic seem to go together an awful lot,” he said.
I tilted my head, raised an inquiring brow. “What does that say about you? All this magic driving you crazy?”
His mustache curled with his smile. “Depends on what kind of crazy, I guess. You want me to hang on to this stuff, see what we can figure out about it?”
“Yeah, if you don t. The hillsid
Epilogue
She Changes before the sun sets, before the moon has fully risen, before the pack gathers, because she can’t wait any longer, because she is finally free, because the
