Black Magic Sanction

pixy dust.

She dropped back, our hands parting. 'Then I'm gone,' she said, walking backward a hesitant step. 'You're going to be okay? Be smart.'

She was talking about Pierce, and I nodded, feeling him behind me in the water.

'God, Ivy, just go!' Jenks shouted, and she turned and started jogging, a passel of pixies lighting her way. She could probably outrun any dog. She'd be fine. Right?

I felt the statue through the thin fabric of my belt pack, worried about her. Ivy thought Pierce's hole was going to be safer than Rynn Cormel's stronghold. Or maybe she just didn't want to dangle such a priceless piece of blackmail in front of the master vampire. 'See you tomorrow!' I shouted, and got a backward wave.

'Can we go now?' Jenks said snidely, his gold dust turning yellow when it hit the water, looking like sun sparkles in the middle of the night.

'We can go now.' I slipped as I edged back into the river, caught by Pierce until I jerked away. Yes, I was grateful for him saving me yet again. But I'd been burned too many times by strong, capable men with a past. A pang of something lit through me as I saw him in the water beside me, the current eddying about his ankles and the starlight lighting his face to show his grim mood.

'You've got a place on the river, huh?' I asked, and he nodded, not smiling at all.

'Take off your shoes,' he said as he shoved his hat into a back pocket. 'Drop them somewhere in the river.'

Standing at the edge, I slipped them off. 'Will it help throw them off the trail?'

Pierce turned to me, already calf deep. The light sort of seemed to slide off him, blurring his features, and I shivered. 'The weight of them will pull you down. Your clothes should be fine, seeing as you're not in skirts. I can't tell you how many women I lost at the end in the name of modesty. Do what I say when I say, and don't stop or you'll die. Understand?'

Turning his back, he waded into the water.

Jenks landed on my shoulder. 'Talk about a hard-ass.'

'Yeah, and he's telling me what to do again.' Shaking, I yanked the other shoe off and threw them both back at my moms car. Slowly I turned to follow Pierce, wincing as ice-cold muck squished into my socks.

Fine, I'd do what he said, when he said. For now.

Thirty-two

My head was above water. Barely. There wasn't ice on the river, but there might as well have been. I was so cold, I wasn't sure my legs were moving. Numb, I forced myself to keep kicking. Jenks was my guide, and his dust lit the way. If not for that, I was sure I would've gotten lost trying to cross this dumb, stupid, cold river. What a good idea, swim the Ohio River. We couldn't steal a boat or anything. No-o-o-o-o, we had to swim it.

'Almost there, Rache,' Jenks said as he darted back from the soft splash of Pierce confidently moving forward. His wings were a worried green. 'Get your witch ass moving!'

'Go to hell,' I gasped. My lips were inches from going under, and I got a mouthful of river. It went into my lungs, and I panicked.

'Rache!' Jenks shouted as I stopped swimming and tried to breathe. The current took me, and I floundered. Jenks's shouts became muffled, turning into a black swirl of bubbles. Coughing, I clawed my way to the surface.

'Pierce!' Jenks shrilled, and I went down again. My arms were leaden. A blessed warmth was stealing into me, and I listened to the rumble of the water. Numb, I drifted, letting the bubbles slip out. At least the water had gotten warm. The last time I'd fallen asleep in the Ohio River, it had been warm then, too.

A sharp pain in my scalp jerked through me, and I gasped as the cold air hit my face.

'Rachel!' a high-pitched glow was screaming, but I couldn't move to smack it away.

I was still in the water, but stars were playing hide-and-seek among the black leaves overhead. One of them kept moving. It was swearing, too, spilling a glow all over my face. Confused, I felt the ground scrape under my back. Water flowed over my legs, but someone was whispering, covering me up with something heavy and wet.

'I'm not of a mind to understand,' the voice was saying. 'It's not that cold, and she's a considerably skilled woman. Fit as any.'

'She's sensitive to the cold, you ass,' the star was saying, dipping close, and the slits of my eyes closed again. 'You're going to kill her! Look, she's blue. She's freaking blue again!'

'She'll be fine,' the low voice said, and something cold shifted my head and breath touched my cheek. 'Stop acting like an old woman. I've seen worse. Rachel? Open your eyes!'

Like I could? My head lolled as I felt myself rise. 'Sensitive to the cold,' he whispered irately. 'How's a body supposed to know? She looks as healthy as a plow horse.'

Plow horse, I thought, hazy, my weight shifting.

'She's going to be okay,' he said again, but this time, I could hear worry.

'Why, because you think you love her?'

It was my star again, my lucky star, and it was hovering above me to shine a light on the man's face. His features were dripping, creased in worry, and his black hair was plastered to his face. 'I shouldn't,' he said to the star, and the star's glow dimmed.

'But you do. You're going to kill her. You're going to break her heart and then she'll get sloppy and die.'

The world jolted as Pierce stumbled, and I lost track of everything. My existence became a confused motion of stops and starts. Once I felt the hardness of ground under me and smelled earth, and then nothing until I realized I wasn't moving anymore, and I woke up.

It was quiet. It had been for a while, I realized, feeling a pleasant warmth flowing through me. That was wrong. I'd been suffering from hypothermia. I should be shivering, and I wasn't. There was the strong scent of river, wet leather, and... redwood. My eyes opened.

I was lying on my side on a dirt floor with a dirt wall rising before me within arm's reach, going only four feet before turning into a dirt ceiling. A small globe of green-tinted light rested in a wooden lanternlike affair in the corner at my feet. It looked old and dusty. There was a scratchy wool blanket over me—and a masculine arm.

Shit.

My pulse quickened, but I didn't move. Pierce spooning behind me would explain why my backside was so warm. I'd not felt the comforting heat of a real body next to me since Marshal, and I missed it. Careful to not move my head, I looked at his arm, seeing it through his thin white shirt. It was a nice arm, settled perfectly at my waist so it wasn't squishing me. His soft breathing told me he was still asleep. Why he was spooned up against me was obvious. The cold of the river had nearly brought me down, and there was no other way to warm me. This must be his hole in the ground. I hadn't thought it would be a real hole. Safe?

I didn't move, wanting to pretend that I had a right to enjoy the sensation of having another person this close, the comfort of just being together, the trust. I was deliciously warm, almost as if I was in a ley line, and I couldn't help my sigh.

'For land's sake!' Pierce exclaimed, pulling up and away from me. 'You're awake!'

The warmth cut off, and I felt the energies in my body jump, feeling the lack of what had been a ley line running through me. There was a scrabbling of noise, and my back went cold as Pierce's light flashed an alarmed brightness. I sat up, grabbing the blanket and skittering to the other side of the small underground room to stare at Pierce in the green light.

That had been a line! Had he been pulling a line through me? While I was unconscious? Not a power pull since my chi was empty, but something else? Who did he think he was?

Pierce sat with his head a foot below the ceiling, his back to the opposite wall, one leg bent on the earth, the other propped up. He was fully clothed, but wearing almost nothing—his coat and clothes were hanging on pegs hammered into the wall with a puddle of mud under them. A white shirt and matching trousers covered almost all of his skin, but I could see the outline of his body well enough.