She kept talking: “So, you asked, and I hesitated. But the answer is always going to be
We drove in silence for a while.
I needed to be careful with this next part. “What if we—I mean, just us two—went out to find one of those original spell books? What if you had the visions, and to hell with the society? You’d be a primary, right? Couldn’t you take over? Change the training? Couldn’t you just …”
“Fight the whole society? Take on not just all the peers but the allies, too? Plus whatever rogues they decided to point at me? Without support? I don’t know. I don’t think so. And the society has financiers, lawyers, and investigators, too. They can strip away an enemy’s resources before a fight, if they know who they’re targeting, and they know me. I’m not saying it’s a terrible idea. I’d be happy to get my hands on a spell book just to keep it away from assholes like your—like Wally King. But if I became a primary, I think the Twenty Palace Society would kill me—would kill us both. And even if we won the fight, we’d lose the infrastructure of the society. As a primary I’d kick ass, yeah, but I’d need investigators to tell me where to go, and financiers to cover the bills, and so on.
“What if the peers got their hands on a book?”
“Incredible power for the most vicious serpents in the nest. These aren’t men who worry about the job being easy; it’s already easy for them, because they love it. They love the brutality. They pride themselves on their willingness to kill. With society resources backing them, they’d have the world behind the world under their heel.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“Of course I have. This is my life and my future. Either the society loses this fight and the world is overrun with predators, or I become a primary and lose a fight with the society, or the assholes become primaries and I get demoted to … what? Wooden man? Errand girl? None of them are good options, but the last one is the least awful.”
“To hell with that.” I picked up the thermos and swirled the liquid. I couldn’t hear it over the rumble of the engine, but I could feel it slosh around. “Boss, here. I found the Book of Oceans.”
She stared at me silently for a moment, trying to judge if I was being serious or if she was going to start breaking my bones for playing a prank. I pushed the thermos at her, and she took it. She screwed off the top.
“Oh” was all she said.
I laid my hand over the top. “You’re not going to go back on everything you just said, are you?”
She gently moved my hand away and looked into the bottom of the thermos for another few seconds. Then she screwed the cap back on and held the thermos in her lap. “You bastard.” She sounded almost as though she wanted to laugh. “You goddamn son of a bitch. You’re really good at this job, aren’t you?” I shrugged. “Where are you driving us?”
“East,” I said.
We drove to Barstow in the dark, and I switched to the 40. “The Mohave Desert?” Annalise asked.
“Can you think of a better place to hide the Book of Oceans?”
“Death Valley.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Don’t be annoying, boss.”
“We’re going to hide it?”
For a moment, she sounded unsure of herself. I hadn’t thought that was possible. “You said it wouldn’t be safe for us to use it, and I sure as hell won’t give it to the serpents. I have a better idea.”
We took the 40 to the 95. The sign said that Las Vegas was 103 miles away. As we passed the freeway entrance sign for the westbound on-ramp, I made note of the odometer. We counted off a random number of miles, then pulled onto the shoulder.
“Shovel’s in back,” Annalise said.
We climbed out into the darkness. I couldn’t see a car in either direction.
There was a shovel mounted on a rack in the back of the van. Only one, though. I knew who would be using it. I took it down and followed Annalise into the desert.
We walked at least a quarter mile away from the asphalt before Annalise pointed at the ground. “Here.”
I dug a shallow hole. She tossed the thermos in without hesitation. It was long life and power beyond anything I could imagine, but I shoveled dirt over it. Annalise picked up a rock as large as a beach ball and set it down to mark the spot. Then she found two more large flat rocks, each the size of a trash-can lid, and laid them beside the beach ball.
“I think we’ll be able to find it now, boss. If we have to.”
She nodded. We started back to the van. No other cars passed by on the road. “Ray, this only works if we trust each other. You understand? Because either one of us could come back later and move that thermos. Either one of us could cut the other out.”
“Boss, if I wanted to cut you out, I wouldn’t have handed you that thermos. The truth is, I need your help. It’s not enough to hide the Book of Oceans from the Wally Kings of the world—or from the other peers, either. There are two more books out there, and I don’t trust anyone with that power—”
“Neither do I.”
“Not even the two of us. I don’t think we’re ready for it.”
Her answer was quieter this time. “Because of what you did in Washaway. And Lino Vela.”
“Yeah. We will be ready for it, someday, but not yet. Like I said, stashing one book isn’t good enough. We need
