“But—” Aretha bit her lip, probably wondering what “deficient” meant, and Ivy thanked the goddess again that she could afford to send Ian to private school.
“Sinagua. Native Americans. You’re in a national park. Buy a book. Get a free brochure. You can read, can’t you?” Ivy carefully smoothed the sneer off her face. She didn’t want to add wrinkles to her face if at all possible. Magic kept her looking at least ten years younger, but her impatience with stupidity threatened to add it all back. Anyway, she only needed to be patient with this one a little while longer. Surely Nicholas would find her better help after this, and Aretha Moon Blossom Moskowitz could find another hobby.
“I’ll get a book, Ivy. I mean, Priestess. I will. I’m sorry.”
Ivy tuned out the witch’s babbling and raised her hands in the air, opening herself to the elements and letting the biting rush of power flow into and through her. The sun was rising, offering its heat and energy to any who could reach out and grasp it. Ivy’s hair crackled with electricity and lifted into the nonexistent breeze to float around her head as she pulled enough power through herself to try again with the gemstone.
First, though, the shield. Brick by unseen, mental brick, she built the wall of silence and cover—the glamour that shielded them from inquiring eyes and unwanted attention. All anyone would see was a shimmer of heat on a sunny Arizona day. Normal, so very normal—and fewer than five small animals had to die to give her all that lovely power. Seemed like a fair enough trade. There were certainly rodents enough out here in the almost-wilderness.
Aretha squeaked with delight as the shimmer of Ivy’s power floated around and over them. The view from the opening of the room in which they stood was now like looking through lightly frosted glass, and Ivy knew from experience that she’d succeeded perfectly. No rangers or guests were scheduled to enter the castle structure for any reason today, or so her sources had told her, and it was still well before the park operational hours, in any case.
Time for the main event.
She returned to the spiral design, etched so long ago into the wall, and took a deep breath. She’d found it almost by accident the first time, in spite of the vampire, drawn to the site by the booming waves of energy that had centered here during the last thunderstorm. She loved driving around in storms, attracted by the raw power of nature’s fury. Ian had liked to go with her when he was a baby, and the sounds of the storm had made him laugh and then lulled him to sleep. But thirteen-year-old boys rarely wanted to hang out with their mothers, and she wouldn’t want him to see this morning’s work anyway.
The results, perhaps. When she was so powerful that nobody could ever harm them. Then she would teach him. He was almost old enough to come into his own powers.
“Um, Priestess?” Aretha’s hesitant voice jolted Ivy out of her reverie. “That drawing is glowing. Is that supposed to happen?”
“Oh, yes.” Ivy carefully curved her hand to curl around the outside of the spiral and then flattened her palm to cover it. Just like last time, when she’d first found it, the heat of the power surge inside the wall felt like it was searing her skin from her hand. She’d wrenched her hand away, only to discover that the heat was magically created and had done her skin no actual harm. The gem had been almost in her grasp, but when she’d pulled her hand away it had disappeared into the wall again.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time. She clenched her jaw tight against crying out, in case any sound would cause a glitch in the magic. The familiar spinning feeling of vertigo channeled through chaos began to manifest ; first in her hand and then rapidly traveling up her arm and through her body in both directions. Her head started to feel wobbly, and her torso tightened as the magic pulsed and swirled, and finally—just when the nausea threatened to force her to release her hold—finally, deep in the stone of the wall, she could hear the resonance of the spell’s connection.
The sound echoed through Ivy’s bones, and dimly, as if from miles away, she saw Aretha fall to her knees. If the deep toll of a cathedral’s bell could echo through a thunderstorm, this would be the sound it created. Deep, profound, and laced with unknowable meaning. Plaster and stone became permeable and then vanished under Ivy’s hand, and the rich purple glow of the gem filled the narrow opening.
“Oh, come to Mama,” she whispered, unable to help it, as a tingle of delicious anticipation raced through her. If she was correct, she would soon be holding an object of power that nobody had touched in more than a thousand years.
The gem floated through the air toward her, and the sound emanating from it softened to a gentle humming noise, almost as if the stone itself were anticipating reaching her, too. Ivy shivered, finally admitting, if only to herself, that she was slightly afraid. She had no idea what power this stone might contain. Only the vampire’s hints of a mystical prophecy from ancient times had guided her decision to return and try again.
Well. That and his threats.
Although the question she’d left unanswered in her greedy desire to obtain the stone still nagged at the back of her mind: how had Nicholas known exactly what gem she’d been talking about?
No time to worry or wonder now, it was so close . . . oh, goddess, it was an amethyst the size of an ostrich egg. Even if it hadn’t held such incredible power, the monetary value alone would have made the risk worthwhile. As it was, Ian’s future was now secured.
The gem floated closer and closer to Ivy’s trembling fingers, and she sent one last prayer to the dark goddess who’d owned her heart since Ivy’s first communion with the moon. “Protect me, Lady, and help me to master this new gift I offer to your glory.”
The gem stopped its forward motion and shook slightly, almost as if in response to the prayer, but then it soared through the air even faster and slammed into Ivy’s waiting hands. She had a moment to wonder at its cool, hard weight before its power smashed through her defenses, through her mental shield, and through any pretense or hope she’d had of being the one in control. Images cascaded through her mind, ancient images and glittering scenes of persons and places so fantastic that Ivy’s brain couldn’t keep up with the input. She tried to open her fingers to release the gem, to break the connection, but the amethyst clearly had other ideas. Her hands were frozen in place, and she was unable to break her own grip.
The gem’s power lashed out at her with a crushing pressure on her mind—either a warning or a punishment—and the last thing she saw before the blackness took her was Aretha Moon Blossom, lying on her back on the dark floor, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling from bleeding eyes.
Nicholas walked carefully around the dead human on the floor and motioned to one of his blood pride to deal with it. He stood a couple of paces away from the fallen sorceress and stared down at her, listening to the faint, stuttering beat of her heart.
“Are you sure we can’t take it away from her?” Smithson asked, greed shining in his beady eyes.
“No. Everything we know about this stone tells us that only the most powerful sorcerers even dare touch it. She has obviously achieved a connection, and it would almost certainly kill both her and whichever unfortunate being tried to take it from her.”
“Can we touch her?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Vampire looked at human, neither willing to be the first to drop his gaze.
Nicholas finally laughed. “For a human, you’re surprisingly unafraid of me.”
His temporary ally shrugged. “I’m not just a human. I’m an investment banker. Some would call me an even worse bloodsucker than you.”
Nicholas laughed again. “Ah, such self-awareness in one so young. This alliance may prove to be most entertaining. Are you sure that Ivy Khetta will agree to continue? The young one died, and I doubt she intended that.”