“Why are you helping her?” Darius demanded. “We should be preparing. Which spells can you use against a construct?” Construct was the general term for creations such as the temple guardian Rest had described. Darius twirled a stick of chalk around and around through his fingers, limbering up his wizarding abilities.
“I’m helping Donna help us,” Austin said easily. A glimmer of sly humor invited Donna to share his amusement that Darius hadn’t understood what she’d offered. “Witch bundles, man. You’ve never dated a witch, have you? Witch bundles aren’t simply for protection. They can be woven to store power.”
“And they’re not magical in themselves, so they shouldn’t trigger the temple guardian into action,” Donna added. She paused, staring at the packet of dried hyssop she held. She dropped it back into the bag. “Tell me you bought silk ribbon.”
“Ta da!” Austin flourished a looped and tied off bundle.
“Okay.” Donna wiped her hands down her shorts. “Let’s do this.”
Rest’s pickup was equipped for desert travel. With the environment he lived in, it was a matter of commonsense. He’d flushed out and refilled the two water tanks while Gabe topped up the jerry cans with gas and checked the tires, including the two spares. If something went wrong and Rest was unable to open a portal, they had to be able to drive out of the Kazakhstan desert.
Gabe kicked a tire. “So, how long have you been driving a pickup through the portal? It would have been useful on some of our missions.”
“Yeah.” Their missions had always been the team and whatever they could carry. “I tried it for the first time last night. It was Donna’s idea. I never thought of trying to drive a vehicle through a portal.”
“Her dad didn’t train you in it?” Gabe’s voice was level, offering neither challenge nor suspicion. But it was a reminder that Rest’s relationship with Donna was complicated by issues like her father’s identity as another courier.
“No.”
“Huh. You must have bounced around like popcorn in the Path.”
Rest appreciated the change of subject and grinned at his friend’s metaphor. Popcorn. Gabe’s quiet humor had glued the team together in the past, letting them relieve tension in laughter rather than anger. He’d missed Gabe, and would miss him if Gabe decided not to have anything to do with the team in future. He might. It sounded as if he’d found the woman for him and was building a new life. Rest was curious what the mystery woman was like. Now, though, wasn’t the time for a personal discussion. Those happened post-mission. So all he said was, “The seatbelts held us in place.”
Donna thinks we’re reckless. Maybe she’s right.
She sat between Austin and Gabe in the backseat. Darius rode shotgun in the front. The pickup had once more driven easily along the Path, although the way Austin had cursed on exiting the portal into the Kazakhstan desert suggested he hadn’t appreciated the journey.
Rest had gotten used to the oddness of time zone hopping via the portal. So while his body might think it was midnight, mentally he could accept and instantly adjust to the bright sun and heat of the foreign desert.
And it was foreign.
When he’d couriered Larry and the billionaire’s two assistants to the temple ruins, Rest hadn’t stayed long enough to look around. His clients’ interests seldom interested him. But now that he was driving through the Kyzylkum Desert—they’d settled on emerging from the portal at an estimated safe distance of twenty miles—he had time to notice the wrongness of this desert. Or perhaps, the wrongness was centered on the temple ruins, because the haunted stillness increased as they neared.
There were roads out here, but not where the team needed to go, so the pickup forged its own path. It lurched and growled onward, undaunted even if somewhat slowed by the terrain.
Perhaps Donna would have preferred to go in after extensively researching the nature of the temple guardian and any other defenses that might remain among the ruins, but there were advantages to a bold, swift attack. For a start, they’d beat Larry and whoever he hired to assist him to explore the site. Keeping civilians out of range of enemy fire was part of Rest’s training.
So, how come he was permitting, even encouraging, Donna’s participation?
“Can you go faster?” she asked.
“Lock down your magic,” Darius said at the same instant.
With no portal open, Rest’s magic wasn’t active, and Gabe didn’t have any magic. The order was for Donna and Austin.
“We’re nine miles away,” Rest said. The desert had shallow dips and rises, just enough to hide the temple ruins. Even knowing where they were, Rest couldn’t distinguish them. He could see the scrawny herd of ghosts hightailing it away to the west, though.
“Remember, no magic,” Darius reminded them. At the edge of the temple ruins, he asked Rest to slow down. “Passive scan,” he ordered Austin. “No magic, just awareness.”
Rest kept his magic coiled at his center. Combat missions had this edge. Adrenaline sharpened vision and the other senses, but experience taught a person how to sift through the sensory bombardment for threats and opportunities. If needed, he could open a portal in a split second, and two seconds later, the pickup would be inside it—if the temple guardian didn’t mess with his magic.
The black tourmaline crystal hung around his neck, a promise and a reminder that he’d escaped the temple guardian once, but hadn’t defeated it. Even now, disabling the guardian construct wasn’t his role. He was there to provide transport and a fast retreat, if required.
Once the pickup stopped, it would have to be restarted to roll it and its passengers into a portal, which meant he wouldn’t park the pickup or allow anyone to leave it until Darius gave the signal.
“West,” Darius said tersely. “Circle the ruins. Don’t get any closer.” He looked out his window, staring at the ruins. He clenched his hands into fists so his fingers weren’t free to sketch the beginning of a spell. All of their magic was locked down.
In the backseat, Donna and Austin were equally focused on the ruins. Gabe watched the vehicle’s other side, and checked behind them, as well.
“There is so much magic.” Donna sounded awed.
“Under the sand,” Austin said. “A freaking pool of it. It goes deep.”
Darius summed up the situation, even as he moved them on. “We’ve found the reservoir. Can you sense the temple guardian?”
Even circling slowly, Rest had driven completely around the temple ruins before Donna and Austin reluctantly admitted that they couldn’t sense the guardian.
“Me, either,” Darius said. “However, do not assume that the pendant’s defense of Rest disabled or destroyed the temple guardian. The reservoir of magic is stable. If its guardian was compromised, I’d expect it to show some sign of it. Rest, stop the pickup. We’ll proceed on foot.”
No one commented on how difficult the sand would be for Darius to traverse with his prosthetic leg. As agreed before they left the ranch, Gabe slipped out of the pickup first. He was their scout. Austin went next. Donna slid out after Austin, and Rest moved to join her. Darius got out and watched Gabe and Austin’s progress.
“Larry dug test pits,” Donna said. “The holes,” she added as Darius glanced at her.
“I know what test pits are,” he growled. “Archaeological rubbish.”
“A technique for sampling what’s beneath us,” she replied. “Larry will return here with ground penetrating radar.”
Rest walked forward cautiously. “Would that help us?”
“No.” Darius swore under his breath. “This is like walking on a trampoline of magic.”
Rest hesitated before carefully lowering the foot he’d raised to take his next step. “It bounces?”
“The magic beneath us is immense. It’s difficult to resist tapping it.”
Darius’s explanation didn’t actually explain anything to Rest. He couldn’t sense the magic. He was alert for any hint of the temple guardian appearing, though. Unlike t
he others, the only potential magic artifact he wore was the black tourmaline crystal. Everyone else, including Gabe, carried at least three of Donna’s witch bundles.
She balanced one in the palm of her right hand.
Rest studied it. Herbs and stones were wound together and tied with silk ribbon. “Is the power flowing to it?”
“Yes.” She licked her lower lip. The sun was scorching and the sand reflected the heat, but licking her lip seemed more a nervous habit than a response to the physical discomfort. “There is so much power beneath us. The bundles won’t be able to drain the temple guardian’s reservoir.”
Austin heard her. He looked up from where he crouched by a test pit. Sand poured into it, dislodged by his proximity. “Plan B then.”
“It’s still Plan A,” Darius said. “We find the rune and we claim it, binding it to Rest.”
Rest’s skin crawled, and not just from the sweat trickling down his back.
Austin straightened. “If the witch bundles had worked it would have made things easier, that’s all.” He stumbled and caught his balance against a lump of rock where the sand had piled up on its lee side. A lizard darted away, straight toward Donna, who jumped closer to Rest.
“A lizard scares you? Really?” She’d been brave about everything else.
“They’re miniature dinosaurs.” She moved around to his other side, although the lizard had changed path and retreated into the sparse shelter of a straggly thorn plant. “They have venom on their teeth, you know.”
Despite the threat of the temple guardian appearing, they all turned and stared at her.
She made a fuss of tucking her witch bundle into her belt as she muttered, “It’s true.
“I’ve found steps,” Gabe said, and they jolted to attention, Donna’s lizard phobia forgotten.
Rest frowned. “I collected Larry and his two assistants over there.” Which just happened to be on the far side of the temple from where Gabe now stood. “I didn’t look around. Are the steps just out there or did they discover them?”
Gabe tilted his head in the direction of the increasing wind. Grains of sand were beginning to sing through the air, stinging when they struck exposed skin. “I think they dug a test pit and the wind got in and expanded on their work.”
By the time he finished speaking, they’d crossed the temple ruins and stood staring down at wide steps cut into the rock. The steps had a crudeness to them that didn’t match Rest’s idea of a temple. Temples were ceremonial, weren’t they? A temple ought to be impressive. These steps looked clandestine.
“Ugh. I don’t like them,” Donna said.
“They lead down, and that’s where we need to go. We’ll dig,” Darius said.
They’d come prepared to do so. Rest and Gabe walked back to the pickup and collected two shovels. Then dropped them as Donna screamed.
“It’s not magic,” Austin shouted. “The ground collapsed. We need rope.”
I should have driven the pickup closer, Rest thought. They could have used it as an anchor. They still could. He threw the key to Gabe. For himself, he couldn’t turn his back on Donna—or rather, where she’d last been.
When the ground beneath her feet gave way, Donna screamed on instinct. To be honest, it was a relief to scream. A lizard, disturbed by Darius poking a stick at the rock steps, had dashed out of a crack in them, and of course, headed toward her. She’d swallowed that scream. Her fear of lizards was never respected. Being scared of snakes, everyone understood. But she didn’t mind snakes. She had a healthy respect for them. But lizards scuttled. Ugh. They were worse than crabs. At least crabs stayed on the beach. So she’d bitten back a scream at the sight of the reptile’s high speed approach, only to unleash the scream when the ground fell away.
She slid downward in a landslide of hot sand and small rocks. The fact that she slid with the other debris was what saved her. And what saved the others was that she was too weak a witch to have formed a habit of reaching for magic when in danger. If she had, she’d have definitely tried to magic herself safe as she fell, and that might have called the temple guardian. Instead, she rode the landslide until it ended joltingly in darkness and cold.
Then she realized it was dark because her eyes were closed.
She opened her left eye a crack.
Purple light glowed around her.
She opened both eyes wide and gazed around in shock and awe. She was in a massive cave, its atmosphere saturated with magic.
“Donna!” Rest shouted.
“I’m okay.” She coughed and winced. Her back and sides were bruised, not to mention her legs. “Ow,” she said too low for him to hear. She rolled onto her hands and knees, dislodging a new cascade of sand.
No, that fall of sand was due to a rope hitting the unstable ramp of sand she’d slid down. “Tie it around your waist, like a safety harness.”
“I’m okay,” she said louder. “You’ll want to see this.”
“Hang on.”
Between the thick magic and her bruises, once Donna had maneuvered herself upright and clear of the unstable sand, she simply stood unmoving. The witch bundle she’d tucked into her belt had fallen out. She didn’t bother to check if the other two remained in her pockets. The degree of magic that surrounded her was beyond anything the witch bundles could cope with.
How did I ever think I could help? She was in over her head, literally. She giggled, then choked on the giggle as a man slid down the rope and landed lightly on the shifting pile of sand and rock.
“Hell,” Austin said as he looked around. But even as shock echoed in his voice, he tugged the rope in a prearranged signal.
Darius slid down, and Austin helped steady him, then assisted him in climbing from the slipping, sliding sand. Darius took a couple of awkward final steps that ended with him leaning a shoulder heavily against a rock wall.
“We’re clear,” Austin shouted.
Rest slid down the rope, jumped and had hold of Donna two seconds later. His hands ran over her, checking for injuries.
“I’m okay,” she said for the third time, but this time, she believed it.
Gabe descended the rope. In other circumstances, it would have been prudent to leave one or two people above ground to watch for threats. However, Rest was a courier and if they needed to leave in a hurry, they had to be together.
As Gabe landed, he switched on a flashlight. The beam cut through the purple glow in a green streak.
“Off,” Darius ordered. The green light beam vanished. “Can you see without it?”
“No,” Gabe answered.
Darius glanced at the others. They all nodded. “We can, so it’s magic. Can you leave the light off for a few minutes?” He was asking Gabe to leave himself blind.
“No problem.”
By now, Donna had had a chance to focus on her surroundings. The cave was large, about the size of a baseball diamond, though far more irregular in shape. The roof and sides bulged, but the floor was relatively level. She crouched and touched a marking on it. Her fingers traced the mark of a tool that had been used to create that level footing.
Rest had gone ahead.
When Larry finally found this cave, he’d be disappointed. Like Gabe, he lacked magic, so he’d be blind to the purple glow. And once you squinted and saw details through the glow, it was obvious that the priests or other inhabitants of the temple hadn’t left any artifacts. Or else, they had, and the artifacts had been looted. The temple guardian hadn’t attacked the team, which suggested that a mundane looting party could have climbed down equally unopposed.
Abruptly, she bumped into Rest’s back.
He was rigid with tension. At her touch, his hand whipped back and held her behind him. “There’s a mural here of human sacrifice.”
The purple glow that illumined the cave had a touch of fog to it. It meant that held back by Rest, Dona had to strain her eyes to discern the mural through a cloud of purple.
At first the mural appeared as merely a jumble of lines a
nd angular shapes, with everything exaggerated vertically. Then, as if her brain adjusted, or ceased resisting the horror of the images, she saw the line of headless figures, the giant hand and dagger, and the bowl beneath them. The mural showed a sacrifice, a ritual of multiple human sacrifice.
“Why?” she croaked.
“Death magic.” Darius spoke from their left. “There’s another mural here. It seems to be summoning rain.”
“Huh. Water in a desert would be vital, and related to that, there’s a spring here.” Austin had investigated in the opposite direction. He put a hand on a lump of rock and leaned down, looking sideways. “I think there may be a ruined well beside it. The water source would explain building the temple, here.”
Donna shuddered, letting her vision unfocus from the details of the mural. They dissolved into the purple glow, almost as if happy to hide again. “There’s so much magic here, why would they need to kill people for more?”
“Maybe they enjoyed it,” Gabe said.
She jumped. She’d forgotten he stood behind her and Rest at the edge of the sand pile. “It’s just wrong. Larry expected to find a paradise fruit here, not this…this abomination.”
“Focus,” Darius snapped. “We need to find the rune that controls the temple guardian. The purple light is magic. Look for where it is deepest.”
They all looked around, turning heads and bodies, even Gabe.
Donna stumbled and caught at Rest. “Sorry, rock slipped under my foot.” She shivered. “I’ve never felt so much magic. It’s like a storm. The witch bundles can’t cope with it.”
“We need the rune,” Rest said. He squinted. “The purple looks darker behind the fallen sand.” He guided Donna to Gabe, touching his friend’s shoulder. “Look after her.” He skirted the sand, slogging on as the magic embraced him like treacle. His lungs were heavy with it.
The memory of facing the temple guardian accompanied him.
His friends and Donna were here for him, to turn the temple guardian into a defensive weapon. But in this cavern filled with purple light, the visible expression of magic’s presence, his motivation had shifted from acquiring the controlling rune to seizing it to prevent the temple guardian attacking. The glow of magic disconcerted him in a way the Path between portals never did. If this was a pale shadow of the confusion his clients felt when he couriered them, he needed to give them more credit. He wouldn’t willingly repeat this experience.
Desert Devil (Old School Book 5) Page 10
