Spellbound Trilogy: The Wind Casts No Shadow, Heart of the Jaguar, Shadows in the Mirror

by Jeanne Rose

  "What is it you want?" he asked.

  "Something you were not willing to give, your interest being elsewhere." She gave the hair in her fist a cruel tug, making Frances cry out yet again. "You sealed your own fate." She waved the gun at him. "On the ground, face down."

  Chaco did as she ordered. "You're going to shoot me in the back?"

  "If you force me to it...but I would rather enjoy myself."

  From where he lay, Chaco saw Ynez release Frances. Keeping the gun on the woman he loved, she backed up to the cave's entrance where she retrieved some lengths of rope from a leather satchel. She held them out.

  "Hands behind your back, Chaco. And you may have the honor of tying up your lover," she told Frances.

  "So that you can kill him? Never!"

  "Then I shall kill you." Ynez took careful aim at Frances's chest.

  Making Chaco frantic for her life. "Do what she says, Frankie!"

  Ynez grinned triumphantly. "And tie him securely."

  Chaco stared at Ynez's scarred face, unnerved her a bit, as Frances took the rope and went about the task. He made tight fists and held his wrists apart so slightly that Ynez would never be able to tell he was leaving room to free himself unless she checked. He didn't think she wanted to get that close, not now, not in her human form.

  He smelled her fear.

  And concentrated on that. Used his mind to bore into hers, to send her a vision of his breaking her scrawny lupine neck with his bared hands. He didn't miss the fact that she stepped back slightly.

  Now it was his turn to grin, and he taunted Ynez while Frances tied his ankles together. "So what you got planned for this party?" He couldn't do as good a job keeping these bonds loose, but he did his best.

  Ynez's eyes narrowed. "Why, I have a special treat for you, Senor Jones. When the sun sets, you shall see your precious lover's throat torn out." Her smile was feral. "And perhaps other more tender parts you are fond of. If you wish, we can share."

  Chaco forced himself not to react visibly, but his heart was practically pounding through his chest. He'd never hated so much, never had the true urge to kill before. His taking part in gunfights over the years had been mostly business, and he'd been mostly removed.

  But he would kill Ynez de Arguello for the sheer satisfaction of it if he could. She was responsible for ending untold lives. Now she was threatening the woman he loved.

  He would savor her death.

  Surely Frances would understand...

  First he had to get loose. In the meantime, he would concentrate on sending Ynez visions of her own destruction that would hopefully keep her off balance until he could do something about it.

  FRANCES WATCHED YNEZ PACE. The woman's nerves were getting to her. Chaco was getting to the witch, for every so often she gave him a look of pure hatred that seared the very air between them. And when Ynez wasn't looking at him, Chaco was working on freeing his wrists.

  "What are you waiting for?" Frances finally asked, thinking to draw Ynez's attention to herself and away from Chaco. "If you're going to kill us anyway, why – "

  "Frankie!" he protested.

  "– don’t you just do it?" she finished, ignoring him.

  Ynez's teeth seemed to lengthen when she said, "I prefer to feed on fresh meat."

  Frances tightened her stomach against the revulsion the words conjured. "That means you have to wait."

  "I did not say this."

  "How long?" Sensing Ynez's nerves were fraying, she hoped to do more damage. The less certain the witch was of herself, the better. "Sundown, right? Is that when you can easily turn into the creature?"

  Staring into the other woman's eyes, Frances knew she'd scored a point.

  "Dusk will be falling soon," Ynez countered.

  From the corner of her eye, Frances noticed Chaco's progress. One hand was practically free of the bonds. Ynez was standing slightly in front of him and therefore would have to turn to see.

  "But are you certain you'll have the strength to transform yourself again," Frances probed, "since you already appeared as a wolf in the daylight?"

  The disfigured face snarled at her. "Stop this nonsense, or you will not live so long to see the sun set."

  "What if I choose not to believe in skinwalkers?"

  "Then you are more stupid than I thought," the other woman told her with a harsh laugh.

  "Why? Are the gods you worship more powerful than mine? Perhaps if Chaco and I pray hard enough, we can prevent you from turning into this wolf-creature."

  Ynez's uncertainty grew. "Shut your stupid mouth!"

  "Did you know Chaco is considered di-yin by his mother's people?"

  "This is true," Chaco said, hands stilling for a moment. "Geronimo is my mother's brother."

  Ynez's fine nostrils flared and she turned wide eyes on him. "Lies!"

  Frances used their bit of leverage. "Who do you think gave me that war pouch? Geronimo is responsible for the loss of your beauty."

  "This disfigurement is only temporary!" Ynez screeched.

  "He's looking for you, Ynez," Frances continued. "Can't you feel his power?"

  "I told you to be silent!"

  "Do you really think he would let you harm his nephew without seeking retribution?"

  Ynez stepped forward and slashed out with a clawlike hand. Frances felt the sting of sharp nails ripping at her flesh, even as she pulled her cheek away. The distraction was thorough enough so Ynez didn't see Chaco free his hands.

  "Are you afraid, Ynez?" Frances asked softly. "How does it feel to know your life might end?"

  "Enough! You are the one who will die!"

  Aiming the gun at Frances, Ynez took a step back. And Chaco lunged forward, knocking his shoulder into the back of her legs. The gun discharged and flew from her grasp as she rushed Frances, who might as well have tried to fight a giant, such was the greatness of Ynez's strength. The witch grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. At once, spots of light hovered before Frances's eyes.

  Aware of Chaco untying the bonds from his ankles, she prayed for the strength to hang on a little longer. She clawed at the burned side of the other woman's face, but her efforts were to no avail. Ynez's dark eyes seemed to glow as Frances felt the life drain from her, as if the witch stole her waning strength and made it her own. The hands choking her burned with an unnatural heat.

  Then a huge jolt sent them both flying and the promise of death was ripped from her throat.

  Choking, Frances tried to drag in air. She lay on her side, chest heaving, dazedly watching Chaco and Ynez roll one over the other across the rocky ledge, which was now thrown into deep shadow.

  The sun had set...

  Her heart drumming loudly in her ears, Frances pushed herself to a sitting position. Though he tried, Chaco couldn't subdue Ynez. She was wild-eyed and snarling. And as she rolled up, straddling Chaco, a low-throated growl issued from her throat.

  Wildly, Frances looked for the gun that now lay in the maw of the cave. Unable to rise, she crawled, Chaco's grunts of pain urging her on. A glance over her shoulder terrified her, for, holding Chaco's head pinned between both hands, Ynez thrust it down against a sharp protrusion in the rock. With a groan, Chaco went still. Panting down at her victim, Ynez grinned, her face seeming to stretch into something far more feral.

  "God, no!" Frances gasped, lunging for the gun. Ynez was shapeshifting right before her eyes. Shakily rising to her feet, she clasped the weapon with both hands. "Leave him be, witch!"

  But the thing that had been Ynez was beyond reason. Or recognition. She was neither woman nor wolf, but some creature in between. Her jaws slathering, she gazed hungrily – covetously – at Chaco's throat. And Frances knew that if she didn't shoot to kill, he was a dead man for sure.

  Praying her aim was good, she squeezed the trigger. The gun fired with a kick. Frances hung on, encouraged by the skinwalker's inhuman scream. Chaco stirred. He was regaining consciousness. Over him, the witch was holding her side, blood oozing between
fingers that now looked all too human.

  "You dared shoot me!" Ynez growled, as Frances held the gun up toward her once more. She meant to finish the job.

  "Frankie, don't," Chaco called. "You can't."

  "I have to." But the gun wavered slightly.

  "She's weakened. You don't have to shoot her again. You don't have to kill her."

  Chaco's words cut through her haze of hatred for Ynez. She lowered the gun. Tears spilled from her eyes as she realized she not only was able but was perfectly willing to kill another person under the correct circumstances. No, not a person, she reassured herself. A creature that hadn't one iota of the nobility of a real wolf.

  Chaco struggled up from the ground and threw a dazed-looking Ynez to her backside. She didn't even attempt a struggle. He was right – she was through.

  "Get the rope," he told Frances.

  She found one of the freed lengths and handed it to him. He bound Ynez's hands together in front of her, so that she could use her arm to keep pressure on her still-bleeding side.

  "I almost killed her," Frances said, still amazed at herself. In a haze of terror, she'd abandoned everything she'd believed in.

  Not everything...she'd actually managed to renew her faith in an odd way.

  "It's only a flesh wound," Chaco assured her. Though obviously serious enough to slow the witch down. Frances almost forgot about Ynez for a moment as the man she loved took her in his arms and whispered in her hair, "If anything had happened to you, I would have wanted to die, too."

  Having felt the same, Frances burrowed closer, nodded and asked, "Now what?"

  Chaco shrugged. "Supposing we bring her into Santa Fe – "

  Ynez laughed weakly. "And tell everyone you've caught a skinwalker? Perhaps they'll lock you up."

  "She's right," Frances said, for a moment almost regretting her aim hadn't been better. Then there would be no decision to make. "Maybe we should turn her over to the Jicarilla." She hadn't forgotten the Apache threat to Chaco lest he produce the witch.

  "If they kill her, there'll no doubt be massacres, red and white, all through this part of the Territory," he said. "And then how do I explain my actions to my father?"

  "The truth?" That he was recognizing Don Armando as his parent didn't escape Frances. "He's lived with her. Surely he has some sense of her evil."

  "Fools!" Ynez spat from where she rocked herself on the ground. "Armando never even guessed that I was responsible for the death of his legitimate children...and that he would have been next but for the inconvenient matter of the will."

  Chaco's eyes went all spooky. "Then someone should tell him. Maybe he's the one who should mete out your punishment."

  "Aiyee!" Face contorted with pain, Ynez drew up her knees and folded in on herself, bowing her head as if trying to hide her weakness and fear.

  Frances was amazed that Chaco was so calm and rational, that he would even consider bringing Ynez in rather than kill her himself. But hadn't he told her he only killed when he had to? She hadn't been able to understand that kind of reasoning then as she did now. If he hadn't stopped her, the witch would be dead, and at her hand, Frances realized.

  "Will Don Armando believe you?"

  "If not me alone, he'll listen to us both."

  Chaco's eyes bore into her and the next thing Frances knew, his mouth was covering hers. In his kiss, she recognized hunger for reassurance. She gave him all she had. The embrace lasted for barely a moment...long enough for Ynez to scurry away. By the time Frances realized there was a problem, the other woman was running down the dusk-dusted hillside, laughing at them, her teeth shredding the bonds at her wrists.

  "She's getting away!" Frances cried, watching her literally chew through the rope like a wild animal.

  "Never fear!" Ynez called as she threw the binding back at them. "I shall find you and have my tasty revenge later!"

  Chaco was already on his way after her, Frances following close behind until he stopped dead in his tracks and she jarred into his back. For from every direction came horses with riders holding lit torches aloft. Ynez, too, crashed to a halt and screamed at the sight of Geronimo himself calmly placing a flaming arrow against his bow.

  "Evil, you have met your match!" the shaman thundered as Ynez backed away and looked around wildly for an escape that was not hers. "Now die!"

  Geronimo aimed quickly and released the arrow. The thwang reverberated up Frances's spine as she followed its path straight to the witch's black heart.

  Even enveloped in flames and crumbling to her knees, Ynez was not spent. She raised her arms toward Geronimo and screeched, "A hex on you, old man! I condemn you to walk in the white man's shadow until the end of your cursed days!"

  For a moment Frances watched in stunned silence as the flames crackled and Ynez screamed and collapsed on the ground. Then she had to turn her face away, sickened.

  Though a creature of nightmares, Ynez had once been a human being.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "YOU MADE THIS dress?" Frances asked Ruby in wonder as she entered the noise-filled sitting room of The Gentleman's Club.

  The blonde nodded happily. "I never had much of a chance to make something this fancy before. You really like it?"

  "It's beautiful."

  "Wearing this, I will be the most envied bride in all of Santa Fe," Avandera exclaimed happily.

  The bride-to-be then turned slowly, to give the full effect of the black, silk-trimmed, green taffeta with lace collar and cuffs. All the girls oohed and aahed, even Luz, who Frances suspected might be next in the market for such a garment. She didn't want to think about her own relationship with Chaco, which had been put on hold while he spent some time working things out with his father. Louisa was there, too, hanging back from the others, her expression enigmatic.

  "Ruby, this is such a professional job – you should be doing this for a living."

  The words were out of her mouth before Frances could think. She shouldn't be giving the young woman encouragement unless there was some real possibility of her changing professions.

  But Ruby took the compliment in stride. "I'm happy to be able to sew at all."

  Realizing Belle was about to enter the room, Frances waylaid the madam before she could spoil the festive mood. "Belle, can I talk to you? Outside?"

  "Sure, Frankie, honey." She turned around and walked back toward the railing overlooking the lobby. "What's on your mind?"

  "Avandera's here."

  "I ain't blind."

  "Trying on her wedding dress."

  "That's what I came to see. Look, I mighta blown up at her before, but I got no reason to stand in the way of true love. Someone sure deserves it."

  Judging her friend to be in a positive frame of mind for once, Frances took a chance. "It's a wonderful dress, and it would be a shame to let Ruby's talent go to waste, don't you think?" she asked, then caught her breath, lest Belle blow up as she'd done so often lately.

  Indeed, censure crossed the madam's expression, but only for a few seconds. "I already lost one of my girls," she said with a sigh. "I suppose I can make do for a while without another. Who's Ruby gonna work for?"

  Frances gave Belle a quick hug. "Herself, I hope. If we could give her a small business loan to tide her over."

  "Now hold on, this ain't no charity -- "

  "Which she would have to pay back with interest, of course," Frances quickly added. "Ruby could start by working out of a room in the hotel, until she got some regular customers. Then she could open up a real shop."

  "Giving her money means stinting around here some."

  "True." She was amazed that Belle didn't sound altogether disagreeable.

  "And you'd be stuck in town longer'n you expected."

  Frances forced a sigh and said, "I'm willing to make the sacrifice."

  Truth was, she had no intentions of leaving anyway, whether or not things worked out between her and Chaco.

  Belle smiled. "Then I'll do it. I sure as shootin' expe
cted you to hightail it outta town on the first coach or train after what happened with that de Arguello woman last week."

  The story they'd told about Ynez had been a modified, more acceptable version of the truth: that Ynez had taken Frances hostage because Frances had figured out the other woman was doing the killing; that she'd threatened to kill both Frances and Chaco to keep her secret; and that Geronimo had cut her down to save his nephew. They'd claimed Ynez was insane, having admitted to brutal treatment at the hands of her father after her mother died, and that she had made up for it by killing other men. The word "skinwalker" had never been spoken.

  "Ynez did have me wishing I was elsewhere," Frances admitted, "but there are other things about the West I love."

  "Like Chaco Jones," Belle said wisely. "Well, good, 'cause I'm getting used to you hanging around. The way you went after my girl, well, I can't rightly show you enough appreciation."

  "I love Louisa, too."

  Frances looked through the doorway toward the girl who was now all smiles as she chatted away with Ruby. No more sullen moods. No protests about returning to school. Overnight, Louisa had become the perfect daughter to Belle. If the madam saw through the facade, she wasn't saying, undoubtedly too grateful to have her daughter back unharmed to question Louisa's new and improved attitude. She allowed the girl to visit the Blue Sky when she wanted and she'd even managed to "forget" Louisa had gone off with a man.

  But Frances hadn't forgotten. If there were any consequences...

  "Let's get a better look at Avandera's dress."

  While spending the next half hour chatting with the girls and sharing tea and biscuits, Frances kept an eye on Louisa. While she talked and smiled, she was a shell of the girl she had been. Gone was the fire that had imbued her spirit and made her special.

  Strong's request preying on her mind, Frances eventually said, "Louisa, I was going to check on my mare over at the stable. Want to come?"

  "Sure. My horses could use some attention."

  They were barely out of the Blue Sky when Billie Tucker came flying down the street, shouting, "Hey, Louisa Janks, wait up!"