by L. J. Smith
And then they were bursting through the back entrance, and there was the car, a white limousine illegally parked at the curb. Nissa whipped out a key chain and pressed a button, and Keller heard the click of doors unlocking.
“Inside!” she said to Galen. He got in. Winnie ran around the car to get in the other side. Nissa slid into the driver’s seat. Keller ducked in last and snapped, “Go!” even as she slammed the door.
Nissa floored it.
The limousine shot forward like a dolphin—just as a security truck sped up from the rear. A police car appeared dead in front of them.
Nissa was an excellent driver. The limo swerved with a squeal of tires and peeled out of another of the parking lot’s exits. A second police car swung toward them as Nissa dodged traffic. This one had lights and sirens on. Nissa gunned the engine, and the limo surged forward again. A freeway on-ramp was ahead.
“Hang on,” Nissa said briefly.
They were passing the on-ramp—they were past it. No, they weren’t. At the last possible second, the limo screamed into a ninety-degree turn. Everyone inside was thrown around. Keller clenched her teeth as her wounded arm hit the window. Then they were shooting up the on-ramp and onto the freeway.
With a little patter, cat’s paws of rain appeared on the windshield. Keller, leaning forward to look over Nissa’s shoulder, was happy. With icy rain and the low, gray fog, they probably wouldn’t be chased by helicopter. The big limousine roared past the few other cars on the road and Winnie sat looking out the rear window, murmuring a spell to confuse and delay any pursuit.
“We lost them,” Nissa said. Keller sat back and let out her breath. For the first time since she’d entered the mall, she allowed herself to relax minutely.
We did it.
At the same moment, Winnie turned. She pounded the backseat with a small, hard fist. “We did it! Keller—we got the Wild Power! We…” Her voice trailed off as she saw Keller’s face. “And, uh…I guess I disobeyed orders.” Her pounding was self-conscious now; she ducked her strawberry-blond head. “Um, I’m sorry, Boss.”
“You’d better be,” Keller said. She held Winnie’s gaze a moment, then said, “You could have gotten yourself killed, witch—and for absolutely no good reason.”
Winnie grimaced. “I know. I lost it. I’m sorry.” But she smiled timidly at Keller afterward. Keller’s team knew how to read her.
“Sorry, too, Boss,” Nissa said from the front seat. She slanted a glance at Keller from her mink-colored eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to leave the car.”
“But you thought we might need a little help,” Keller said. She nodded, meeting Nissa’s eyes in the mirror. “I’m glad you did.”
The faintest flush of pleasure colored Nissa’s cheeks.
Galen cleared his throat.
“Um, for the record, I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to charge in like that in the middle of your operation.”
Keller looked at him.
He was smiling slightly, hesitantly, the way Winnie had. A nice smile. The corner of his mouth naturally quirked upward, giving him a hint of mischief in all but the most serious moments. His green-gold eyes were apologetic but hopeful.
“Yeah, who are you, guy?” Winnie was looking him up and down, her dark lashes twinkling. “Did Circle Daybreak send you? I thought we were on this mission alone.”
“You were. I belong to Circle Daybreak, but they didn’t send me. I just—well, I was outside the shop, and I couldn’t just stand there…” His voice died. The smile died, too. “You’re really mad, aren’t you?” he said to Keller.
“Mad?” She took a slow breath. “I’m furious.”
He blinked. “I don’t—”
“You stopped me, I could have killed him!”
His gold-green eyes opened in shock and something like remembered pain. “He was killing you.”
“I know that,” Keller snarled. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. What matters is that now he’s free. Don’t you understand what he is?”
Winfrith was looking sober. “I don’t know. But he hit me with something powerful. Pure energy like what I use, but about a hundred times stronger.”
“He’s a dragon,” Keller said. She saw Nissa’s shoulders stiffen, but Winnie just shook her head, bewildered. “A kind of shapeshifter that hasn’t been around for about thirty thousand years.”
“He can turn into a dragon?”
Keller didn’t smile. “No, of course not. Don’t be silly. I don’t know what he can do—but a dragon is what he is. Inside.” Winnie suddenly looked queasy as this hit home. Keller turned back to Galen.
“And that’s what you let loose on the world. It was the only chance to kill him—nobody will be able to take him by surprise like that again. Which means that everything he does after this is going to be your fault.”
Galen shut his eyes, looking dizzy. “I’m sorry. But when I saw you—I couldn’t let you die….”
“I’m expendable. I don’t know who you are, but I’m willing to bet you’re expendable. The only one here who isn’t expendable is her.” Keller jerked a thumb at Iliana, who lay in a pool of pale silver-gold hair on the seat beside Galen. “And if you think that dragon isn’t going to come back and try to get her again, you’re crazy. I’d have died happy knowing that I’d gotten rid of him.”
Galen’s eyes were open again, and Keller saw a flicker in them at the “don’t know who you are.” But at the end, he said quietly, “I’m expendable. And I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“That’s right! You didn’t! And now the whole world is going to suffer.”
Galen shut up and sat back.
And Keller felt odd. She wasn’t sorry for slapping him down, she told herself. He deserved it.
But his face was so pale now, and his expression was so bleak. As if he’d not only understood everything she’d said but expanded on it in his own mind. And the look of hurt in his eyes was almost insupportable.
Good, Keller told herself. But then she remembered the moment she’d spent inside his mind. It had been a sunlit place, warm and open, without dark corners or shadowed crevasses. Now that would be gone forever. There was going to be a huge black fissure in it, full of horror and shame. A mark he would carry for the rest of his life.
Well, welcome to the real world, Keller thought, and her throat tightened and hurt. She stared out the window angrily.
“See, it’s really important that we keep Iliana safe,” Winfrith was saying quietly to Galen. He didn’t ask why, and Keller had noticed before that he hadn’t asked why Iliana wasn’t expendable. But Winnie went on telling him anyway. “She’s a Wild Power. You know about those?”
“Who doesn’t these days?” He said it almost in a whisper.
“Well, most humans, for one thing. But she’s not just a Wild Power; she’s the Witch Child. Somebody we witches have been expecting for centuries. The prophecies say she’s going to unite the shapeshifters and the witches. She’s going to marry the son of the First House of the shapeshifters. And then the two races will be united, and all the shapeshifters will join Circle Daybreak, and we’ll be able to hold off the end of the world at the millennium.” Winnie finished out of breath. Then she cocked her strawberry-blond head. “You don’t seem surprised. Who are you, guy? You didn’t really say before.”
“Me?” He was still looking into the distance. “I’m nobody, compared to you people.” Then he gave a little wry smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m expendable.”
Nissa caught Keller’s eye in the rearview mirror, looking concerned. Keller just shrugged. Sure, Winnie was telling this expendable guy a lot. But it didn’t matter. He wasn’t on the enemy side; and anyway, the enemy knew everything Winnie was saying. They had identified Iliana as the third Wild Power; the dragon proved that. They wouldn’t have sent him if they hadn’t been sure.
But still, it was time to get rid of this interfering boy. They certainly couldn’t take him to the safe house where they were takin
g Iliana.
“Nobody tailing us?” Keller said.
Nissa shook her head. “We lost them all miles ago.”
“You’re sure?”
“Dead certain.”
“Okay. Take any exit, and we’ll drop him off.” She turned to Galen. “I hope you can find your way home.”
“I want to go with you.”
“Sorry. We have important things to do.” Keller didn’t need to add, And you’re not part of them.
“Look.” Galen took a deep breath. His pale face was strained and exhausted, as if he’d somehow lost three days’ sleep since he’d gotten into the limo. And there was something close to desperation in his eyes. “I need to go with you. I need to help, to try and make up for what I did. I need to make it right.”
“You can’t.” Keller said it even more brusquely than she meant to. “You’re not trained, and you’re not involved in this. You’re no good.”
He gave her a look. It didn’t disagree with anything she’d said, but somehow, for just an instant, it made her feel small. His greeny-gold eyes were just the opposite of the dragon’s opaque ones. Keller could see for miles in them, endless light-filled fathoms, and it was all despair. A sorrow so great that it shook her.
She knew it must be costing him a lot to show her that, to hold himself so open and vulnerable. But he kept looking at her steadily.
“You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “I have to help you. I have to try, at least. I know I’m not in your class as a fighter. But I…” He hesitated. “I didn’t want to say this—”
At that moment, Iliana groaned and sat up.
Or tried to. She didn’t make it all the way. She put a hand to her head and started to fall off the seat.
Galen steadied her, putting an arm around her to keep her propped up.
“Are you all right?” Keller asked. She leaned forward, trying to get a look at the girl’s face. Winnie was leaning forward, too, her expression eager.
“How’re you feeling? You’re not really hurt, are you? You just fainted from the shock.”
Iliana looked around the limousine. She seemed utterly confused and disoriented.
Keller was struck again by the girl’s unearthly beauty. This close, she looked like a flower, or maybe a girl made from flowers. She had peach-blossom skin and hazy iris-colored eyes. Her hair was like corn silk, fine and shimmering even in this dim light. Her hands were small and graceful, fingers half curled like flower petals.
“It’s such an honor to meet you,” Winnie said, and her voice turned formal as she uttered the traditional greeting of the witches. “Unity, Daughter of Hellewise. I’m Winfrith Arlin.” She dimpled. “But it’s really ‘Arm-of-Lightning.’ My family’s an old one, almost as old as yours.”
Iliana stared at her. Then she stared at the back of Nissa’s mink-colored head. Then her eyes slid to Keller.
Then she sucked in a deep breath and started screaming.
CHAPTER 4
Winnie’s jaw dropped.
“You—you—keep away from me!” Iliana said, and then she got another breath and started shrieking again. She had good lungs, Keller thought. The shrieks were not only loud, they were piercing and pitched high enough to shatter glass. Keller’s sensitive eardrums felt as if somebody were driving ice picks through them.
“All of you!” Iliana said. She was holding out both hands to fend them off. “Just let me go! I want to go home!”
Winnie’s face cleared a little. “Yeah, I’ll bet you do. But, you see, that place is dangerous. We’re going to take you somewhere safe—”
“You kidnapped me! Oh, God, I’ve been kidnapped. My parents aren’t rich. What do you want?”
Winnie looked at Keller for help.
Keller was watching their prize Wild Power grimly. She was getting a bad feeling about this girl.
“It’s nothing like that.” She kept her voice quiet and level, trying to cut through the hysteria.
“You—don’t you even talk to me!” Iliana waved a hand at Keller desperately. “I saw. You changed. You were a monster! There was blood all over—you killed that man.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.
“No, she didn’t.” Winnie tried to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “And anyway, he attacked me first.”
“He did not. He didn’t touch you.” The words were muffled and jerky.
“He didn’t touch me, no, but—” Winnie broke off, looking puzzled. She tried again. “Not with his hands, but—”
In the front seat, Nissa shook her head slightly, amused. “Boss—”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Keller said grimly. This was going to be difficult. Iliana didn’t even know that the dragon was the bad guy. All she had seen was a boy trying to talk with her, a girl inexplicably flying against a wall, and a panther that attacked unprovoked.
Keller’s head hurt.
“I want to go home,” Iliana repeated. All at once, with surprising speed, she lunged for the door handle. It took Keller’s animal reflexes to block her, and the movement sent another pang through her injured shoulder.
Strangely, as it happened, pain seemed to flicker across Galen’s face. He reached out and gently pulled Iliana back.
“Please don’t,” he said. “I know this is all really strange, but you’ve got it backwards. That guy who was talking to you—he was going to kill you. And Keller saved you. Now they want to take you somewhere safe and explain everything.”
Iliana raised her head and looked at him. She looked for a long time. Finally, she said, still almost whispering, “You’re all right. I can tell.”
Can she? Keller wondered. Does she see something in his eyes? Or does she just see that he’s a handsome blond guy with long lashes?
“So you’ll go with her?” Galen asked.
Iliana gulped, sniffed, and finally nodded. “Only if you go, too. And only for a little while. After that, I want to go home.”
Winfrith’s face cleared—at least slightly. Keller stopped guarding the door, but she wasn’t happy.
“Straight to the safe house, Boss?” Nissa asked, swinging the car back toward the freeway.
Keller nodded grimly. She glanced at Galen. “You win.” She didn’t have to say the rest. The girl would only go if he went. Which made him a member of the team.
For the present.
He smiled, very faintly. There was nothing smug in it, but Keller looked again.
Nothing was going the way she’d planned. And Winnie might still have faith in her Witch Child, but Keller’s doubts had crystallized.
We are all, she thought, in very big trouble.
And there was a dragon that might start looking for them at any minute. How fast did dragons recover, anyway?
Big trouble, Keller thought.
The safe house was a nondescript brick bungalow. Circle Daybreak owned it, and nobody in the Night World knew about it.
That was the theory, anyway. The truth was that no place was safe. As soon as they had hidden the limo in an ivy-covered carport in back and Keller had made a phone call to Circle Daybreak headquarters, she told Winnie to set up wards around the house.
“They won’t be all that strong,” Winnie said. “But they’ll warn us if something tries to get in.” She bustled around, doing witch things to the doors and windows.
Nissa stopped Keller on her own trip of inspection. “We’d better look at your arm.”
“It’s all right.”
“You can barely move it.”
“I’ll manage. Go look at Winnie; she hit that wall pretty hard.”
“Winnie’s okay; I already checked her. And, Keller, just because you’re the team leader doesn’t mean you have to be invulnerable. It’s all right to accept help sometimes.”
“We don’t have time to waste on me!” Keller went back to the living room.
She’d left Iliana in the care of Galen. She hadn’t actually told him that, but she’d left them alone together, and now she found he
’d gotten a root beer from the refrigerator and some tissues from the bathroom. Iliana was sitting huddled on the couch, holding the drink and blotting her eyes. She jumped at every noise.
“Okay, now I’m going to try to explain,” Keller said, pulling up an ottoman. Winnie and Nissa quietly took seats behind her. “I guess the first thing I should tell you about is the Night World. You don’t know what that is, do you?”
Iliana shook her head.
“Most humans don’t. It’s an organization, the biggest underground organization in the world. It’s made up of vampires and shapeshifters and witches—well, not witches now. Only a few of the darkest witches from Circle Midnight are still part of it. The rest of them have seceded.”
“Vampires…” Iliana whispered.
“Like Nissa,” Keller said. Nissa smiled, a rare full smile that showed sharp teeth. “And Winnie is a witch. And you saw what I am. But we’re all part of Circle Daybreak, which is an organization for everybody who wants to try to live together in peace.”
“Most of the Night People hate humans,” Winnie said. “Their only laws are that you can’t tell humans about the Night World and that you can’t fall in love with them.”
“But even humans can join Circle Daybreak,” Keller said.
“And that’s why you want me?” Iliana looked bewildered.
“Well, not exactly.” Keller ran a hand over her forehead. “Look, the main thing you need to know about Circle Daybreak is what it’s trying to do right now. What it’s trying to keep from happening.” Keller paused, but there was no easy way to say it. “The end of the world.”
“The end of the world?”
Keller didn’t smile, didn’t blink, just waited it out while Iliana sputtered, gasped, and looked at Galen for some kind of sanity. When she finally ran down, Keller went on.
“The millennium is coming. When it gets here, a time of darkness is going to begin. The vampires want it to happen; they want the darkness to wipe out the human race. They figure that then they’ll be in charge.”
