I felt the wards burst out of Nash and flow back into the walls, all of them, doubled in strength. And with them the curse, twice as strong as before, clinging to our wards and permeating the building. The candles we’d lit died at the same time, leaving us in absolute darkness.
“Damn.” Cassandra’s voice came as a weak whisper, but it held a hint of awe. “It’s a double hex.”
“AND A DOUBLE hex is . . . ?” I asked irritably about a half hour later.
We couldn’t get the candles lit again. The eight of us huddled in the dark in the lobby while rain beat down outside. Our only light was what filtered through the front windows from the floodlights on the Crossroads Bar.
Ansel hadn’t made any noise in the kitchen since Nash sucked out the wards, but the magic mirror had returned to singing. It finished Porgy and Bess and began Cabaret.
“A double hex is exactly what it sounds like,” Cassandra said. In spite of what had happened, she sounded as apathetic as ever. “Most hexes eventually wear off or weaken enough to be broken by the victim, if it doesn’t kill them soon enough. Therefore, some sorcerers take the precaution of making it a double hex—if the curse gets broken, it casts itself again, this time twice as strong. It’s tricky, and only the best sorcerers can do it.”
“Or gods,” Coyote put in. He’d remained in his human form, lying flat on the floor. He’d refused Mick’s offer of clothes, so he was stark naked. At least it was dark.
“And one of the best sorcerers is after you,” Fremont said.
Cassandra looked at me. “I told you, let me summon him and get this over with. It’s me he’s been sent to kill.”
“No summoning,” I said firmly. “We aren’t in any shape to defend ourselves, and like I said, there’s nothing to say the ununculous won’t try to kill the rest of us for the hell of it.”
“What do we do, then?” Fremont asked. “Sit here and wait for him?”
“No, we keep trying to break the hex,” I said. “Every sorcerer has a weakness. We need to find his.”
“Sage words, Stormwalker.” Pamela’s voice was bestial and odd.
She’d gotten stuck in the form between wolf and human and looked like something from a horror movie. Pamela’s face was wolf. She had the limbs of a human covered in wolf fur, a tail, and two complete sets of breasts, human and wolf. She sat with her back against the couch and held Cassandra, who didn’t seem to mind that her girlfriend was now a nightmare beast.
I’d made Mick sit close to Nash, hoping Nash’s strange canceling effect would keep Mick’s need to become dragon at bay. I also needed Nash’s now-increased dampening field to keep my own magic quiet. The storm magic was at least calming as the lightning moved off, though I still had urges to grab the rain and sweep it in through the windows. The Beneath magic, though, kept wanting to come out and play. If I lost control of that, everyone here could die.
I actually did have a plan, one I didn’t bother mentioning, especially not to Mick. If Mick knew what I had in mind, he’d simply lock me in the basement and secure the door with dragon fire. But once I had everyone busy working out the ununculous’s weakness, I would sneak away, call the ununculous myself, and face him alone. The way my Beneath magic was raging, I could kill the bastard with one blow, and I would.
I felt Coyote looking at me. Hard at me, his eyes glittering in the darkness.
Damn it, he wasn’t telepathic. And yet Coyote always did seem to know what I was thinking. I remembered what he’d said about me ripping open vortexes if I tried to fight the curse or the sorcerer, but I saw no other way. Anyway, I didn’t plan to fight, I planned to kill quickly and get it over with.
I returned Coyote’s stare with a determined one of my own before asking Pamela, “How did you know something was wrong here? Did you see my fire?”
“No.” Pamela’s voice was thick. “Cassandra didn’t come home, and then I saw your bartender at the gas station. He told me the hotel was shut down and dark, and he didn’t know why. I came up here, but I couldn’t get the door open and couldn’t see through the windows, so I rode up and got the sheriff.”
We must have been busy with Ansel in the kitchen when Pamela arrived, because none of us had seen or heard her.
“What was the sheriff doing at his office?” Maya studied her polished nails. “Did he forget something, like, I don’t know, our date?”
Nash’s voice went cold. “I didn’t forget. I assumed you found something better to do, so I went back to work.”
“You thought I stood you up?” Maya’s screech rang to the rafters. “I spent two hours getting ready for you. Why would I stand you up?”
The mirror’s voice cut through her shout with something about life being a cabaret.
“And you look great,” Coyote said from his supine position.
“You, shut up,” Maya snapped. “If I hadn’t agreed to give you a ride up here, I would have been in Flat Mesa in plenty of time. But no, I had to be nice. Look what it got me. Stranded here all night with the freak show.”
“Coyote’s right, though,” Fremont said. “You do look great, Maya. That part was worth it.”
“Thank you, Fremont.” Maya gave him a big smile. “Forget you, Nash. I’m going out with Fremont.”
“Hold on . . .” Fremont started.
“Fremont already has a girlfriend,” I said. “In Holbrook.”
“Not anymore.” Fremont sounded sad. “She went back East. She asked me to go with her, but what the hell would I do back East? So, she’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.” I really was sorry. Fremont was a nice guy, and he deserved someone who appreciated that.
“Her loss,” Maya said. “Take me to the movies.”
“Maya . . .”
We were spared further argument about Maya’s love life by a huge bang in the kitchen. This time, not only did Ansel strike the door of the walk-in fridge, he tore it from its hinges. We were on our feet, sprinting for the kitchen, when the door landed on the floor with a second bang and a clatter.
Ansel was alive, awake, and free.
EIGHT
I’VE DONE SOME FRIGHTENING THINGS IN MY life, but I think stumbling into a pitch-black kitchen, knowing that somewhere in there lurked a blood-starved, very angry Nightwalker, rates as one of the scariest.
Nightwalkers don’t breathe, so we couldn’t listen for his breath, and Ansel had chosen to go into silent mode. The fire in Mick’s hands was our only light, but even by that Ansel was nowhere to be seen.
“He couldn’t have gotten out, could he?” Fremont’s nervous voice was right behind me.
He and Maya were staying as close to me as they could. I’m not sure why they thought I’d keep them safe, because my fingers kept drawing the pounding rain, and my Beneath magic was going to flare out of control any second. I had contained the magic relatively well in the living room, but fear of the Nightwalker was bringing it out of me.
A check of the back door proved it was still solidly shut, as though it had been fused. Ansel couldn’t have escaped that way. He was as trapped as the rest of us.
We found him when he whispered, right behind Maya, “Hola, señorita.”
Maya’s scream took me a few inches off the ground. Mick’s fire roared high at the same time Nash yanked Maya from Ansel and shoved his gun into Ansel’s face.
Ansel laughed and ignored the pistol. “I’m hungry, Janet. What do I have to do to get some service in this hotel?”
I knew then that the double hex had doubled Ansel’s strength and need for blood. Unless his appetite were slaked, and slaked soon, he’d simply rip into us. A Nightwalker in a blood frenzy was not a pretty sight—I’d seen the aftermath of one on a rampage before. I never wanted to see that again.
We could knock him out—if we could—or find another place to lock him up, but Ansel would break out of whatever prison we devised sooner or later, hungrier than ever. We still had six or seven hours to go before daylight would force him to find a dark place to sleep.