FoM02 Trammel (26 page)

“Play nice, kids.” Lindsay was trying to adjust to the way Noah and Kristan teased each other. There didn’t seem to be any heat behind the taunts, not anymore, but it still sent tension racing up his spine.

A couple large green signs mounted over the road warned of an upcoming split in the highway.

Lindsay checked the map and pointed to the left. “The little snake says we go that way.”

“Okay.” Noah checked his mirrors and changed lanes to accommodate the shift. “If you’re going to be up running your mouth, dick-wrapper, you can light me a cigarette.”

“Insult’s only good if it doesn’t apply to both of us, bitch.” Kristan didn’t sit up, but Lindsay could hear her rummaging around.

Noah had said he’d stop, but maybe insults didn’t count as hair-pulling. Or maybe he was so wound up that he couldn’t remember what he was doing, and it was as automatic for him as being polite was for Lindsay. Wound up hardly covered it, but he was doing a better job of driving than Kristan did.

At least the highway was relatively empty. They were one of only a few cars on the road; the rest were semis, but they generally stayed in the right lane. Once Kristan handed over Noah’s cigarette, she lay down on the backseat again and was silent, actually making an effort to sleep this time.

Even after the other two were quiet, Lindsay’s unease lingered. Trying to relax himself with reminders of how much they had going for them didn’t help. The strange feeling only built until he felt like

he was going to crawl out of his skin, and he had to bite his lip not to ask the others if they felt anything. He took a slow breath and pushed out an illusion to cover them, just to give himself some comfort.

Another highway shift led them farther from Lake Erie, but according to the map, they were now going straight south. With his illusion in place, Lindsay’s tension faded away. He got some more coffee into Noah, a few sips at a time, and tucked himself closer to Noah’s side in the process.

The longer they drove, the more Noah relaxed, until he was willing to let go of the wheel and put his hand on Lindsay’s thigh. Since Rajan had healed him, Noah was more comfortable with touching and being close. Not just comfortable—he needed it. Lindsay remembered the first time he’d offered Noah his hand and Noah had refused. The pain of being comforted had been too much, but that part of him had healed along with his body. Or started to heal—Lindsay could feel the little tremors in him now and even more when he fumbled to find Lindsay’s hand.

“Is she still sleeping?”

“I think so.” Lindsay glanced over his shoulder to confirm. “Sound asleep.” He rested his other hand on Noah’s, hoping that would soothe the wave of melancholy coloring Noah’s expression in the occasional headlights from oncoming traffic.

As far as Lindsay knew, this was the first time Noah had been behind the wheel since the accident that had killed his wife. The anxiety that had come with simply driving again had been enough to keep the sadness at bay before. Now that he’d relaxed, Lindsay could see that those half-memories of what
should
be
were surfacing.

Early in the drive, Lindsay’d had the same problem, glancing over and expecting to see Dane behind the wheel. It left an ache inside him that he had to force himself to ignore. One step at a time. Ylli and Zoey first, because he’d need their help to find Dane and free him from Moore. If Dane’s absence was bothering Lindsay, he couldn’t imagine how Noah felt. The person Noah was looking for was never coming back, no matter what they did now.

“Do you need a break?” There was bound to be a rest stop somewhere up ahead that Noah could pull off at to rest while Lindsay kept watch.

“Sure. Tell me where to turn.” Noah was holding on to Lindsay’s hand as tightly as he’d been gripping the steering wheel. “It’s getting easier. Everything except the rearview mirror.”

Unbidden, Noah’s memories came back to Lindsay and he remembered the glare of headlights looming large in a rearview mirror. He shook the vision off before the impact came and put his free hand over Noah’s. Noah was so strong—that made Lindsay’s role of mentoring him even more important.

Lindsay watched the signs at the side of the road, pointing when one of them finally said REST

AREA AHEAD in big, white letters. “We should stop here. There’s a landmark coming up on the map, and there probably won’t be another rest stop until after that. You need a break.”

“Thanks.” Noah exhaled slowly and let go of Lindsay’s hand to make the lane change that would take them off the highway. “I keep telling myself that if I can somehow pull this off, find this girl, get Dane back for you, stop Moore, it would justify—somehow—that I’m here and she’s not. I used to say that the way people tried to make something good out of a tragedy was meaningless because death was inevitable.”

“Life gives it meaning,” Lindsay said softly. When Dane had died in Ezqel’s forest, it was Dane’s life—

everything Lindsay knew about him and everything he’d done for Lindsay—that had pushed Lindsay to keep going. That Ezqel and Izia had brought Dane back hadn’t changed Lindsay’s conviction that some risks were worth taking.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Noah slid his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and pressed his hot cheek to Lindsay’s hair for a moment. “I knew life owed me a break somewhere.”

Lindsay didn’t know how to answer that. He found Noah’s hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “I’m glad you’re here too.”

He was. He had no idea what he would’ve done these past few days if Noah hadn’t pulled through and Lindsay hadn’t had him to focus on while they worked out how to find the others. While
Noah
worked out how to find the others. The thought made anxiety surge up in him again—he was already so dependent on Noah.

“If there’s any kissing going on, I’m gonna puke.” With a grumble and groan, Kristan pushed herself to sit up. “Time for the little girls’ room.”

Lindsay waited until he was watching her walk away in the glow of the headlights, then turned to Noah. Focusing on Noah helped distract him from the pressure on his mind. “Are you all right?”

“Not great.” Noah let his head fall back and exhaled slowly. “I won’t let you down. There’s nothing
wrong
with me. It’s just hard. I’ll manage.” He looked over at Lindsay and mustered up a smile.

“I know.” Lindsay gave him a soft kiss on the mouth as a reward.

Once they got back on the road, the rest of the drive went quickly, and when they exited the highway, they found their way into the parking lot of a museum that was closed for the night. The sign outside read
The Great Circle Museum
. Lindsay looked around, then back at the map. The snake flickered and faded away.

“This is that landmark I mentioned earlier,” Lindsay said. “It’s a Native American structure, a mound.

There are a lot of them in this part of Ohio.” That made sense, though Lindsay didn’t know nearly enough about magic. A site like this would be easy for someone like Noah to track down.

Noah let the car drift as far to the back of the parking lot as it would go, where the drooping branches of an untended tree scraped across the hood as he parked. He turned off the car and exhaled slowly.

“The confluence is here. No more river to follow, so to speak.”

“I love it when he speaks in tongues.” Kristan popped open her door and dragged herself out of the car with a groan.

“Will you need the map for this part?” Lindsay couldn’t make any more sense of Noah’s words than Kristan, but he was learning as fast as he could.

“No, it won’t do us any good. I need the plastic bag that’s on the floor there, though.” Now that Noah wasn’t paying attention to Kristan, he looked tense again.

“Got it.” Lindsay passed it to Noah. “Anything else? Anything I can do to help?”

“Make sure no one knows we’re here? That’s all.” The trunk banged shut and Noah got moving.

“Okay, Kristan has some other stuff I need back there. I hope I remember the way all of this goes.”

Lindsay stayed in the dark car. The moment he was alone, he had a name for the pressure on his mind, and he grabbed the door handle, expecting to be sick. They were being hunted. The nausea didn’t come, though, just a surge of anger.

The illusion he’d already cast would keep their little party hidden from human sight, but he didn’t know if it would deceive whatever hunted them. He pushed back, enough to know that the mind—no, the
minds
—that kept brushing his didn’t belong to Lourdes. Lourdes had seen through his illusions before—as far as Lindsay knew, only she and Dane and Jonas could best him—and Lindsay was certain that Moore held no better players in reserve. He knew her arrogance.

Telling Noah and Kristan what was going on would distract them from finding Ylli and Zoey, and with no benefit. There wasn’t anything either of them could do to stop the hunters, not until the hunters found them. Lindsay wouldn’t let it get to that point when they were so badly outnumbered.

Lindsay’s fear had always made it easier for Dane to find him through his illusions. If these hunters were anything like Dane or Jonas, adding to Noah’s and Kristan’s anxiety would make it harder for Lindsay to keep them hidden. His last training session with Dane had made it clear he still had a long way to go in learning to keep himself hidden while he was being hunted, much less two other nervous people.

It was up to Lindsay. He’d kept them hidden this long.

There was a chance that the hunters didn’t know they were here, that the touches were simply because the minds were scanning the area. It made sense that if Noah had found his way here, another mage with the same training might have done the same. Lindsay wove more power into the illusion, opened his door, and prepared to pretend everything was well. He’d had plenty of training in those mundane illusions long before he had his magic.

Noah was standing at the back of the car, arranging things on the trunk in the light of a jittery candle flame that bounced around inside a red votive glass. Lindsay looked closer to find that there was no candle, only the flame, feeding on Noah’s magic. Kristan had wandered off with a flashlight and the white circle of light bounced around at the edge of the parking lot.

“She’s checking to see if Ylli left any clues,” Noah said, without looking up. “In case they came down this way. She says she’ll know it if she sees it.”

A black cloth was spread over the trunk. On it, Noah had set out an old silver sugar bowl without a lid, a compass, a mirror, a handful of candles, a little pocketknife with a bone handle, and an unopened bottle of spring water. He leaned against the trunk, looking down at them as though they could already tell him something.

It all seemed random, discarded bits and pieces of people’s lives. Lindsay didn’t dare touch any of it for fear of disturbing whatever Noah intended to do. Speaking didn’t feel like a wrong thing, though. “How is it supposed to work?”

“Silver holds magic.” Noah put the bowl in the middle. “So does water. There’s enough things here for more than one try. I’m not assuming anything. First thing I’m going to do is find them like you’d go north. But I’m changing the value of north.” He turned the compass over in the light, pulled a screwdriver out of the things still piled up to the side and tried to get the compass apart. “Of course, I’m looking for north in a big puddle of magnets, but I’m hoping I can get the specifics right.”

“How do you tell it what to look for? That you want Ylli and Zoey, and not whatever artifacts are tucked away in that museum or hidden in the ground?” So much of how magic worked still eluded Lindsay, but he wanted to understand it. Needed to.

“Magic and will are close in nature. I’m hoping the fact that I really
want
to find them helps. We’re all from the same house, you and Kristan and Ylli and I. That gives us a bond I’m banking on as well—my magic should be in harmony with Ylli’s. If this doesn’t work, we’ll go with old divination tricks. Nature knows what’s coming. If you can get her to touch your magic, your magic will show you what she sees.

That’s why Cyrus—because he was so close to the element of air—had that gift of precognition.”

The compass finally came apart in his hands and he rescued the needle from the rest. The liquid smelled flammable.

“If I were a hundred years old,” he muttered, “this would be a doddle.”

“I don’t see a damn thing.” Kristan came trudging back. “Unless Feathers forgot that the rest of us have to fucking walk and left me a message twenty feet up.”

“I may be able to sense them when we’re close enough to catch them in my illusion.” That wouldn’t tell Lindsay which way to go to find Ylli—or if Ylli, specifically, was out there, because he’d never been in Ylli’s mind enough to know the taste of it—but he would feel if someone was there.

“If it won’t hurt you to do it.” Noah paused before pouring water in the sugar bowl.

“I’ll let you know.”

“Come here.” Noah beckoned to Kristan.

“What?” She came close, looking wary.

“I need one of your hairs to add to this to help find Ylli.”

You are wise. Most surrender such precious things too easily.
Lindsay remembered being told that when he’d refused to let a mage take his blood to determine his lineage. A hair seemed equally precious, though in this situation, Lindsay’s objections were the least of their problems.

“I know what you’re thinking, and just because he has a dick... I’m not a slut.” Kristan took three steps back. She could still put his teeth on edge, no matter what.

“I am,” Noah said unapologetically. “Or I was. Probably will be again.” He grinned at Lindsay, that wicked grin that—like the first time—startled a laugh out of Lindsay. “You’re Vivian’s. So is he. But you don’t have to give me one. It’s cool.”

“Oh, God,” Kristan groaned. “Stop being so fucking nice.” She reached up and plucked a wisp from her temple and offered it to him. The winding strand glinted in the candlelight.

“Thank you.” Noah took the hair and wrapped it around the needle. “The process will destroy it—I won’t have it to use again.”