Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) (27 page)

A few people were working in and around the hangars — mechanics and other private charter staff, maybe — but no one tried to talk to me. No one asked where I was going. I realized then that I was acting like I was on automatic pilot. It was as if Kett had somehow programmed me. Maybe that was an aspect of his magic. Having once been inside my head, maybe he could plant suggestions and shit.

Or maybe I was just a cold asshole who’d watched her new boyfriend die and didn’t even stop to shed a tear.

Pain lanced through my chest. I doubled over, pressing my hands fiercely against my heart, vaguely aware that I could suffer for only so long out in the open without drawing attention. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t talk to anyone right now. If I stopped, I might not keep going.

I straightened and forced my right leg forward in another step. The silver sole of my hiking boot clacked against the pavement. The sound drove tiny daggers into my heart, every single time my right foot hit the pavement.

I looked ahead, and only ahead.

They were waiting for me in hangar 57. Along with a white, sleek, almost-predatory jet.

A set of stairs near the front of the plane lowered as I approached. A dark-haired steward wearing a tailored navy suit and a white dress shirt — no name tag — escorted me inside the plane without a single blink at my disheveled, blood-and-vomit speckled appearance. My right foot clanged against the steel steps as I climbed. Again. And again.

The steward appeared to be human. I wasn’t sure why I’d thought he’d be a vampire. He was about an inch shorter than me, and his dark hair was perfectly coiffed.

“Vancouver?” he asked. I couldn’t place his lyrical accent.

I nodded as I looked around the white interior of the jet. Twelve double-wide white leather seats — six on each side — filled the passenger cabin. Luxurious seats, that looked as though they could swivel for conversation across the wide aisle.

Empty seats.

“Kettil has not returned?” I asked.

“No, Miss Godfrey,” the steward answered. “But our standing orders are to take off immediately after you arrive, whether or not you came alone.”

I nodded, and he headed up toward the front of the plane. I followed him just far enough to stand before the still-open door. He hadn’t retracted the stairs yet. I looked out at the gray concrete beyond the gray aluminum siding of the hangar. I couldn’t see the parking lot or the runway, but I didn’t need to.

I couldn’t taste a single drop of peppermint or black-forest-cake magic.

I didn’t really want to think about the extent of my power, but if I was completely honest with myself, I knew I could dowse for miles.

“Excuse me,” the steward said from behind me. “I’ll have to close the doors. We’re just waiting for the okay from the tower.”

I nodded and crossed back into the passenger cabin. I threw myself into the third seat on the left side and stared out the window.

Then I chided myself for all the moping I was doing. And chided myself some more for all the other things I hadn’t done, including all the easy things I had so much control over … like being smarter, quicker, and stronger.

The steward came back with a tray that clicked into the arm of my seat. It contained two glasses — one filled with water, one with ice — three lemon wedges, and five hot towels.

Yeah, five towels. Clearly, I looked even worse than I thought I did. No wonder no one had questioned me wandering around an international airport … or at least the private section of an international airport. I probably looked like the murderer I’d just attempted to be.

I opened my mouth to automatically say thank you. Then I saw the phone built into the arm just underneath the tray.

“Excuse me?” I called after the steward. “Do the phones work?”

“Of course,” he answered, as if completely perturbed by the idea that they wouldn’t.

“I mean while we’re flying? Because I shouldn’t use my cellphone, right? If I even have a signal at forty thousand feet.”

He smiled kindly but was obviously eager to get back to his preflight tasks. “They work.”

I called Kandy.

I hadn’t realized until that moment that I knew her new cellphone number by heart. But I did.

“Dowser,” she answered, gruff and gleeful at the same time. Though how she knew it was me without caller ID, I had no idea.

“I’ve lost Warner … and maybe Kett.” I blurted the words like a blithering baby who couldn’t even manage a polite hello.

“Lost, as in they wandered off in the mall?” she asked. “Or lost like you left their mangled bodies on the side of the street?”

I choked back tears and tried to formulate my thoughts.

“Or,” Kandy continued, “third option. Lost, as in they were never yours to begin with? Because that last one would just suck.”

I laughed. My nose was clogged with snot as I tried to suppress my tears, but I laughed. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my head back against the seat.

“Where are you?” Kandy asked, her tone serious now. “I’ll come.”

“Peru.”

That gave her pause, but I knew it was only because she was probably formulating the quickest travel plans.

“I’m heading home,” I continued. “I’m on Kett’s jet.” I had a hard time saying Kett’s name. It came out with a thin squeak.

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.” God, I was a baby. Kandy was still healing, still needed to be near the pack, and I didn’t even try to talk her out of coming.

“I doubt they’re lost, Jade.” The werewolf’s gruff tone was soothing in my ear. “You know that disappearing is kind of the vampire’s thing, and dragons aren’t too reliable either.”

The plane gave a lurch. Then we slowly began taxiing out of the hangar. I struggled to get my seat belt on one-handed, because there was absolutely no way I was putting down the phone. Then I decided the belt was a lost cause.

“Yeah … this didn’t have anything to do with portals or the nexus or any time shifting. There was a river of molten silver involved.”

“Silver? Geez, good thing I sat this one out.”

Werewolves were allergic to silver. I wondered if that much silver would have made Kandy sick just by walking through the mountains.

“My boot is ruined,” I said.

“Always good to keep some perspective.”

“I liked these boots. They were … sturdy. Sturdy is good sometimes.”

“You like all your shoes. When Warner shows up, you can make him buy you a new pair for the heartache.”

The airplane turned sharply, then slowed. I glanced out. We appeared to be waiting in line to take off, with two commercial airplanes in front of us.

“It’s not like that,” I muttered as I cranked my neck, then stood half hunched to peer out of the other side of the plane. I was still stupidly hoping to see broad shoulders or pale blond hair racing across the runway toward the jet. I saw neither. “Warner didn’t …”

I sat back down in my seat with a thump.

“Warner didn’t what?” Kandy’s question went in through my right ear but then just rattled about in my madly working brain.

“Your services are no longer required,” I blurted.

“Losing me, dowser.”

“The rabid koala. The crazy dragon kid.”

“From the fortress? With the fucking shadow leeches?”

“Yeah.”

Kandy muttered a string of colorful and inventive curses, but I didn’t hear a single one. I felt like I was on the edge of working out what had happened in the cavern.

“She said ‘your services are no longer required.’ He was falling, yes, but then … I thought she hit him with some sort of magic to push him over the edge … but … but …”

The jet rolled forward as I squeezed my eyes shut to try to recall the scene on the platform. Warner and Shailaja wrestling for the knife, her punching him in the chest … the golden dragon magic that had hurt my sensitive eyes …

“But what?” Kandy prompted.

“But what if she … retired him?”

“Sounds like a bitchy thing to do.”

“She said ‘dragons don’t kill dragons’ while I was … you know, attempting to kill her.”

“Jade, geez. How do you know this conversation isn’t being recorded? And, you know, a bit unlike you, huh?”

“She’d just pushed Warner into a river of molten silver. And I thought Kett was dead.”

“Okay, fine. But I think you should consider hanging out with the vampire a little less.”

“She didn’t kill him. She put him in stasis. I’ve got to go.” I started to get up, but the jet suddenly rushed forward and threw me back in my seat.

I didn’t know anything about planes, and honestly, I’d barely given this one a second glance. But damn, it was fast. The force of the takeoff pressed me back in my seat, and the plane lifted off after barely a few seconds hurtling down the tarmac.

“Trust the vampire to have some sort of top-of-the-line jet,” I muttered into the phone.

Kandy snorted. “Why would you expect anything less from Mr. High, Mighty, and Toothy?”

As I watched the ground drop beneath us, I clung to my idea about Warner fiercely. I slipped my hand into my satchel to wrap my fingers around the map.

“You think you can call him back?” Kandy asked.

“I hope so.”

“Better to do it in Vancouver, behind the bakery. Remember how he collapsed before. Plus, the magic worked there once. It might be imprinted on the area.”

“When did you become wise and sage-like?”

Kandy laughed.

“Talk to me all the way home?”

“Am I still coming to you? I’ll need to get on a plane eventually.”

“How about … I’ll call … if … you know.”

“Okay, then. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m doing anything important. And Audrey’s driving me nuts with duties I should be performing and shit. She wants me to check up on the oracle, Rochelle. And her boyfriend, Beau.”

“Yeah, I remember Beau. He’s difficult to unremember.”

“Lara calls him delectable.”

“But you keep saying no to Audrey. Even though you’re bored.”

“It’s the principle.” Kandy paused. I could actually hear her thinking. I found myself growing anxious as the silence stretched, until all I could feel was empty air between us. The werewolf never spent this much time considering her choice of words.

I could hear some sort of static on the line. “You still there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Kandy answered. “I might go next time.”

“Because the far seer paid you a visit?”

“He told you?”

“I saw Drake’s T-shirt.”

Kandy laughed huskily. “That’s a good one. You see the banana —”

“Don’t explain it to me!”

Kandy laughed harder. I could see her in my mind’s eye — head thrown back, her green hair slightly longer and brushing the back of her neck. She gave herself over without question, without hesitation. She was fierce about life. I desperately missed that. I wanted to be that fierce, that vibrant.

The werewolf grew quiet at the other end of the line.

“Chi Wen?” I prompted. “Do you want to talk about it? I bet Desmond was pissed as hell when he showed up.”

“He didn’t come to the house. Drake found me at the gym, took me to a park. There were swings.”

I waited, my heart aching for whatever Kandy was worried about. Whatever the far seer had said to shake her up.

“He asked why I wasn’t wearing the cuffs. I told him the reason to wear them had already passed.”

I groaned. Without the cuffs, which had originally been a gift from the far seer, Kandy wouldn’t have been able to lift the slab of granite that had pinned me when the fortress had collapsed.

“You know, because he doesn’t do great with time.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He asked how I was healing.”

“Really? He knew you’d been hurt?”

“Guess so …” Kandy trailed off.

“Then he asked you to visit Beau and Rochelle?”

“He said the oracle was going to need me, but I wasn’t going to like it. Then he laughed, and asked me to buy him Oreos because he never remembered to carry money.”

I could see the scene. Chi Wen, an ancient Chinese man in his white robes, sitting on the swings next to a green-haired, slight, tough-as-nails woman who was probably wearing Lycra. Drake would have been wandering around in the background, testing all the playground equipment.

“So you’re wearing the cuffs now?”

“Yeah. They don’t really go, you know?”

I understood. The thick gold cuffs and their runes would be a poor match for any outfit … except maybe if pharaoh-chic became a thing.

“He didn’t give me a timeline,” Kandy continued. “So … I’ll just go the next time Audrey asks.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“No? Did the far seer say no?”

“I’m saying no.”

“I … I don’t think you’ve ever said no to me before.”

“Get used to it, blondie,” Kandy mock-growled. “You complicate things.”

Did I ever.

The steward swapped out my tray for one that contained three Valrhona limited-edition chocolate bars, more hot towels, and — upon inspection — steamed milk in a silver teapot. I smiled at him and he wandered back up to the front of the jet.

“It’s like they know me here,” I whispered into the phone. “It’s on the edge of creepy … except there’s dark chocolate. Chocolate can’t ever be creepy.”

“Again, did you expect anything less from the vampire? He’s such a show-off.”

I laughed. Kett was kind of the complete opposite of a show-off, but Kandy loved to state the unobvious.

“So …” Kandy said. “Did you get the sentinel into bed yet?”

“God, no. He’s taking it insanely slow.”

“At least you have leverage now.”

“Yeah, I totally want to guilt him into sleeping with me.”

Kandy snorted. “Tell me about the new cupcakes you’re testing for spring.”

So I did.

∞

I talked to Kandy all the way to Vancouver. The jet didn’t even stop to refuel, which seemed crazy. But then, what did I know about these things? We both loaded up
Guardians of the Galaxy
on Netflix, which apparently came along with all the other luxuries on the jet, watching it together while I consumed the holy trinity of chocolate bars — aka Loma Sotavento from the Dominican Republic, Gran Couva from Trinidad, and El Pedregal from Venezuela.