“Dysfunctional” is one of those eminently useful modern words that serves as a catchall for so many otherwise complicated issues. It tends to lose meaning, doesn’t it?
“Well. She’s not wrong.”
Amelia didn’t argue.
Chapter 24
HE DIDN’T park in the same turnout; he figured Layne would have someone watching it and wouldn’t be above just shooting him as he stepped out of the car. Instead, he parked a couple of miles away and left himself enough time to hike to the plateau. He had a flashlight, held it low and out to show his path, but otherwise preserved his night vision.
A wind was blowing, a front moving in. The overcast sky reflected ambient light from the city, giving the world a weird, shrouded glow. A bite in the air threatened snow. Another frustration to add to the list, since the weather forecasters couldn’t decide if the storm was going to produce a mere dusting or a real blizzard. Didn’t matter one way or another, but it would be nice to know what to expect. He could say that about his whole life, he supposed.
Cormac didn’t see any other cars in the turnout; Layne must have had his own parking spot staked out. Cormac knew he couldn’t get to the plateau first. Layne was closer and had a head start. The guy had the high ground, nothing Cormac could do about it. If Layne didn’t shoot him as he left his car, he might lie in wait and shoot Cormac in the back as he made the climb.
He won’t do that. He wants the standoff. He wants to face you and prove how powerful he is.
Either way, Cormac was going to be very careful.
And that’s why we packed ahead of time.
She had a spell, one she’d wanted to use back when they made their foray at Layne’s place, and she was gleeful to be using it now. This wasn’t an amulet or a ritual like many of her other spells—this was a potion, ingredients mixed, boiled, infused in alcohol, and kept in a little perfume bottle. Saffron, dried hemlock, and powdered cuttlefish—which, shockingly, he’d been able to find at an Asian market downtown. Like the Maltese cross–shaped amulet that had brought them out here in the first place, this was more of a charm than a spell. No preparation or ritual needed, no saying the right words in the right order or drawing the right patterns. It was the kind of thing anyone could do, if they knew how. Charms and potions like this would have been passed down in families, from grandparents and parents to children, back when the world was darker and the shadows bigger. Amelia had learned it from an o
ld woman in England’s Lake District.
It seems to me the shadows are just as large as they’ve ever been. But people have forgotten to look for them.
Or new shadows replaced the old. A person could only worry about so many things at a time.
Let’s just worry about the next hour, yes?
One step at a time, same as it had always been.
He poured out a single drop of the potion, used it to anoint himself, a circle on his forehead. And that was that. Walking through the nighttime woods with the charm in place didn’t feel any different than walking without it. He’d expected invisibility magic to act like a cloak, muffling his senses, making the world indistinct around him even as it made him indistinct to the world. Or maybe he watched too many movies.
The charm doesn’t confer invisibility. That’s very powerful magic, too much to waste on this. This—it simply involves perception. It encourages observers to look away. They don’t see you, not because you’re invisible, but because they don’t see you.
Magic by semantics. Sure, why not?
He stopped hiking when he heard something. Snap of a twig, a rustle against a tree branch, a murmured voice. Layne brought friends. The voices only spoke a word or two, but they seemed to be looking for someone. Whoever was here, they hadn’t seen him. Cormac moved as quietly as he could. When he reached the end of the deer path and emerged from the trees, the plateau opened before him, a dried-out stretch. The wind had stopped and the air was still. Sound carried, and he heard a pair of voices calling to each other in stifled whispers. They were among the trees, on the other side of the slope. He wiped his forehead, erasing the spell’s mark, and waited.
“Hey! Where’d he come from!”
“I thought you were watching!”
Layne’s two goons emerged from the trees across the flat space, staring at him, their jaws dropped. They had guns in holsters but hadn’t drawn yet. Whether things stayed that way depended on how much control Layne actually had over them.
Layne himself moved up from behind them to the middle of the plateau, hands at his sides. He wore a sly smile.
“Wasn’t sure you’d actually have the guts to show up,” he said, a predictable bit of bluster. Cormac smirked back.
Flakes of snow started falling, picturesque white spots drifting slowly, as if independent of gravity.
Oh my goodness. I’ve read about gunfights at high noon in the Old West. I never thought to see one.
You ready to draw, then? Cormac asked her.
I don’t know. I don’t like the way he’s smiling at us, as if he knows something we don’t.
That’s the mind game. He’s being intimidating, trying to throw us off. I’m doing the same thing. Remember, winning a shootout isn’t about just being fast, it’s about being accurate.