The Cougar's Pawn (28 page)

It was a ladder.

She looked up at the ceiling then bent down to the floor to pat it just to be sure.

No, the floor was smooth. The ladder was bolted to it, and didn’t lead to a level farther down. If she wanted out, she needed to go up. She didn’t know what she’d find up there, but she couldn’t stay.

She’d spent too much of her life being indecisive and letting things happen to her. No more waiting around. She may not have had a lot of power on her own, but she had heart and she was going to use it. After all, she needed to tell that goofy Cougar some very important things. And Nick was probably overdue for a diaper change and needed to eat something. And that damned Darnell … she needed to make sure he hadn’t been licking himself again.

She chuckled dryly as she tucked her foot onto a low rung. To think that a week ago, she’d been looking for a ticket back to North Carolina, and now she was seriously chagrined at the thought of going back—at having to leave long enough to take care of business.

With each bit of altitude, she paused to tug on the rung above to ensure it could hold her weight. They were probably sturdy enough. Someone had gotten her down into the dark pit using it, so it had to be more or less reliable.

Her fingers slapped against the ceiling, and suddenly vertigo set in.

She clung tightly to the rungs and closed her eyes against the swirling sensation. She wasn’t that high up. Maybe nine or ten feet. She was an air witch, so she’d certainly survive the fall.

“That’s right,” she whispered. “I’m a witch whose power comes from air.” She’d been so used to not drawing on her power that using it still wasn’t automatic. “I won’t fall.”

She loosed one hand from the rungs and patted overhead until she found something that felt like a latch. Briefly, she thought of letting it be. She’d seen way too many
Star Trek
episodes where the intrepid crews of the various USS Enterprises opened Jeffries Tube hatches only to find themselves in the middle of a phaser fight. She had no phaser. She didn’t even have her freakin’ athame or so much as a plastic spork, and she was getting more than a little pissed at people taking her shit. It was like the nurses at work who borrowed her stethoscope and never brought it back.

She yanked the latch.

Why did she always have to track down her stuff? Why couldn’t people just return them like they were supposed to?

The latch gave way with a clunk, and after moment of electronic whirring, a sliver of light appeared at the lip.

She gave the hatch a little push, and it swung up like a hydraulic trunk door. She listened.

No footsteps. No yelling. No phaser fire, of course.

Just the low rumble of music muffled by headphones and some dipshit singing along to what sounded a hell of a lot like one of those cornrows-wearing white rappers, and the scent of old food. Chicken fried rice, if her nose was any good.

She poked her head up.

Dirty blond hair. Bobbing head bent over a small table. Narrow back. Had to be a teenager. The pattern of his polo shirt seemed familiar, but she couldn’t put a finger on how. She climbed out, already pulling static from the air into her hands, and took a moment to glance around the small room while his back was still turned. It was barely larger than her grandmother’s potting shed. Just enough space for the hatch, a door, a window, and that table.

She walked to it, cracking her knuckles and grinding her teeth.

That shirt was part of the grocery store uniform. Millie had one, and so had that stock clerk—the one Mason had tried to avoid a conversation with. Had he thought something like this could happen?

When her shadow darkened the screen of Ralphie’s phone, he whipped around. “You should be—”

“Nope. I shouldn’t be. I’m sick of people telling me what I should be doing.
I
get to decide.”

He started to stand, so she zapped him. Just a little zap, really. He was only a kid.

That probably explained why he wet his pants. Being a nurse, she wasn’t squeamish at all about searching them. Good thing, because the little turd pile had filched her dagger.

• • •

As Ellery took off across the landmark-free desert, she gripped her athame’s hilt tight and cursed herself. She’d taken a couple of ROTC courses early in college thinking she’d enlist after graduation as an officer and let the armed services pay for her master’s degree. One of those courses was about orienting and reconnoitering. If she’d been less distracted by the sergeant’s high and tight—

Well.

If she’d been less distracted all around, she might have had some freakin’ idea of how to navigate toward safety.

Ralphie had apparently been dropped off and had no vehicle for her to steal, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near Cougar sniffing distance by the time someone came to relieve him of babysitting duty.

She stopped.

Damn
. Maybe she shouldn’t have left him. Mason might want to hold him for leverage.

“Just a kid, Ellery. He’s just a kid.”

She started running again, wishing she hadn’t dropped out of that couch-to-5k program four days in. She’d be lucky if she’d make it a quarter mile without keeling over.

“Can you hear me, Agatha?” She didn’t bother whispering, but she sure as shit didn’t yell it, either. She could no longer see the shack behind her when she turned, but she was still close enough that a Cougar could probably catch up if he caught her scent or direction. She tried to tread on patches of green instead of on the naked soil, but she might run out of that soon.

She stopped again.

She should leave a mark of some kind so Mason and the others could find the place later. Who would have thought to look for a fall-out shelter in the middle of the freaking desert? There probably wouldn’t even be a record of it in the county offices. Just the land itself.

Nah.
She ran. Any mark she left would be traceable not just by the good Cougars, but by the shady ones, too.

“Agatha?” she repeated. She used her dagger to focus her power behind her and kicked up a little wind to disperse her scent.

“There you are! Where are you? Are you all right? Put out a little juice so I can find you.”

“I don’t know where I am,” Ellery panted. “I woke up fifteen minutes ago, found myself in the dark … ”

She could either run or talk—not both at the same time. She slowed to a granny jog.

“In the dark and underground. I think it was a bomb shelter of some sort. I literally shocked the piss out of Ralphie Sheehan and left him at the entrance after stealing back my dagger. Right now, I’m trying to put some distance between me and him in case someone decides to join him soon.”

“You can blame his brother for this. Can you put off a little power so I can home in on you?”

“I’ll try, but I’m so … ” She stopped and bent, catching her breath. “Tired. Tranquilizer hasn’t completely worn off and my power is a little scattered right now. How … how is Mason? Is he okay? I … saw the fight.”

“He’s fine. Angry.”

So dizzy
. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and her uneven breaths seemed to reverberate in her skull in chorus. She slowed her breathing more, but the echo remained.

No,
echoes
. More than one. Different rates. Not in her head.

Shit
.

She stood, slowly, and turned, already pulling in all the wild magic she could grab to cast it back out.

She expected to see a cougar there, but the shape wasn’t right. More canine. Not the wolves she’d become familiar with back in North Carolina. Smaller. No less dangerous.

Coyotes.

Two of them.

The one on the right bared its teeth at her. The other took a tentative step forward, growling.

“Fuck.” She held her dagger in a stabbing grip and put up her free hand to motion for them to stay back.

“Goddammit.” She took a few slow steps backward. “I’m just a nurse with a cat. I like simple things. Cheap chocolate. Fresh coffee in the afternoon. Brand new hair elastics before they get stretched to death. This has to be my payback for the sin of envy. Yep. I envied Gail for her life, and look what it got me.”

She pushed out a blast of air that knocked the two encroachers back a few yards. Had she been back in humid North Carolina, that same magic would have buffeted the two canines with shards of ice. She’d have to adapt to the desert. Use it. Use …
the soil
.

She decided the next time she pushed air at them, she would wrap some of the desert dirt up in it. It’d sting their eyes and fill their noses. It’d give her some space.

“I’m not in the mood, y’all. I swear, I’m not.” She kept moving backward, pushing up more silt as she went until there was so much sediment in the air, she couldn’t see them. She turned and ran. “Any time now, Agatha.”

God, she was going to need to do cardio a little more often. That’s what she got for playacting when she went to the gym with Miles. The elliptical machine did great things for her ass, but not as much for her stamina.

“Give me a little more,”
Agatha said.
“I can feel you in general terms, but the search radius is still too large.”

The coyotes caught up to her. One nipped at her ankle, and she slowed enough to bring the hilt of her dagger down between its shoulder blades. “I’m not food!”

The other one arced around in front of her and looked to be preparing to pounce.

For once, Ellery didn’t think. Instinct took over. Her vertical leap was nothing like her sister’s, but it got her into the air above them and out of reach of their snapping maws.

“I don’t know how good a coyote’s memory is, but I suggest you take a good look at my face so that the next time you see it, you know what witch not to mess with. I’m usually a turn the other cheek kind of gal.” She pointed her athame in their direction and drew circles in the air, creating an imaginary perimeter around them. She traced it again and again until a column of quickly-spinning dirt pinned them in. She kept the circle going, adding more soil, nursing more wind into it.

“If you do me wrong,” she said, “I’mma let you get away with it once or twice. Might talk about you behind your back, though, because I’m Southern. But this is just too much, doggies. I don’t know if you know who my boyfriend is, but he’s the alpha Cougar around here.”

If that declaration impressed them, they didn’t show it. They were too busying trying to pass through her swirling dirt walls and getting knocked repeatedly back on their furry asses.

She put a few yards between her and the mini-cyclone to give her self some clean breathing air. Moving was a little easier when she didn’t think about it too much. It was as easy as floating in a big pool. No ripples. Just her.

“Y’all may think he’s passive, but I’m not so sweet. Nope. I’m pretty terrible when I get in my moods, and I’m more than happy to kick up a stink on his behalf. So, remember my face, ’kay? Tell your friends. Hell, go tell your alpha that he can fuck himself, too, ’cause I’m not going anywhere and I will make your lives miserable if you mess with my motherfucking happily-ever-after. I’ve got two goddesses on my side and assorted other weirdoes, too. Come at me.” She kicked up a little dirt in the middle of the circle just for pettiness.

Mason’s deep chuckle rent the air.

She nearly hit the ground for forgetting that she was no longer on it, but managed to slow her fall.

Mason picked her up and kissed her hard as Agatha took over the coyote-wrangling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is all my fault.”

“Probably,” she said breathily as she tried to get her noodle legs beneath her.

He kissed her again.

“Definitely. Oh yeah. All your fault.”

“You meant what you said?”

“About what?”

At the moment, looking into his gold-specked eyes, she couldn’t remember her middle name … or if she even had one.

“That you’re not going anywhere … and about me being your boyfriend.”

“Oh.” She had said that, hadn’t she?

“Give me the words,” he said, holding her face between his hands. “Please. Tell me you’re staying with me.”

“Right now?”

“
Ellery
. Please. I’m sorry for being a dick. I can’t help what I am, but I’m
trying
to do better. Please don’t make me wait. You’re going to drive me crazy if you make me wait.”

“Gods forbid we introduce any more crazy into our lives.”

“Ellery, stop stringing the man along,” Agatha said. No signs of strain in her voice at all. Obviously, the coyotes weren’t much of a fight. “I know how hard it is for you to just give an easy yes, but he’s a
good
match for you.”

“Hmm, I wonder why you’d be so sure of that.”

“I don’t like your tone,” Agatha muttered under her breath.

“
Ellery
,” Mason nudged her focus back to him. “Yes or no? I swear I’ll do right by you. Do you want me to beg? I can beg for Nick, if it’ll help.” He dropped to both knees and Ellery yanked him back up with her cheeks burning hot as a furnace.

“Dear lord, don’t do that. I’m hardly worth the ruination of a decent pair of jeans.”

“Yes you are. That and more.
Please
?”

Time to let the man off the freakin’ hook. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ll stay.” She’d never known such exquisite relief, and she knew her choice was right. She was home now.

He picked her up and spun her around several times.

She was dizzy with motion and love and drunk on magic all she could do was laugh. “You big, dirty red dope.”

“I’ll be a dope if that’s what you like.”

“Where’s Nick?”

“Millie’s watching him. Give me a second.” He planted one more kiss on her—this time on her forehead—and let go of her.

He strode over to Agatha, leaned in to say something Ellery couldn’t catch, and Agatha nodded.

The dirt column fell like a curtain off a broken rod, and before the coyotes could catch their bearings, Mason reached in and grabbed one of them by the scruff of its neck.

He gave the beast a hard shake, and at the assault, a man emerged from it.