stiff passenger-side lock. “We can drive along Pike before going to the bank,” she told Abby, opening the door.
“Sure.”
Thia started the engine, adjusted the choke. “She’ll be fine, though.”
Abby got in. “Just two minutes away, she said.”
Even so, Thia worried. She took the turn out of the alley too fast and then accelerated up the steep slope to Pike.
“Which way, do you think?” she asked, braking sharply at the stop. To the left was dark. Lights on the residential streets tended to be few and far between.
“There.”
Thia looked right. Zoe was halfway down, heading up a steep drive to a single-story house. Thanks to the parking garage opposite—shared between the theater, hotel, and anyone willing to pay the hourly rate—the lighting was much better that direction. Thia turned the car.
When they drove past, Zoe had her car door open, and a glance in the side mirror a few moments later showed her getting inside. Thia felt tension leave her shoulders. Beside her, Abby blew out a quiet breath.
“To the bank,” Thia said, and took a right toward Main. A staircase down to the Park lay behind and to the left while the Festival straddled the street. It was odd to see the buildings dark and obviously empty after being packed with people and events for so many months, but its season had finally came to a close in November. The next would start soon enough in February.
“Kendra was hoping we could eat at the hotel,” Abby said as they passed the building in question yet again. The front of it this time. “Something about needing to sample the proposed Solstice menu. Her treat—probably because it won’t cost her anything.”
Thia laughed. The Landmark’s restaurant was world-class; being a guinea pig wouldn’t be any kind of hardship. “I’d be more than happy. But what about you?”
“Kendra promised he won’t be there.”
When Abby used that tone, there was no question as to whom she referred: Murphy, the somewhat mysterious owner of the Landmark Hotel and thus Kendra’s boss. For reasons never explained, she and Murphy did not get along (often with disastrous results). Out of loyalty to her friend, Thia was inclined to lay the blame on Murphy, but since he had come to the rescue on Orkney, she was also inclined to cut him some slack.
Pike Street, Granite Springs
Zoe should have been more concerned that the interior light hadn’t come on after she had opened the door. She should have at least glanced in the back seat before she had gotten behind the wheel. But she hadn’t, and a hand came around to hold a sickly-sweet cloth over her mouth.
She tried to scream but couldn’t. And then something—rope—dropped down from behind to wrap around her arms and chest, holding her in place. Shock and terror reached up to swallow her whole. She couldn’t get enough air.
The passenger door opened and another arm shot past her to pull the key from the ignition.
She felt weird. Distant. Something was making her pass out. She fought it. If she lost consciousness, she knew, she might die. But it was so hard. Her vision wavered.
“Do we take the car?” The voice of the man holding her.
“No. Better to leave it.” The woman at the passenger-side leaned down. Looked in. “We’ll take her.”
Everything was out of focus and swimming, everything except the white of the woman’s smile.
Her eyes closing, Zoe again tried to scream.
Landmark Hotel
With the whole of the rooftop garden behind him, Cormac leaned his arms on the top of the wall and contemplated the downtown strip below. The heavy, thermal-lined coat of his current disguise was protection enough against the cold of the plaster-covered brick, but it was the warming spells cleverly cast from numerous patio “heaters” placed throughout that kept the frigid night air at bay.
Granite Springs, he had to admit, didn’t lack for charm. With yuletide greenery hung on the streetlamps and lights strung across buildings and draped on otherwise bare branches, with shop windows filled to bursting with colorful, well-intended offerings, it would be easy to fall under the its spell.
He considered his choice of words: charm, spell. Was that sort of magic at work here? Aside from the obvious draws (entertainment, scenery, dining) and the less obvious (common magical interests, leyline smuggling to name but a suspected few), was there a grand spell woven beneath it all to attract visitors and new residents alike?
The peaceful beauty of the snow-dusted foothills and the comfort that seemed to emanate from the surrounding mountains were things that couldn’t be made entirely out of illusion, of course. But their effects could be augmented. Heightened. It would take an enormous amount of power, doing something on such a large scale.
He was about to close his eyes and use a different kind of Sight when a shockingly loud, sputtering roar ripped through the night air like something let loose from the mechanized bowels of hell. And there, in the area called The Plaza, roughly twenty riders attempted to start their motorbikes, with varying rates of success.
It took a minute or two, and by then the noise had gone from intolerable to worse.
With much bellowing and fist-waving, they twice circled the Plaza before speeding down Main Street. People on the pavements stopped to watch, and from what Cormac could see of their faces, reactions ranged from disgust to outright fear. He found himself in accord. Dark energy swirled around the gang. Whether the riders possessed it—and could therefore wield it—or merely carried it in bespelled weaponry or armor, he couldn’t tell. But its presence was enough to give him a chill.
Nearly all the riders were men, and large men at that, but there were a few women (also large). And everyone, no matter the gender, wore a black leather jacket emblazoned with a simple graphic in silver: Thor’s Hammer below the word, “Rekkr.”
Intentional misspellings were common enough in the realm of rowdy biker gangs, but with that particular pairing? Chances were slim to none. Which meant that was not a misspelling of the English word “wrecker,” but the accepted modern spelling of the Old Norse for “warrior.”
The insufferable roar dimmed to a low rumble as they left the area.
“Mr. Sykes?”
Pushing aside his unease, Cormac turned to face the hostess from the restaurant. He pitched his voice to the gruff baritone used when he made the reservation. “Yes?”
The young woman smiled politely. “Your table is ready. If you would please come with me?”
“Of course.” After one last look at the taillights fading into the distance, he followed her inside.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m late.” An obviously frazzled Kendra took the stool next to Abby. “Pasquale changed his mind about being ready with the menu, so the tasting is off. Again, actually.” Her hands fisted on the bar. “This is the third time he’s pulled this.”
Something like anger flashed—visibly—in her eyes, briefly turning them from mossy green to emerald.
Either Thia had failed to notice such things before her admittance “behind