Dead Heat Read online

  Charles, his attention caught by Leslie’s conversation, answered his own phone, and though Anna could hear the voice on the other side, she couldn’t understand a word he said.

  “English,” said Charles. “My Navajo was never that good and I’ve hardly spoken it for twenty years.”

  “The fae,” said Joseph, “the fae can look like anyone. She’s here.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Anna told Leslie, and ended the call.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Joseph Sani woke up feeling as though he were eighteen again. Nothing hurt. He sat up in his bed and wondered if he had died and this was what happened afterward. But his body looked like the body of an old man, and his breath was still too short.

  He got up gingerly, expecting at any moment to feel as he had sitting trapped and helpless in the car. Aging, he knew, was part of living—a part of living that he’d chosen over the arguments of his father and his wife. That didn’t make the frustration of being dependent easier, he’d found.

  But on his feet, his body was still obeying him as it had not in years. Not only didn’t it hurt, but he picked up a heavy potted plant that was set on the ground near the window; he had most of his old strength back.

  There’s something you need to do, Charles had said, or words almost like that.

  Joseph wasn’t a particularly spiritual man. Not like Charles, his brother-by-choice, and mostly he’d been grateful for that. Men who saw the spirits had to listen to them—though Charles only listened to them when he wanted to.

  But even a man who wasn’t spiritual could tell that something was up when the wear and tear of eighty-odd years of life were lifted from him: it must be time for him to do that something. Too bad he had no idea what that was.

  Still, a man who was doing something ought to do it with clothes on. And an old cowboy who ought to do something would do it with his boots on. So he pulled out a pair of new jeans … and set them aside for a faded and broken-in pair. He took out a good shirt, though, that snapped up the front like any shirt that belonged to a cowboy ought to. Cowboying was hard on the hands. Any cowboy who handled ropes for very long soon had knuckles that didn’t like fussing with tiny little buttons.

  After a moment’s thought, he didn’t put on a hat. This didn’t feel like something a hat would help with. He took a good look at himself in the mirror in his bathroom.

  “You are old,” he told his reflection. But he didn’t feel that way. Not at all. He tightened his right hand in a fist.

  He could still see the crooked finger that he’d broken when that four-year-old stallion decided to get the old Indian off his back. He hadn’t stayed off and hadn’t realized his finger was broken until twenty minutes later, when the adrenaline had worn off.

  That finger had hurt for ten years, but it didn’t hurt now.

  He turned away from the mirror and met the bright blue eyes of a little red-haired boy.

  “The fae can look like anyone,” the boy said. “He’s coming.”

  “Who are you?” Joseph asked—but the boy, who had been standing in the doorway of the bathroom, was gone.

  “Chindi,” said Joseph—though the boy hadn’t felt evil. Maybe he’d been imagining things. But he still was careful to twist around so he didn’t go through the space where the boy had stood as he walked through the doorway back into his bedroom.

  He decided to go downstairs and find Charles. Charles would know … the right questions to ask, maybe. He could at least expect that Charles would believe him.

  He stopped as he passed his chest of drawers and opened up the small drawer on the upper left side. And there was the old knife Charles had given him after rescuing him from a bar fight. It was a very good knife, six inches of pattern-welded steel. How good, he hadn’t realized until four or five years later when someone had tried to buy it from him for four hundred dollars. That had been at least sixty years ago. He had no idea what it might be worth now. But it was an old friend. Until very recently, he’d carried it every day of his life since the day Charles had given it to a skinny Indian kid with a chip on his shoulder.

  It took him a minute to find the sheath and belt. Dressed properly, he opened his bedroom door and started down the hall. Mackie and Maggie were playing Candy Land. He could tell because Maggie exclaimed, “I get to go to Gumdrop Mountain!” while Mackie cheered her on.

  That Mackie did not care whether she won or lost was not a fault of the game. Joseph thought that twenty years from now, when it was Mackie and not Kage competing in the rarefied atmosphere of the best equestrians of their generation, Mackie would still cheer on her opponents.

  For a moment Joseph was deeply saddened by the thought that he would never get to witness that. But his time here was nearly past, and he really did not regret it. So much had changed, and so much had not. He was ready to go on to—how did Peter Pan put it? An awfully big adventure.

  “I wanted to stay with you, Grandma,” Mackie was saying. “But I’m worried about Michael. Nix is too tired to ride and Michael is very little. Who do you think he’s riding today?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Max knows the horses who will be good for Michael. One purple. Your turn.”

  “Orange,” said Mackie. “Do you think Anna will buy Merrylegs? I like Merrylegs.”

  Evidently Max had taken his brother, Charles, and Anna out riding, Joseph thought.

  “I hope she buys Hephzibah,” said Maggie. Joseph, unseen, still in the hall above the stairs, grinned. Mackie might not care about winning or losing, but her grandmother certainly did. If Anna had been what she had at first appeared, a too-young, too-innocent weakling, Maggie would have pitied her. But she would have taken her under her wing, too, and tried to teach her how to deal with strong-minded men.

  But Anna was, in her own way, as strong-minded as Maggie. The two of them would never have been able to be friends. Maggie would always view her as competition. That Anna had Mackie’s appreciation of competition, except where Charles was concerned, didn’t make Maggie like her any better.

  “Hephzibah is pretty,” said Mackie in a doubtful voice. “But Daddy calls her Hellbitch. I don’t think Anna should buy a horse called Hellbitch, do you? It’s okay, though. Max will help Anna find the right horse. Two reds. It’s your turn.”

  A car drove up outside. Joseph, who had taken a step forward, hesitated. He backed up a few feet and went into one of the guest bedrooms that overlooked the parking area. The car wasn’t one of theirs, and it wasn’t one he knew.

  He knew the woman who got out of it, though. Why was the owner, she could call herself a principal if she wanted to, of Michael and Mackie’s day care showing up at their door?

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up suddenly.

  She’s here. The soundless whisper was hot in his ear.

  He knew that the feds had the person they thought had hexed Chelsea and killed all those kids. He also knew that Charles hadn’t been convinced.

  If he knew his father, and he did, Hosteen would have wolves watching the place. So why hadn’t they stopped her? A fae can look like anyone. Maybe he could look like a woman, like the principal of Mackie’s day care. Instinctive certainty gripped him, and Joseph had learned to pay attention to his instincts. The woman approaching the house was the fae who’d tried to kill his grandchildren.

  Charles had told him that this fae had taken down a werewolf—Joseph remembered Archibald Vaughn. He’d been a big, mean, scary old wolf, and this fae had torn him apart. One old Indian wasn’t going to stop him very easily.

  There was a phone in the bedroom. He picked up the receiver and dialed Charles’s cell phone. As soon as Charles picked up, he told him what was going on.

  The doorbell rang as Charles said, “English. My Navajo was never that good and I’ve hardly spoken it for twenty years.”

  Downstairs Maggie got up and went to the door. How well did the fae hear? Were they like his father?

  “The fae,” said J
oseph in an urgent whisper, “the fae can look like anyone. She’s here.” And then he had to hang up because the door opened.

  If she was here for Mackie, she would want to take her away from the ranch. One of the things that living with werewolves had taught him was that just because someone was supernatural didn’t mean that cars didn’t make getaways faster.

  He pulled off his boots and ran stocking-footed down the hall to the other end of the house. He slipped out the window, dropped onto the back porch roof, and slid off as far as he could before jumping to the ground, hoping that his rejuvenation would keep him from breaking his knees on the landing. When he was eighteen he’d have thought nothing of making such a drop.

  He was almost surprised to land on his feet. He ran to the cars and pulled his knife. He sank the blade into one tire of every car in the lot. Maybe Hosteen’s people would see him. But usually Hosteen didn’t like guards that close to the house. They were probably out by the main road somewhere.

  If he’d had a cell phone, he could call his father and alert him. He could have called him from the house instead of Charles. But Charles was closer … and Charles had a better chance of coming out on top. His father was tough, but Charles … was Charles.

  It took him less than a minute to disable the cars and the pair of four-wheelers—buying time for Charles to return and save Mackie. The knife had a real sharp edge; Charles had taught him how to sharpen it.

  No getaway car. What would the fae do?

  Kill Maggie.

  His heart clenched and his teeth bared in a silent growl. The fae didn’t need her, didn’t want her, and his Maggie wouldn’t let anyone take Mackie without a fight.

  He faced the fact that the fate of the woman he had loved for over half a century was entirely out of his hands. All he could do was go into that house and die beside her.

  He’d do that willingly, except for Mackie.

  There was nothing he could do to affect Maggie’s fate. Live or die, she would do it without him. He swallowed hard. Maggie would be happy to die if it gave someone a chance to save Mackie.

  So.

  The fae would come out of the house with Mackie and discover that it could not use the cars to run. If it tried to walk out of here, Hosteen’s wolves would notice that. If they were still alive to notice anything.

  The horses … maybe.

  There was a truck in the back of the barn. They never left the trucks hitched up overnight, so it would be parked next to the trailer they’d brought Nix back in. Mackie would know that.

  Probably the fae could get Mackie to talk.

  Another fact, like Maggie’s fate, to absorb and not react to. He had to use his head if Mackie was to be saved.

  Instead of running into the house as his heart wanted to do—oh, Maggie—Joseph ran toward the barn as fast as he could. Which was plenty fast. He couldn’t run like one of his beloved horses, or a werewolf, either, but he had run everywhere when he had been a young man.

  He stabbed the tire of the truck and then ducked back inside the barn. There were a lot of empty stalls because the barn was where they kept the show horses. The breeding barn was a quarter of a mile down the road, along with the paddocks where the rest of the horses were kept.

  He stared at Hephzibah, who stared back at him with wicked eyes. He caught her and saddled her. Then he put her back in her stall and hung her bridle next to the stall door. They did that sometimes with horses they were planning on taking out or showing to clients so that they could move from one horse to another quickly.

  The rest of the horses in this part of the barn were yearlings and two-year-olds—none of them trained to ride. He was trying to figure out his next move when he heard Mackie’s screams.

  Mackie liked most of the people at the day care. Miss Baird was her current favorite, but she liked Michael’s teacher, Ms. Newman, too. She was predictable and strong—like Ánáli Hastiin. When she said something, she followed up on it. She’d told Michael that. Michael didn’t like being away from his family at day care, but Ms. Newman made him feel safe so he didn’t get scared and make them get Mackie for him anymore. He was glad when Ms. Newman brought his class to the horse show so that everybody saw him ride.

  Mackie wished that Miss Baird had come to see her ride.

  Ms. Edison was scary. She would smile and say nice things, but Mackie didn’t think that her eyes were nice at all. Grown-ups liked her, though, so she seldom said anything about it—except to Max. Max listened to what Mackie said, and even if he disagreed, he didn’t make her feel stupid.

  When she had told Max she didn’t like Ms. Edison, Max had said, “Listen to your instincts, pipsqueak. I trust them. She’s not your teacher, right? Okay. If she does something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you make a lot of noise. I mean, really scream. That one you have that makes Hosteen grab his ears. People should come running and when they do, you make them get Mom or your dad or me, right? You don’t shut up until you are happy with the situation.”

  Max had given her a plan of attack. So when Grandma had fallen against the wall and Ms. Edison grabbed her arm, she did what Max said and screamed and screamed.

  She screamed when Ms. Edison carried her out to the car, and kept screaming when the principal changed her mind and carried her down to the barn. Even when she knew that there was no one who could hear her. Max had said to scream—so she did.

  She screamed right up until the thing wearing Ms. Edison’s face and body made her stop.

  Charles gave Anna a wild look and hopped off Portabella, tossing his reins to Max.

  “If I told you the fae was a woman,” he asked her, “who would you pick?”

  “Ms. Newman,” she said. “Or Ms. Edison.”

  “Mackie thinks Ms. Edison is bad,” said Michael. “She said I shouldn’t be alone with her.”

  “Did she?” Charles breathed. “We should have talked to Mackie.” He changed then, in one of those instantaneous changes he could do when the need was great enough, and then he was off and running.

  “What’s going on?” asked Max.

  “Joseph called to tell us that the fae is here and she’s after Mackie,” Anna told him. “The man that they have in jail was a fetch, like the one who took Amethyst’s place.”

  “She’s after Mackie?” Max said, and his horse settled back on his hind legs, ready to go.

  Anna swung off her horse and took a good hold on Max’s gelding’s bridle. She kept an eye on him and one on Michael.

  “Both of you stay right here. Mackie has your grandparents and Hosteen’s wolves, and Charles is on his way.”

  “We’re miles away,” said Max.

  “She’s going to get Mackie like she got Amethyst,” Michael said, sounding frantic. “We’ve got to stop her.”

  “Charles is fast,” she assured them. “Max, do you have your phone?”

  He nodded.

  “You call Hosteen and you tell him that the fae is here. That its human shape is female. Probably one of the teachers”—she looked at Michael—“probably the principal from Mackie and Michael’s day care. Then you stay here and keep Michael away from that thing so we can minimize the damage it might do, okay? It’s not going to find you out here.”

  Max took a deep breath and let it out. He hopped off his horse and took Michael’s reins. “All right.”

  “I’m going to help Charles. I can’t change like Charles. No one changes like my husband. I’ll take Merrylegs and head back. You have the worse task, but it is the most important one. Stay here until someone calls you. Or until you talk to your dad or Hosteen and they say it’s safe.”

  Max nodded soberly. Then he said, “Take Portabella, not Merry. Bella’s a lot faster. If you ride up the trail a hundred yards that way”—he pointed opposite the way Charles had run—“and take the left marked by a white flag, you’ll be on one of the maintenance roads. I’m not supposed to, but I run her on that road all the time. There are three gates across the road. You can dismount and open
them; you can’t open those kinds of gates without dismounting. But she’ll jump them. I jump them with her all the time. You do much jumping?”

  “No,” Anna said. She handed Merry over and took Portabella from Max. “A couple of times, but there were two-foot-high logs on the trail.” She shortened the left stirrup six holes and did a quick measure against her arm. It looked about right, so she rounded the horse to do the other side as she absorbed Max’s instructions.

  “These are about four feet high and, fair warning, jumping in a western saddle sucks. Just make sure your butt is out of the saddle when she goes up. Keep it out until she’s all the way down. Keep your weight in the stirrups and your knees and not your butt. She won’t run out—just give her her head and don’t hit her in the mouth when she lands.”

  “Got it,” Anna said, mounting up and gathering her reins. “Don’t hit her with my butt or my hands while she’s doing what she can to get over the fence.”

  “That’s it,” said Max.

  “Stay safe,” she told them.

  “You, too,” he said.

  She asked Portabella to go. The mare took three short strides as if to ask, Do I have to leave my friends?

  When Anna asked her a second time, she ran.

  She was turning at the white flag before Anna asked her, obviously used to the path. Four strides and the trail connected to a narrow road, groomed and flat, and the mare put her mind to getting down the road.

  At first Anna tried to ride this new gait like Charles had taught her to do, sinking her rump into the saddle and taking the movement with her back so her hands stayed steady. But a particularly hard stride pushed her up over the horse’s shoulders, where the ride was smooth as glass. She balanced there on her feet and knees and thought, So that’s how jockeys can stay on a racehorse.

  She didn’t even think about slowing for the gates. The first jump was a disaster, except that she didn’t fall off. Portabella pinned her ears and gave a half buck to complain about the way Anna had landed on her back. The second jump was better, even though the saddle horn hit her in the stomach. The third jump … was magic.