18

Present day

I eased my foot off the accelerator, just enough to allow the Jeep to hug the gentle slope of the curve. I’d driven along this stretch of road before, but not frequently. My usual route took me the other direction, toward the rental office and general store along the further edge of the lake. This road led away from the lake.

The Jeep’s headlights outlined the road’s crumbling edges and flashed into tall grasses, illuminating the trunks and lower branches of trees that sat mere yards from the road’s edge. The tires whined an objection to taking the curve at its current speed.

Behind us, the motorcycle’s headlight wavered, too, flickering side to side and glinting in my mirrors.

I gripped the wheel harder and, as we came out of the curve, accelerated again on the straightaway.

Claire gasped. Then she laughed. I didn’t dare to glance over at her, but I was pretty sure that had been a laugh.

“Claire?”

“Oh my god. This is crazy.” Claire didn’t say it like it was a bad thing. Hadn’t she been in tears just minutes ago? Maybe whatever drugs she and her creep of a boyfriend had done were impairing her judgment.

Or maybe it was just nerves. Less than a minute ago, hadn’t I laughed? Sort of?

I took my eyes off the road for less than a second. Just long enough to glance in the rearview mirror and try to decide who really was roaring along behind us. The bike’s headlight was too bright—I couldn’t make out more behind it than a vague impression of a more solid darkness than the surrounding night.

When I looked at the road again, I had just enough time to process the flash of yellow at the edge of my vision.

Warning sign.

Then the road swung abruptly left, away from the Jeep’s headlights.

Grass as tall as the Jeep’s hood slapped the front grill and thumped against the sidewalls. A high-pitched sound drilled into my ears.

Claire. Screaming.

My foot. I took it off the accelerator. Moved it to the brake.

The Jeep’s headlights bounced, flipping wildly, like flashlights held by unsteady hands.

The Jeep shuddered. Beneath my hands, the steering wheel jerked itself left and then right in rapid succession. I held tight, tried to steady it. Something smacked against my right arm—my purse, earlier tossed onto the middle console alongside Claire’s, now sliding and jarring along with everything else inside the Jeep.

In the madly-bouncing headlights, trees loomed.

Brakes. Harder!

The wheels locked. Skidded.

Gripped. Finally. The Jeep slowed.

Not enough.

The right headlight took the brunt of the hit. The impact shuddered through the Jeep, up the steering wheel and into my arms. Metal shrieked, and the airbags deployed with a whuff and a thump as loud as metal crumpling against the tree.

My head tried to jerk forward. A billow of encapsulated air held me in place. A split second later, the airbag collapsed again, gently releasing me.

Everything fell still.

Silent.

Except it wasn’t silent. My own breathing, ragged in my chest, rasped against the out-of-control thud of my pulse. Beside me, Claire was making a sound like a combination of laughter and sobbing.

“Are you OK?” My voice sounded oddly calm.

Claire laugh-sobbed. “Yeah.”

Steam hissed from the Jeep’s engine, writhing like ghosts above the hood. I squinted into the backsplash of light from the remaining headlight.

It looked bad—not as bad as it could have been, but the Jeep wasn’t going anywhere else tonight. Assuming we could have driven it back up the slope we’d just come down, even if it had agreed to drive anyplace at all.

Another light flared through the Jeep’s back window, bright enough I could see Claire’s face, pale except for the black rings of her eyeliner and dark splotch of her lipstick. Her eyes were far bigger than they should be.

The accident, or the drugs?

The motorcycle’s engine roared and then cut. I twisted around in my seat, fumbling with the seat belt as I tried to look behind us.

The motorcycle’s driver left the headlight on. In its glow, a figure dressed mostly in black swung its leg over the seat and started down the slope, long strides devouring the distance between him and us. A sense of determination seemed to stiffen the very air as he moved through it, spreading a sense of daylight even in the dark.

I knew that stride. Even before Heimdal removed the helmet and the night wind ruffled his golden hair, I knew who was charging down the hill toward me.

“Iris!”

His voice, calling my name, paralyzed me. My fingers froze on the seat belt’s buckle. I peered through the darkness, wanting to see him more clearly than the distant headlight allowed. He reached the bottom of the slope and broke into a trot, and all my heart could think to do was thump harder.

He took your magic once. He is coming to take it again.

My own voice, firm inside my head. And despite my physical reaction to the man I’d once thought I loved, my inner voice was right.

“Stay away!” As I shouted, I resumed my battle with the seat belt.

Halfway across the distance between the road and the crashed Jeep, Heimdal’s steps slowed.

“I’m here to help.” Closer now, an all-too-familiar throaty rumble filled Heimdal’s words.

My pulse responded predictably.

Stop that. He’s here to help, all right—help himself to my magic. Don’t forget what happened last time I trusted him!

“Maybe we should let him help us.” Claire’s words came out slurred. I glanced toward her.

Pale face. Enlarged eyes.

Drugs, or accident?

Damn it.

Heimdal took another few steps, lifting his hands. The motorcycle’s headlight and the red glare of the Jeep’s taillights wreathed him in an ethereal glow. His hands blocked most of his face, but his jaw was set in a stern line. He wore black—jeans, boots, jacket, even his t-shirt. A pair of silver pendants gleamed at his throat. One seemed to be a key.

The other was a horn, I realized. The one he’d used to wear on his hip, reduced and worn around his neck.

He took another step forward. Another one or two, and he’d have his hand on the door handle. It was locked, but I doubted that would stop him for long.

I couldn’t let him reach me. Not this time.

The colors danced, tantalizing, against my skin. Through my growing panic, I envisioned above my head a spark of pure white light. I closed my eyes and pictured—

Where?

“Iris! Don’t!” Heimdal’s voice, from just outside the door now. One fist pounded the window. “You’re in danger. I only want to help. Please.”

The “please” almost made me falter.

“Trust me.” His fist smacked the window again. This time, a silvery light flared around it.

He intended to break the window.

Trust me, my ass.

Fury rekindled my focus. Draw the light down. Let it fill me.

Where?

Anywhere. Just go.

The bridge stone I envisioned was alabaster, so purely white that it gleamed as if with its own light. Tall and slender. Delicately carved.

“Iris?” Claire’s voice. Not whispered yet still distant.

I had no idea how hurt she might be, but I couldn’t abandon her. Not when I’d gotten her into this to begin with. I gave up fighting with my seat belt—it no longer mattered—and reached out my right hand.

My fingers closed around Claire’s wrist. It wasn’t the traditional bridge pose, but it was contact. And screw tradition, anyhow.

I concentrated on bending the white light I’d gathered to do my will. Behind my eyes, prisms flashed with every hue known to man and some known only to gods. The edges of reality darkened and shimmered.

The colors came for us, opening the way to another world.