Page 70 of Junk Magic

My attacks yesterday had been mainly defensive, or aimed at objects when they weren’t. They’d hit the house, the lines of illegal plants, and the fuel tank—even the windmill, churning circles of black smoke into the air. I remembered all of that clearly. But they hadn’t torn through flesh like a tornado; I knew they hadn’t!

Yet, suddenly, all I could smell was blood.

“You doing okay?”

That was Danny; I recognized him by scent even before he spoke, the scent of cologne heavy in the air around him. Which was just as well, since I discovered that I was bent over, hands on my knees, staring at dirt. I straightened back up to meet worried, dark eyes.

“Yeah. Just a little dizzy.”

“Not surprised. Cyrus drives like a bat out of hell. You want a drink or something?” He hoisted an ice chest. “I brought water, soda, sports drinks . . . ”

“I’m good.”

“Well, let me know if you change your mind.” He moved off as Cyrus came back over from greeting everyone.

“I’m fine,” I said, before he could ask me, too. “Just a . . . bit overwhelmed.”

“It takes people like that,” he said, rubbing my back. “Some worse than others. You want to sit in the truck?”

I shook my head. “No. Go do . . . whatever you need to do.”

He hesitated for a moment, concern on his face, because my big, buff, boyfriend was turning into a mother hen. But he took me at my word and jogged over to where some Corpsmen were standing by one of HQ’s white medical vans, which had just pulled in behind us. I guessed he must have asked them to meet us here, as we had no good way to transport a body.

I would have gone over to say hi as well, but tonight, I didn’t trust myself. The stench of the two men’s magic was strong in my nose, cutting through even the bloody haze that the rest of my senses were still toying with. It made my lip curl into a half snarl, which was ridiculous.

I had magic. Was I going to growl at myself next? I decided that that was perfectly possible today, took Cyrus’s advice and went and sat in the truck.

The door snicked shut behind me, and I closed my eyes, trying to block it all out. But as before, it didn’t work. I could sense everything, from Jace’s suddenly rapid heartbeat, pounding from the center of a protective circle of Weres, to the metallic clang-clang of the van being opened and a stretcher being rolled out of the back. From the cry of a bird I couldn’t identify, its metallic chip, chip, chip farewelling the day, to the voices of a group of Weres I didn’t know, but who must be vargulfs. Because they greeted Cyrus calmly as he walked up to them and started chatting about something . . .

Wood. They’d brought the wood for the funeral pyre. The men hoped they’d found enough, but weren’t sure as it wasn’t exactly easy to source in early June.

I watched them pull it from the back of a pickup even older than mine. They were quick and efficient, taking no time to empty the bed, but it upset me, nonetheless. That wasn’t the way this was supposed to go.

The clan ought to gather the wood themselves, scouring their territory for it, with each person bringing back a piece. But that was a tradition from when the majority of Weres lived in heavily wooded areas, where fuel was easy to come by. And where you’d spend hours looking for just the right branch, one that spoke to you.

I’d missed out on that with my old clan’s bullies on my heels. I’d visited my mother’s grave after the ceremony, but I’d had to pass on the funeral itself, never getting to lay my piece on the pyre. I’d been in hiding, unable to properly send her off. Her only daughter, the one who was supposed to lay the first branch, yet it had been denied to me . . .

I felt an anger rising, a fury undimmed by the passage of years. And now the same thing was going to happen here, because what were Cyrus’s boys supposed to find? Saguaro? Yucca?

Yet they were doing it, I realized. Jayden’s clan, or the closest thing he had, circled around him. And then transformed, shedding their clothes along with their skins and running with silent wolf paws into the twilight, causing the mages to stop and stare.

And then to scramble back into their van when they saw me looking at them, boring holes through them with my gaze. This wasn’t for them. They needed to leave. They needed to leave now.

They did, in a squeal of tires that I barely noticed, like I barely saw my eyes in the mirror, glowing red with the setting sun. Because I was getting down from the truck, I was searching around the ground, I was looking for something; I wasn’t even sure what. Couldn’t think.

Until Cyrus put something in my hand. “Here,” he whispered. “Take this one.”

My fingers closed over something woody, and I looked down to find myself holding a slender branch. It had long, skinny leaves and big, beautiful pink blooms. They looked almost like orchids, or maybe angel trumpets, with a cup-like body, yellow stamens and mottled pink petals.

They didn’t look remotely like something that should bloom in the desert.

But I guessed I was wrong, because they smelled of earth and sky and wild, growing things. These hadn’t been cultivated in a hot house, intended to decorate a huge vase in some casino. They were a desert flower, with a faint, but noticeably sweet scent.

“Desert willow,” Cyrus confirmed. “The guys who brought the wood got here a little early, and found a clutch of them blooming by a dried-up creek bed. They gathered what they could without hurting the plants.”

“They’re beautiful,” I growled, the wolf in my voice. “But I should find my own.”

“I think that, under the circumstances, Jayden would understand.” I looked up at him, and my eyes flooded with tears. “Come on,” he told me gruffly. “It’s almost time.”

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