Page 69 of Killing Time

Neither did Seth. He smiled wanly and replied, “Thanks for the moral support.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

By that point, they’d reached the path that wound its way to the gate by the sidewalk. He paused to open it, and Ruby headed on through.

“But we don’t have to rely on her…or the elders,” she went on, and he sent her a curious look.

“What are you talking about?”

Theprima-in-waiting glanced around them, but no one from inside the house seemed inclined to come out and give chase. After what had happened to her, Ruby wasn’t supposed to be left alone, but maybe the elders — and Charles — had decided being in Seth’s company was protection enough.

After all, he’d gone into Wilcox territory and lived to tell the tale.

“Abigail wants to play it safe, and I suppose that’s her prerogative,” Ruby said as they began walking down the sidewalk, the two of them seeming to reach some unspoken agreement that they should head toward the street they both called home. “But I think the de la Pazes should know about what Jasper has done. If he’d been successful in keeping me captive and binding me to him at the dark of the moon, then the Wilcoxes would have become even more powerful, and that isn’t anything either the McAllisters or our friends down south would want.”

Definitely not. From what he could tell, Abigail was doing her best to sweep the whole thing under the rug, but secrets as big as this one couldn’t stay hidden forever.

“I agree,” he said. “But exactly how are you going to tell the de la Pazes? Pick up the phone and call theirprima?”

“I could,” Ruby said with a grin, one bright enough that she could have lit up half of Main Street with it. “But I think this is the sort of thing that would be better for them to hear in person. It would be easy enough, thanks to your teleportation talent.”

True, if he’d been able to blink the two of them from Flagstaff to Jerome, then theoretically, he should also have the ability to get them to Phoenix, even if it was a bit farther away.

Except for the part where he had no idea where he would be going.

“Oh, that’s easy enough,” Ruby told him after he raised a halfhearted objection. “I went to theprima’shouse there once, just after my eighteenth birthday. Abigail was against it, but the elders overruled her and said it was important for me to meet the head of the de la Paz clan because one day we would be working together.”

Seth thought that made some sense. Although Abigail probably wouldn’t have been too happy to face this evidence of her own mortality, even she had to know deep down that she wasn’t going to live into her seventies or eighties.

Hell, at the rate she was going, he doubted she’d make it to her fifties. Devynn had said that Abigail died fairly young, but she hadn’t known for sure precisely when. And why should she? It wasn’t as if she was a member of the McAllister clan.

No, she’d only been repeating one of the tidbits she’d heard growing up…or possibly during her brief tenure in Jerome.

“Can you sketch out the house for me?” he asked. “I need to know something of where I’m going, even if the drawing doesn’t need to be one hundred percent accurate.”

“I can manage that,” Ruby said at once. “Do you have paper and a pencil at your place? It just seems safer to do this from there. If we go to my house, I’m worried my mother will come up with some silly reason to make me stay home.”

A valid enough concern, considering how Louise McAllister most likely thought the safest place for her daughter would be inside her house.

Probably wrapped in cotton wool, and maybe tied to a chair for good measure.

However, Seth could already tell his cousin wasn’t the sort of person who required much protecting.

“I’ve got everything you need,” he said. “Let’s go.”

While Ruby wasn’t nearly as strong an artist as she was a witch, Seth could still tell from her sketch that theprima’shouse in Phoenix was a low, Spanish-style structure, complete with a tile roof and what looked to be a courtyard out front, guarded by a wrought-iron gate.

It was enough to go on.

“I’ll need you to hold on to my waist when we travel,” he told her, knowing he sounded almost apologetic. It wasn’t as if he was trying to get close to his cousin, just that this was the only way he would be able to travel with her.

Well, thanks to the amulet that currently resided in his breast pocket. He hated the idea of Devynn being trapped in Wilcox territory without the magical device’s assistance…but he hated even more the thought of it falling into Jasper Wilcox’s hands.

Once more, it seemed as if the Goddess had been watching over them.

Looking entirely matter-of-fact, Ruby came closer and placed her arms around his waist. The perfume she wore rose to his nose as she did so, sweet but with some underlying spice.

Sort of like herself, he supposed.

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