“Sofia is up,” Rowan said.

Gretta pulled into the hotel parking lot and parked in the first open spot. “Did she pray to you?”

“Nah.” Rowan gestured at three black SUVs parked side by side.

A pair of men were pushing Sofia into the backseat. Sofia had a gold bracelet on her right wrist that Gretta didn’t recognize.

Gretta growled. “She’s not cuffed, but could that bracelet block her magic?”

Rowan shrugged. “Hard to say. She looked a little out of it. She didn’t seem to know much magic, but I doubt Gabriela gave her jewelry for fun.”

Rowan unbuckled his seatbelt, only for Gretta to grab his arm.

“We can’t start a fight here,” she said. “Not only will Victor find us, but innocent people are sleeping in the hotel. Gabriela won’t hesitate to shoot; a stray bullet could kill an innocent bystander.”

Rowan sighed. “You’re right. I just—this might be our last chance to save her.”

“I know you want to charge in there,” Gretta said, “but a frontal assault will just get us—and others—killed. It won’t help her.”

Rowan nodded, gripping the seatbelt. His eyes remained fixed on the SUV holding Sofia.

“Buckle up,” Gretta said. “I don’t need to listen to the car dinging while we drive.”

Rowan pulled his seatbelt back on. “I count five goons with Gabriela.”

“Any chance they have magic?” Gretta asked.

“Magic is rare, but the older guy—the one with the red hair—looks familiar. You don’t hire out-of-shape thugs unless they bring something else to the table.”

Gretta smirked. “Bit ageist of you? Maybe Gabriela has an HR department. Besides, he’s probably your age.”

“Probably,” he said. “Though I have to say, I feel pretty spry for my age.”

“Does eternal youth come with the god gig?”

Rowan shrugged. “Sort of. I age, just like you, but whenever I die, I come back looking exactly like I did when I ascended.”

“Might be worth dying now and then to always be 20,” she said.

Rowan scoffed. “I was 25 when I ascended!”

“Sure, you were,” she said. “That’s why everybody at Waffle Barn was staring at us.”

“Nobody was looking,” Rowan said.

“Yes, they were.” She laughed. “You could practically see them trying to figure out if you were my little brother or if I was robbing the cradle.”

“We look the same age!”

“Sure, little bro.” Her grin widened. “And when was the last time you shaved?”

“That doesn’t mean anything! I’ve died multiple times lately!”

She put the car into gear and pulled out behind the SUVs. “Uh-huh.”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

Navigating the backstreets, they made their way southwest before merging onto Highway 86.

“I think I know where we’re going,” Rowan said.

Gretta glanced over at him. “There are a lot of places along this road.”

“Yeah, but one of those places is where we ascended,” he said. “I’ll bet Marcus feels like that will give him the best chance of success.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Gretta nodded. “That seems very likely.” She signaled and pulled onto an off-ramp.

Rowan looked back toward the road and the SUVs that were driving off. “What are you doing?”

“Giving them some room.” They came to a stop at a light.

“What if I’m wrong and they are going somewhere else?”

“I don’t think you are wrong,” she said. “And right now, our best shot at saving Sofia is not letting them know we’re coming.”

“That’s a big risk,” he said.

She laughed. “Says the guy who died twice in a week.”

“We’re both tapped out,” Rowan said. “Since they likely won’t perform the ritual until tomorrow morning, maybe we should rest before we charge in.”

“You’re becoming the sensible one,” Gretta said. “Are you sure you are the lord of chaos?”

“I’m getting sick of dying,” he said. “Being unpredictable and having fun is one thing, but Gabriela will be at full strength, and there’s a chance she’ll have another magic user with her.”

“Not to mention guns. Our history with bullets isn’t fantastic,” she said.

Rowan gave a shiver. “No, it is not. I may never get rid of that nightmare.”

“Do you have the strength to hide the license plate?”

“Sure,” Rowan said. “Illusions have been getting easier lately. I don’t know if it’s all the practice, but simple color changes aren’t too bad.” He wiggled his fingers, and the car's color shifted from yellow to a deep gray. “License plate fixed.”

Gretta drove back up the on-ramp and back onto the highway. “With any luck, we don’t have a cop scan the license plate and get suspicious that it doesn’t match the vehicle description.”

“It’ll look blurry, even on camera,” he said. “I didn’t so much change it as made it impossible to read.”

“How far are we going?”

“About an hour east of here,” he said. “Look for signs for Coyote Mountains.”

“Of course,” she said. “And why wouldn’t it be called that?”

“Nothing to do with me.” He chuckled. “Though maybe my predecessor had a hand in that.”

Gretta switched lanes to pass a truck. “You had a predecessor?”

“I didn’t meet her,” he said. “But we only ascended 25 years ago, but those… positions… have existed for thousands of years, maybe longer.”

Gretta glanced over. “And you stole their positions?”

“Nah, they were tired and wanted to move on,” Rowan said. “I don’t think you can stop being immortal, but you can’t move on while your spot in the greater balance is unfilled.”

“And where did they go? Did they just… stop existing? Or are they out there somewhere, doing their own thing?”

Rowan shrugged. “Ellie is the one who met the original coyote. She’s the one that brought us together. She had said they wanted to move on and that we could do a lot of good if we took on their mantles of power. I don’t think we ever got around to doing good.”

“The Wild Mother has given me the strength to heal,” Gretta said. “She has me visit the children’s hospital on the weekends.”

Rowan smiled. “Of course, Abby would find a way to do good. And that’s not all her, she needs you.”

“She would do it if she could be on Earth.” Gretta chewed her lip. “What’s it like to ascend?”

Rowan shrugged. “We had to say a lot of words, draw some circles, and then it wasn’t much different than dying.”

Gretta frowned. “So you said some magic words that killed you the right way? That doesn’t sound fun.”

“Getting killed hurts, but dying isn’t so bad,” he said. “The world fades out, and then you slip into the void. It’s a little scary floating in nothingness, but I always get pulled toward a reality. Abby said the words are a promise to magic to fulfill a duty; she said that it’s a much greater consciousness, but it’s so big that it can’t focus. The gods are the ones who give it more focused direction.”

“So, magic is like some super powerful being?”

Rowan shrugged. “Maybe? It seems to understand intent and thought, but ever since I’ve ascended, it’s almost like I can feel its will.”

Gretta nodded. “The Wild Mother told me that magic is alive and that we give it purpose,” she said. “What’s the place like that we’re going?”

“There’s a cave—” Rowan started.

Gretta snorted. “Of course there is.”

“Well, this one is massive, and you can’t see it. You can only enter it if you find your way through the illusion masking it.” Rowan swallowed. “It’s not a pleasant walk, but it’s also why Gabriela’s goons probably won’t be inside if we can get past them.”

“What does that mean? Is it an illusion of something scary?”

Rowan shrugged. “I don’t think it’s illusion, at least not once you pass through outer protections. It’s—it’s nightmares made real. Abby told me there were a few places like this on Earth, places of power closer to magic, but the magic warps reality and attacks your fears.”

“What if I fear heights?” Gretta said.

Rowan shrugged. “With the walk up a mountain, I think a fear of heights might be enough to keep you from getting there. But, the manifestations are creatures that seem to know what you fear and use that against you. Maybe they’d try to push you off the edge. Though, they’ll probably try that anyway.”

“How did you get through last time?”

Rowan shrugged, his expression clouding over. “I had Abby.”

An hour passed in silence while Gretta digested everything Rowan had said. Finally, she spotted a sign for Coyote Mountains Wilderness and turned left.

“We can ditch the car and walk from here. It’s a few miles, but we’ll need a spot to rest for the day anyway.” Rowan shuddered. “I didn’t think I’d ever come back here.”