she said, words that slipped out before she could think better of them. She tightened his jacket around her, realized suddenly that it was his, and pretended that it didn’t matter. “If you siphon energy?”
He laughed—a short, bitter sound. “They think I’m that good, do they?” He gestured out over the slopes—hard red-brown cinders cropping up in dramatic patches between the pines, while above them the trees stunted down and gave way to lichens and scrub. “Look at it! Can’t you feel it, lurking here, as big as the world? What would I do with it all?”
She shrugged, determined to be unaffected by his passion for this area. “Personal glory? A little something to make up for what you’ve lost?”
No laughter this time, but he grinned, and turned so the gusts lifted the hair from his forehead as he looked back at her. “Don’t you think it’s all just a little bit bigger than I am?”
“Well,” she said, taken aback at both the grin and the matter-of-fact nature of the response, “I do. But people who break rules usually think they’re the exception.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said, and turned to her, leaning his hips against the top pipe rail with an insouciance she could not have mustered, not with the fatal nature of the drop behind him. He nodded again, catching her eyes. The sharp shadows thrown by his own features turned his dusky hazel gaze to something darker. “Okay,” he repeated. “That’s good. You think like that.”
She must have registered her surprise. He grinned again. “Thinking like that will find the truth. That’s fine by me. That’s not the same as already having made up your mind, and coming here with some old grudge already in hand.”
Lyn’s jaw dropped; she groped for words. Her temper filled the void. “How dare you even suggest—”
He cut her off with a snort of a laugh. “What have I got to lose?”
And that stopped her temper cold, floundering; she was unable to do anything but search his eyes. From below came filtered conversation—clear to any Sentinel, if not the average person. The lift wrangler said, “They’ve got to come down soon.”
“We should go,” Ryan said, dropping her gaze. He pushed away from the railing and then quite suddenly froze, and the hint of natural burnished color in his face paled away. His step faltered to the point that she reached for him—and that’s when she felt it herself, another angry aftershock of power, whispering through her veins and briefly clouding her head. Only the merest of grumbles, but here, so close to the source…
An instant of panic skittered down her spine, fluttered in her chest. So much power, and we’re sitting right on top of it…
What if she hadn’t even thought of the worst of the possibilities? What if brevis regional had missed it, too? Because…what if whoever had disturbed the mountain hadn’t done it right?
If the area had been unbalanced, destabilized…it could be on the verge of an eruption such as the world had never seen. Not magma, but pure power…
Take a breath. She did just that. Get a grip. Not quite as easily done. She took another breath, deeper…slower. She gathered her own energy, what little grasp she had of it. She was no Joe Ryan, to perceive and impose himself on the world’s deepest powers, but she could damn well control her own. She pulled it into herself, found it tainted with her fears, and hunted the inner note that had always cleared away such things…a silent hum. It grounded her…centered her.
And when she opened her eyes, she found him there—right there—his hand reaching for the side of her face, his expression equal parts intensity and wonder. “How…?” he said. And, “I thought you were a tracker…”
“I am,” she said, the calm lingering; she didn’t so much as blink to find him so close, though she couldn’t help but lift her chin slightly.
He shook his head. “Whatever. Damned fine job of…” He shook his head again. “It wasn’t shielding, or even just centering. Nicely done.”
She shrugged. “Are you all right? You looked—”
He waved off the rest of the question. “I had a bug earlier this week. I’m fine.” But he glanced down slope and took her arm, escorting her back to the trail and moving a little too quickly for her comfort.
She shook his hand free. “Where now?” she asked, and she lowered her voice in deference to those who were looking for them. She and Ryan were vulnerable now—silhouetted against bare rock and sky until the trail rounded the next hump of ground.
He looked back at her, ready to offer a hand if she needed it. “Following my feet,” he said. “You’ve seen for yourself…they pretty much lead me to trouble. Today, I’m counting on it.”
Chapter 4
Alien and familiar at the same time, the alpine zone of the Peaks never failed to draw Joe’s awe, here on the rarified trails across the towering Agassiz Peak summit to the saddles and dips between the other five Peaks. Arctic tundra, right here in the Arizona desert, with lichens and a threatened groundsel species and even a variety of buttercup; on the gentler slopes of swooping tundra meadows there were enough grasses, sedges and moss to keep his nose twitching—not to mention a shrew or two.
But he wasn’t here for shrews today. He glanced at Lyn; she, too, looked out over the cold rugged landscape, her eyes bright and alert, her ears flicking in tiny, precise motions.
So very Lyn.
The wind ruffled her thick, rich fur, rippling down along the length of a truly amazing tail. What would fur like that feel like beneath a man’s hands?
You’ll never know, boy-o.
They’d followed the trail at first, passing out of Snowbowl turf into the Kachina Peaks Wilderness area, where they definitely didn’t have the necessary permit. And so as soon as they found a grouping of rocks big enough to hide the jacket, Lyn had taken the ocelot, and Joe had turned his face to the sun and let the cougar come out.
From here, the power pushed at him with an inner rumble and a strong directional flow. Unlike warders with their discrete lines and precision knots, Joe saw broad tides and flows, overlays of movement over earth and sky. Tides and flows couldn’t be tied into knots or moved with precision. Might as well try to herd a flash flood. Managing power on this scale took deep concentration, a sense of conviction behind clear vision of what should be…an utter belief in success.
Even if Joe still had that belief in himself, it seemed that brevis regional did not. And looking out over this natural magic of delicate ecosystem backed by a power so deep that every native nation within reach had considered it sacred, Joe felt the resentment of it. I’ve done a good job here.
Probably part of the problem. They probably had no idea of the subtle adjustments he made, the corrections to natural flows gone astray in the face of modern incursions. Even if they’d read his reluctantly submitted reports, they’d never truly comprehend.
He stopped, flicked a whisker, briefly flattened annoyed ears. He had sent that last report, hadn’t he?
Damned paperwork.
The ocelot looked back at him, silent. Had she
