Nevada
by A.M. Dellamonica

 
The desert stank of magic. 

In decades of hunting sorcery, Kyte had never hit a trail so strong, so close to the real that it sang on his tastebuds. A toy on the dashboard pointed the way, a stuffed puppy that bumped its felt nose against the windshield. Magic in the dog hooked Kyte's rented Jeep like a fish, reeling, reeling. Even when he took his foot off the gas the Jeep drove on, into the heat illusions' shimmering promises ahead on the highway. 

As an experiment, he tried taking an exit into Fallon. Massive grasshoppers spattered the car in a gory hail, and tumbleweeds leaped at his wheels. Kyte shut off the turn signal happily. As an afterthought he hit the windshield wipers, pushing juiced insects into a half-circle of limbs and carapaces. 

Eventually he sped into Yerington, a yellow-white podunk with four casinos and a population of cane-wielding ancients. Plunging through town and down a dirt road to nowhere, the Jeep finally coughed. The engine died and all four tires went flat. 

"Old whore." He grinned at the eager, shallow dunes. 

Fields of sand stretched from the road. They were fenced with barbed-wire, as if the sagebrush and prickly pear were worth stealing. Town was miles back, and the only house was up the road, a low-slung brick edifice squatting behind a red stone wall. 

The stuffed dog moved, one glass eye squeaking against the windshield. Kyte pulled it away, leaving a clean smear on the dusty black dashboard. The toy's fur had come off along the seams, revealing greenish burlap beneath. Red silk on the insides of its ears was faded and fraying. How old was it? Twenty years? Fifty? 

It tugged him forward—scenting riches ahead. 

He packed the dog into his bag of tricks. Magic called to magic like blood to blood—its hunger eased by the other chantments in the red satchel, the dog went limp. Perspiration tickling his scalp, Kyte plucked out the magic sunglasses and then zipped the bag shut. Hefting his tricks in one hand, he stepped out into a midsummer blast furnace. 

Nothing to do but walk. 

He was soaked in sweat when he reached the house, a flat, malevolent box with strange additions jutting from its brick body like prosthetic limbs. The surrounding wall was brick, too; chest height, it was nine inches wide and topped by flat concrete slabs. 

Beyond the wall, the yard was an oasis of lush lawn and garden, shaded from the sun by massive poplars. Morning glory twined under the trees, each flower a white star amid tangled foliage. There were two front doors—the original enclosed within the porch, and the other a screen door built into one of the additions. 

Kyte slid on the enchanted sunglasses. They showed a magical haze over the house, dark and mobile, like a cloud of mosquitoes. This was it, sure enough. He'd do a once-around, check the backyard … 

… but then both front doors opened at once, and two women—sisters, from the look of them—stepped outside. 

"Car trouble?" The woman who spoke from the shadows of the porch was cadaverously thin, with curly dark hair and a sallow complexion. Black circles smudged the skin under her eyes. 

"Yeah," he said. "Use your phone?" 

She nodded, and he wondered if that meant there was a man around. Kyte made women nervous—magic had tainted him somehow—but this one wasn't afraid. Instead, the sunglasses showed misery, blue bands of pain swirling around her head and heart. Maybe she was too unhappy to care if Kyte was dangerous. 

The other one wasn't afraid, either. Bald and voluptuous, she folded suntanned arms under her tits as she appraised him. Black madness boiled from her—delusions twined around silver specks of clairvoyance. 

A psychic. A crazy psychic. There was a chantment working here, all right, a big one. Kyte's mouth watered. With a big enough find, he could retire, sit pretty on a beach somewhere and pull in chantments himself. Caro had sworn that magic called its kind like blood kin to orphans. 

Of course, Caro had plenty to say, much of it trash. Don't keep all your tricks in one place, take a month off between hunts, don't get hooked on collecting. Full of pointless advice, that man—afraid of his own power. 

"Coming inside, rabbit?" Crazy sister derailed Kyte's memory train. 

"Sure. Thanks." 

"Use my door." 

At once the air between the three of them thickened. Kyte found himself frozen, staring from sister to sister. The sunglasses showed invisible webs growing between them, a triangular riot of power somehow unleashed by her words. 

The sad woman rubbed her eyes. "It's not a competition, Mary." Turning her back, she revealed a cartoon on her T-shirt—a slot machine eating a donkey—with a slogan that read, "I lost my ass to a one-armed bandit." She disappeared into the house, and the bonds holding Kyte broke like spiderwebs. 

"Come inside," the crazy one—Mary—said again. Fumbling the gate, he followed her into a room walled with canning shelves. "Phone's here." 

"Okay." 

Mary knelt on a barstool near him, bringing her tits up to eye level. "Are you an actor? I saw you on television." 

Was she flirting? Women didn't—not with him, not for decades. "No. Not me." 

"It was a show about this guy who wanted this old man's cane. He tricked the geezer out of all this money, and then offered to buy the cane." 

"Yeah?" An effort, suddenly, sounding casual. 

"It went wrong--I don't remember how. He ended up beating the old man to death." 

"Mary." The other woman's voice drifted, dry as dust, from the next room. "Let the man make his call." 

"Fuck you, Luci." But the bald girl twisted off the stool, setting it a-spin as she left him alone with the phone and a thousand jars of pickles. 

Inside his bag of tricks, the broken halves of the walking stick clunked with a sound like hollow laughter. 

Good thing she's crazy, Kyte thought. 

He called the rental company, confident that nobody would come. Until the desert was good and ready, Kyte was stranded. Emerging into the kitchen, he found Luci setting a third place at the dinner table. 

"Tow truck won't come for awhile," she said. 

"Thanks." He slid the sunglasses into his bag, examining her in the real. She had an impressive stone face, but he could smell rage behind it. Something Mary had said? Or maybe just the way the bald woman was lingering, slyly, in the kitchen. 

Dinner was two separate meals—Minit rice, pickles and canned mushroom soup for Mary, along with a couple of pills downed resentfully under her sister's watchful eye. Kyte got what Luci was having, meatless chili and bread from a bread machine. 

"I saw a show once about a guy who grabbed kids from a mall in Ohio," said Mary. "He wanted their blood to make magic wine. He looked—" 

Her sister interrupted calmly. "What do you do for a living?" 

"Teacher," He gave out the usual story around a mouthful of tofu and beans. "High school English." 

"Here on vacation?" 

"Thought I'd play some craps in Vegas." 

"Trying your luck?" 

"I've got a little cash budgeted—no heartbreak if I lose it." 

"Why Vegas? Reno's closer." 

"No shortage of casinos. I wanted to see the desert." 

"It's beautiful," Mary said. The women lit up, temporarily in agreement. Then their eyes met and the smiles died. 

"Actually, the wine bottle was the one wanted the blood," Mary said. "The guy just got the kids for it." 

None of the brats died, Kyte thought defensively. He watched, as intently as Mary, to see if Luci would crack or change the subject again. 

She didn't. 

"How'd it turn out?" 

"He was sort of a beetly guy," Mary said, pleased. "He'd find things and figure out how they worked, and he thought he was controlling them. But really they drove him, like a car or a pack mule. He'd kill for them or die for them, the bottle and the stick and the pack of cards and the mirror, the compass and magic sunglasses and the camera.…" Her voice droned: a frightening, accurate inventory of Kyte's tricks. Then she caught Luci smiling nastily, enjoying the show. 

"They thought he was really stupid," Mary mumbled. With that, she abandoned her pink-slimed rice and retreated into the pickle room. 

Kyte met Luci's eye as the door slammed. "What's she like without her meds?" 

She shrugged bleakly. "Town closes up at six. Your tow truck's not here by now, it isn't coming. I'll make up a bed in the bunkhouse and we'll drive you in tomorrow. Okay?" 

"Kind of you," he said. "Bunkhouse?" 

She pointed through a glassed-in porch and he got his first glimpse of the backyard. 

The wide red fence continued its circuit of the house, a slender line marking where the desert ended and civilization, such as it was, began. Honeysuckle lounged against the bricks, draping over improvised shelves made of cinderblocks and raw boards. Four pear trees stood in a line on a narrow strip of lawn. 

Luci was pointing beyond the perimeter to a tiny green building. "Bunkhouse. Granddad used to have ranchhands." 

"Great," he said, still scanning the yard. Everywhere he looked there were rocks: jasper, quartz, granite, petrified wood, turquoise. Random piles of dirt-crusted boulders were stacked on the shelves. Tin buckets glinted like treasure chests, filled with tumbled pebbles. Thin slices of geode sparkled in the porch windows. 

"Granddad was a rancher?" Inane conversational gambit. 

"When he wasn't building houses. Or messing with this one," Luci said. 

"What about Grandma?" 

"Rock hound. Spent her life walking the desert, picking things up." 

His heart sank. Whatever Grandma picked up was mixed in with the thousands of rocks. Finding it would take time. How he'd manage that … his mind skittered away from the obvious answer. Killing old men was hard enough. 

Luci dropped a key into his hand. "Have a look. I'll find a lantern and a sleeping bag." 

"Okay." He slipped outside, startling a gray lizard from a rock beside the back door. The sun was edging into the mountains now, but the air hadn't cooled. Did it ever? 

The corner of the house hid still more buckets, filled with spent musket balls and obsidian chips—pieces of arrowheads and Indian spears. A shelf next to the garden was covered in old glass, green Coke bottles, and purple perfume bottles with tiny stoppers. 

"Rock hound my ass," Kyte hissed. "Grandma was fucking compulsive." 

Just then Mary scampered into view, teetering on the fence like it was a balance beam. She had a lizard in one hand and a hunk of rose quartz in the other. 

"I saw a show once where a guy put a magic dime into an airport slot machine. Cha-cha-ching! Five hundred bucks. Five thousand dimes, and he's got to check every one to find his enchanted coin." 

At least that hadn't really happened. Kyte didn't have a dime, and he was too smart to toss away his chantments. "And he looked just like me?" 

She dropped the lizard onto the sand. "Hell, no, rabbit. He was good-looking." 

He looked morosely at the rocks, bottles, and musketballs. "Did he find the dime?" 

"Stay tuned to find out." 

Then she was off the fence and in his arms, her mouth pressed to his. Vinegar-flavored tongue slid past his teeth as her hands worked their way down his back, slow sensuous rub from the tip of his neck to the seat of his jeans. She pulled, thrust her hips against his, gave him time to cup and squeeze her breasts. 

Then she yanked loose. "Silly rabbit. Aren't you going to unlock the bunkhouse?" 

Flustered and aroused, he stalked to the back gate. "Mary?" 

"Yes?" 

"How many bedrooms you got in there?" 

"Mine and hers, Mummy's and Grandma's." 

"Four rooms? For the two of you?" 

Mary's mad smile disappeared. "You'll be safer out there, Rabbit. Trust me." 

He had a bad night. Horny and worried about scorpions, Kyte chased sleep without ever catching it. Schemes swirled incoherently through his mind. Whatever he found here, it might be good enough to let him sink some roots, let the chantments and power chase him instead of the other way around. Caro hadn't been able to quit, but Kyte would. And there was gold in this place—he could smell it. 

With dawn came a sound like slow drums—tok, tok, tok—irregular thunks he couldn't identify. Magic roiled up through the bunkhouse floor, pulling his guts and balls. Legs trembling, he tiptoed outside. 

The desert was aglow with lazy golden light. Magpies clustered on the house, black eyes watching the yard. Kyte was surprised to see chipmunks, straining for a look over the fence from the woodpile. Monarch butterflies clogged the pear trees, beating at the warming air. 

Panting hoarsely in the backyard, the women were hurtling a birdie back and forth with badminton rackets. Lunging, sometimes falling, they seared grass stains into their knees. Volley, volley, volley, wild swings sending the birdie through the pear trees, but neither of them ever missed a shot. 

His heart slammed. There—on the sidewalk—a chantment! It was a cookie tin, lying in a patch of sun, emitting a smell of melted wax. There and not there, half illusion, it shimmered like a mirage. 

And there—on the shelf by the bottles, the ghost of an open wallet, full of dimes and butterscotch candy. 

Spectral clothes, old-fashioned and faded, hung on the empty line. A ghostly soccer ball rolled on the fence and the scent of crushed berries choked the breeze. Fainter ghosts hinted at dozens, maybe hundreds of chantments. 

Kyte had found the mother lode. 

"Now!" The shout came from both women and they threw their rackets away. Luci dove for the wallet. Mary went after a spectral cowbell. 

They were too late. The chantments faded out of the real, sliding into invisibility. Kyte sucked dry air—a disappointed, silent gasp. 

"I thought we had it, Luci," Mary panted. 

"We're forgetting something." 

"If we had the stuffed dog …" 

"Shut up about the fucking dog!" Luci's shriek set the magpies on the roof aloft. Dripping sweat, she lunged for the house. Mary, ducking to avoid her, almost fell into the honeysuckle. 

Sighing as the door slammed, Mary bent to retrieve the rackets. Then she froze. Her head came up and she met Kyte's eyes. Her gaze was remarkably clear, free of yesterday's slyness. 

"We thought you'd left. Your truck's gone." 

"What?" 

"Your truck." She pointed down the empty dirt road. 

"Stolen?" 

She shrugged. 

"First I break down, now this?" Knowing he should put more emotion into the outraged tourist routine, he still couldn't summon the energy. Instead, he returned to his bunk and opened the bag of tricks. 

 
It had begun for him in the Depression, with the arrival in the mail of a strip of braided blue cord. There had been a short note, childish letters written in poor English. Kyte's Daddy had died saving her son, the stranger wrote, and the cord was "for lucky his family." Eight inches long, it was braided with human hair and things like cat whiskers. 

Ten years on a widow's pension had made Mamma bitter, and she threw the cord away. Kyte had fished it out of the trash. Curiosity? Whim? Still a kid, maybe he'd even believed the cord was good luck. All he remembered was Mamma finding herself a well-heeled husband, his brother turning out to be some kind of school genius. 

Luck for Mamma, luck for the kid. All Kyte got was uprooted from his neighborhood, an unwanted new dad and a stuck-up law school prig for a brother. Not much of a deal, not until a drifter named Caro showed up offering to teach him about the blue braid. 

Kyte stroked the red canvas of his bag. Everything was in there, all the items Mary had named, a little chantment family tucked in tight where their varied powers could calm each other. The bottle filled with blood, the two pieces of walking stick, the cards, Caro's mirror, the magic camera, and the toy beagle. 

The stuffed dog, Mary had said. 

He drew it out—fingered the floppy, tattered body. It was his newest chantment, and right after he had won it in a poker game, it gave him a whiff of magic in Nevada. A new hunt—Kyte had hopped a plane without a second thought. 

His fingers found an incision on the belly, stitched with red thread. Something shifted on the other side of the fabric. 

Hiding the dog deep in the bag, he touched his chantments one after another. His amazing collection. He'd killed for the stick, sold his body for the compass, bled slow tears into the doll's mouth. His babies, they had been good to him. He hadn't aged since World War Two, hadn't had so much as a cough or the sniffles. People gave him things when he asked—money, information, the names of vulnerable friends. 

And if women were scared of him, there was always the comb. 

"Rattles and beads," he muttered. Next to this house, his paltry tricks were nothing. 

But everything in the house would be his soon enough. Sliding the small disc of the mirror out of a silk handkerchief, he clutched it in his palm, warming it. Time to get to work. 

Snail-slow Caro would have counseled caution. In the six months they were together, they only bagged one chantment. Before and after, Caro claimed he was looking for somewhere to settle with his stash. Too slow—Kyte finally stole Caro's chantments, struck out on his own. He'd have gone back when he had more chantments of his own, but without the magic camera, Caro had died of old age in a few months. 

Feet on the bunkhouse steps made Kyte shove the mirror in his pocket. 

Mary peered inside. "You okay?" 

"Yeah. Just surprised about the Jeep." 

She sat beside him, squeezed his hand kindly. She smelled like suntan lotion and shampoo, and when Kyte kissed her she didn't resist, submitting passively until he was hard and hopeful. Then she pulled loose, backed for the door. His blood sang angrily; only pride kept him from following. 

"You ready to go into town?" 

"No. I have to call the rental company so they don't send a tow truck out after nothing." 

Her nose wrinkled. "Maybe you should catch a shower, too." 

"A cold one, maybe?" 

"Kyte, I shouldn't have done that.…" 

"Forget it." He bit his lip. "A shower, huh? Can you spare the water?" 

She nodded. "I have an errand in Mason Valley. I'll come back for you in a couple of hours." 

"Fine." He walked her to the car, watched it rattle away down the dirt road, bit his tongue so hard it bled. When the car was out of sight he crept into the kitchen. 

Wild sobs echoed out of the hall as he came indoors. Magic mirror in hand, he went in pursuit, finding a room where two little beds faced off against opposite walls. The air was hot, dense with dust; sunbeams curtained slantwise from the windows. Yellowed drawings clung to the wallpaper, and all the furniture looked fifty years old. 

"Go away!" Tearful, muffled words leaked through the pillow of the closest bed, where Luci was face down, sobbing. Her sticklike legs jutted off the mattress like spikes. 

"It's Kyte." 

She bunched and rolled, curling against the wall. Her face emerged from the pillows, pale and tear-streaked. "I thought you were gone." 

"Shhh." He opened his palm, gave her a look at the mirror. Frowning, she opened her mouth to banish him, but then her eyes connected with her reflection. Going slack as her pupils dilated, she sagged against the wall. Instant trance. 

"Can I … ?" 

Perching on the edge of the bed, Kyte passed her the mirror. She cupped it in her hands, staring at herself open-mouthed. 

"Mary seems very sane this morning, Luci." 

"She is. I took the madness off her." 

"How?" 

She fingered an enchanted agate bracelet. "With this." 

"Why would you do that?" 

"Being the crazy one, putting up with the crazy one. It's almost the same thing." Thin shoulders shrugged. "You forget who's who." 

"That simple?" 

"Nothing's simple," she said bitterly. "But I don't like to drive and it's the only way to get her to lift a finger. And sometimes when her head's clear, she figures out the visions." 

"Swell." Kyte grimaced. "Tell me about the stuffed dog, Luci." 

"Stupid power struggle." Wide eyes blinked tears. "She took something of mine. I figured she'd swap if I took the dog." 

"What did she take?" 

"My first chantment." 

"You'd been hunting?" 

"I made it. Grandma taught me." 

His breath caught. "To make chantments?" 

"Yes. Where'd you think they came from?" 

He took a long breath, absorbing the scent of limitless power on the wind. Making chantments. "So why'd Mary take it? Was she crazy even then?" 

"Crazy, sure. It comes with the Sight. But she had a reason, all right. It was fine for her to have visions, but she went jealous-nuts when Grandma started teaching me craft." Her minty breath washed over his face. "So she took my chantment." 

"Why'd you pick the dog?" 

"Flavor of the week. She was always obsessed with one of her toys, until she trashed it, anyway." 

"And you lost it?" 

"I hid the dog in a box of old clothes. Mary pitched a fit." Her voice rose, mimicking long-dead adults: " 'Give your sister back her toy, Luci.' " 

"You didn't?" 

"Swore I didn't have it. Nobody believed me, but what could they do?" 

Against that hard blue stubbornness, nothing. He could imagine her, just a kid but her stone face already carved. 

"I waited for her to offer a trade, but she wouldn't. Then I remembered … she liked to sew stuff into her toys. She saw Grandma make a chantment that way once.…" 

"She'd put the stolen chantment in the dog?" 

"S'why she was so mad. She thought I'd won—got my chantment back. But just when I figured it out, I saw the church rummage truck going off down the road, and I knew, I knew. I ran to Mom's room and there was just pressed carpet where the rummage box had been." A sob racked the thin body. "I thought the clothes were for mending! Grandma gave them away." 

"Easy," he soothed. "Luci, what were you doing this morning?" 

"Bringing Grandma's chantments into the real." 

"By beating your sister at badminton?" 

"I've never beaten Mary at anything." A sad smile carved the thin face. "Not since that box of clothes went down the road." 

"No?" 

"Not even a board game. Never lost, either. We're deadlocked." 

"But playing brings the chantments close to the real?" 

"Playing. Arguing. Throwing darts, racing bikes around the fence … but something's missing." 

"The dog?" 

Her mouth twisted—even tranced, she was reluctant to admit her sister might be right. "If we could just get along … Grandma hated the fighting." 

"But you can't." 

"Can't get along, can't not fight. Can't make a chantment without grandma's stash. Can't not care about the way she acts.…" 

"You love her," he said dryly. 

"So? You know what it's like? Day in and out with her bullshit? I love her, that just makes it harder. Mary's broken. Cutting up her things, pitching screaming fits, everyone's out to get her. And nothing's her fault. She's the pretty one, she got the Sight, but it's all poor fragile Mary and Luci you're the oldest so you have to rise above …" 

"Relax, Luci. It'll be okay." 

"Rise above…" Comforted, Luci's face relaxed into a smile. 

"You're going to get one thing Mary wants," he said. 

"When?" 

"Right now." The mirror was only good for getting information, for keeping people calm and knocking them out. Now Kyte pulled the comb out of his bag, ran it through the curly black hair. Luci's back arched like she was a cat in heat. Her mouth opened, rose to meet his, and her kiss tasted of mint and oranges. 

Kyte pulled her close, ran the comb down her nape. Her whole body quaked; hot dry fingers clutched his face, pressing the mirror against his cheek. He bent into another kiss as Luci plucked off his shirt. Pressing closer, he fumbled the comb through her hair again. 

Sudden pain made him jerk the hand back, too late to escape searing heat. The comb burned away to nothing, leaving an acrid stink of scorched hair behind. Blackened flesh marked a path across the center of his hand. 

Kyte's erection died and his balls crawled north. He snatched up the mirror as Luci's eyelids fluttered, half-amorous, half-dismayed. 

"Grandma?" Luci whispered. "That you?" 

"Sleep now," he said, bringing her face to face with her reflection again. The magic mirror soothed her and she collapsed, snoring, clinging to his shirt like a beloved toy. Kyte backed out of the room. His palm burned and throbbed. 

The protection chantment was palpable, angry eyes burning holes into his back. It followed him through the kitchen, into the yard, fell away only when he stepped outside the fence. 

So Grandma had her limits. Useful information 

By now it was obvious he'd have to kill the girls. They knew what the chantments were and wouldn't give them up. They were wild and unpredictable, crazed and dangerous. 

He paced the outside of the fence. He'd need to get Luci outside, maybe lure her into the bunkhouse. Quick, before Mary gets back. Do it there, wait for Mary. Get to her before she even got into the yard. 

But first they had to bring the chantments into the real. He'd have to hide the dog in the backyard with the rest of the crap. 

"Last hunt," he promised, and then he cleared his mind of every murderous thought and stepped through the gate. Nothing happened—no burning, no angry eyes. "Last time for the mother lode." 

He was looking for a good hiding spot when the front door banged. 

"Luci! Where's the rabbit?" 

Luci's voice was muzzy with sleep. "Out back. Why?" 

"My vision. He's got the dog!" 

Kyte's blood chilled. His hand tightened around the bag of tricks. 

He darted around the side of the house. Mary's car was in the lane, keys in the ignition, still running. He sprinted for it, skidding on the rock-covered shelf as he bounded up onto the red bricks of the fence. 

At the threshold, he froze. 

Poisonous creatures boiled up out of the sand. Spiders, ants, and rattlesnakes swirled around the fence; scorpions glittered like Christmas ornaments in the sagebrush. Black widows' hourglasses glinted red on their shiny backs as they wove webs between the prickly pears. Wasps and bees whirled laps around the perimeter, howling like miniature racecars. Coyotes wailed, just out of sight. 

Here and there amid the flow were corpses—lizards, butterflies, chipmunks, magpies, even the long body of a jackrabbit. 

"Dammit," Kyte mumbled. Fumbling on his sunglasses, he pulled out half of the walking stick and wedged it into the waist of his jeans. 

"Here, bun-bun-bunny …" Mary burst through her screen door with an agile leap. Her sister staggered out onto the porch, still fighting the mirror's spell. Through the glasses, he could see that Mary had taken her madness back. Sane, Luci was nevertheless waking into murderous rage. 

"Give me the dog, rabbit," Mary said. 

Luci didn't speak, just shook her head. 

He had his bag clutched against his chest—now he lowered it slowly. The sisters' eyes shone and they crept forward an identical half-step before freezing to glare at each other. 

Kyte reached into the bag, catching the smooth neck of the magic bottle. It was icy to the touch, like a chilled soda. A swig of baby's blood at the right time had got him out of jail. Could it get him out of this? 

The desert hummed around him. No. 

"Kyte, my chantment's in there. If you give the dog to …" 

Mary's voice cut through molten air. "Shut up, Luci!" 

He dug deeper, his hand falling on threadbare fur. Pulling the dog out, he found he couldn't throw it to either of them. Frozen, he stared from one sister to the other, helpless. The magic triangle wove between them, like choking vines, morning glory. 

"I saw on television two women tore a bunny in half." Mary bared her teeth. 

Toss it outside the fence. Fight them for it there. 

A wasp changed his mind, driving a hot welt of agony into his elbow before he'd even moved. Jerking reflexively, he let go of the dog, tossing it overhand. It flopped onto the lawn, landing near Luci. She cried triumphantly, reached out … 

"No!" Mary pounced, yanking Luci off-balance. The women landed in a pile, punching and swearing, their caged feelings finally loose. Their floodgates opened on a full-on fight that neither of them could win or lose. 

Which didn't stop them from trying, hammering at each others' faces, ribs, kicking and pulling hair. 

Chantments appeared all over the yard, clearer than before: a porcelain frog, a pile of red stones, a wind-up boat, a stained glass fish, two halves of an obsidian spearhead, a bicycle, a white bowl and pitcher, a book, a rusted music stand, a pair of plastic sandals, a perfume bottle, a stainless steel salt shaker, a paper boat, a carton of golden eggs, a figurine of a little girl, a fan that opened and shut of its own accord, whick, whick, whick … 

They had forgotten Kyte, were pounding each other bloody. A grim fight now—no game this time, no way out unless they killed each other—and if they did, the chantments would vanish. 

Think, Kyte. They couldn't beat each other and they both wanted the dog. 

"I gotta pick?" He was still bound to the women, but they were so close together that he was able to move in a circle around them, like a dog on a leash. 

One of them had to win. His choice. Luci would never help him, but maybe the madwoman would. Especially if she owed him. 

He leapt down from the fence, squeezing the burned and wasp-stung arm against his ribs. Skirting the fighting women, he snatched up the dog by its tail. Now what? Pull them apart and give the dog to Mary? 

But then the house creaked. The two front doors opened. 

The dog was warm in his hand, heavy as the air slushing in and out of his lungs. Magic tugged him in two directions, toward Luci's door on the porch, toward Mary's silver screen door. Dust devils twisted on the driveway, mini-tornadoes which flung grit against his face in tiny pinpricks. 

Kyte clenched his teeth and forced himself across the lawn. Invisible fingers clutched him, resisting every step. Behind him, the fight went on, a soundtrack of shrieks and thuds and grunts. 

"Mary wins," Kyte spat through stretched and aching teeth. "I choose Mary's door." 

Slam. The screen door shut as he reached it, opened again. Kyte shoved the dog through the opening into Mary's sanctum. 

There. He dropped it. 

A scream ripped through the desert then, and the arm with the wasp sting and burn got caught as the door slammed. Kyte struggled like a pinned butterfly as the door gnashed his arm like a toothless jaw. Sand chewed at his face and the red bricks of the house bit his naked back as he tried to pull free. Heat lightening whickered across the Sierra Nevadas, rose-purpled mountains looming on the horizon, flowing like the robes of a judge. 

Finally the grip relaxed. Kyte's arm dropped, gashed and fractured, to his side. 

He hissed at the pain, staring at his bloodied, vulnerable fingers, hanging limp at the end of his arm. The comb—what passed for Kyte's sex life—was gone. And now this … 

"Kyte?" Bruised and bloody, Luci climbed to her feet. The chantments were in the real now, clustered in the corners of the yard. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the pitcher. 

Was she still sad? He realized he couldn't tell. The sunglasses were blasted to chipped plastic by that hot, sandy wind. 

"Mary?" he asked, indicating the limp form on the lawn behind her. 

"Out of it." 

"You killed her?" 

"She's breathing …" Her voice was uncertain. 

His injured arm throbbed. Even if Mary was dead, killing Luci one-handed would be a hell of a trick. And did he even want to mess with these women anymore? 

Too risky. "I ought to get into town." 

"Finished playing?" 

He nodded. 

"Smart." She squinted. "You want to cash in?" 

"Pardon?" 

Wincing, Luci nodded at her sister's door, ignoring the blood drying on its aluminum edge. The stuffed dog was lying in a patch of sunlight beside the pickle shelves. It was hazy, insubstantial. "You gave her the dog back, right? It's hers. I can't touch it." 

"So?" 

"My chantment's inside. I can't touch that, either. If you can, take it." 

"That's … kind of you." 

"It's not kindness. Why should she have it?" 

Warily he knelt and reached into the dog. His hand sank through as if it was liquid, warm butter. A smell of scorched stuffing bathed his face as his fingers closed on two plastic cubes. 

Dice. 

He straightened, opening his hand. They were red, transparent, their dots gold paint. "Magic Casino" was stenciled in a circle around the single dots of the ones. Jumping on his palm, they came up seven. Jumped again. Seven again. 

"A parlor trick?" 

"I was only a kid." Wistfully, she reached out. The dice jumped back against Kyte like frightened children. 

"Yeah …" he said, oddly encouraged. They weren't worth the losses he'd taken so far. But maybe they were a sign. Maybe he shouldn't give up just yet. 

"Your Jeep's out at the irrigation ditch. I'll take you." Sliding past him, her thin body barely displaced any air. She opened the gate, and the snakes, spiders, and scorpions all vanished. Bees and wasps thrummed away in clouds, vanishing into heat mirages. 

Kyte stuffed the dice in his pocket, slung his bag over his good shoulder, and shuffled out of the yard. His eyes strayed to the magic pitcher in Luci's hand. They were outside the fence … 

No. His arm throbbed. Bad idea. Just get out. 

But all that magic, just lying there behind him … Blood dried in itchy patches on his ribcage as they crunched farther from the chantments. 

"What happens now—with you and Mary? Try to fix her?" 

"She'd have to give up the Sight. She'll never agree." 

"Maybe the chantments will make things better." 

"Different, anyway." 

"You're an optimist." 

"I know when to give up, that's all." She wasn't just talking about her sister. 

Kyte sighed. "I'll settle soon. Replace some chantments and …" 

"And find just a few more? How many, Kyte? Hunt lust's—" 

"Did I ask for a lecture?" 

"All part of the service." 

"Would you have thanked me if I'd chosen your door?" He was startled by a glitter up ahead—water. The air smelled cooler, and magpies chattered from a small clutch of cottonwoods. The rented Jeep lounged in the shade of the trees, as if it was a wandering horse. 

Club Luci from behind, an inner voice whispered. Go to town, claim the sister did it. Get them dragged to jail and you'll have time to loot the house. 

A gamble, maybe, but a pair of jumping dice was no payment for what Kyte had been through. Even if he just got the pitcher … 

Reaching into the waistband of his jeans, he drew out the cane, falling back a pace as he raised it. The polished wood gleamed like steel as he brought it down on Luci's head. 

But the weight of the cane changed in mid-swing, and the wood broke over her curls in a shower of dust, no more harmful than balsa wood. 

"Still haven't learned not to bet against the house?" Bending, Luci scooped at the sand. She came up with a perfect arrowhead, white and black zebra-striped obsidian, intricate and deadly. 

His trusted killing tool, broken to splinters on the sand … 

"Bet on this. I'm still bigger than you." He lashed out with a boot, striking the back of her knee. Heat rubbed him like a lover as she fell, as he kicked again. "Bet on this. Grandma can't help you out here." 

She cackled, flung sand at his eyes, tripped him. He went over on his back and his bag of tricks. Glass crunched, and an icy spill of children's blood flowed down his back. 

"Goddammit!" He kicked again, hard enough to lift Luci half out of the sand which was coating her sweat and blood-slicked skin but somehow not hard enough to dent the grin spreading over her face. Aiming for teeth this time, he raised the boot. 

"Double or nothing, rabbit?" Mary's voice stopped him. One eye black and swollen, her knuckles bloodied, she was clutching a chantment, the porcelain frog. 

"Yeah," he said. "Get her." 

Luci laughed and spit sand. Mary shook her head sadly, like she was a teacher and he a backward pupil. Magic wove between the women, and Kyte found he couldn't move. 

"Don't—" he got out before his throat closed. 

Mary offered a hand to her sister, hauled her upright. Together they staggered close. Luci looked into his eyes, read the fear there, reached up as if to touch or slit his throat. Then she tucked the Jeep keys into Kyte's shirt pocket. 

Not a dead man after all. Breath slipped from his lungs in loose-lipped relief as Luci's arm dropped. She was done. 

But then Mary was touching him, fingers tickling over his groin, up his belly, one nail tracing a line across his nipple as her hand rose to his shoulder, where his collection hung on its red canvas strap. 

No. 

His eyes widened and he fought to move, fought so hard he could feel blood threatening to blow out his temples, so hard his nose began to run. 

Mary slipped the bag of tricks off his shoulder. 

Then the women limped away, back to the house. They left him penniless and paralyzed on the desert, alone with his mangled arm and a rented Jeep, and they didn't look back. The gate banged shut before Kyte could move again. 

The dice shifted in his pocket, reminding him suddenly that they hadn't taken everything. He fished them out. A single parlor trick, all he had left. 

But maybe … 

Maybe he could find something else. One lucky hunt could still put him ahead. Someday he might even come back for revenge, for what he was so dearly owed. 

But now he'd better hurry. Without the magic camera, he already felt five years older. 

Cursing the hours he'd lose getting the fractured arm treated, Kyte jogged to the Jeep, struggling one-handed to get it unlocked. He got in, dropping the dice on the dashboard, into the clean-of-dust space where the stuffed dog had been. One-handed, hurting, he fumbled the key. 

As the motor caught and Kyte sped away, the red and gold dice began to bounce on the dashboard, rolling seven over and over again. 


The End