That made her whirl around, black eyes blazing. “I did not love him!”
And the skies cracked open, storm clouds rushing in from nowhere, lightning lancing down and hitting the ground only a few yards away from us. The sharp scent of ozone stung my nostrils and I blinked, seeing dancing reddish echoes of the lightning bolt etched into my eyelids.
This was not good.
I summoned the energy, praying it would be enough, and scared shitless that it wouldn’t be. The forest flared with light again, the bolt this time hitting the tree directly behind me, splitting it with a cra-ack! so loud my ears began to ring. Even with the golden light enveloping me, I cowered, my hands up to protect my face against any further hurt. How in the world was I supposed to fight this? She was so strong. This wasn’t like going up against Damon. He’d been driven nearly mad, but even using some of the darkest magic known to any witch, he was still just a man.
Nizhoni had once been a woman, but she wasn’t that any longer. Now she was a vengeful, angry spirit, and clearly nothing I could say or do would convince her to change, to understand that she had no reason to stay here anymore.
Connor, I thought in despair, reaching out to where he was waiting for me in the mortal world, and sensing nothing of him. That frightened me more than anything, because I’d always been able to sense him during my previous journeys to the otherworld. But still I flung the thoughts outward, hoping against hope that he’d somehow be able to hear me.
I love you so much. I was wrong. I can’t do this. I don’t know how.
Forgive me.
And the clouds rumbled overhead, and the lightning surged once more, and I gathered every bit of strength I had, pushing it out to surround me, to fight her hostile power with my shielding energies. Even so, I didn’t think it would be enough.
Actually, I knew it wouldn’t.
17
A Silver Stream
Light seared through me and I screamed, pain shrilling along every vein, every nerve ending. Was I going to die being burned from within?
Then I heard a man’s voice, commanding and deep. “Nizhoni.”
It was as if I had been on fire, and someone had thrown a bucket of water over me. I blinked, then looked down, expecting to see burns from Nizhoni’s lightning running down my bare arms. But the skin was smooth and untouched, lightly brown with the faint beginnings of my summer tan.
And then I glanced up to see who had spoken, and saw a tall man walking toward us through the trees. His hair was as black as Nizhoni’s, though cut short and slicked away from his face. In his features I could see an echo of the Wilcox men I knew today, the fine strong nose and chin, the well-cut mouth. Unlike most of the men of his time, he was clean-shaven, but otherwise he looked a lot like the historical re-enactors I knew who did Wild West demonstrations: long black frock coat, band-collared shirt, dark vest, dusty boots.
He stopped a few feet away from us. His gaze flickered toward me. “Are you all right, Angela?”
I guessed we were all on a first-name basis here in the otherworld. “I’m fine…Jeremiah.”
Instead of being put off by the familiarity, he grinned, showing teeth better than I would’ve expected from someone not blessed with the gifts of modern dentistry. “Not for a lack of Nizhoni’s trying, I’m sure.”
I shook my head and glanced over at her. She was standing so still she might have been a statue. The wind she had summoned was gone, and now her hair didn’t move at all, only hung straight as a skein of black silk down her back. And she was staring at Jeremiah as if she couldn’t believe the evidence of her own eyes.
“Why?” she said at last, the word barely a breath.
“Why?” Jeremiah repeated.
“Why now, after all these years?”
“Because you’ve finally admitted it.”
“I have admitted nothing,” she replied, chin up, dark eyes flashing.
“You should listen to this girl,” he said. “What did she say? ‘It’s no weakness to love’? She has the right of it, Nizhoni.”
She didn’t respond, only stood there, her chest moving as she heaved an angry breath.
“Look, Nizhoni,” I began. It still frightened me a little to have her looking at me with those furious dark eyes, but Jeremiah had deflected her energy away from me, and I had to believe he would do so again if necessary. Why exactly he’d defended me, I wasn’t sure — family loyalty? — but I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I took a breath and continued, “It can’t have been easy to find that you had feelings for him after he went and stole you from your people, but — ”
“I did what?” he demanded, staring at me in disbelief. “Where did you hear that?”