"I need money."
Chess blinked, but went on looking at her intently.
"I know it isn't fair to ask you without explaining why. But I can't tell you. It would be dangerous for you.
I just have to ask you to trust me."
Chess kept looking at her. The slanted green eyes searched Hannah's face. Then, without a word, she got up.
Hannah sat on Chess's crisp white-on-white coverlet and waited. After a few minutes Chess came back into the room and settled her own petite self on the bed.
"Here," she said, and plunked down a credit card. "Mom said I could use it to get some things for graduation. I figure she'll understand-maybe."
Hannah threw her arms around her. "Thank you," she whispered. "I'll pay it back as soon as I can." Then she burst out, "How can you be so nice? I'd be yelling to know what was going on."
"I am going to yell," Chess said, squeezing her back. "But more than that. I'm going with you."
Hannah drew back. How could she explain? She knew that by going to Las Vegas she would be putting her own life in danger. From Maya, certainly. From the Night World, probably. Even from the witches Thierry had connections with, possibly.
And she couldn't drag Chess into that.
"I've got something I want you to hang on to," she said. She reached into her canvas bag and pulled out an envelope. "This is for you and for my mom- just in case. If you don't hear from me by my birthday, then I want you to open it."
"Didn't you hear me? I'm going with you. I don't know what's been going on with you, but I'm not going to let you run off on your own."
"And I can't take you." She caught the glowing cat-eyes and held them. "Please understand, Chess. It's something I have to do alone. Besides, I need you here to cover for me, to tell my mom I'm at your house so she doesn't worry. Okay?" She reached out and gave Chess a tiny shake. "Okay?"
Chess shut her eyes, then nodded. Then she sniffled, her chin trembling.
Hannah hugged her again. "Thank you," she whispered. "Let's be best friends forever."
Monday morning, instead of going to school, Hannah started for Billings airport. She was driving the Ford-her mom had fixed it over the weekend. Her mom thought she was spending the next couple of days with Chess to study for finals.
It was frightening but exhilarating to fly on a plane by herself, going to a city she'd never been to before.
All the time she was in the air, she was thinking, Closer, closer, closer-and looking at the black rose ring on her finger.
She'd fished it out of her bedroom wastebasket. Now she turned her hand this way and that to see the black gems catch the light. Her chest tightened.
What if I can't find him? she thought.
The other fear she didn't want to admit, even to herself. What if she did find him, and he didn't want her anymore? After all, she'd only told him that she hated him a few dozen times and ordered him to stay away from her forever.
I won't think about that. There's no point. First I have to track him down, and after that what happens, happens.
The airport in Las Vegas was surprisingly small. There were slot machines all over. Hannah collected her one duffel bag at the luggage carousel and then walked outside. She stood in the warm desert air, trying to figure out what to do next.
How do you find witches?
She didn't know. She didn't think they were likely to be listed in the phone book. So she just trusted to luck and headed where everybody else was heading-the Strip.
It was a mistake from the beginning, and that afternoon and night were among the worst times in. her life.
It didn't start off so bad. The Strip was gaudy and glittery, especially as darkness fell. The hotels were so bizarre and so dazzling that it took Hannah's breath away. One of them, the Luxor, was shaped like a giant black pyramid with a Sphinx in front of it. Hannah stood and watched colored lasers dart from the Sphinx's eyes and laughed.
What would Ha-nahkt have thought of that?
But there was something almost sickening about all the lights and the hustling after a while. Something . .
. unwholesome. The crowds were so thick, both inside the hotels and out on the street, that Hannah could hardly move. Everyone seemed to be in a rush-except the people nailed in front of slot machines.
It feels... greedy, Hannah decided finally, searching in her mind for the right word. All these people want to win free money. All these hotels want to take their money. And of course, the hotels are the winners in the end. They've built a sort of Venus' flytrap to lure people here. And some of these people don't look as if they can afford to lose.
Her heart felt physically heavy and her lungs felt constricted. She wanted Montana and a horizon so far away that it pried your mind open. She wanted clean air. She wanted space.
But even worse than the atmosphere of greed and commercialism was the fact that she wasn't finding any witches.
She struck up conversations a few times with desk clerks and waitresses. But when she casually asked if there were any odd people in town who practiced witchcraft, they looked at her as if she were crazy.
By nine o'clock that night she was dizzy, exhausted, and sick with defeat.
I'm never going to find them. Which means I'm never going to find him.
She collapsed on a bench outside the Stardust Hotel, wondering what to do next. Her legs hurt and her head was pounding. She didn't want to spend Chess's mom's money on a hotel-but she'd noticed police officers making people move on if they tried to sleep on the street.
Why did I come here? I should have put an ad in the paper: "Desperately Seeking Thierry." I should have known this wouldn't work.
Even as she was thinking it, something about a boy in the crowd caught her eye.