Green grass looped up in ropy strands, lashing her ankles, burying her sensible shoes. When she tried to take a step, she overbalanced, and for a moment she clung closely to me before she let go to crouch down to see what was holding her. “What the hell—?”

Luis leaned over, too, placed his hand on her shoulder as if in concern, and I felt the strong pulse of power that slid through her. The grass fell away, but the woman didn’t immediately move.

“You’ve cleared us,” he told her in a very quiet tone. “We didn’t have anything to do with Ibby’s disappearance. You know this to be true. We have somewhere important to go, and you’re giving us permission to leave.”

I sensed her struggle against him. It was a very close thing, and Luis’s strength was very low just now, both in power and in human terms.

I had little enough to add, but I stepped in and added my hand on top of his. He glanced up, acknowledging the infusion of power, and guided it to surgical precision, shaping the woman’s response.

Again, it was illegal. The Wardens would have dismissed him for such a use, or taken his powers and left him a crippled shell. But the Wardens had taken their eyes from us, and this was now a fight for more than just survival.

Isabel’s life was at stake.

Whatever he did was on too fine a level for me to sense the exact methods, but when he removed his hand, the detective blinked at him, nodded, said, “Fine, thanks for your cooperation. You two can go. I know you’re in a hurry.”

We walked away together. As we approached the line, one of the officers turned from his post, frowned, and held out his hand to stop us. Luis looked over his shoulder at the detective, who was standing where he’d left her, arms folded. She made an impatient gesture to the perimeter policeman, and we ducked under the fluttering barrier and headed for the street.

We were lucky, I thought, that the news organizations were held back at the end of the street. I saw cameras focusing on us, felt the pressure of their excited attention. It was not pleasant.

I positioned Luis with his back to the cameras, so that he covered me, as well, and said, “You didn’t make her trust us?”

“Couldn’t,” he said. “It’s like hypnotism; you can make people follow a path they would have normally gone down, but that detective doesn’t trust anybody, and even if she did, she damn sure wouldn’t trust me. It was easier to just skip her farther along a track she’d have taken. Anyway, let’s get out of here. We don’t have too long before she starts looking through her notes and realizes she didn’t finish questioning us.”

“I could destroy the notes,” I offered.

“Cassiel, we want the police to help. Just not to put their sights on us. Destroying their notes doesn’t get us anywhere.” We had arrived at the parked truck, but it was surrounded by forensic technicians who were taking samples. In case, I supposed, we were all lying, the witnesses were all lying, and Luis had abducted Isabel himself. “Crap,” Luis muttered. “Well, they’re just doing their jobs. Too many to influence.”

“It’s a foolish waste of time.”

“No, it’s not,” he said soberly. “Statistically, kids get abducted by family members more than strangers. Makes sense. I got no problem with them following every possible lead.”

My motorcycle, I noted, was sitting neglected at the curb not far away. Luis noticed it at the same time, and we exchanged a silent look of inquiry, then moved toward it.

“No helmets,” I told him, as I straddled the bike.

“Least of my worries right now.”

I felt the shift of mass as he climbed on behind me, and then his hands closed on me, low, near my hips. I started the motorcycle. Something about the low growl of it soothed the gnawing fear and anger within me.

Luis shifted his weight to find the balance point, and I eased the bike out into the empty street.

One problem, I realized: we would have to pass through the gauntlet of press clogging both ends of the neighborhood. In the truck we would have had the advantage of height and sealed windows. On the Victory, we didn’t even have the relative anonymity of helmets.

“Alley,” Luis said in my ear. “That way.”

I leaned the bike the way he directed, over a spray of gravel and behind a neighbor’s house, and into a narrow paved street filled with overflowing trash cans and refuse.

“Go!” he shouted. “They’ll follow us if they can!” I applied the throttle, and the bike shot forward. Luis’s arms tightened around me to hold on, and I accelerated down the alley and into the next at right angles, which spilled into a street. I took the turn fast and accelerated yet again, narrowly beating the light and weaving around a slow-moving van.

“Left here!” Luis shouted, and I crossed three lanes of traffic with the throttle wide open, almost skidding through the turn. “Okay, good, ease off. I think we’re okay”

The Victory seemed disappointed to return to its role as mere transportation, but at traffic speeds it glided smoothly, sleek as a shark. We attracted curious glances. I was almost growing used to it.

“Back to your motel,” he said. “You get your stuff. I can’t guarantee the police won’t want to ask us more questions, so it’s better we move.”

“We need to go,” I said. I heard an echo of the Oracle’s voice, back in Sedona. You need to go.

“Yeah, but where?” he asked. I heard the frustration in him, sensed it in the harshness of his grip on my hips. “How are we going to find her?”

“I think I know a way,” I said, and guided the bike back to the motel.

I changed my clothing back from funeral black to pale white riding leathers over a pink long-sleeved shirt. I left the pants dark, though I roughened the fabric weave to denim. My shoes took on the solidity and toughness of riding boots.

I did it almost effortlessly this time, upon walking into the darkened, silent room. By the time I closed the door behind Luis, I’d changed completely. If it surprised him—if he even noticed—he said nothing. He sat down on the side of the neatly made bed and said, “What now?”

I opened a drawer near the bed and took out the maps that I had purchased along with the motorcycle. They were tough, encased in plastic, and I had New Mexico and one of several other states, including Colorado.

I unfolded both and flattened them out on the carpet, then took a cross-legged seat on one side. I indicated the other, and Luis folded himself down. “How does this help?” He was impatient and losing his temper. “We don’t need maps, we need—”

I grabbed his hand, took a small silver knife from my jacket pocket, and cut his finger with one swift jerk.

“Hey!” he yelped, and tried to pull away. I squeezed the cut. Ruby drops formed and dripped, hitting one map. I moved his finger until the drops were poised over the second drawing. Two drops were sufficient. I released him.

“We need blood,” I said. “You and Isabel share a tie of consanguinity. It’s not as strong as it would be if we had Manny or Angela’s blood, but I think it will do.”

He sucked on his cut finger, thinking it over, then slowly nodded. “You’re talking about finding similars on the aetheric.”

“The Wardens do this?”

“Not with the actual mutilation and bleeding,” he said. “Next time, ask before you cut me.”

I folded the knife and put it away. “Next time,” I said, “I doubt I’ll have to ask.”

The blood drops were formless blotches on the maps, signifying nothing without the application of will and energy. I held out my hand, and Luis sighed and offered his unwounded one for me to hold.

We focused together on the maps.

What we were doing was, in fact, harder than it might seem; the maps were only a representation of the earth, not the aetheric spirit. If the maps themselves had actually been carried through the distance that was shown, they would appear more fully in the aetheric. In fact, the route I had taken from Albuquerque to Sedona was clearly glowing in Oversight, when I went up to survey our work. The rest of the maps, except for certain parts of the town of Albuquerque, was pale and ghostly—and then Luis touched the map, in the real world, and added all of his experience into its reality, as well.