Chapter 1

It’s not gonna hold, he thought, tying a fourth knot. Fuck, it’s not gonna hold.

But they were out of time. Dakota latched the tenuous cords to their belts. Each had a mountain-climbing-grade karabiner made of heavy-duty pressed steel. The locks would stay tight until the moment the pair needed to flee, whereupon they could disconnect quickly. The ropes were orange nylon—the same kind local firefighters used. Both would easily support their weight. He wasn’t worried about their gear.

The farm’s fence, however, looked to be older that he was. Split and dried wood constituted the posts, which, at most, went about two feet into the dusty ground. Between each one lay nothing more than two strings of loose barbed wire. Dakota held no confidence that it would weather the storm.

But they couldn’t locate anything else on such short notice. The only saving grace was that Ken had managed to find the gate, which seemed slightly newer and had been reinforced with cement to keep it grounded. Still, if the reports could be trusted, whole buildings would not withstand the monstrous whirlwind headed their way. In fact, the small city behind them might be gone by sunset.

Lovington, New Mexico. Population? Just short of 13,000. Thirteen thousand people who were desperately clamoring to their garden cellars, basements, or any other place they could hope to be safe. Thirteen thousand who didn’t know that this wasn’t a regular storm, who didn’t understand that they would fare better if they got in their cars and took off. Who didn’t know that this city, for some reason, was a specific target.

It had to be. The magically created tornado didn’t follow normal weather patterns. It didn’t move like any other run of the mill, life-destroying storm. In fact, a few miles down the road, it had turned on a dime, in a perfect ninety-degree change in path—so that it could hit Lovington head-on.

Why? The two of them had no idea. But this wasn’t the first town to end up in the sights of whoever had the powerful twister-maker. There were two near Atlanta, one in Kansas, and possibly hundreds of other unsubstantiated events crossing several years’ worth of time. Whoever had the tornado talisman would drop in out of nowhere, destroy some poor place, and then disappear before anyone even caught on that it wasn’t just a natural disaster. While Adelaide and her crew had identified the problem ages ago, they couldn’t pin down the bastard. It was by absolute chance that the father-daughter partnership ended up here, and they weren’t exactly thrilled about it.

They finished a case the night before, in Roswell of all places, which sat relatively nearby. Basic scenario? A wealthy inhabitant had procured a relatively powerful talisman at a regional auction. The old fucker didn’t know how to use it—and thus defended himself against anyone who knew about the sale—but he did understand, on some level, what it was. He’d paid a pretty penny for it, and, needless to say, he wasn’t inclined to just hand it over.

But they couldn’t let the guy keep it either, since it would get him murdered or prove dangerous to other people. The magic rock could turn anything made of wood into stone. Houses, decks, floors, furniture, objects, trees—you name it. There were a thousand ways something like that could accidentally kill a person, so while the man was a low-level threat, he needed to be dealt with.

The old oil baron was a complete and total prick, but he’d done nothing to warrant execution. He wasn’t a fighter. He was a rich collector who wanted in on the talisman game. Or perhaps he worried his piles of cash and expensive things would be threatened if and when the real soldiers ended up at his door. Maybe he bought it for defense.

Whatever the reason, Ken and Dakota spent more than a week attempting the closest thing to a jewel heist that they’d ever accomplished. They broke into the guy’s house from a rooftop window, and Ken dangled down on a rope to retrieve the necklace, which sat relatively unprotected on the mantle. No one was the wiser. No one got hurt, and they had the talisman. They would check in on him in a few months to see if he tried to hunt down any more crystals.

On their way back to their temporary home in Rapid City, they got the call. A safe house underling who had a tendency to watch the news.

Tornado sighted in southeastern New Mexico. Acting erratically. No known storm activity in the area or unusually strong winds. Just a big, dusty twister that started at the side of a highway and proceeded in a guided trajectory toward Lovington. On an otherwise sunny day.