Pilbara region, Western Australia
Present day

Jackson Slater lowered himself over the crumbling rim of the volcanic plug, then dropped into the cooler, shadowy dimness of a rust-colored soda trachyte rock tube. He didn’t need the rope. He was a wizard, after all, and perfectly capable of drifting down the seemingly bottomless vertical tunnel, light as a feather, without it. But what the hell was the fun in that?

He was a wizard, but he was foremost a geologist. A field hand of earth science. Confined spaces, sweat, and the adrenaline rush of new discoveries fed his soul and fueled his imagination. The ley he was following originated south of Perth in Mandurah, ran up through the mountains through small towns like Sandstone and Wiluna, and ended here in the Rudall River National Park.

Jack had climbed mountains, forded rivers, and slept on the hard ground for months to reach his conclusions before presenting his latest findings to the Archon Council, which would in turn share that information with the Wizard Council.

How deep was this tunnel? he wondered, descending hand-over-hand. The plug, six feet across, didn’t give him a lot of room to maneuver. He was a big guy. He’d been in darker, tighter plugs in other parts of the world, but rarely had he experienced this kind of intensity. Every twenty feet, he took out the meter to observe the happy dance of the gauge.

Jesus. Look at the thing jump. He couldn’t wait to get back to his temporary lab in Perth and run his samples through the chromatograph.

The salt lakes characteristic of this desert region, part of a palaeodrainage system, indicated there was probably water far below. He could almost smell it, but what riveted his attention was the powerful force of the ley he was tracking. The leys, invisible force fields of magnetic energy deep within the earth’s crust, were a source of power to wizards—millions of whom lived, worked, and thrived unnoticed along the leys, coexisting with the humans who had no idea magic was in their midst and beneath their feet.

The Archon, governing body of the Aequitas, had given him the enormous and delicate task of mapping and cataloging the thousands of leylines banding the globe. As keepers of the land, the Aequitas were charged with the safety and well-being of the mostly oblivious mortals around them.

“Oh, yeah. I feel you.” His voice echoed slightly. The strong vibration of magic zinged through his body as though he were a tuning fork. Intense, alive, the ley pulsed around him harder and faster as he descended. Place smelled like dirt and sweat. Nah. He smelled of dirt and sweat; the tunnel had a slightly musty, damp clay smell, indicating water far below. “Better than citrus and ginger, and a hell of a lot more interesting.”

Jack!

His head jerked up. What the … ? No one visible above.

Jaaaack!

Ignoring what honest to God sounded like a woman’s voice shrieking in his ear, Jack took several soil samples one-handed. Maybe he should think about that beer and shower sooner rather than later if he was starting to hallucinate.

He continued downward, sweat oiling his skin, using his shoulder to swipe at the runnels on his face. He wondered if the leylines in the western deserts were the basis of stories told by the aborigines, who said the land was crisscrossed by a large number of mythical songlines or dreaming tracks associated with magical beings. One story involved the travels of two lizard-men known as the Wadi and Gudjara; another described an enormous snake who mystically disappeared beneath the earth and remained there to this day.

With the blue sky a small circle above him and a powerful ley beneath him, Jack felt at peace for perhaps the first time in several years. He was a loner by nature, more comfortable in a desert than a city. Better off identifying a leyline than what went on in a woman’s illogical, convoluted brain. And while he enjoyed his fair share of the ladies, he always came back to what he loved most.

Geology. Leys. Solitude.

The Archon paid him. Paid him ridiculously well. But he’d be ley hunting if he were doing it for free. This was his life’s work, his burning passion, what got him up in the morning and kept him going long past exhaustion. He was his job. All his eggs in one basket, and to hell with anyone who had a problem with that. There wasn’t anyone he gave a damn about anyway. Not anymore.

A man knew exactly where he was with a leyline. There was no room for interpretation. Leys were logical. Honest. Reliable. And nonjudgmental.

He paused again to record the strength of the power surging up through the thick soles of his boots then lowered himself another twenty feet. The meter in his breast pocket vibrated against his chest like a second heartbeat.

“And you—hell, you are the granddaddy of them all, aren’t you, big fella?” And he should know; he’d mapped thousands of them all over the world. He slowly dropped another ten, using his booted feet to keep his body away from the walls, where he suspected snakes and poisonous spiders lurked to avoid the heat of the day.

Aboveground, the sun-baked rocks were hot enough to fry an egg. The lower he dropped, the cooler it became—if one considered a hundred degrees cool. Jack grinned. He loved this shit. Loved the heat. The solitude. The high of discovery.

His meter was going off the charts, and he methodically recorded into a small voice-activated tape recorder as he went. “Why isn’t anyone living around here?” he mused aloud to keep himself company after he’d documented relevant data. It was too damned hot, of course. Only a madman would live—or work—out here in the middle of a desert, hundreds of miles from civilization.

The Rudall River National Park was one of the most remote wilderness areas in the world. Nothing but spiny, pale green clumps of spinifex, a few stands of eucalyptus, and flat, red earth as far as the eye could see.

His body ached pleasantly from long hours bent over his equipment in the broiling sun. But before he teleported back to camp and materialized an ice-cold beer and a cool shower, there were still several hours of daylight left to do what he loved—research the fascinating and complex leylines in this part of the world.

Exhilarated by his latest find, Jack had shoved aside the physical exhaustion, pushing himself long and hard for the last couple of weeks. South America was next on his list, but he’d been putting that trip off for a while now.

He unhooked his water bottle from his belt and chugged half of its contents down, relishing the warm wetness on his parched throat.

Jaaaack!

His head jerked up. There was, of course, no one there screaming down to him. He was alone. The only thing visible at the mouth of the tube was a small circle of blue sky. Ignoring the icy chill that had suddenly skittered across his nerve endings, Jack dropped another ten feet and paused to record the data.

San CristÓbal, Venezuela

SARA TEMPLE DROPPED ONTO a straight-backed chair beside her friend, when what she really wanted to do was pace like a caged lion. She hated feeling helpless. “Carmelita, we have to get help.”

“You are all the help Alberto needs, mija.” Carmelita’s olive skin was gray with fear. Twisting her apron in her lap, she gave Sara a helplessly trusting look out of dark eyes. “You did good with him just now. He will get better soon. You will see.”

“I didn’t do any good at all,” Sara said in a strained voice as they sat outside the closed bedroom door. The sound of furniture being thrown violently against the walls indicated that, far from settling down, Carmelita’s husband was getting worse.

Sick with a fever, crazed and delirious, Alberto had tried to strangle his wife only moments before. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t recognize either Carmelita or Sara. The only positive thing was that he wasn’t using magic. God only knew what his distorted mind would conjure while he was in this state.

Damn it, how could any illness cause him to lose himself this fast? An hour ago, he’d looked better than he had in a week and been joking and laughing in his kitchen as he prepared the midday meal with his staff. Sara had gone in to let him know the head honcho, Grant Baltzer, wouldn’t be home for lunch. Alberto was used to things changing at the last minute. He had been Grant’s chef, and Carmelita had been Grant’s housekeeper, since as far back as Sara could remember. They and Sara had traveled all over the world with Grant and his business partner, William Roe, as Baltzer Enterprises built fabulous hotel properties in some of the most beautiful and affluent cities in the world. At present, they were constructing a string of luxury hotels down the west coast of South America and living in a sprawling hacienda a hundred miles from the nearest town.

Fifteen minutes later, after Sara delivered her message and shared an iced coffee with him, Alberto had thrown a carving knife at his assistant, then grabbed Carmelita by the throat when she’d come in.

Sara shuddered.

“We have locked him inside,” Carmelita said resolutely, somehow managing to look as though she didn’t hear the mayhem going on in the room behind them. “The fever will burn away. Can you not use your powers to make him sleep? The doctor, he will just give him medicine and tell him to rest. He needs rest, mija. You can make him sleep deeply and peacefully. You will see, my Alberto will be better by morning if you make him sleep now.”

Carmelita had an unhealthy aversion to doctors. Sara had an unhealthy aversion to using her wizard powers. She suspected her foster father needed more than a good night’s rest. Medication would surely help.