Stormwalker Page 29

  The white light around my mother shot toward me like a deadly arrow. Nash leapt at me, knocking me aside. The lightning dispersed, I fell heavily to the mud, and Nash took the full power of Beneath straight into his body.

  Nash clenched his fists, throwing back his head, his jaw hard with agony. The magic poured into him, faster and faster. Nothing came out of his body; he absorbed every molecule, just as he had the little shards of the protection spell I’d tried on him, just as he had with Mick’s fire.

  Mick swooped above me, his wings outstretched like a glider. He dove for the wash’s edge, his mouth opening wide.

  The blast of dragon fire flowed through the wash like lava, melting everything in its path. My mother screamed, but she kept growing, reaching Beneath to enhance her power.

  Mick’s fire wasn’t enough. I shook off Coyote and grabbed the storm again. The familiar bite of it filled my body; the power made me stretched and warm—and I knew I could control it. The two magics that had always warred inside me swirled together like yin and yang, and I suddenly knew exactly how to mesh them.

  I stretched out my hands and lightning burst from them in a focused stream, meeting Mick’s fire and joining it. We poured our magic into the crack, the melding of Mick’s fire with my white lightning warming me like an embrace.

  The earth shook, rocks shattered, and then the banks of the wash began to collapse in on themselves. My mother shrieked. As the vortex closed, its swirling energy started pulling her back inside, like a giant drain that had just been cleared.

  The Beneath light still poured into Nash, his body deflecting it from Mick and me. Coyote, his animal’s body surrounded by a blue glow, simply watched.

  My mother’s form started to crumple, breaking apart and falling into the crack in the earth like rubble from an avalanche. My mother reached for me, her face twisted in hatred, and then the white light plummeted back Beneath, taking my mother with it. The banks of the wash fell, the wash itself becoming a line of tumbled trees, mud, and boulders.

  The suction of the vortex faded, and abruptly, as though someone had thrown a switch, the hum of it ceased. The white light winked out and Nash staggered back.

  Hail poured down, lightning crackling along the ridgeline. I was shaking all over, my magics breaking down into disparate parts again, which meant my hangover rushed at me with the speed of a Mack truck. The shard of magic mirror fell from my grip and hit the gravel at my feet.

  “Oh, sugar,” I heard it say. “That was something.”

  Mick flew high, turned on one wing, and landed a little way from us. As soon as his dragon feet touched down, he morphed into the tall human I knew so well. I ran for him, which turned into stumbling and blundering, tripping on clumps of grass and thistles. The hail became rain, then slackened to a gentle shower. The lightning gave one last, determined strike before it rumbled away.

  My body didn’t calm. Electricity crawled through me, coupled with the Beneath power, again wanting to tear me apart. Gone was the easy, painless magic I’d wielded Beneath, even the controlled storm magic with which I’d sealed the vortex. Back was the horrific, bone-aching, head-pounding insanity that usually greeted me.

  “Mick,” I panted.

  Mick caught me in arms that were once again covered with the black tattoos. I’d never been so happy to see body art in my life.

  He kissed me. The kiss told me he loved me, no matter that I was an insane, out-of-control Stormwalker with mommy issues. However much he’d feared me Beneath, he’d protected me, had been ready to die for me. I rose into the kiss, wishing Coyote and Nash far away so I could make love to Mick right here in the rain.

  Coyote came to us, human once more. He’d not helped us seal the vortex, but I could tell he was satisfied with what I’d done. If I’d failed, or tried to join my mother, I have no doubt he’d have killed me and killed me quickly. Gods didn’t have the internal dilemmas of human beings.

  “Heads up, kids,” he said.

  Then I remembered. The dragons.

  They were there all right, hovering in formation over the dark desert, well away from the vortexes. They’d waited, not bothering to lend a hand, or a wing, to see whether I succeeded or failed.

  “What the hell?” Nash demanded of Mick. He was drenched and splattered with mud, but other than that he looked pretty good for a man who’d just absorbed a ton of Beneath magic. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “There are more of you?”

  The dragons flew toward us, five of them, three black like Mick, two fiery red. I didn’t have to guess at their intention. I was about to become dragon toast, a little pile of ash that someone could put in a museum case and label “Janet Begay.”

  Mick took about ten running steps, spread his arms, and launched himself into the sky. He turned to dragon as he rose and flew to meet the others. Dragon bellows shattered the air. They circled one another, growling and roaring, bodies moving in sinuous streaks. Tongues of flames burst into the darkness. I had the feeling that we were going to be hearing reports of unidentified flying objects from here to Gallup. That is, if we lived that long.

  Mick came hurtling back at me, five dragons on his tail. Coyote grabbed Nash and yanked him out of the way, but I remained, transfixed, eyes wide.

  I expected Mick to change when he landed, but instead he whipped his dragon body around me, enclosing me in a wall of black scales, his hide rising higher than my head. His scales were unexpectedly warm, smooth as silk, as the dragon held me in a protective embrace. A tight, protective embrace.

  The five dragons attacked. Claws out, fire raining, they dove for me and Mick. Mick answered them with a roar and a shot of flame. The dragons broke apart. I couldn’t see all of what they did, but I heard them surrounding us, Mick bellowing while they screeched back.

  I expected the dragons to incinerate both me and Mick at any moment, but after a long time of dragons screaming at one another, the five backed away. I felt a rush of wind from their wings, and then their shrieks faded into the distance and were gone. A rumble of thunder sounded from far away, and moonlight broke through a tear in the clouds.

  “Aw, ain’t that sweet?” I heard Coyote say.

  “Sweet?” I shouted from behind Mick’s wall of scales. “I thought I was dead. I didn’t hear you trying to talk them out of it.”

  “I didn’t have to,” Coyote called back. “He told them you were his mate.”

  “What?” I pushed at Mick, but it was like trying to move a mountain.

  “Dragons don’t mess with each other’s mates,” Coyote answered. “It’s a law or something. Dragons take laws very seriously.”

  Nash would approve of them, then. I pushed at Mick again. “Mick, let me go. You’re suffocating me.”

  Instantly Mick’s dragon body flowed apart, and I drew a breath of relief. He lowered his head, tilting it so he could regard me with one unblinking black eye.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Mate?”

  Mick’s dragon body shrank rapidly, Mick morphing until he became the human I knew so well. The dragon tattoos slithered into place around his arms, black eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” He didn’t look one bit sorry. “It was the only way. The dragons will leave you alone now.”

  “What about you?” Coyote asked, his eyes shrewd. “Will they leave you alone?”

  Mick gave Coyote an evasive look I didn’t like. “Who the hell knows? But Janet is safe.” He came to me again, his body slick with rain. “You all right, baby?”

  “Squished, muddy, scared, hurting, and the storm magic is making me crazy. Otherwise, fine.”

  Mick slid his hands down my back. “Need me to draw it off?”

  “Please.” I needed him. Desperately.

  He smiled, the same old Mick smile. Electricity crackled out of me and crawled across his body, huge doses of storm power and Beneath power all mixed up. I’d handled a lot tonight, more than I ever had before.

  “No,” I said, trying to break aw
ay. “It’s too much. I’ll hurt you.”

  Mick kept his hands firmly on my hips. “Jones, come here and help me.”

  “Help you what?” Nash asked, but Coyote laughed.

  “Come on, Sheriff,” Coyote said. “I’ll show you.”

  Nash came to us uncertainly, but Coyote told him to embrace me from behind. Nash slid his arms around my waist, muttering something under his breath. I felt his hard chest on my back, his thighs against mine, and his arousal, though I knew he didn’t want to be aroused, pressing my buttocks.

  Mick lowered his mouth to mine, his lips warm and powerful.

  Another pair of arms slid around my waist as Coyote pressed against my right thigh. I remembered my erotic dreams about the four of us together, and Coyote, who always seemed to know what I was thinking, laughed softly in my ear.

  I let my lightning flow into Mick through his mouth, into Nash and Coyote through my body. Nash absorbed my magic without a sound, as though he barely felt it, which made me realize just how powerful he must be. He’d taken the brunt of magic from Beneath and never said a word, not to mention the storm magic I’d thrown at him when my mother tried to make me rape him in the police SUV. All of that, and he didn’t even look tired.

  I let go of those thoughts and concentrated on kissing Mick. I laced my hands behind his neck, pulled him down to me. I loved this man, this dragon, who raced to my rescue, who’d driven away the dragons and saved me one more time.

  Having the two other men surrounding me with their warmth was strange but not bad. I felt cozy between them, so safe. Had my dreams been a prophecy? Or wishful thinking?

  Mick cupped my face and drew back a little. I moaned. “No, don’t stop.”

  He grinned. “Sounds like you’re feeling better.”

  “Aw, too bad.” Coyote’s teeth grazed my earlobe, his hot breath tickling.

  “Back off,” Mick growled. “She’s mine.”

  “Yeah, so you said to the dragons.”

  Nash removed his hold and stepped away abruptly. Coyote chuckled and gave my behind a pat. “You’re a babe, Janet.”

  I started to wind my arms around Mick’s neck again, ready for him to take me home. He’d carry me back to the hotel, undress me, and wash me, then we’d fall together onto the bed.

  Instead, someone wrenched first my right wrist, then my left, behind me, and I felt the unmistakable chill of handcuffs against my flesh. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I’ll warn you again, Begay. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  “Nash,” I said. “I really, really hate you.”

  Thirty

  I woke the next morning, rolled over, fell out of bed, and landed on a hard, cement floor.

  My eyes popped open. Instead of my comfortable little bedroom at my hotel, I found a jail cell, one I recognized. I closed my eyes again and groaned. Damn Nash.

  Lopez came to get me not long later, after I’d tried to scrub my face in the paltry stream of water and use the rather disgusting toilet. He gave me coffee, which I tried not to heave up again, and took me to an interview room.

  Not long later, Nash Jones faced me across a cold table, a folder open in front of him. Once again, he was clean, shaved, and neatly dressed, while I looked and felt like hell.

  “Haven’t we done this before?” I asked him.

  “This won’t take long. I need a statement from you.”

  “I state that I hate all sheriffs named Nash Jones.”

  “Very funny.” Nash touched the paper in the folder with a clean finger. He must scrub under his fingernails every hour, they looked so pristine. “I witnessed you committing assault with a deadly weapon against Amy McGuire. Amy will live, but that doesn’t exonerate you.”

  Amy was in the hospital, Lopez had told me when he’d brought me coffee. She was weak but expected to make a full recovery. Her parents were with her, confused by what I’d done, but glad that their daughter would be all right.

  “Amy went after Maya with a knife, if you remember,” I said. “She would have killed Maya, and Amy might have died too. My mother was controlling her; she could have made Amy turn the knife on herself. I’m sorry Amy got hurt, but I really had no choice.”

  Nash glanced at the report again, and when he looked up, his expression had changed to that of a man facing something new and uncomfortable. “Three weeks ago, I would have said you were talking pure bullshit.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don’t know what to think.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments, then I asked in a quiet voice, “Has Amy asked to see you?”

  Nash sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “No. McGuire says she wants to go back to the convent.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was sorry; Nash could be a pain in the ass, but he hadn’t deserved my mother pretty much wrecking his life.

  “So that’s that,” he said. He looked resigned, but I could see in his eyes what this last year had cost him.

  “What about Maya?” I asked. “You and Maya, I mean.”

  His cold look returned. “None of your business.” Personal revelations over. Nash shut the folder with his usual brusqueness. “I’m charging you with illegally discharging a firearm and with destruction to a police vehicle. I’m letting the bigger charge of assault go because Amy did attack Maya, and you were trying to stop her. I’ve also decided to overlook your assault on me, because Mick has convinced me you were not in control of your actions at the time.”

  A nice way of saying, possessed by a crazy goddess who tried to have sex with the sheriff so she could make a messed-up demon child with him. “Believe me, I never would have touched you if I could have helped it,” I said.

  “I’ll be watching to make sure you turn up on your court date. If the judge is reasonable, you’ll probably only get community service.”

  I brought my fists together and leaned my head on them. “You’re such a softie, Jones.”

  “I witnessed the shooting; I can’t let you off completely. I’m not the kind of sheriff who gives favoritism to my friends.”

  I raised my head, regarded him with aching eyes. “Are we friends? Aw, that’s sweet.”

  Nash rose, picking up his folder. “Get out of here, Janet. Go home, clean up, and show up on your court date.”

  “You’re all heart, Sheriff.”

  He said nothing, only walked out the door, taking his folder. He left the door open, and I lost no time obeying his order to get the hell out of there.

  A month or so after my overnight at the jail, the hotel was almost finished, the electricity and plumbing working, the new bar varnished and ready. The magic mirror was sulking a little because I hadn’t yet found anyone to fix it, but I cut it some slack, because the little shard of silicon had saved my life.

  Jamison brought me his gift of sculpture for the lobby, a coyote of beautiful black stone he set on a pillar at the bottom of the stairs. Above it I hung a framed photo I’d shot of the moonrise my father and I liked to watch over the mountain near Many Farms. I’d captured the blue twilight, the red of the cliffs, and the disk of moon sailing into place.

  “There’s one mystery you haven’t solved,” Jamison said to me as he stood back and admired the setting.

  “What mystery is that?”

  Maya was helping Fremont hang more of my photos, and I sensed them listening. Technically their jobs with me were finished, but they’d taken to dropping by to see how things were going. They’d chat, help out, have a beer with me. By tacit agreement, Maya and I steered clear of tequila.

  “How Sherry Beaumont came to be stashed in your basement,” Jamison said.

  Mick looked up from behind the lobby counter, his blue eyes meeting mine. Mick had been sticking around lately, no unexplained trips. The dragons hadn’t swooped down to fry him, or me either, but I remembered the look he’d given Coyote when he’d said he wasn’t sure what the dragons would do to him. I still didn’t like that.

  “Fremont,
” I said. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Fremont dropped his hammer, the clatter echoing through the lobby. “What are you talking about?”

  “You found Sherry dead in the desert and worried that people would think you killed her,” I said. “So you brought her into a building you thought would never be used again. She could be hidden behind the basement wall until she crumbled to dust.”

  Fremont’s mouth hung open. Mick leaned on his elbows, listening. A casual observer might think him relaxed, but I knew he could vault over the counter and grab Fremont the instant he thought he needed to.

  “I told you,” Fremont stammered. “I thought Sherry had gone home. I never saw her again.”

  “I bet it scared you, stumbling across her body while you went for your usual walk.”

  “I swear to you, Janet, I never touched her. I never knew she was dead.”

  “Would you swear that to Chief McGuire? Or Sheriff Jones?”

  “Dios mío.” Maya didn’t drop her hammer; she threw it. It skittered across the floor until it hit the reception counter. “Leave Fremont alone. He doesn’t know anything about it. I put Sherry Beaumont in the basement.”

  “I know,” I said softly.

  “Then why the hell were you going on at Fremont about it? Just when I think maybe you aren’t a bitch—”

  “To get you to admit it,” I interrupted. “You found her, and you thought Nash killed her.”

  “Yes.” Maya gave me a look of defiance. “I thought he’d had one of his episodes. Maybe he thought she was Amy and killed her for running away from him. Or maybe he just didn’t know what he was doing. He wouldn’t have killed her on purpose.”

  Mick cut in. “But she had no signs of violence on her. Why did you think she’d been killed?”

  “How could I know? I’m not police or a doctor. Even if there was no obvious sign, if her body was found, Nash would be suspected. Look how fast everyone suspected him when Amy disappeared. He’d be arrested and sent to prison—or to a psychiatric ward. I’d never see him again.” Maya’s voice was thick with tears.