Firewalker

by Allyson James

  “Well, thank the gods for that.”

  “I know you don’t understand. But there are things I can do in my defense, and I might be able to persuade them to give me a punishment I can survive.”

  “Shit, Mick, don’t blind me with your optimism.”

  “You won’t have to worry about this, sweetheart. When they schedule the trial, I’ll go, take my punishment, and do my damndest to get back to you.”

  “You’re not going alone. The dragons are all hot to kill you because of me, and I’m going with you.”

  Mick lost his smile. He turned from the bed and reached for his shirt. “No, you are not. It’s far too dangerous for a human, and I don’t trust that one of them won’t try to kill you as soon as my back is turned. They don’t like you, and your little display up on the ridge hasn’t made things any better.”

  “My ‘little display’ saved your life. Which you’re about to throw away when you go to this fucking trial.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” he said, words clipped.

  I put my hands to my aching head. “Shit, Mick. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. Why can’t we just have a normal relationship?”

  Mick’s face softened. “A Stormwalker and a dragon? Not in this world.” He leaned to me, his body hard and warm, his fists firm on the mattress. “Janet, sweetheart, I’d a thousand times rather have what I have with you than any ‘normal’ relationship with anyone else.”

  That was more what I wanted to hear. His skin was hot and damp, his breath warm, and I’d missed him so much. I brushed my thumb over his wrist. “Stay and do some healing magic with me?”

  To my vast disappointment, Mick shook his head and straightened up. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m still pretty weak. The little healing I did on the drive back was all I had for now.”

  I shifted over in the bed, giving him plenty of room. “You do know that asking you to do healing magic is my subtle way of saying ‘come to bed and screw my brains out’?”

  Mick didn’t smile. “You’re tired, love. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Just having you in bed with me will help me feel better. I missed you, Mick. I was so worried about you.”

  “Janet.”

  I heard the “no” in his voice. My heart ached. Never since I’d met Mick had he been anything but happy to slide between the sheets with me. I needed to reassure myself that he was back with me and unhurt.

  I folded my arms. “Next time I’ll leave you at the bottom of the damned shaft.”

  Mick leaned to me again, closer this time, his breath hot. “What you don’t understand, Janet, is that I want you so bad right now that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. The things I’d want to do to you would hurt you, maybe put you back in the hospital. Is that what you want?”

  The rough note in his voice rippled agreeable heat through me. I gave him a tired smile. “I think I wouldn’t mind.”

  Mick was strong, never mind that his magic was at a low ebb. Gods, that turned me on.

  “But I’d mind.” He stood up. “I’d hurt you, baby, because right now I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I’m strong, and you’re injured, and I’d take advantage. I don’t want to have to live with that.” He turned away, but not before I saw his hands shaking.

  “Mick,” I called before he opened the door.

  He looked back, so much pain on his face that I almost relented. Almost.

  “You do have the sweetest ass,” I said.

  He growled something, ducked out into the sunlight, and slammed the door.

  I grunted and lost my smile. Mick was sexy as sin, but I still had one hell of a headache.

  When I woke up again, the sun was setting, and I felt better. The healing spells Mick had done on me in the SUV had helped, and I did a few on myself while I showered, but I could have done so much more if Mick had stayed. He’d taught me the power of Tantra, and together we’d worked some brilliant magic. The wards that secured this hotel were full of it.

  I still had a bandage on my head when I walked out to the reception area, though my arm felt well enough that I could leave that bandage off. It was six in the afternoon, and the hotel and lobby were quiet. Tourist season was winding down, and we weren’t full, which was fine with me today.

  Cassandra sat behind the reception desk at her computer. The bruise she’d sustained in the fight with Pamela was gone, probably magicked away. She wore an elegant black silk pantsuit with a rust-colored blouse, her blond hair in its usual French braid. A pair of tasteful silver and onyx earrings clasped her lobes, and she wore one silver ring with Hopi designs on her middle finger.

  “Mick told me about the rescue and the demon attack,” Cassandra said, flicking me a glance from her screen. “Are you all right?”

  I wondered how much Mick had related about my role in it, but Cassandra only looked concerned. “I’ll live.” I shrugged. “Where is Mick?”

  Cassandra had gotten used to the fact that I didn’t always know where my boyfriend was. “He said he had errands to run in Flat Mesa.”

  Fine. He might believe the dragons wouldn’t capture him again, but I still worried.

  “Any disasters here?” I asked Cassandra.

  “Depends on what you mean by disaster. Had a problem with a faucet in room six, but Fremont fixed it. I was just paying his invoice. But the magic mirror did run off one of the guests last night.”

  I gripped the counter, bracing myself for the worst. Normal human beings couldn’t hear the mirror, but Cassandra, being magical, of course, could.

  “Tell me,” I said. “How did the mirror manage to run off a guest?”

  “It was odd.” Cassandra finished the invoice as she talked, a model of multitasking efficiency. “I didn’t think the man was a supernatural. He registered as Jim Mohan, said he was from South Dakota out visiting the Southwest. His credit card checked out, and his aura looked normal—human and unthreatening. He was quiet, interested in the tourist attractions, and asked the way to the Homol’ovi ruins. I told him that the park was closed, but he said he’d come all this way to photograph them. He went up there anyway, yesterday afternoon, and showed me his pictures when he came back. Last night, when he walked into the saloon for a drink, the mirror went ballistic, shrieking and screaming and swearing like I’ve never heard before. I tried to shut it up, but it wouldn’t listen to me. Pamela even threw her drink at it.”

  I lifted my brows. “Pamela’s still here?”

  “She decided she wanted to stay a couple of days,” Cassandra said, her voice neutral. “We had a room, so she booked it. I made sure she was good for the fee.”

  I had no doubt. “So what was this Jim guy? A sorcerer?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know, but Jim could definitely hear the mirror. He went sheet white, and the mirror kept yelling at him, calling him names and spewing the filthiest language I’ve ever heard. Jim ran out of the saloon door to the parking lot, and I never saw him again.”

  “Stiffing us with the bill, you mean.”

  “I charged his card for the two nights he’d booked. If he wants to dispute it, fine, but he’ll have to go through his credit card company.”

  That was Cassandra, cutting to the essentials. “Did he leave his stuff?”

  “Yes; I was going to have Juana pack everything up and put it in storage, but the room’s not booked for another couple of days.”

  “Leave his things until I have a chance to look through them,” I said. “I’d like to know what he is. Not a Nightwalker?”

  “Definitely not. I’d have sensed that. Plus, he ate plenty of food and went out in broad daylight. Not a Changer, either, or so Pamela says.”

  “What did the mirror say he was?”

  “It didn’t. I haven’t been able to get a useful word out of it about the incident.”

  That didn’t bode well. The mirror usually listened to Cassandra, even though technically, it was supposed to obey only me and Mick, because we’d woken it from its dor
mancy with one of our Tantric spells. Whenever I threatened to muzzle the thing, the mirror would burble, “Oh, honey, you wouldn’t do that,” and would keep right on talking, but when Cassandra told it to shut up, it did. It was in awe of Cassandra, and if she hadn’t been able to make it speak, it must have been scared in a bad way.

  Thanking Cassandra, I went into the saloon.

  The restored saloon was all polished wood and brass, old-fashioned but not kitschy. We served light meals in here starting at breakfast and drinks well into the night.

  The broken magic mirror hung over the bar. A hole had been blown in the middle of it, and spiderweb cracks radiated out to the frame. I needed to get it fixed, but there were few mages in the country who could, and I was still looking for one.

  A few guests sat at a table near the window, but the bartender had ducked out somewhere. I nodded to the couple and went behind the bar, picked up the ice tongs and a glass, and helped myself to a cool drink of water.

  “So what was he?” I murmured to the mirror. “The guy you scared off last night. Jim from South Dakota.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, sweet cheeks,” the mirror said in a small voice.

  I held on to my patience. “I order you to tell me.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s so unfair.” I heard tinkling as the mirror shuddered. “His aura—oh my God, it was like a tar pit. Beware him, sugar-pie. He’s pure evil.”

  Seven

  Pure evil. Terrific.

  I kept my voice calm, not wanting to send the mirror into an incoherent panic. “Was he demon?”

  “He’s a danger to you. To all of us.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The mirror’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Because I can see the dark on the other side.”

  “Cut the drama. He wasn’t from Beneath, was he?”

  “I don’t know, girlfriend. Similar feel, but different.”

  Very clear. I did not want to deal with any more beings from Beneath, but there was still plenty of evil up here with the rest of us. “You really don’t know what he was?”

  “No, hot pants. Sorry.”

  “Well, if you remember anything else, let me know.”

  “Sure thing. Tell you what, give me a little tongue, and I’ll see what I can think of.”

  The thing never stopped. “You’re a mirror,” I reminded it. “You don’t have body parts.”

  “Hey, honey, I can dream.”

  The bartender came back in. He was human and had no idea why I kept a broken mirror on the wall that I sometimes talked to. Like the rest of my non-magical staff, he thought I was a little crazy. I smiled at him, put my empty glass in the sink, and left without saying good-bye to the mirror.

  I was itchy, and I was hungry, but I didn’t want to disturb the temperamental chef who was prepping for dinner in the vast kitchen. She was an Apache woman with a gift for cuisine, who’d trained at the best restaurants in New York and Chicago. When asked why she wanted the job here, she said she wanted something near her grandchildren in Whiteriver. Elena wasn’t the most pleasant woman to be around, but her sweet corn tamales were to die for.

  I wanted to talk to Mick again now that I was more coherent, and I wanted Mick for other, more basic reasons as well. But he’d not returned, so I left the hotel and rode my Harley through a brilliant sunset to the diner in Magellan.

  The diner was full of locals tonight, including the chief of police and his wife. The place was cramped because part of it had been barricaded by a temporary wall, an extended dining room being built behind it. The rest of the room was plenty crowded.

  I took the last open seat at the diner’s counter next to a man who was as tall and muscular as Mick. He wore jeans and a jeans jacket, his black cowboy boots propped on the rail under the stools. He was Native American, and his black hair hung in a thick braid down his back.

  “Where the hell have you been?” I asked him.

  Coyote shrugged his massive shoulders. “Around.” His liquid dark eyes took in my bandages. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Finding Mick. I could have used your help.”

  The waitress whizzed down the counter, coffeepot in hand, and asked me what I wanted. I said, “The usual,” and she shouted, “Burger, extra cheese!” into the kitchen.

  “I see you made it back alive,” Coyote said after she’d gone.

  “And almost died along the way. A big horde of demons attacked us.”

  “You’re still in one piece, obviously.”

  “But if I’d have had someone along, like—I don’t know—a god, to rescue Mick, I’d be happy and whole and not on medication.”

  Coyote shot me a grin. “Adversity builds character.”

  “I have plenty of character, thanks.”

  His smile faded, and Coyote looked at me with his god eyes, the ones that saw into every corner of my being. “Your Beneath magic came out to play, didn’t it?”

  I moved my water glass and traced the ring it left behind. “And how did you know that?”

  “It’s marked you. You need to learn to not use it, Janet. It’s dangerous, and there’s so much coming.”

  “If I live that long,” I said.

  “Yes. If you live that long.”

  Never turn to a trickster god for comfort. Before I could ask what he meant, the waitress slid my burger in front of me and slapped the check next to it. She knew I never ordered dessert.

  I took a big bite of juicy burger, the cheese melted just right. I sighed in satisfaction. Hospital food had been JellO and crackers.

  The couple who’d been sitting to my left departed, and a woman in white coveralls slid into one of their vacated seats. She took her white cap from her head, shook out her long black curls, and fixed me with an accusing stare.

  “What the hell, Janet?” she said. “Half the town was happy to tell me that you rode off with Nash in his new truck two nights ago.”

  I wiped burger grease from my lips. “I needed his help to rescue Mick.”

  Maya Medina gave me another measured stare. She’d always had the notion that Nash, her former boyfriend, was interested in me sexually. He wasn’t.

  “So, is Mick all right?” she asked me.

  “He is now.”

  “Good.”

  I took another bite of the burger, chewed, and swallowed, savoring the warm, gooey cheese. “Nash got his truck stolen out in Death Valley.”

  Maya’s grin broke out like sunshine after rain. “Good.” She tossed her hat to the counter. “Buy me a drink, and I won’t kill you.”

  I stopped the waitress and ordered Maya a beer. Not tequila—I knew from experience that she didn’t handle it well.

  As Maya tipped her head back and savored the beer, I turned back to Coyote, but the seat next to me was empty.

  “I hate when he does that,” I growled.

  “When who does what?” Maya asked.

  “Coyote. When he vanishes like that.”

  She gave me a confused look. “Coyote?”

  “He was just here. Please don’t tell me he stuck me with his bill.”

  Maya’s frown deepened. “What are you talking about? No one was sitting next to you, and I haven’t seen Coyote in weeks.”

  I opened my mouth to argue; then I closed it again and touched the bandage peeking out from under my hair. “Never mind me. I got hit on the head.”

  I sensed another presence behind me, and Maya said, “Hey, Mick,” a moment before Mick slid onto the stool where Coyote had been. He put his hand on my thigh and kissed me on my ketchup-smeared lips. “You all right?” he asked me.

  “Hungry.” I licked my fingers. “Did you see Coyote on your way in?”

  “Coyote?” Mick looked puzzled. “No.”

  “I hate when he does that too,” I muttered.

  “Does what?”

  “Makes me think I’m crazy.” I knew Coyote had really been there, warning me in his cryptic way of some mysterious danger. But gods can re
veal themselves to whomever they please and hide when they want to. I wondered if he’d gotten away with stiffing the diner for his meal.

  Mick slid his hand up my thigh. “Ready to go?” he asked.

  “Don’t you want something to eat?”

  “I had something in Flat Mesa. I came here to find you.”

  My heart beat faster. I could tell he was feeling better, his aura restored to its fiery tingle, and I was feeling better too. Mick paid for both my meal and Maya’s beer, and we left the diner.

  “Ride with me,” Mick said when we reached the parking lot.

  My excitement built as I swung onto the back of Mick’s bike, settling into the familiar seat. I knew no one would bother my motorcycle if I left it here, not with the chief of police sitting inside and everyone in town knowing the little Harley belonged to me. I also knew why Mick wanted to leave it behind—wherever we were going, whatever Mick wanted to do, he didn’t want the piece of magic mirror he’d had ground into my bike’s mirror making smart-ass comments.

  Mick rode south out of Magellan, the opposite direction from my hotel. It was dark now, the stars bright, the moon hanging on the northeastern horizon. Mick turned onto a dirt road that led back to a couple of ranches, drove down this for about half a mile, and stopped.

  The road was empty, the desert dark. I smelled dust, the exhaust from Mick’s bike, and Mick.

  “I missed you, baby.” Mick’s voice was raw and dark. He pulled me from the bike and against him, his fingers biting into my arms. “I was locked away for weeks, and all I could think about was you.”

  “Not about food and water or freedom?”

  “Funny. Dragons can go a long time without sustenance. We can exist for years curled away in the dark.” He brushed back a lock of my hair. “But all this bad-ass dragon could do is crave the human woman he’s fallen for.”

  “I missed you too,” I said.

  In silence, Mick kissed me. The kiss we’d shared in Death Valley after we’d crawled out of the mine shaft had been one of glad desperation. This time Mick kissed me slowly, taking his time to do it right. He pressed me to him with his palm on the back of my neck, his lips hard, the taste of his mouth dark and spicy.