Jamison’s angry look softened. Maybe he was remembering the scared fifteen-year-old again. Now I was twenty-six and just as scared.
“Coyote can help you. He’s strong enough.”
“Right. He keeps threatening to kill me if I don’t stop using the magic. But I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Mick, then.”
I hugged my arms to my chest, the evening air turning chilly. “He says the same thing. Besides, he’s gone. We had a fight.”
“Make up with him. You need him.”
“When I said gone, I meant gone as in I have no idea where he is. The last I saw him he was heading down the back roads of Arizona. He could have hitched a ride to anywhere by now.”
“Nash, then. If he’s this null, maybe he can help you muffle the magics.”
I had thought of that but was unsure how it could work, or whether I could convince Nash to help me.
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”
Jamison started to reach for me, but he thought better of it and dropped his hand.
The gesture cut my heart. Jamison had been the one person I could turn to, the one friend I could trust. Now he didn’t want to touch me, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I feel like shit,” I said.
“You need to rest. What you’re going through is . . . Well, I don’t really know what you’re going through, but exhaustion won’t help.” Jamison’s tone softened. “My shaman advice to you is to go to bed. Before you do, will you call Naomi and tell her I need a ride home? If I walk home as a mountain lion in this town, I’ll probably get shot. And if I do it as a naked man, I’ll never live it down.”
I retreated to my bedroom after I had Cassandra call Naomi, and locked the door. I sat with my back against the headboard for a long time, the thoughts in my head wringing me dry.
I’d hurt one of my best friends in the world. If Jamison hadn’t been a Changer, hadn’t managed to save himself from the fall, he’d be lying in a broken heap, possibly dead. I’d done that. The horror in his eyes had broken my heart.
This was the thing the dragons saw and feared, what Mick had been sent to stop. This past spring, they’d wanted to prevent me from meeting with my hell-goddess mother, but I realized now it went deeper than that. They didn’t want me to become her.
I didn’t want to either. Stupid me, thinking I had the magic under control. Just because I was now able to fight with it, to channel it to battle a threat, I thought I’d mastered it. How could I be such an idiot? This power was beyond me. It was god power, and I was a human being.
Though a goddess had brought me into existence, I’d been born of human parents, with human frailty. God power would rip me apart.
I pressed my hands between my knees, my knees to my chest. Could I be terrified now? What was I going to do? Jamison had tried to teach me to observe the magic and understand it, but I didn’t think chanting and meditation was going to help this time.
I needed Mick. He’d taught me to contain my Stormwalker power, to make it part of me. His methods had been harsh at times, but they’d worked. But I had no idea where Mick had gone. I’d thought about calling him earlier today, but when I’d walked into my bedroom, I’d found his cell phone sitting square on my dresser. The sight of it had washed pain all through me.
I could use the mirror to call to Mick, but only if Mick hadn’t thrown his piece away or would even take it out of his damned pocket if he heard it. I’d left the shard up on the roof, but I had another in its chamois bag in the pocket of my leather jacket. I could feel the mirror’s terror from it as well as all the way from the saloon. Because I’d awakened it, it had to obey me, whether it liked it or not. Right now, it feared me, and I didn’t have the heart to force it to work.
I felt so alone right then I thought I’d die.
I sat for hours while the night grew dark and the moon floated across the sky, changing the shadows. I felt the magic wanting to come out and play, but if I held myself tightly enough, I could fend it off. Maybe.
A key turned in the lock, and the door swung inward, the bright rectangle of the doorway piercing my eyes. Maya came in, leaving the door open behind her.
“You all right, Janet?” She sat on the foot of the bed. “Everyone’s worried about you, but they’re afraid to come in here.”
“And you aren’t?”
“No.” Maya wore jeans and a shirt this evening, but she managed to look as lovely in that as she had in her turquoise party dress. “The only things that frighten me are my mother’s lectures about getting married and having children. She says I’m going to be fat and ugly in a few years, so I’d better have snared a man and pushed out a couple of kids by then.”
I wanted to smile, but my mouth was too tight. “If you work out and take care of yourself, your looks will stay around for a while longer.”
“Have you eaten anything since we got back?”
I shook my head. I’d intended to grab some lunch in the kitchen, but never got around to it.
Maya held out her hand. “Come with me. We’re going to get you dinner.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m not going to bring you a tray. Your cook is a scary bitch, and I don’t want to interrupt her when she’s anywhere near her knives.”
“Maya, I can’t. I threw Jamison off the roof. I could have killed him.”
“Is that why he was standing out on the railroad bed mostly naked? You know, he’s really hot. If he wasn’t married...”
“This isn’t a joke.”
Maya grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet with surprising strength. “If you’re trying to get through something, not eating will just make you weaker.”
Right now I felt weak as a flea. Weaker—fleas can be mean.
For some reason, I didn’t try to stop Maya towing me out front and through the lobby. At least she let me bring my jacket. Cassandra watched me from the reception desk but made no move to intercept me. Pamela stood near her, arms folded, looking formidable. She was protecting Cassandra, I realized with a jolt. From me.
Maya took me out to where her own truck sat in the lot, back from its Las Vegas adventure. The Crossroads Bar was going strong, the parking lot full of motorcycles, a knot of biker men and women clustered near the door. Nash Jones liked to raid the place once in a while, looking for drugs and arms dealers. I hoped he didn’t tonight, because I didn’t want to see him.
I thought Maya might take me to the diner to stuff a cheeseburger and milk shake into me, but she passed the diner and turned down the road that led to her own home. The white frame house stood back from the road in a neat patch of lawn, flowers blooming in the tiny garden under the front window.
Maya let us in. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll make us dinner.”
I looked into the bathroom mirror and bit back a scream. My face was drained of color and streaked with dirt from crawling across the roof. My shirt was ripped and just as dirty. My eyes, though, terrified me. An ice green glint glowed out at me before receding to my usual dark brown.
My hands shook as I washed my face and dried myself with Maya’s clean towels. When I walked out, Maya was cooking something that smelled good. She pointed with a spatula at a pile of shirts on the couch and told me to pick one out.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked her as I stripped off my top and pulled on a black one with a spangled design. It was a little big for me but at least clean and whole. “When I first moved here, you hated me.”
“With good reason. You can be a true bitch, Janet. But you also saved my ass up in Las Vegas, and you’re fun to party with.”
“Good for me.”
“Shut up and eat. I only know how to cook Mexican food, so that’s what you’re getting. My mother wouldn’t teach me anything else.”
“I like Mexican.”
“That’s good.”
The plate she put in front of me tempted me in spite of my mood. She hadn’t made your average tacos or burritos but a s
avory meat in a thick sauce ladled over a couple of fresh corn tortillas. A corn and rice pilaf had been piled beside it. I dug in, my eyes watering from the chiles, my mouth very happy.
“You should open a restaurant,” I said.
“No way. I like working with wiring because it doesn’t complain. People in restaurants do. All the time, about everything.”
True. I’d already encountered people who couldn’t be happy with anything in my hotel, no matter how hard I tried.
I was shoveling in the last mouthful, thinking I could fall in love with Maya, when she glanced sharply out of the window. “Who the hell is that?”
I whirled, nearly sending my plate to the floor. A long black limousine had stopped in the street outside, an incongruous vehicle in this neighborhood of pickups and modest family sedans.
A dark-haired man emerged from the front passenger side and opened the back door of the limo. Another dark man got out, this one with sleek black hair in a ponytail that glittered under the streetlight. He wore a long leather coat, and I saw lines of tattoos snaking around his neck to disappear into his shirt. His aura bore sparks of fire, as did the aura of the similarly dressed men behind him.
My heart squeezed into a tiny ball. “Maya, you should get out of here.”
“Why? Who are they?”
Dragons. Here to slay me? But I was under protection as Mick’s mate, wasn’t I? Which only lasted as long as Mick was alive, I remembered. The fine aftertaste of Maya’s food turned bitter.
Had the dragons bypassed the trial and simply killed Mick? Found him walking alone and decided to take him out to get to me? And where the hell was Colby?
The two tall men in leather dusters kept coming up the walk. The Beneath magic stirred in me, ready for battle.
The first dragon stepped square into Maya’s flowerbed, squashing blossoms, and she was out of the house like a shot. “Hey. Watch what you’re doing!”
The man’s eyes were black dark, like Mick’s when the dragon in him rose to the surface. His ponytail bared his neck, and I saw that the tattoo lines were the ends of sharp wings. He must be inked all down his back, with the edges of the tatts rising up his neck.
“We’re not here for you,” the man said to Maya and flicked his gaze to me. The dragon-man behind him was even taller, his hair shorter, a tattoo flowing up the sides of his neck and over his ears. He looked older than the first man, more regal.
Maya regarded them coldly. “No? Who the hell are you?”
“They’re here for me,” I said.
I stepped out past her to face the first dragon, who was as tall as Mick. I folded my arms and gazed up at him, trying for the protective look Pamela had assumed while she’d watched over Cassandra.
Maya ducked back inside, and I saw her going for her phone. She’d call the cops, maybe Nash. The first dragon glanced in, raised his hand, and the phone burst into flame. Maya shrieked.
“Leave her alone,” I said in a hard voice. “What do you want?”
“For you to come with us,” the first dragon said.
“That’s a line from a bad movie. Why should I?”
“We need to talk about Mick’s trial.”
I went cold, although some relief touched me. If they were talking about the trial, then Mick must still be alive.
“It’s straightforward, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’ve already decided that Mick’s guilty. You only need to decide whether to give him a chance to survive his punishment. His Ordeal, whatever that turns out to be.”
“That has yet to be determined.”
“You’re the dragon council, I take it.”
“He is.” The first man jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the taller dragon. “He wants to meet with you in private. It’s perfectly within dragon law.”
“I’m so relieved.” Like hell I was going to get into a car with them. “We can have our little meeting right here.”
“No.” The taller man spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, with undertones of darkness, far richer and fuller than the first man’s. He was much older, I guessed, with time to develop a timbre like that. “We will speak in a place of my choosing.”
“What guarantee do I have that I’ll make it back from this place of your choosing?”
His flunky answered me. “You are protected under dragon law. You are mated to a dragon, and you are a key witness. Until the trial, you are untouchable.”
“And after it?”
The man raised his shoulders in a leather-clad shrug. “That remains to be seen.”
“You know how to make a girl feel good.”
I thought the corners of the councilman’s mouth twitched, but I couldn’t be sure. The flunky didn’t look amused. “You can come with us voluntarily, or we can force you.”
“I thought you just said I was untouchable.”
He gave me a brief nod. “We are not allowed to kill you. But we can kidnap you if we later release you unharmed, especially if it might be for your own good.”
“Now I know you’re dragons. You have that twisted dragon logic.”
Maya was on the porch again, looking scared but scowling. “You’re not leaving with them, Janet.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, deciding. “I want to hear what they have to say.”
I didn’t trust them, but I did know by now that dragons fell down and worshipped dragon law and honor. I also knew that my Beneath magic was up to taking them if they got cocky. I kept that thought out of the front of my head, in case they could sense it somehow, but the magic was amused.
I was so tired of thinking of my magic as a separate entity. I wanted to conquer it or get rid of it. I didn’t like it talking to me.
The councilman started walking back to the car. The flunky gestured me to precede him. I made them wait to fetch my coat, and the flunky insisted Maya bring it to me.
“Janet,” Maya said as she handed me my warm leather jacket.
I shrugged it on. “Go to the Magellan Inn and ask for Colby. Tell him what I’m doing.”
“Putting your trust in Colby is foolish,” the flunky said.
“Yes, well, he’s a dragon, and I figure at least he’ll know where you’ve taken me. And how to find me if I don’t come out.”
Now the flunky looked annoyed. I didn’t like going with them, but I wanted to pick their brains as much as they wanted to pick mine.
“Tell him,” I said to Maya.
She nodded, and I walked down the drive ahead of the flunky. The chauffeur’s assistant had the back door open, a portal to a dark, plush interior.
The councilman entered the car. The flunky stood back and waited for me to get in. Such a gentleman. I had one foot in the door when something wrapped around me from behind and yanked me out again. Not a hand, not an arm, a band of white magic that tried to squeeze me in two.
I heard shouting—the flunky, the chauffeur who’d jumped out of the car, his assistant, Maya. The band of light lifted me high and then dropped me.
I landed at the feet of Jim Mohan, who did not look good. His face and arms were covered with abrasions and bruises from the club having fallen on him. Healing abrasions—which was weird. His wounds had healed even more than mine had, and I’d done healing spells on myself.
I got speedily to my feet. The dragons rushed us, and the flunky grabbed me by the arms to haul me away from Jim.
“No!” Jim shouted. “Leave her alone!”
The flunky dragged me away. The chauffeur and his assistant pulled out pistols. I realized with a jolt that those two weren’t dragons—they were as human as Maya.
I had no idea whether bullets would kill Jim or just piss him off. He’d been resurrected, but he could obviously be hurt. Could he be killed again by human weapons?
The flunky shoved me against the car and moved to Jim, hands flaming. The councilman himself came behind him.
If Jim ignored the pistols, he didn’t ignore the dragon fire. He swung to face the two dragons, hands raised.
“Don’t attack him!” I yelled at the dragons. “Get in your damn car, and get out of here!”
They didn’t listen to me. Of course not. Stubborn, arrogant dragons. The councilman and flunky went for him, flames streaming from their hands, tattoos glowing under their clothes.
It happened so fast, I couldn’t tell how he did it. One moment the two dragons were advancing, ready to burn Jim to a cinder. The next, the dragon councilman rose into the air and started to scream.
His body cracked straight down the middle. Crimson blood sprayed over me like water, the councilman’s scream died to a gurgle, and his body fell, ripped inside out to land on Maya’s pristine front lawn.
Eighteen
The flunky let his flame die and stared at the councilman in horror. The chauffeur and assistant started unloading their guns into Jim. Jim flinched from the impact of bullets, but he didn’t fall, didn’t die.
I grabbed at the magic I felt dancing in my body and hurled it at Jim. “Stop!”
“No,” he said. “They’ll kill you.”
“Just stop!” I shouted.
The chauffeur’s assistant took advantage of the distraction to plug Jim right in the head. Again, Jim flinched, but he stayed very much alive. He turned, made a slicing motion with his hand, and the chauffeur’s assistant fell to the grass, dead, his body cut in half.
“No!” I screamed myself hoarse.
Jim gave me a wild look. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He turned and ran off into the darkness.
What was left of the councilman lay in a steaming heap, and the chauffeur was bent double, sobbing and puking. Maya had disappeared, the only smart one around here.
The flunky was standing still, his dark eyes wide, the fire under his skin red in the darkness. I grabbed his shoulders, shook him.
“Make him turn into a dragon,” I panted. “Make him turn into a dragon.”
I didn’t even know if that would help. But whenever Mick got badly hurt as a human, he shifted to his dragon form to save himself. I had no way of knowing whether the councilman could still shift, or whether he was already dead and beyond saving.
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