Nightwalker

by Allyson James

  Gabrielle gleefully whacked at the spell with a shaft of Beneath magic, then she screamed. The darkness wound onto her magic like a sticky web and started crawling toward her outstretched hand.

  I sliced down with my own power, not onto the dark web, but to Gabrielle’s magic just above it, cleanly cutting off the white shaft. The web found itself wrapping around nothing and it drew back, pausing like an animal scenting the wind.

  Then it reared up and it came for me. I flew upward, rolling out of the way as quickly as any dragon. I came down again, landing on the earth outside the barrier surrounding Nash.

  The mage’s web of darkness followed me down. I swatted it with a swirl of wind, but as it had done with Gabrielle, it tried to cling to my magic and follow my own power back to me.

  I realized that I couldn’t fight the spell itself—I had to fight the mages. I had to release myself from all the restrictions I’d put on my use of magic in the past year, and go for the end game.

  I closed my eyes.

  I might have been born with goddess magic deep inside myself, but fortunately for me, my father had come from a line of shamans who carried strong earth magics—powers bound to this world, not the worlds below.

  Grandmother, by making sure my latent evil didn’t destroy me from the inside out, had given me the strength to steady myself against the Beneath magic that threatened me every day. My father, with his silences and the quiet composure with which he approached all things, had shown me the value of patience and endurance.

  Jamison, the man I’d fought so hard this afternoon, had taught me to calm myself, to meditate and control the impulses that raged inside me.

  Then Mick, my first and only lover, had taught me spells to help balance and hone my storm magic into an efficient, controlled power.

  I’d learned so much from them—family, friend, lover—and now their lessons let me hold the storm, center myself, and marry the storm with my Beneath magic.

  I opened my hands and filled my palms with the winds. The web of dark magic still watched me, waiting for me to strike, but I ignored it.

  Instead I gathered the dense cloud of dust and swept it around myself and the two mages, blotting out everything and everyone but us. I heard Gabrielle’s snarl of frustration, but I didn’t want to let her in here. She was strong, but not strong enough.

  I couldn’t see the mage’s faces now, only the white shafts of their true selves. They threw another collective spell at me, this one designed to squeeze all the breath from my body and leave me flat.

  I sent the winds into the spell to pull it asunder. As it shattered, I snaked the storm between the two men and flung them apart.

  The mages fell, but were up again at once. They stopped trying to work together and just started throwing spells at me.

  I laughed as I smacked down spell after spell. I left the ground again, laughing, joyous, pounding the two mages with the wild mix of my magic as quickly as they shot their spells at me.

  Bear had stopped chanting. Through the dust, I saw that she now stood with her hands at her sides, her head bowed, the bearskin on her back shrouding her body.

  I didn’t have time to wonder what she was doing now. That is, until I felt the weight of the auras of the canyon.

  The larger magics of Emmett, Pericles, Gabrielle, and the storm, had shielded me from the auras that usually drove me crazy. But now that Bear had sung to the spirit of the canyon —its collective aura—I felt them with a vengeance.

  The auras swirled together like those I’d awakened from the artifacts in Richard Young’s collection room. They gathered around Bear, joining together like a dark cloak around her. She’d tried to help them, she’d caused them sorrow, and now she’d come to awaken them and protect them.

  I felt the crush of the auras start to weaken me. Bear was on their side, and I knew I’d be foolish to assume she was still on ours.

  I had another worry. I was drunk with power, riding this wonderful storm, but storms don’t last forever. This one would disperse when nature had finished with it, and I’d be left with a bad magic hangover and only Beneath power on which to draw. Beneath magic was strong, but these mages, especially together, were the equal of it. And with no storm to steady me, I might end up destroying the entire canyon.

  I kept sending bursts of storm at Emmett and Pericles, and they shot things back at me—death spells, fire spells, ice spells, spells designed to eat my organs from the inside out, spells intended to separate my physical self from my magical one.

  The last one made me cold, even as I kicked it aside. I hadn’t realized spells like that existed.

  The glow of the golden tubes flashed and went out. For a second, I had no idea what had happened, then I realized that Nash had approached one of the tubes of light and reached out to cancel its magics.

  When it went down, all the others did too. Nash disappeared into darkness, but I saw his silhouette against my next burst of lightning.

  Nash held his Glock in his hands, and he aimed it and shot Pericles straight through the heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Pericles shouted, stumbled, fell.

  I knew that a powerful mage like Pericles probably had spells to safeguard him from even a bullet in his heart, but the impact did slow him down. He dropped out of the fight, and now only Emmett remained.

  Nash lined up another shot for Emmett, but Emmett shot a black spell that rushed at Nash like a javelin, and Nash took the impact straight through the gun. The spell vanished as it hit Nash’s magic absorption field, but the shock made him drop the pistol.

  I heard Nash curse as he lost the gun in the dark, but I had to turn my attention back to Emmett.

  He knew some nasty magic. I hoped to all the gods that I could wring out of my body any spell that touched me, because with my heightened awareness, I saw that these spells could linger and affect my offspring.

  The wild thought flashed through my head—Can Mick and I even have offspring?—when more immediate concerns interrupted me.

  One was the auras surrounding Bear, which were now spreading wide like the dust storm. The other was a crazed Nightwalker who rushed out of the shadows for the fallen Pericles.

  Pericles started up—so Nash’s shot hadn’t killed him after all—but then Ansel was upon him.

  “Ansel! Stop!”

  Not that I cared at this point whether Ansel sucked Pericles dry, but I feared what Pericles’s magic might do to Ansel. The blood of a mage could be deadly.

  “Gabrielle, get Ansel!”

  But Gabrielle wasn’t where I’d seen her last. She was now in front of Nash, struggling with him for the leather-covered pot. Nash was trying to subdue her without hurting her, but Gabrielle beat on him with one fist while she tried to rip the pot from him with her other hand.

  I couldn’t do anything about her right now. The wave of ancient beings Bear had awakened engulfed Pericles and Ansel, swirling around them and blotting them from sight, then they took Emmett. And now they were coming for me.

  I drew on my storm power, but found myself beating off streaks of darkness that dove at me like angry flies. The cuts on my face bled and stung, I lost hold of some of my power, and I hit the ground with both feet—hard.

  I whirled and beat at the maelstrom, but the shards of auras slashed me as the ones that attacked Richard Young had, ancient things angry at the disturbance of their resting place.

  I heard Nash shouting, but I was too busy swatting things to give him my attention. The storm started to die, dust and wind losing momentum as it moved on to another part of the desert.

  Dimly, through the choking dust and dark auras, I saw Bear’s hands go up. The pot, which Nash and Gabrielle still fought over, shot away from them and went straight for Bear.

  She caught it without struggle. The pot glowed, the only bright point in the gloom. The animal patterns again chased each other and the lightning around the bowl. I clearly saw the tortoise morph into a coyote, who chased the bear, wh
o chased the lightning, which chased the coyote.

  Bear sang more words in her high-pitched voice, but these I didn’t understand. The language was so ancient, it probably never had been heard in the world.

  My feet left the ground again, but not by my doing. I dove for the earth, grabbing, but my fingers scrabbled in dirt, fine rocks and dried grass coming away as I was yanked upward.

  I tumbled toward Bear, feet-first, a whirlwind sucking me to her. Gabrielle came as well, jerked from Nash’s side, she screeching and swearing. Emmett slammed into me as he joined me, then Pericles struck me, then Ansel. Nash was the only one I didn’t sense with us.

  Gabrielle, Emmett, Pericles, Ansel, and I were squashed together into one mass. Pericles’ blood was hot on my skin, and the stench of Nightwalker made me gag. Pericles was still alive, though, Ansel weakening.

  We were pulled, painfully, inexorably, toward Bear. Her voice grew louder, filling the skies, and the auras swirled with us, binding us together.

  The shape of a coyote rose behind Bear. He lifted his muzzle as she continued to sing, his huge face turning to the moonlight. There was moonlight again, a hole ripped through the clouds and my storm.

  Coyote howled, not a mournful howl or the high-pitched yowling of a coyote, but a wailing song that blended with Bear’s.

  Coyote wrapped his arms around her, paws laced across her shoulders, not stifling her or hindering her, but joining her.

  Bear and Coyote. Two of the oldest gods. Husband and wife. One.

  The ring Mick had given me stung my finger. I held onto the magic of the turquoise and silver while the wild power around me threatened to batter me bloody.

  We were dragged onward toward the shimmering pillar of Coyote and Bear.

  Just before we reached them, the singing stopped, and a fierce weight crushed me into nothing.

  I heard another scream, a voice familiar to me—not mine, not Gabrielle’s, not Mick’s. The voice, stronger than I’d heard it in a long time, wound up to a horrific shriek.

  “Janeeettttttt! Oh, this is so not goooooood.”

  Before I could react, the screaming cut off, and everything went dark.

  *** *** ***

  My own groans woke me. I opened my eyes.

  I lay flat on my back in darkness, but it was natural darkness. Clouds filled the sky, blotting out the moonlight, and a steady rain fell.

  I was soaked, muddy, and in pain. I licked water from my lips and tasted blood.

  Something large, wet, smelly, and warm lay down next to me. A cold nose touched my face, then a hot tongue swiped across my lips.

  “Ewww.” I scraped my hand over my mouth. “What are you doing?”

  In an instant, Coyote became a man—large, naked, and still wet. “Healing you,” he said. “Coyote spit is clean.”

  “Yuck.”

  “I can keep on, if you want.” He waggled his tongue.

  “Gods, you are such a pervert.”

  Which, in my world, was terrifyingly normal.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “Bear activated the artifact, it did its thing, and she’s gone.”

  “Gone.” I tried to sit up, clutched my head, which hurt like hell, and tried again. I managed to become upright this time and sat unmoving, my head pounding.

  I was still in Chaco Canyon. All was quiet, except for the rain and distant rumbles of thunder. No auras, no spells, no haboob, no Beneath magic. Just me laid out like I’d been on a three-week bender.

  I saw bodies around me, each about ten yards from me and from each other. Nash’s pickup and the dragons still hadn’t returned.

  “Where has she gone?” I croaked.

  Coyote shrugged. “Who knows? She’ll be back. When she’s ready.”

  “What did you mean, the artifact did its thing? What did it do? Besides throw me across the valley?”

  “What Bear made it to do. She put her power into that pot not only to keep herself stable, but to help and protect her people.” He shrugged again, his large body with all its muscles slick with water. “But as well-intentioned as gods may be, our power is vast, and when it falls into the wrong hands . . . well, you saw what happened.”

  “We all went for it,” I said.

  “So she took back the pot and used it for what she’d really made it for. To keep the powerfully magical away from her people.” Coyote’s hand landed on my shoulder, his strength immense, but it was meant to comfort, not hurt. “She could have killed you—all of you. She chose not to.”

  “Oh.” I said, my head hurting so much I wasn’t sure waking up was a blessing.

  “The pot sucked you into it,” Coyote said. “Weird to watch. Then it spit you out again, along with your magic mirror. The pot didn’t like it. Which might also be why you’re still alive.”

  “Nice of Bear,” I said. “And the pot.”

  Coyote gave me a serious look, then he laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  I rubbed my head again, pain stabbing at my temples. The storm magic had been torn out of me, and I was jumpy. Being knocked out plus the blinding headache had subdued the aftershock a little, but I needed to get rid of my residual magic. I needed Mick.

  Once I could see better, I realized that the body closest to mine was Gabrielle’s. Coyote helped me to my feet, but I had to stand still a few moments, catching my breath and trying not to throw up, before I could hobble toward her.

  Gabrielle lay facedown in the mud, her hands and hair covered with blood. Now that her magic had gone, she looked like nothing more than a young, helpless girl.

  I crouched beside her and turned her over. Gabrielle looked even more helpless now, the blood and mud on her face creased with tears.

  “I wanted it,” she sobbed. “Why wouldn’t he let me have it?”

  I smoothed a tangle of hair from Gabrielle’s face, but she jerked away and rolled to sit, drawing her arms around her knees. “Leave me alone.”

  “You don’t need the pot,” I said. “You’re already so strong. What did you want it for?”

  Gabrielle glared at me, her eyes swimming with tears. “To open the vortex, stupid.”

  I didn’t need to ask her which vortex. Each of the vortexes that dotted this part of the world led to different parts of Beneath. The one near my hotel led to my mother’s realm.

  “Why would you want to?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.

  “To see her. To talk to her. To find out why she doesn’t want me.”

  The rain started to pelt down more earnestly. “Evil goddesses aren’t nurturing mothers, Gabrielle. Trust me.”

  “She wanted you. You and your Stormwalker magic. All I got was a father who was a drunk.”

  “I know.” I didn’t say I was sorry. I was sorry for her, but saying so wouldn’t help. Not with Gabrielle.

  “Go away.”

  I stood up. Gabrielle hunkered down into even more misery.

  I stuck my hand out to her. “Come on. We still have two mages and a crazed Nightwalker to deal with.”

  She stared at me with every ounce of hatred and loathing Grandmother and I had tried to ease out of her in the past six months. I thought we’d made some headway, but maybe not.

  I kept my hand out. Eventually, Gabrielle’s expression changed to one of mere sourness, and she let me help her to her feet.

  “Can I kill the mages?” she asked.

  “Depends.”

  Gabrielle didn’t look mollified. I felt her fuming as we made our way through the rainy darkness to the other bodies.

  I did feel bad for her. Our goddess mother had decided that because Gabrielle’s father had no magic in him—he’d lied and told her he was a shaman—she wanted nothing to do with Gabrielle. I wasn’t sure which was worse: our hell-queen mother wanting to rule the earth world through me, or being utterly rejected by her.

  Nash hadn’t been pulled in by the magic, or thrown down when Bear disappeared. He was sitting on the outcropping under which he’d hidden, his
arms resting on his knees. He’d retrieved his gun and now held it loosely in one hand. I saw blood on his face, even in the dark, his black hair glistening with rain.

  “You two all right?” he asked us.

  I was stumbling, Gabrielle blood-streaked, but I knew what he meant. “After a hot bath and a good night’s sleep, we will be.”

  “She means after a good night’s screwing with Mick,” Gabrielle said. She gave Nash a look I thought she’d stopped reserving for him. “How about it, Nash? There’s plenty of motel rooms between us and Flat Mesa.”

  “No.”

  He said it simply and with strength. Nash had decided on Maya, and that was that.

  Gabrielle’s smile died, but she shrugged. “That’s all right. I’ve decided that Drake is hot, and I’ve always wanted to do a dragon.”

  “Pick one without ice in his veins,” I said.

  “Like Colby? Mmm, not bad. Let me think about it.”

  I walked away from the bizarre conversation. I heard Nash jump down from the rock and follow me.

  The next body I came to was Pericles. He’d reverted to looking like the short, muscular guy with the balding head who’d attacked me in the basement of Laura’s store, except now his eyes were closed, his face wan. He also had a bullet wound in his chest.

  Nash crouched down and checked him, then nodded at me. “He’s still alive.”

  “Can I crush him?” Gabrielle asked, coming up behind Nash.

  “No,” I said.

  “He tried to kill us tonight. Why not?”

  I felt Gabrielle’s magic building, and I put a hand on her wrist. “It’s one thing to kill him in a fair fight, another to blast him when he’s unconscious. It . . . would be wrong.”

  Gabrielle gave me an incredulous look, but her magic faded. “And you call me the crazy one.”

  Nash nudged Pericles with his pistol. “Hey. Wake up.”

  Pericles’s eyes popped open. He took in Nash, the gun, and Gabrielle and me standing over him. He drew a long breath that ended in a cough and wince of pain. “The artifact?”