Dreamwalker

by Allyson James

  That meant I had to come off the sidelines. Gabrielle was cradling her burned arm, no longer interested in the fight. She could turn her rage on and off like a switch. At the moment, she was feeling sorry for herself and perfectly happy for me and Mick to take over.

  I reached my senses down through the concrete walls of the motel and into the ground, searching for balance among the rocks and bones of the earth. Bedrock was a long way down—this part of the state built up of rocks upon rocks, with open spaces and caves between. This was why we had sinkholes and cracks in the earth that led to places full of scary gods and goddesses, like my mother.

  I found no vortex here, but I did touch a pocket of something I didn’t like. Its bite was hot, liquid, and explosive.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “Mick.”

  He looked at me. His hair was damp with sweat, his skin gleaming. Mick’s eyes were filled with black, like voids of starless night, but streaked with red. The dragon tatts on his arms were swarming up and down, ready to come alive.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  My Beneath magic charged out of me before I could stop it. It struck at the demons in the room as well as in the hot place below Flat Mesa, where many more demons waited. My magic wanted to kill, and it went after the demons where they lived.

  The demons in the pocket beneath the earth boiled apart and shot up through whatever escape hatches they’d made for themselves. These hatches popped up to the surface of the earth—in the parking lot outside from the sound of it.

  One of the demons fighting us broke away, hauled himself to the tiny, high window in the back of the motel room, flattened his body—bizarre to watch—and slid through. The remaining demon screamed as my Beneath magic hit him. He fell in a mess of ash and blood to the carpet.

  “Cool,” Gabrielle said, her voice thick with pain.

  The demons outside struck. They came in through the window, up the stairs to the door, and through the walls themselves. I heard human screams, which meant they’d broken into other rooms as well.

  Mick snarled a word I didn’t know, and his containment spell broke and fell away. I grabbed Gabrielle and hauled her up as the room burst into true flames.

  The only way out was through the door, and demons came at us that way. Mick turned and directed his fire to the wall behind the bed. Wallboard, bricks, and mortar melted in the flame, creating a hole—which quickly filled with demons.

  We had to get away somehow. Gabrielle’s interest in fighting was returning, though her arm was charred. She needed a burn unit, or Mick’s healing spells. No matter what, we had to get out of here.

  “Can you make a dent in them?” I shouted at her. Mick was battling, fire dancing around him and from him. If one of the demon flames got through, it would burn him as much as it had burned Gabrielle.

  If Mick could go dragon, our problem might be solved. But he needed open space and a few uninterrupted seconds to become the beast.

  “Move, Micky,” Gabrielle called. She lifted her hand and sent a ripple of white toward the red flames.

  Half the fires died out, but were instantly renewed. Mick’s earth magic was strong here, as was the demons’. Beneath magic was usually stronger, but against so much volcanic stuff, the Beneath magic for once was weakened.

  I had another idea. I still had no clue where I’d left my cell phone, but Gabrielle had one. I slid it from her pocket. “Call Nash,” I said. “Tell him to get his ass over here.”

  If he wasn’t on his way. Nash always knew when something was going down in his town.

  Gabrielle snatched the phone from me, which I’d already dialed. I got to my feet, ready to keep the demons away from her.

  More demons poured through the window, going flat like the other one until they dropped into the room. The new ones weren’t bothering to look like humans. They were human-shaped, but gray-skinned and granite-faced, with fire dancing beneath their surface like magma.

  John got up off the floor. I yelled at him to stay down, but rushed me. I saw the fire in his eyes, and realized he was not on our side, just before his fist came at my face.

  I ducked. Gabrielle said, “Nashie?” in her little girl voice. “Um, we have a little problem at the Flat Mesa motel …”

  John came at me again. Possessed or demon-born I couldn’t tell, and I was a little too busy for an interview.

  Mick turned, saw, and got bit with fire on the side for his trouble. I waved him off, brought up a surge of Beneath magic, and faced John. I wasn’t allowed to hurt humans, on pain of death or worse, but if John were demon …

  I let fly. At the same time, John hit me with a powerful fist.

  I didn’t get to find out whether my Beneath magic dusted him. A pain I’d never known split my body, as though someone was trying to tear me in half. I heard the scream leave my mouth as I dove for the floor and unconsciousness.

  The last thing I saw was the gleam of flame on wire-rimmed glasses and a pair of steel-gray eyes behind them.

  “Emmett?” I tried to say, and then … nothing.

  ***

  I woke in a bed, in a motel. I was unclothed, between thin sheets, my head on a flat pillow. The sun was up, the window open, fresh air pouring in, as well as normal sounds—birdsong, cars starting up, people talking, maids trundling their carts between rooms and chatting to each other as they worked.

  No smell of fire, ash, demon, or Beneath magic. Nice.

  Mick was there, his back to me as he watched out the window. He wore low-slung jeans and nothing else. The jagged fire tatt across the small of his back was stark against his skin, familiar and comforting.

  “Hey,” I croaked. My throat was surprisingly pain free—no soreness from all the heat and smoke.

  Mick turned. His eyes were brilliant blue, his dragon tatts calm, his smile lighting up the room. “Hey, baby. Ready for breakfast? We had a long ride yesterday.”

  We had? I stared back at him, part of me liking the way he let his gaze flick to my body outlined by the sheet. “Where are we?” I put a shaking hand to my face, pleased to find my skin unburned and smooth.

  “South Dakota,” Mick said. “East of Rapid City. You were so tired last night, you nearly fell off. I carried you in here and let you sleep.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and touched my face with his big hand. “Ready to wake up now?”

  Chapter Five

  Mick’s touch warmed and calmed me, but my mind reeled in disorientation.

  “South Dakota?” I repeated. “What the hell happened? Is Gabrielle all right? Did Nash make it? Was John really a demon? What about Monica? I saw Emmett—I swear I did before I passed out. Tell me he didn’t get my mirror shard …” I tried to scramble out of bed. I needed to find my jeans and make sure the pocket still held the bag with its sliver of magic mirror.

  A strong hand pushed me back down. “Janet.” Mick’s brows drew together. “Take it easy. You were dreaming.”

  I fell against the pillow, confused and shaken. “What?”

  “You were crying out in your sleep, thrashing around.”

  Mick brushed my cheek, and I immediately calmed. I knew that the tingle I felt was his magic, soothing me, trying to heal my hurts.

  “I don’t blame me,” I said. “It was a hell of a fight, which we obviously survived. But why did you bring me to South Dakota? Did we fly up here? I need to get back to my hotel.”

  Again, I tried to rise, and again, Mick caught me. He framed my face in his hands and looked deep into my eyes.

  More magic? Mick couldn’t read minds, but he could sense when something was wrong with a person—for example, if his girlfriend had been smacked with a serious spell.

  “No airports nearby,” he said. “Easier to ride. And this motel is better than the last one.”

  I’d meant fly as in him scooping me up and carrying me off in his dragon talon. Plus, what did he mean this motel is better than the last one? I opened my mouth to question, but closed it again. Mick was contemplating me not only in worr
y but with suspicion, as though he thought maybe I wasn’t really me.

  Something was very wrong.

  I tried to relax, be neutral, look back at him without tension as he scrutinized me. I don’t know whether he was satisfied, but Mick at last released me and straightened up.

  “I guess the sleep did you good,” he concluded. “Come on, let’s go to breakfast. The sign says they have a hundred different kinds of omelets. I have to check that out.”

  He flashed me a smile, good-natured, holding a hint of sin. And yet, holding back at the same time.

  Mick hadn’t held back much lately, with all we’d been through, but I saw in his eyes a layer of his old evasiveness. Back when he hadn’t wanted me to realize what he was, he’d been very good at not letting me see past his facade. I needed to pin him down and ask him what was up.

  For now, I was hungry, and the thought of omelets made my stomach growl. I scrambled out of bed, not shy around Mick, and found my clothes, neatly folded over the back of the room’s one chair.

  Mick must have undressed me. Whenever I went to bed in exhaustion I threw my clothes every which way before I dove between the sheets. Mick was far more tidy.

  “Why did you bring these?” I asked. The jeans were old, the shirt one I hadn’t worn in years. “I thought I gave these to Gabrielle. Or, rather, she helped herself.”

  Mick’s eyes narrowed again, his grave suspicion returning.

  As much as I loved Mick, I was not blind to how dangerous he was. If he thought I was acting weird, maybe a doppelgänger Janet or a spelled Janet, he would stop at nothing to save me, fix me—or kill me. My only defense at the moment was to act as normal as possible.

  “Never mind.” My skin seemed to be clean, so maybe Mick had stuck me under the shower the night before. I pulled on the clothes and smoothed my hair—and then realized I wasn’t wearing my ring.

  When Mick had asked me to marry him—in the human way—he’d given me an engagement ring. Not a standard gold and diamond ring, but silver with an intricate pattern of turquoise and onyx. Turquoise for healing, onyx for protection, silver for love.

  It wasn’t on my finger, in my pocket, on the nightstand, or in the bathroom. I hated to think I’d lost it in the fight, that some demon had run off with it. But Mick was watching me again, so I said nothing. He might have put it away safe somewhere—I’d ask him once I’d reassured him that I was fine. I gave him a smile and let him lead me from the room.

  The motel was a one-story, long wooden building with a row of a dozen identical doors and windows. We were in number five, a lucky number in Asian cultures. Mick would have picked it.

  At the end of the row was a wider building with big windows and glass doors. The lit marquee in front said, Travel House, Your Home Away from Home. Comfortable Rooms, Best Breakfast in the County.

  We walked into the lobby, which led to the small restaurant, and then it hit me.

  I’d been here before.

  I remembered the restaurant down to the last detail—the polished wooden walls, the scraggly plant next to the cashier, the glassed-in counter containing five slices of pie, two apple, three cherry.

  I remembered the rows of wooden tables with captain’s chairs and the menus waiting on stands in the middle of the tables with the ketchup and salt and pepper. The older couple wearing thick jackets, who’d come in via the RV in the parking lot. The two Indian men I’d glanced at in curiosity, wondering which tribe they were from. The poster on the wall listing the hundred omelets and what they had in them. I stopped in shock, and Mick ran into the back of me.

  “Janet?” He leaned down, his breath warm on my cheek. “What is it?”

  He’d braced for danger, ready to fight whatever I’d sensed. The two Indian guys glanced up. They kept their expressions neutral, though I’m sure they weren’t thrilled with my bad manners.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly.

  I continued to the table the pink-skirted waitress had waved me to and sat down. Mick did another scan of the restaurant until he took a seat opposite me. He didn’t put his back to the wall, as fighting men do in the movies, but he did position the napkin dispenser to reflect what was behind him.

  “I just remembered this place,” I said.

  “Remembered?” Mick had his blue gaze on me again.

  “Yeah.”

  The déjà vu feeling made me crazy, but it wasn’t strictly déjà vu, because I had been here before. With Mick. I remembered watching him order a dozen of the omelets after bantering with the waitress about whether there were truly a hundred of them, not just variations on the first twelve.

  “When was this?” Mick’s amused look was in place, but the way he watched me ... Black flickered through his eyes, the dragon filling the space. “I thought you said you’d never left the Southwest before you met me.”

  “I hadn’t.” That was true. The first time I’d climbed on my bike and hit the road by myself, I’d made it only as far as Nevada before I’d found big trouble. Mick had taken me out of that trouble, and the rest was history. “I don’t mean I came here without you. I mean ...”

  His eyes were definitely blacker. Mick tried to hide it, which was weird. I knew he was a dragon underneath it all, had been born one in the heart of a volcano somewhere near Hawaii.

  Then again, when I’d been here with him the first time, I hadn’t known that.

  Dear gods and goddesses. This wasn’t déjà vu, this was me actually living it over again. Some kind of time travel? Time warp? Time bending? I had no freaking clue. Science fiction stuff left me baffled.

  Or a spell? I remembered, though the memory was fading, the flash of Emmett Smith’s eyes before all had gone dark. What the hell had that dickwad done to me?

  I also remembered Emmett standing outside my hotel after Mick had flamed his limo, the man calmly brushing off his suit. He’d smiled at me and said, “Sweet dreams, Janet.”

  Dreams.

  Oh holy fucking shit. This wasn’t me reliving this event, down to the last detail. This was my memory, from the road trip Mick and I had taken together after we’d met, when he’d showed me the vastness of the country I lived in. I was dredging up this day from the depths of my mind, replaying it but squarely inside it, as though living it the first time. That was why I couldn’t find my ring—Mick wouldn’t give it to me until five and a half years in our future.

  Except, Mick was reacting to the me as I was now, to the Janet looking around in stunned surprise. He hadn’t done that the first time.

  So, maybe I was reliving it. Maybe Emmett had plucked the scene from my brain somehow and sent me back in time. Or he’d sent me into some kind of sleep where my dreams segued with reality and became one.

  I had no idea—complicated magic was beyond me. I knew how to ride storms and create a few simple spells. Messing with people’s minds was not in my scope.

  Whatever was going on, I knew two things—first, that Emmett was behind it. Second, I needed to wake up.

  I returned my attention to Mick, who was still contemplating me in wariness. The spark in his eyes told me he was about to grab me, haul me outside, and shake me upside down until the demon that possessed me fell out.

  I eased out my breath, forcing myself to relax. If this was a dream, then why worry? I was with Mick, in that golden time when I’d been falling in love with him, when he’d protected me and cared for me, before any trouble had started between us. In this place and in this moment, I’d felt happy and safe.

  I lifted my hands. “Forget it. I just had that weird feeling you get, you know? When you think you’ve done something twice? I bet I saw an ad for this place on the road.”

  “Mmm.” Mick gave me a nod, then sent a grateful look to the waitress who poured coffee into his cup.

  Mick began asking her if the omelets really were all different from one another and ended up ordering twelve. Just as I remembered ...

  ***

  We rode out that day, heading westward through South Dako
ta toward its border with Wyoming. As we flowed down the road I remembered more and more about this time, not only the beautiful sights of the West, but the feelings I’d experienced at that point in my life.

  I followed Mick, he on his large Harley modified to accommodate his bulk, me on the Sportster that, while it vibrated me to pieces, I’d loved. It had been wrecked forever when it had fallen into a sinkhole near Flat Mesa, and I’d grown nostalgic for it. I loved riding it again, remembering every quirk of its personality.

  I’d also missed watching Mick hunker low into the wind, his black hair flying every which way. In states with helmet laws, he wore a matte black half helmet, which only made him look more bad-ass than ever. He’d taught me how to shift positions on my bike so I wouldn’t grow too fatigued, including balancing on my seat with my feet behind me. Mick also liked to stop a lot, because every single thing we passed was fascinating to him.

  Today, it was the Badlands of South Dakota, the jagged peaks of hills that stretched across a barren and stark valley, reminding me of the valleys around Many Farms. The land wasn’t quite the same, but the vista made me homesick.

  I thought about the Crossroads Hotel I’d come to love, along with all the crazy people in my life. I wanted to wake up so I could be with them, but then again …

  In this dream, I had Mick all to myself. It was the way it used to be—he and I riding side by side, heading down the road just to see where it led.

  Mick soon left the freeway, just as I remembered, and took me down back roads deep into the heart of the country. In South Dakota that meant vast farms surrounded by land quietly rising into the Black Hills.

  We stopped at historic sites along the way, Mick telling me more about indigenous culture than I ever knew. Even Grandmother hadn’t taught me much beyond the traditions of the Diné.

  Mick knew a lot about geology too. Today he went on about how the Black Hills formed from rifts and uplifts or passing hot spots or whatever. At the time I’d thought he simply read a lot of books. Now I knew that, in his time, he’d probably witnessed an amazing amount of volcanic activity.