I don’t think I’d understood how important the mirror was to him until that moment. I’d been cautious and angry about Emmett’s attempt to steal the mirror but equally determined not to let him. Now as he looked at me, I realized he’d stop at nothing to reach his goal.
He was going to kill me, Mick, and anyone who stood in his way until the mirror was his. Not only kill us but torture us if necessary until we gave it up. Then he’d kill us.
Why not simply give it to him? A voice inside me whispered. He’d go away, you’d be rid of the smart-ass mirror, and life would go on.
It was tempting, that thought. No more mirror making lewd comments on my sex life, no more show tunes in the middle of the night, no more hours of listening to it weep for no reason followed by a longer period of hysterical laughter. Magic mirrors developed their own eccentric personalities, and most of them were insane, so I’d been told. Knowing my mirror, I believed it.
I glared at Emmett. “Stop putting thoughts into my head. I’m not giving it up.”
Emmett sent me a little smile, and the diamonds on his glasses flashed. “I’m not in your head, Stormwalker. You’re thinking those thoughts all by yourself.” He glanced at the filled-in wash behind me. “Good place for a fight, don’t you think?”
No, it was a terrible place, and he knew it. “How about we settle this somewhere less vortex-y?” I said. “Have a fair fight. You want to win by might, not trickery, right?”
Emmett chuckled. “You have amusing ideas. No, Janet. I just want to win.”
He let fly a wave of nasty magic without any warning. All I could do was slam myself to the ground, my face meeting weeds and red dirt as the spell flashed past. When I lifted my head, I saw I’d only given myself a temporary reprieve, because the dark arrow of magic homed in on me like a heat-seeking missile.
If I didn’t raise a shield of Beneath magic, I’d be dead, or possibly so weak he’d crush my bones with his Prada shoe. If I did raise the shield, I’d likely rip open the vortex ten feet away.
As I hovered between life and death, I dimly wondered how Emmett would fare against my mother and her minions once they poured out of the hole I’d rip open. Not well, I guessed. But then, I’d probably not fare well against them either.
White light flashed, and the spell broke. I jerked my head up in surprise as another luminous ball of magic flew toward Emmett and fried the next dark spell in his hand.
“You total bastard!” Gabrielle yelled as she flew at Emmett, blue-white fire in her hands. “Stay away from my sister!”
She had Beneath magic worked up in her until she glowed with it. Gabrielle’s feet were a few inches off the ground, rage and magic propelling her at the source of her fury.
I felt Emmett bring up defenses at the same time he laughed. Behind me, down the slope, the debris-choked wash began to rumble.
“No!” I sprang to my feet, my jeans and shirt plastered with powdery dirt and dried grass. I latched my arms around Gabrielle’s waist and hung on. “Gabrielle, don’t!”
Her Beneath magic smacked me, stirring my own to life. I saw in that split second that if she and I ever combined our powers, we could unmake the earth.
Gabrielle kicked, but I hung on. “Stop,” I said sharply. “Beneath magic will open the vortex. Tamp it down.”
Gabrielle twisted. “I don’t care. I want to kill him. He hurt me, and you, and he’s fucking evil. You know I can kill him.”
“Yes, but not here. You want our mom coming out to play?”
At the mention of our mutual mother, Gabrielle’s fury wound up even more.
The goddess had made the two of us, hoping one of us would be her conduit to spread hell on earth. When the time had come to bring her plans to fruition, she’d spurned Gabrielle and chosen me. Gabrielle, even our mother had realized, had been too unstable. Plus, Gabrielle possessed no earthbound magic, while my father’s family came from a long line of powerful earth-magic shamans.
The sting of that rejection had made Gabrielle even more unstable. Grandmother and I had been spending time teaching her that not everyone in the world would reject her, but I knew we had a long way to go.
“Yes!” Gabrielle shouted with glee. “Bring her out. I’ll kill her too.”
Tears of rage ran down her cheeks, and I squeezed her tighter. “No. Think about it. If she gets out, she’ll try to wipe out not only Emmett, me, and you, but Mick, Colby, my dad, Gina …”
I felt Gabrielle start, as though she hadn’t considered this. It spoke to how much Gabrielle had grown in the last year that she paused a beat to realize that people she’d come to care about could be hurt by her need for revenge.
She gave a scream of frustration, but the Beneath magic in her faded. I set her on her feet, loosening my hold, but I remained right behind her, in case Gabrielle changed her mind.
Emmett was watching our drama with enjoyment. “You two are so very fascinating. Like two sides of the same coin, but not quite.” He lifted a finger and ran it down the air, as though dividing something in half.
I braced for a spell, but nothing came at us. I did feel a ripple of breeze but a natural one, no taint of magic on it.
Emmett smiled, and then let rip another spell.
A black net arched at me and Gabrielle so rapidly we could only look up and watch it come. The two of us slammed into a crouch, my arms around Gabrielle, as the net fell over us. Burning magic seared my skin, and Gabrielle screamed.
Her Beneath magic wound up again, but I yelled, “No! Wait!”
I stuffed my hand into my pocket, every part of me feeling fire, and jerked out my shard of mirror. My vision had blurred, sounds dimming, and my fingers fumbled as I pulled away the chamois bag.
I had no idea how to use the mirror for anything but reflecting. I’d asked it to enhance my magic before, but I hadn’t really told it what to do. It had simply known.
I raised the shard to my eyes, though I could see little in it—everything was fuzzy, dark colors on a gray backdrop. “Help us!” I cried.
Oh, sugar, it wailed. I’m scared!
“Suck it up,” I yelled back. “Do something.”
The mirror sounded as though it inhaled a deep breath. Then a high-pitched shriek came out of it, the pitch rising, rising, past glass-breaking, eardrum-shattering decibels, and on up into sounds only animals could hear.
The net spell around us cracked and broke, shards falling away like splinters of glass. A few of the shards fell on the mirror—the reflected bits of spell gathered themselves, coalesced into another fibrous net, and launched itself at Emmett.
My vision cleared as the spell dove for Emmett. He watched it come in astonishment, then at the last minute, put up his hand. The spell halted in midair, writhed around itself, then vanished with a popping sound.
“Well,” Emmett said. “That was educational.”
He removed his glasses to dab a bit of perspiration from his brow. In the next instant, another shriek split the night, this one from a dragon.
One moment, Emmett was standing, delicately rubbing his forehead, the next, he was jerked from the ground by a dragon talon and carried far, far up into the air. Warm wind swamped us as Mick’s black dragon wings came down with a whump, lifting himself and Emmett high into the sky.
I heard Emmett’s snarl of outrage, sensed him bring up powerful magics. Before Emmett’s spell could strike, Mick opened his claw.
Five hundred feet up, Emmett Smith tumbled from Mick’s talon, down, down, down, to smash to earth somewhere out in the empty desert.
Chapter Twelve
Gabrielle leapt from her feet, punching the air. “Yes!” she shouted. “Dragon power! Eat that, asshole.”
I, more skeptical than Gabrielle, would believe Emmett dead when I saw his crushed body. Still more when I lit it on fire myself and watched it burn to ash.
Mick, his red and black dragon hide catching the starlight, wheeled through the desert sky, searching the ground below him. I started in that dire
ction. The flashlight had broken when I’d hit the dirt to avoid Emmett’s spell, so I had only the moon to guide me. It gave off enough light so I could see where I was going, but not quite enough to help me avoid small holes and loose rocks waiting to trip me. It must be nice to fly.
Gabrielle ran on light feet ahead of me, illuminating her way with a ball of Beneath magic. The flicker was tiny, but I watched it with trepidation. Fortunately, we were heading away from the vortexes, out to non-magical country.
As we reached the spot over which Mick hovered, another dragon joined him. This one was silken black, its silhouette blocking the stars. He wheeled, shrieked a dragon scream at Mick, then dove for the earth.
Mick did one more circle then flew after the black dragon, touching down just behind him. Both dragons disappeared behind a cloud of dark mist; when it cleared, two men walked toward us.
The black dragon was Drake, a tall man with dark hair. His back was covered with a tattoo of dragon wings, the points of which flowed over his shoulders and up the sides of his neck. He had dark eyes, a hard, handsome face, and a severe expression.
Drake worked for the Dragon Council, the body of three elder dragons who decided which dragons were and weren’t breaking dragon law, and meted out final justice. This council had nearly condemned Mick to death for not killing me, and I hadn’t forgiven them for that yet. Drake had proved that he didn’t obey the council unquestioningly, but he could be ruthless himself.
Behind him came Mick, his eyes sparkling red and black, the tatts on his arms writhing, their eyes glittering too.
“Well?” Gabrielle asked, sprinting forward. “Is he squashed?”
Mick growled, still dragon no matter that he was walking on two legs as a human. “Couldn’t find him.”
I remembered Emmett simply disappearing after Mick had flamed his limo, and how he’d emerged from the fire without a mark on him. He’d likely teleported himself to safety before he hit the ground.
“Thanks anyway,” I said to Mick, my gratitude sincere. “You saved me from a bad situation.”
“Janet wouldn’t let me kill him,” Gabrielle said accusingly.
Drake turned night-black eyes on me. He’d battled Emmett with me this summer at Chaco Canyon and knew how evil he was.
“I wouldn’t let her use Beneath magic right on top of a vortex,” I corrected her. “That’s what Emmett wanted—for me to choose between getting killed by him or letting things out from Beneath. A dragon was exactly what I needed. Thanks, Mick.”
The words were casual, but my heart was in them. I couldn’t exactly jump Mick’s bones with Drake and Gabrielle looking on, though I had a hard time keeping myself away from him at the moment. When dragons shift to human, they’re unclothed, and they don’t seem to notice.
I noticed plenty—Mick was difficult not to give a second look to, and Drake was also well-formed. I hadn’t lied to Colby when I’d told him that.
Gabrielle didn’t pretend not to look her fill of Drake. She skimmed her gaze up and down him, while he lifted his hair back from his face, unaware of the handsome picture he made.
“So, Drake.” Gabrielle tucked her thumbs into her pockets and sauntered toward him. “There’s a restaurant in Flagstaff that has a great salsa bar. Twenty different kinds every day. Want to go with me and try them?”
Drake paused in the act of binding his hair and stared at her in perplexity. I saw him try to figure out why a Beneath-goddess’s daughter would want to meet a dragon at a Mexican restaurant in Flagstaff. He must suspect some battle strategy that was eluding him. Drake was an extremely smart and efficient dragon, but he knew damn-all about humans.
“Leave him alone,” I advised Gabrielle.
Gabrielle continued to study Drake. “Or we can skip dinner and you can show me all your tattoos.”
More puzzlement. Drake’s tatts were already on full display out here under the moonlight.
“Think about it.” Gabrielle mimed holding a phone to her ear. “Call me.”
Mick’s dragon calmed down as he watched the exchange. The red tinge left his eyes, and a slow grin creased his face. “If you took her out, you could keep an eye on her,” Mick said. “We’d know she was under some kind of control.”
“Aw, Mick,” Gabrielle said. “Don’t be a buzz kill.”
Drake understood that Mick was making fun of him. He finished tying his hair back and gave Mick a severe look. “Smith is a danger. Crush him or eat him next time.”
Mick moved behind me, enfolded me in his big arms, and kissed my hair. “I’m sure he has some contingency against being dragon food. As in blowing me up from the inside or having my own stomach acid eat through me. I didn’t drop him on purpose, in fact. He burned me.” Mick displayed his hand. A round, angry red welt decorated his palm. “I’d planned to take him to the dragon compound, so he could be confined or dismembered.”
“We should hunt him,” Gabrielle said brightly. “Janet and me and you dragons. I bet he’d have a hard time fighting all of us at once.”
“He fought us all with great skill at Chaco,” Drake reminded her. “But the point is well taken. At Chaco, we were divided in purpose. If we join forces to take this man down, we might succeed.”
“Awesome.” Gabrielle grinned. “How about you take me to that Mexican restaurant, and we talk strategy?”
Drake clearly had no idea what eating salsa had to do with battle plans, but he gave her a nod. “That might be a good idea.”
“Hot damn. I have a date with a dragon.” Gabrielle did a little victory hop. “Janet doesn’t get all the good guys.”
Janet had only had one guy in her life, who was right now breathing heat into her ear.
“You okay?” I asked him.
Mick shrugged, folding his fingers over his palm. “It will heal. We should go in. Who knows what else he’ll throw at us, or what he might do to gain possession of the mirror while we’re out here.”
My heart went ice cold. “Shit. My dad’s here. He came down from Many Farms to visit.”
I broke from Mick and started walking as rapidly as I could in this terrain. Mick jogged after me. Drake followed, Gabrielle breaking around us to run ahead. Neither of the dragons suggested flying—it wasn’t far back to the hotel, and there were too many people around for them to remain hidden. I wanted to point out that two tall, well-built men running in the back door stark naked would also cause chaos, but I kept that to myself.
I saw no sign of Ansel as we returned. I had to assume he’d recovered or taken himself somewhere to heal. I hoped so—what he’d done had taken great courage. I’d look in on him once I got Gabrielle home.
“What are you doing out here, Drake?” I asked him as we moved over the hills and crossed shallow washes. Mick provided a ball of warm dragon fire to light the way, nothing that would excite the vortexes. “Just happened to be passing?”
“No, I was with Mick, as planned.”
I looked at Mick in surprise, but he shook his head. Obviously, he hadn’t wanted Drake to impart that information. Mick didn’t elaborate, his mouth set in a grim line.
“So,” Gabrielle began. She walked backwards so she could pin her gaze on Drake. “When you say you were with Mick … Do you mean with him?”
Mick’s forbidding look fled, and he let out a laugh. “No way. I have better taste.”
Drake had no clue what they meant, but he did suspect he was being left out of a joke. He frowned at Mick and broke away before we reached the railroad bed.
Drake had a stash of clothes back here, I saw, packed away in a waterproof canvas bag. Made sense—that way, he could fly from the dragon compound in New Mexico, turn human, dress himself, and approach the hotel. I didn’t like the implication—that the dragons from the compound sent him frequently to look in on me.
Mick kept clothes in a duffel bag hidden behind scrub at the base of the railroad bed. He liked to have contingency stashes of clothing for when he had to unexpectedly shift to and from dragon.
Once Mick and Drake were clothed, Gabrielle enjoying herself watching Drake dress, we climbed the railroad bed.
As I stepped to the top, a waft of music floated out into the night. Low and mellow, the sound of a wooden flute drifted on the wind. It moaned, soft and sweet, the smooth shifting of notes followed by fluttering trills.
My feet fixed to the ground. I knew who played the flute with such an expert touch. It was my father, who must be outside on the grounds, or on the large patio behind the saloon Drake’s renovators had added.
I hadn’t heard him play in years—more than twenty at least. He’d played when I’d been a tiny child, out under the sky behind the house at Many Farms.
Grandmother hadn’t liked that. “He’s calling to her,” she’d snap.
She’d meant my mother. The men of our family made and played flutes, usually only for the women they loved. The music was a traditional ritual of courtship—legend said that woodpeckers showed the way for the first flute to be carved, and when that first musician played it, women were drawn to him. The other men, seeing this, had learned to carve them too.
My father had played for the woman he loved, hoping against hope that he’d see her again, no matter how dangerous she might be to him.
Then one day, he’d shut the flute away in a cupboard, never to take it out again. That day he’d decided, I realized much later, that my mother was never coming back.
Now my father was playing again. My heart turned over as I recognized his touch, the voice of his music. I knew also that he was no longer playing for my mother. He was playing for Gina.
Tears filled my eyes. My dad had been lonely for so long, and now he’d found a woman—a sensible, non-evil one—to share his life.
I was happy for him, ecstatically happy, but hearing him play for Gina gave me a small, left-out feeling. He’d never played the flute for me.
Mick’s large, warm hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up at him to find his blue eyes full of understanding. He knew me, did Mick, inside and out.
I gave him a shaky smile, nodded to indicate I was all right, and we headed down to the hotel.
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