In the medical center, a man who’d been rushed there by his wife after a massive heart attack would live, his heart strong and sound again. A woman with pneumonia suddenly got better, those germs dead.
I could do anything, I realized, cure anyone. I could fly around the world with Mick and never have to worry about my goddess mother and the vortexes again. In fact …
I zoomed my awareness out to the vortex, lifted another two feet of desert floor over the wash, and slammed it down. Did I hear a faint cry of anguish from the goddess below? Maybe I should open up the cracks, go down there, and finish her off entirely.
“Janet, stop.”
The voice was Elena’s. She was standing in the gaping hole between saloon and lobby, my grandmother and Ansel behind her.
I could cure Ansel as well, I realized. Take away the magic that had made him a Nightwalker, and let him rest in peace. He’d be dead and dust—he’d died all the way back in 1942—but he’d be free of his curse. Ansel seemed to sense my intent, and he backed away, his eyes wide with fear.
Elena, now. She had vast magics that reached back centuries. She could flatten this place and both towns, and she knew it. I reached out my hand to take all she had.
“Don’t even think about it,” my grandmother said in her stern tones, pointing her walking stick at me.
“You know, you never let me have any fun,” I told her.
I swept my hand in her direction, jerked the cane from her fingers, and cured her arthritis. Grandmother jumped as her pain flowed away, and her joints and limbs became supple again.
I pushed my magic past her and out again, finding Gabrielle, who was heading back toward the hotel with Colby in the minivan. I flattened my hand, refilled Gabrielle with her Beneath power, and saw her clutch her chest and cry out. The minivan swerved to the side of the highway and stopped, Colby reaching from the driver’s seat to take Gabrielle into his arms.
Now back to Elena. With her magic, and mine, and what I’d taken from Emmett, I could eliminate poverty from the native peoples, give them back their land and their world. I could punish everyone who’d ever harmed them, from the ancestors of the people who’d hurt my ancestors, down to their descendants.
“No,” my grandmother said. She rubbed her left arm, as though the newfound agility ached. “The world is more complicated than that. An eye for an eye sounds simple, but it causes ripples of pain that never go away.”
How she knew what I had in mind, I don’t know, but Grandmother always did.
But I could take her power, and Elena’s, and Cassandra’s, and Mick’s, and no one could stop me.
Another voice came to me, the low velvet rumble of Coyote. He sat in the parking lot, under the moonlight, his coyote face brushed with silver. You can’t play god, Janet. That job’s already been taken.
I could steal Coyote’s power too. Then I’d truly be unstoppable.
Don’t mess with things you don’t understand, Coyote said, a snarl in his voice. What’s inside me would kill you instantly.
What was inside me could probably mitigate the difficulty, but Coyote was wise. I needed to figure out how to handle his power before I took it. Only a matter of time, though.
A sheriff’s SUV pulled in beside Coyote. I started, wondering how I hadn’t seen it coming down the road, but what emerged from it was a patch of nothing in all the amazing light and heat of the world.
How Nash could live like that I didn’t understand. It must be lonely and cold, which was why he needed the fireworks of Maya.
Maya was with him, bright and exuberant as she climbed out of the passenger seat, not letting Nash out of her sight. I imagined the argument about her coming with him had been strong. Colby and Gabrielle probably had found them boinking.
Colby himself came charging up in the van, Gabrielle slumped against him. He headed quickly to the back of the hotel, out of sight. I knew he’d take care of Gabrielle, and I shifted my focus to Nash.
Nash was coming for me, climbing over the debris and ruined walls. I was sure he’d try to arrest me—but could Nash touch me now? I could reach out and remove the magic that had made him a null, and he could go back to being ordinary, crabby Sheriff Jones. Maya would thank me for that.
Maya’s voice rose above all other noise. “Janet, what the hell is going on now? Can’t you keep this place together for five minutes?”
I laughed and gave Maya, the Unbeliever, a dose of magic. Not much, but enough that she’d understand what it was to have it inside her.
Maya sucked in a deep breath, eyes widening in amazement. Then she came at me, her hands sparkling with magic, cursing and shouting.
Nash pushed her aside with a quick gentleness and tackled me.
As we fell to the floor, him on top of me, I felt the power of his un-magic suck at mine, trying to pull out everything I’d taken in. Nash would drain it off and render it harmless—at least he would try—and all that beautiful magic would be gone. Emmett’s lifetime of destroying others would be for nothing.
I slid a finger of awareness into Nash, found the spell that had clung to him, and started to pull it away, one atom at a time. Nash glared at me and closed his hands around my neck, as though that would speed the null effect.
But no. I’d win this time. Even Nash’s deep spell, which could withstand dragon fire, Stormwalker power, and Beneath magic, could never hold against the power of all other mages, demons, and Beneath magic rolled into one.
Nash’s hold loosened, and his eyes widened. Arrogant man. He’d thought he could always best me.
Mick’s strong arm hooked around Nash’s waist and dragged him off me. I snarled in frustration—I’d been close to ripping the null magic from him. It snapped back into Nash, the smudge of nothingness blurring him again.
Mick pulled me up and put me against the wall. I didn’t mind, because his hard, naked body was against me.
“Come back to me, Janet,” he said, his eyes moving from dragon dark to Mick blue. “I love you. Don’t leave me.”
His heart was in his words. Mick looked at me with such anguish, such caring, that my chest tightened. The ring burned on my finger.
“I love you too,” I said. “And because I love you, I’m going to ask you to stop me.”
Pain filled his eyes. Mick had once made a vow that if ever I became too dangerous, he’d kill me himself. He’d told me and the dragons that he could no longer carry out that mission, but I saw on his face that he would hold himself to that promise if necessary. He’d grieve deeply, and maybe end his life the dragon way—diving into a volcano, as Colby had suggested—but he’d do it.
“I’m sorry, Mick,” I said.
I felt him gear up to try to fight me. Mick looked at me in love and regret, and my heart broke.
I fought myself. I thought of Mick, the biker who’d scared the shit out of me when he’d charged into the roadhouse where I’d been in the bar fight, lifted me, and carried me out as though I’d weighed nothing. I had been so certain he’d been about to force me, when he’d opened his arms and told me to hit him with my storm magic. I’d stared in amazement as lightning had crawled all over him, and he’d laughed.
I remembered arguing with the Dragon Council in the searing heat of Death Valley to spare Mick from a death sentence. How he’d gifted me with the music of his true name, trusting me with his very life. I was sorry now he’d done so, because it gave this creature I’d become even more power over him.
Mostly I thought of the little things—waking to see Mick lying beside me in the mornings, the sun on his skin where he’d thrown off the covers. Riding next to him on the highway, his hair buffeted by the wind, his smile when he looked over at me. Mick feeding me bits of Chinese food with his chopsticks in the restaurant in Flagstaff, sharing a beer with me at Barry’s, sitting on the roof of my hotel as we studied the stars.
I loved this man, who’d become part of my life in all ways, who’d given me the silver, onyx, and turquoise ring that held a piece of his
aura.
The me deep inside fought the all-powerful being who only wanted to drain Mick’s fire and pack it against the other magics she’d stolen.
I fought, and Mick watched me fight. He touched my lips, understanding, and loving me back. Then he drew forth his power to battle me, profound sorrow in his eyes. I nodded, wanting him to.
But the part of me that had become more than Emmett ever had been couldn’t be denied.
“Stop me,” I whispered desperately.
“I’m trying, love,” Mick said, his voice a faint rasp.
Mick’s fire magic streamed in through my hands, and I began to imbibe the quintessence of the man I loved …
The fire died out in the next instant as though someone had thrown a heavy, muffling blanket over me. I struggled, but the magic streamed back into Mick, whose eyes became black, then touched with red.
Mick hadn’t dampened me. He looked as surprised as I was. Nash stood a few feet away from us, holding on to Maya. Emmett continued to nurse his nosebleed on the floor, Cassandra was in a chair, Pamela crouching beside her, and my grandmother and Elena were busy arguing about what to do to stop me.
I looked down. The two goblins who’d come to celebrate their two-hundredth anniversary stared up at me. They weren’t ugly, just different, with leathery, wrinkled faces, glittering dark eyes, and hands that ended in neatly trimmed claws.
They smiled at me—or at least I thought they smiled—and their touch stopped every bit of magic I was trying to wield.
How, I had no idea. I reached out with my fist for their auras, to take what they had, and found myself blocked. My hand hurt, as though I’d punched a steel wall.
“She is confused,” the man said to his wife.
“Poor thing,” his wife answered. “You have ancient magics,” she told me in her small, croaking voice. “We are more ancient still. They say that with age comes wisdom.” She and her husband shared a look. “Well, we’re as wise as it gets.” She let out a scratchy laugh, and her husband joined in.
“Release it, little one,” the male goblin said. “You’ll feel better.”
“Here,” the woman said. “I’ll show you.”
She touched my hand. I sucked in a breath. She truly was ancient, the essence of her stretching back, back, back into the past, thousands of years piling on top of years.
She gave me a touch of her magic along with a bite of the wisdom she thought was so funny.
That wisdom gave me a jolt. I’d thought, with Emmett’s magics, that I’d known everything.
I realized suddenly why Emmett was so evil. He’d known, seen, discovered, and hadn’t cared. He’d possessed clinical knowledge of the universe, but none of its wonders had penetrated his selfish shell. Information had buoyed him with arrogance but given him no compassion.
Coyote’s words swept back to me:
The all powerful can be the most vulnerable, but compassion is the strongest gift of all.
I stilled, realization penetrating. Outside, the coyote pricked his ears, his mouth opening in an animal smile.
In the end, you’ll have to choose and make the choice for others, he’d said. Be careful how you choose, Janet. Cruelty is so easy.
Compassion, I understood with new clarity, was difficult. Compassion misplaced could be the cruelest thing of all.
Consequences, I’d said to Gabrielle when she’d wanted to kill the sleazy men in the convenience store in Winslow. If you go around doing whatever you want and to hell with it, your choices will bite you in the ass in the end.
I’d been trying to calm her down when I’d said that, but I knew now that I hadn’t listened to my own advice.
“Mick,” I whispered. I reached a hand to him, and he clasped it. “I love you,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Mick only looked at me with warmth, the man who always had my back.
The goblin woman’s wisdom showed me something else. I learned, opened my entire being, and gave all the magic back.
It streamed from me into the mirror, to the long string of mages still waiting there for what was stolen to be returned. The magic didn’t rip me open as it went, as I’d feared it might, but like a quiet trickle of a river, deep in shadows, a relief from the blazing sun.
The magic filled those who waited, giving them back their lives, their selves. Some of these people were not necessarily good—some were as bad as Emmett—but they had to be themselves, make their own choices.
Not all those waiting were still alive. The dead could not retrieve their power, their life’s breath. Emmett had killed them, magically or physically—sometimes both ways. But those people gave me looks of relief as their visages wavered and winked out.
Their magic, free and quiet, dispersed through the holes in my roof and walls, and vanished into the night.
***
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, my limbs askew, Mick holding me on his lap. A cool late-September wind blew through my once-again ruined saloon.
Grandmother and Elena kept their distance, as though uncertain how to approach me. Grandmother was standing upright, looking stronger than ever. I was certain I’d hear all about that in time.
Gabrielle bent over me. Her aura was hot white, as bright as ever, but her dark eyes held concern. “You okay, Janet?”
“Think so.” My voice barely worked. “You all right?”
“Sure.” She grinned like her old, crazy self, but something in her had been softened. “Thank you, big sis.”
She didn’t say for what, but I knew. I could have killed Gabrielle when she’d been vulnerable, thus saving myself the huge problem of her in my life. Instead, I’d taken care of her and given her back the magic that made her who she was as soon as I’d been able.
“You’re not all right,” Mick rumbled beneath me. His strong arms held me in place, which was fine with me. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you heal from this one.”
“I guess I’ll have to live with that,” I said, feeling happy.
I was weak and aching, but I didn’t have the awful hangover I usually did after wielding big magic. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t hit me later, but I glanced over at the goblin woman, who was in the circle of her husband’s arm, both of them conversing with Cassandra.
Whatever the goblin woman had done, she’d made the outflow of magic easy and sweet. While I was sore and exhausted, my brain wasn’t fried and my nerves weren’t jangled. In fact, I hadn’t been this relaxed in a long time.
The heap that was Emmett Smith stirred. He climbed to his feet, blood-soaked tissue jammed to his nose. His aura was no longer the vast black, terrible thing it had been, but it was still shot through with darkness. Stripping Emmett of power had not suddenly made him good.
“Damn you, Janet Begay,” he said to me, his voice as hard and clipped as ever. “Now I have to start all over again.”
“Being evil is a hard row to hoe,” I said, or attempted to say. My mouth wasn’t working very well. “Suck on it.”
Emmett scowled at me, a minor mage with delusions of grandeur, then stomped toward the ruined wall leading to the parking lot, ready to begin his reign of havoc again.
The goblin man tripped him. Emmett went down, cursing as he banged his knees. Nash calmly walked over to him, pulled Emmett’s hands behind his back, and cuffed him.
Chapter Thirty
Cassandra, though her face was lined and gray, became her efficient self and started ordering people about, outlining procedures for clearing up the mess. Grandmother looked as though she wanted to lecture me, but Mick forestalled her by carrying me into our bedroom in the back of the hotel and closing the door.
He laid me on the bed, stripped off my clothes, and ran his touch over my tired limbs, filling me with his healing magic.
“Mick.” My voice was better but not completely whole. “Oh gods, I tried to hurt you.” I put my hands over my face. “Some part of me wanted your magic so bad …”
“I know.” Mick gently pul
led my hands down and traced my cheek with gentle fingers. “I was prepared not to let you.”
“We’re lethal to each other.” I said. I let him place my hands over his chest, feeling pleasant heat there as he briefly kissed my lips. “What are we going to do?”
Mick’s smile was philosophical. “Who knows? As long as we’re killing each other, at least we’re not hurting anyone else. And hey, it makes our relationship a hell of an exciting time. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
I warmed, but watched him worriedly. “Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.”
Mick lifted my hand and kissed the ring that meant I belonged to him. “We balance each other, love,” he said. “I’ve tried to teach you all I can to keep you alive and sane, and you’ve given this dragon an understanding of what it is to care for someone more than anything else in the world. You taught me how to love, Janet Begay.”
“You gave me freedom,” I said, my words soft but sincere. “And taught me how to love you back.”
A wicked light entered Mick’s eyes, and he touched his lips to mine again. “I think we taught each other how to have fun too.”
“Yeah?” I eyed him hopefully. I wanted to draw Mick into my arms and show him how much I appreciated him trying to stop me killing him and everyone else.
Mick only kissed me one more time, touched his fingertips to my eyelids, and said, “Sleep, my mate.”
Damn him. I could never resist his spells.
I dreamed. In darkness I walked from the hotel to the railroad bed and down the other side, to my usual meeting place with Coyote. He waited, wind ruffling his fur in the moonlight.
Thanks, Janet, he said.
I blinked at him. “What? No lengthy explanation of what happened, no admonishment, no praise that I finally learned my lesson? That’s so unlike you.”
Would be redundant. Coyote’s tongue lolled from his mouth as he began to pant. I knew your compassion would win. It just needed a little nudge. Must have been difficult, all that stolen magic, good and evil, flooding you. I would have been tempted to do what you did, myself.
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