Stormwalker

by Allyson James

  “Get out of my way.”

  “No.”

  I glared at him. “What are you going to do? Force me to stay?”

  He could. He was bigger than me, stronger, more powerful. He’d proved that he could take any magic I threw at him and laugh it off. I should have been terrified of him, but I was too angry to be afraid. I’d fallen in love with him, but he treated me like a naïve schoolgirl, he didn’t trust me, and I’d had enough.

  “Get out of my way,” I repeated.

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’ve already been stupid. I am stupid. I’m stupid enough to ride around with a guy who has no last name, no birthday, no driver’s license, and who won’t tell me who he is, what he is, where he comes from, or where he goes. I don’t know what kind of sorcerer you are, or what kind of glam you’ve put on me, but I’m finished with it.”

  “I haven’t glammed you. You stay with me because you want to.”

  “And now I don’t want to.”

  His arm remained across the door, solid as granite. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is. I want to go. Alone.”

  “No matter what I might think? No matter what I might feel for you?”

  “If you feel something for me, you’ll stop making me live like your woman, at your beck and call. Sorry, Mick. I don’t answer to anyone.”

  “I can’t protect you if you run off.” He sounded frustrated.

  “And I can’t protect you when you disappear,” I said. “There are things after me that would tear through you to get to me. Whenever you’re gone, how do I know that they haven’t found you? How do I know you’ll be back?”

  “Do you mean your mother in the vortexes? From what you’ve told me, she doesn’t have a range much farther than about forty miles. We’re safe if we leave that part of the country alone.”

  If that was true, then why the hell was he so worried about protecting me? “Fine. I’ve heard that Cape Cod is pretty. And I’ve always wanted to see New York City.”

  “I’ll show you New York, if that’s what you want. I’ll rent a penthouse, and we’ll do it right.”

  “I don’t want to do it on your money. I have my own money.”

  “Will you stop worrying about that? I have lots of money. I like taking care of you.”

  “I’m not your call girl.”

  “I know that, damn it. I take care of you because I love you.”

  Gods, he broke my heart. I dropped the bag, tears filling my eyes. The birthday setup had confirmed for me that he had all the power in this relationship, but I was sensitive enough to know that he didn’t see it that way.

  “You did all this for me, tonight,” I said, “because you thought it would make me happy.”

  “Yes, why else would I?”

  He’d pictured me gushing with joy, pouring him champagne, pulling him to the bathroom so we could make love in the tub. He’d done this to please me.

  “Mick.” I put my hands to my face, wiping away tears, then I went to him and put my arms around him. “Thank you. Pink icing is my favorite.”

  Mick laughed then, a baritone rumble, and he scooped me to him. His kiss opened my mouth, his tongue hot against mine, and he completed my heartbreak.

  I stayed with him three more days. We argued every day from the moment we woke until the moment we slept, until Mick finally put me on my bike, gave me the light spells, and kissed me good-bye with tears running down his face. I turned my back on him, wiping away my own tears, and headed north to New England. I hadn’t seen him from that day to the moment he broke into Nash’s office and carried me out.

  A shrill scream jerked me from my memories. I spun around, but the carpenters were banging away, none giving any sign that he’d heard the scream. I ran into the kitchen, where Maya was hooking up a six-burner range and Fremont was unscrewing a protesting pipe.

  “Are you all right?”

  Both of them looked up in surprise. “Fine,” Fremont said. Maya didn’t bother to answer.

  Another shriek pierced the hotel, and I slapped my hands over my ears. “Can’t you hear that?”

  Maya looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. Fremont pushed back his hat, rubbed his head. “I hear a buzzing from somewhere, but it’s not very loud. In the pipes maybe?”

  This wasn’t squeaky pipes, these were screams of agony. Maya went back to her wires. “Maybe it’s the ghost of Sherry Beaumont.”

  Fremont went white. “Don’t say that.”

  “You’ll believe anything,” Maya said. “Maybe it’s one of your skinwalkers.”

  “It’s not a skinwalker,” I said. They didn’t come out during daylight, and they just killed you; they didn’t bother scaring you first.

  “Stay here,” I told them. Fremont and Maya exchanged glances before Maya rolled her eyes and turned back to her work.

  I raced back into the lobby and upstairs. The power saws and drills and nail guns should have drowned out the noise, but I heard it loud and clear. The screams beat inside my skull, like someone going insane and taking me with them.

  The noise didn’t come from any of the guest rooms. I ran past them, slammed open the door to the attic, and charged up the stairs, panting when I reached the top. I entered the largest room, the one with the desk and the mirror. No one was there. Nothing smelled of death, or life either, for that matter. The air felt no different than it had last night when I’d come through here on my way to the roof.

  The screams escalated, raking like nails on glass. I pressed my hands to my head. “Stop!” I shouted.

  The screams ended as though someone had thrown a switch. All was silent, except for the coo of the doves that nested under the eaves.

  “Well, aren’t you cranky,” a voice said from the vicinity of my knees. It was a low, husky male voice that held the lilt of a drag queen. “Like maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night.” The voice laughed. “Oh, wait, you didn’t. You were screwing that incredible hunk and releasing all that beautiful sex magic. It was . . . so stimulating.”

  “Who are you?” I asked the air.

  “Darling, don’t you know? And you call yourself a witch.”

  I had a good idea now what was going on, but these particular magical beings were tricky and had to be handled with care.

  “I don’t call myself a witch,” I said. “What do you call yourself?”

  “I don’t call myself anything. You can call me what you want to, darling.”

  I crouched in front of the mirror and looked into it. The glass reflected my shocked face and wide dark eyes. My hair was coming out of the ponytail I’d tucked it into, and my cropped top was dusty from the construction downstairs. The mirror reflected nothing but me and the room behind me. No face, no mists, nothing.

  “You don’t look so good, girlfriend,” the voice observed. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who’s the fairest one of all? In this room, that would be me, sweet chick.”

  I closed my eyes. Perfect. This was all I needed.

  “Gods help me,” I said. “You’re a magic mirror.”

  Ten

  “Well, state the obvious, sugar,” the mirror said.

  I wasn’t sure whether to rejoice or run like hell. Magic mirrors were problematical devices. I’d met a witch in Oklahoma who’d had a magic mirror, a thing worse than a foul-mouthed parrot. At least parrots slept. Magic mirrors never shut up.

  On the other hand, they could be immensely powerful, if you could handle them. They’d watch out for you, protect your home, let you communicate through distant magic mirrors and sometimes even ordinary mirrors. They stored knowledge for centuries and remembered everything they saw with computerlike precision. If one broke, the pieces could be used separately or the whole thing melted down and re-formed without losing the magic. The mirror’s personality might change, but the essential magic wouldn’t fade.

  They also didn’t have to be mirrors as we think of them—any reflective surface could hold the magic. In fact, I
knew that some of the large polished copper disks found in archaeological sites in Rome, Britain, and the American Southwest had been magic mirrors.

  Magic mirrors were extremely rare. Witches scoured the world for them, because a sorcerer with a magic mirror could easily double or triple his or her power. But only if the sorcerer could handle the mirror, which could be touchy and rude at best, psychotic at worst.

  I wondered how it had come to be hanging in the saloon downstairs, but perhaps whoever had brought it in hadn’t realized it was magical. Or maybe they had—this was Magellan.

  Mirrors could communicate only with the magic-touched; normal human beings couldn’t use them and couldn’t hear them. However, a mirror could, if it was very talented, make nonmagical humans hear faint, unexplainable sounds. Some haunted houses were simply magic mirrors having fun. I wondered whether I’d stumbled onto the reason the Crossroads Hotel had kept closing; maybe the magic mirror had scared people off.

  I studied it with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it could be a powerful weapon in my arsenal against my battle with my mother. On the other, I now had to deal with a magic mirror.

  “I’ve been living here two weeks,” I said. “I’ve gone through the place with spells twice. Why didn’t I know I had a magic mirror?”

  “I’d gone dormant, darling. So many years, so long alone. And then, last night, all that sex you had with that gorgeous man. Your manic Tantric woke me up. Activated me. Oh, it was wonderful. I thought I’d need a cigarette.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Next time, hang me in your bedroom and let me watch.”

  I got to my feet. “Not in a million years.”

  “Sweetie-pie, you are so mean.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked it.

  “On a train. A long, long, long, long time ago. Back when men were men. Movie stars used to come out here to get away from it all. That Dougie Fairbanks was, ooooo, so handsome.”

  “Who made you?”

  The voice quieted. “Now, that, I don’t want to talk about.”

  Only a very powerful sorcerer could create a magic mirror. The technique, the energy, the magic all had to be precise, and it took a long time, years even. I’d never be able to make one because my power came and went. The magic had to be concentrated and sustained for a great length of time.

  That sorcerer, if he or she was still alive, could claim the mirror anytime he or she wanted. Once created, the mirror belonged to its maker. However, in the absence of that sorcerer, the mirror belonged to whatever powerful mage could tap it and wake its magic. Which, in this instance, meant me and Mick.

  “Who was the woman in the basement?” I asked it.

  “Woman?” The mirror sounded blank.

  “The one my electrician found behind the wall yesterday morning. Do you know who she was?”

  “Oh, that woman. No. I’ve been asleep, I told you, until last night. Until all that wonderful, glorious sex.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been a lot of help.”

  “I didn’t see anything. Believe me, if I had, I’d tell you all about it. Or better still, send that man of yours up here. I’ll tell him anything he wants to know.”

  It was true that if a mirror went dormant, which it could after years of nonuse, it became nothing more than a piece of glass to comb your hair in front of. If the mirror had been dark when the murder occurred, it would not have recorded the act or even who’d gone in and out of the building that day. Just as well, I thought. I couldn’t imagine myself trying to explain to Nash Jones that the sole witness to the woman’s murder had been a magic mirror.

  “You’re in touch with the building,” I said. “Didn’t you feel her down there?”

  “No, sugar. I didn’t notice. The dead are of absolutely no use to me.”

  “Your compassion runs deep.”

  “I’m a mirror, honey. I reflect; I don’t feel. But I do have interests. Tell me about your lickable boyfriend. Is his ass as firm as it looks?”

  I rose, grabbed drop cloths that lay in the corner, and flung them over the mirror. The mirror gave a muffled shriek. “Oh, sweetie, don’t do that. I’ll be good. I know what your Micky is, you know. I can see his true nature.”

  I lifted the edge of the cloth. “All right, what is he?”

  “I felt his magic last night.” It drew a long, happy breath. “Is he powerful, or what?”

  “Tell me,” I said in a hard voice.

  “Trust me, darling, it’s something you wouldn’t, wouldn’t like.”

  I knelt down, peering into its depths. “I order you to tell me. I awakened you, and you belong to me.”

  “Funny thing about sex magic, sweetie. It takes two. Or more. More is so much fun. I belong to you, but I also belong to the lovely Micky. I know he doesn’t want you to know what he is, so I can’t tell you. My lips are sealed.”

  “Not even if I threaten to pound you into shards?”

  “No, not even then.” It hesitated. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  In truth, I already knew I wouldn’t destroy the mirror, no matter how tempting it was to drive it to the dump and leave it there. A magic mirror was too powerful a talisman to ignore, and I needed all the help I could get.

  “I can give you clues if you want, honey,” the mirror said. “Like, what’s black and red and hot all over?”

  “If you mean he’s a demon, he’s not.” At least, I didn’t think so. I remembered the black creature with red eyes I’d glimpsed when we made love, but I had no idea whether that was Mick’s true form or whether it had been a manifestation of the magic we’d been driving away. “I already guessed that one.”

  “I’m not going to answer. Not straight questions.”

  I stood up. “Here’s a riddle for you. What happens to mirrors who don’t shut up?”

  “I give up, darling. What?”

  I bent to it. “They get melted back into sand.”

  “Oh.” It sounded nervous. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. So what’s it going to be?”

  There was a silence. “Well, if you put it like that . . .” “Good.” I rose and dropped the cloth over it.

  It shrieked. “Oh, that is so not fair.”

  I ignored it and left the room. As I headed back downstairs, the mirror called to me, pleaded to me, shouted to me, and finally lapsed into swearing. Because I’d been born with strong, latent magic, I’d always be able to hear it.

  Lucky me.

  That afternoon, I told everyone to take off early so those who wanted to could attend Charlie’s funeral. I rode with an unusually quiet Fremont to Flat Mesa, where the funeral was being held at the county’s one cemetery. Almost the whole town was there, Flat Mesa being full of Joneses. Magellan was the home of Hansens, Medinas, Lopezes, and McGuires; likewise Flat Mesa’s phone directory listed a ton of Joneses, Morrisons, and Salases.

  Nash Jones turned up in his sharp-pressed uniform. He gazed at me with cold eyes but didn’t try to approach me, which was fine with me. Fremont, looking grief-stricken, introduced me to Charlie Jones’s mother.

  “Fremont says you blame yourself.” Charlie’s mom was about fifty, with short gray hair, a slightly overweight body, and brown eyes filled with tears. “But I know it wasn’t your fault, dear. A skinwalker did this. Oh, yes, I know they’re real, though some people disagree.” Her look at Nash left me no doubt to whom she was referring.

  Her graciousness made me feel even worse. “I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Jones.”

  “I’m glad you were there; that he wasn’t alone in his last moment.” She caught tears with a tissue. “The vortexes around here draw evil magic as well as good. I wish the New Agers would understand that.”

  Yes, they would be safer if they did. I stayed for the brief but sad service, drifting away to leave Charlie’s immediate family and close friends to say good-bye to him. I walked a few blocks to the mechanic shop, found out my bike was a long w
ay from being finished but that at least the mechanic was well qualified to work on Harleys. We talked bikes for a few minutes, before I walked another block to a rental car agency. I drove back to Magellan in a bright red SUV, the windows down, feeling claustrophobic as I always did in an enclosed vehicle. I preferred the openness my Harley provided.

  As I neared Magellan, watching the sun sink toward the pile of mountains far to the west, the temptation to keep going was incredible. I could drive away from the vortexes, my mother, Amy’s disappearance, Mick, Nash Jones, and a host of other problems, and keep going.

  Which was what I’d done my entire life. I’d made the vow this time to stop and face my problems. I wanted to help the McGuires, and I needed to stop running from what I was. I sighed, slowed the SUV, and pulled into the parking lot of my hotel. Mick’s bike was there, and I wished with everything I had that I wasn’t so happy to see it.

  Mick wasn’t in the hotel, but at the Crossroads Bar. I joined him there. We talked a little, and his eyes lit with interest when I told him about the mirror.

  Everyone from town was talking about the woman walled up in my basement as well as Charlie’s death and funeral. They gave me speculative looks—weird things had started happening since the Navajo woman had come to town to investigate Amy McGuire’s disappearance. It couldn’t be coincidence. I hated that they were right.

  I watched Barry tending bar and talking to his regulars, mostly bikers who liked this back-road haven. If Barry heard the whispers in the room about him and Sherry Beaumont being from the same metropolis, he made no indication.

  Mick was his usual charming self. He talked with the bikers and kept his arm around me, radiating protectiveness and possessiveness. Without saying a word, he made it clear that I belonged to him and that anyone who touched me would be toast.

  I’d loved that about him when we’d first met. No one had ever protected me like Mick had. I’d always been certain that, no matter what happened, Mick would take care of me. Trusting him with my whole being had been so easy, so comforting. I remembered sitting across from him at the restaurant in Las Vegas, letting myself be lulled by his deep voice and beautiful blue eyes. I’d wanted to fall in love with him, and I’d done it.