“Let’s ride to Las Vegas,” he said. “Better still, New York. Just you and me. I’ll take you out on the town. We’ll get a limo, and I’ll buy you anything you want.”
“Now?”
“We’ll check out of here, go to the airport. Fly out tonight. We can eat breakfast in Manhattan.”
“What about my hotel?”
“Sell it. Even with the damage you can make a profit on it.”
“You know I can’t leave, Mick.”
“Why not? You found Amy. You did your job, and now it’s done.”
“My mother is still out there. Who knows how many other women she’s killed trying to make a child-slave? I can’t let her keep trying, keep killing.”
“You can’t fight her.” Mick regarded me with grim seriousness. “She’s a god. You have part of her in you, yes, but you’re human. You can’t beat her one-on-one, even with your storm powers. Even I can’t fight her, not if she fully manifests. You’ll be much safer if we get you away from the vortexes. Please let me take you.”
I pushed him just hard enough so that I could slide to a sitting position against the headboard. “No, Mick. I’ve been running too long. It’s time for me to face what I am and what I’m meant to do.”
“What do you think you’re meant to do?”
“Stop her.”
“Even if you can’t?”
I touched his face. “I’ll find a way.”
“Janet, what I’m meant to do is stop you from being used by her, by any means necessary.” He kissed my chest where the shirt bared it. “That’s why I want you away from here. If you open the vortex and let her out, if she doesn’t kill you, the dragons will.”
I ran my fingers through his hair. He felt so human, his hair so warm, his skin firm over muscle. But I’d seen him with wings and scales, tail and talons, fire blossoming from his mouth. It was easy for me to accept my friend Jamison as a Changer. I’d seen him shift, and somehow, he seemed the same to me whether in human or mountain lion form. But the connection between dragon and Mick was more difficult to understand.
“Is this any means necessary?” I asked him. “Seducing me?”
He hesitated just long enough to let me know I was right. I should have been angry, and deep down inside somewhere, I was. But I was also afraid, and lonely, and Mick was here with me, protecting me like he always had.
Tomorrow I was going back to Magellan, with or without Mick. Tonight, we were alone in this motel room. I wasn’t used to city sounds and felt hemmed in when I was in a big town, but this room was a little hideaway. Mine and Mick’s.
I pushed Mick onto his back and climbed on top of him, kissing him as I skimmed off my shirt. He cupped my waist with his hands, his pupils widening as I unhooked my bra and let it fall.
“You are so beautiful,” Mick whispered. He moved his hands beneath my breasts, his thumbs touching the aroused nipples.
I touched him as he touched me, tracing the tattoos on his arms, the jagged lines of the twin dragons. When I’d first met Mick, I’d so admired his tattoos I’d wanted some to match. A dragon on the small of my back maybe, or one nestled on my hip. But for some reason the tattoos wouldn’t take. I’d spend a painful hour while the artist worked, and then the next morning, the indentation would be gone, my skin smooth and healed. I didn’t understand it, and neither did Mick, but I’d given up. Another uniqueness that was me, I suppose.
Mick ran his fingers over my bare skin, dipping beneath the waistband of my jeans. He unbuttoned them and pushed them down my hips, and his large hands rested on my buttocks, fingers warming between my legs. I rubbed against him, he still with his clothes on, my jeans bunching until they came all the way off.
He rolled me over onto my back, pressing me into the hard mattress, pinning my wrists over my head. His mouth met mine, then again, and again. I rose to him, my restrained hands not allowing me to reach for him, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t touch him with my entire body.
Mick gave me a wicked smile and teased me with licks and kisses. His arousal teased me through his jeans, my naked cleft burning for him. He moved down my body, licking, kissing, until he pressed his mouth over my opening and used his tongue until I reached screaming climax.
His clothes came off then, revealing muscles sculpted in light and shadow. Mick liked to take me in unconventional positions: me on my hands and knees; him lying on his back with me leaning back against him; me straddling him on a chair. But tonight he lay full length on top of me, face-to-face, kissing my lips while he slid himself inside me.
Gods, if I could stay in this magical and drab motel room forever, in our bubble of isolation, I’d die happy. I loved this man, and the thought that I might lose him made tears run down my cheeks even as he licked the shell of my ear and groaned his climax.
I woke hours later. Mick slept facedown beside me under the light of a single lamp, his arms wrapped around a pillow. I watched his back rise and fall with his breath, traced the gleam of sweat along his bare hip.
We’d thrown off the covers in our sleep, the room hot despite the air conditioner blowing under the window. The curtains rippled, but the cold air barely reached the bed.
Whatever magic had stuffed Mick into this human body knew what it was doing. I watched the play of light on Mick’s muscles as he breathed, skimmed my gaze over his tight back.
Someone tapped on the door. “Janet Begay?” a soft voice called. “Are you there? I need to talk to you.”
I was up and in my jeans, snatching my shirt, when a strong hand closed around my wrist.
“No.” Mick’s eyes were solid black.
“It’s Amy. She sounds upset.”
“It’s not Amy. I can smell it.”
“It?” My heart started to race, and I pulled on my shirt.
“Get your stuff. We’ll go out the back window.”
I saw a bulk move near the door as the AC fluttered the window curtains. Too big to be Amy.
“Skinwalker?” I whispered. “But they don’t like public places.”
“Tell it that.”
Mick had dressed and lifted my backpack, and he quietly slid open the back window. The drop was about six feet down to the parking lot, but I landed without mishap, followed by Mick, who hurried with me to where he’d parked my bike.
“He didn’t kill Amy, did he?” I asked as we mounted, Mick in front.
“If he had, he’d have taken her form instead of just imitating her voice. But it means someone knows you found Amy.”
“Oh gods.”
“They want you, sweetie, not her, but they’re not getting you as long as I’m around. Hang on.”
He stomped on the starter and screamed the bike out into the street. I gripped his waist for dear life as we ran a red light to zoom onto the freeway ramp. I heard a frustrated scream behind us that died into nothing; then we were riding north into the cool desert night.
I knew Amy had made good on her promise to call her parents, because they arrived at the hotel the next morning as I stumbled around, groggy and exhausted. The skinwalker that had found us in Tucson hadn’t pursued us here, which was fine with me. Maybe its purpose simply had been to drive us back to Magellan. If so, it had succeeded.
I couldn’t have looked good, my hair still wet from my shower, my shoulders slumped, but Maude McGuire hauled me into her arms and gave me a hard hug.
“Thank you.” Her face was wet with tears. “You worked a miracle.”
It hadn’t been a miracle, or even magic. “The biggest clue was Amy asking Father Matthews what had made him decide to become a priest,” I told her.
A harmless question, except I had already suspected Amy of having been scared out of her mind, thinking she was possessed, and hoping that God had the answer. The grunt work had been phone calls to every convent in the state. I’d crossed most off my list and was about to work on the ones in New Mexico and California, when I’d found her in Tucson.
“We’re driving down to see her,” Ma
ude told me.
I wondered if Nash would be visiting Amy as well, but I didn’t ask.
The chief didn’t hug me, but he thanked me quietly. His eyes said everything else. The McGuires left, and I turned back to the sounds of work on the hotel, which seemed louder now that I had a splitting headache.
With the amazing speed of small-town gossip, everyone had heard that Amy McGuire was alive and well. No one got the story exactly right—I heard everything from speculation that she was in seclusion in Mexico to the rumor that she’d started her own religious sect in California. I didn’t correct anyone. I was the hero of the day, uncovering what the police chief and sheriff couldn’t, never mind the special investigators from the state.
Maya Medina didn’t join in the relief that Amy was alive and well, but she did look less unhappy.
“I told you she was a selfish bitch,” she said to me when we found ourselves alone in the kitchen.
“Yeah, selfish to give up her whole life to help shut-ins.”
“You know what I mean. She loves God so much that she couldn’t call her parents? Or her fiancé? A convent’s a good place for her. I hope I never see her again.”
“I don’t think she’ll be back anytime soon.” I gave Maya a speculative look. “If you don’t like Magellan, Maya, have you thought about moving away? Leaving town, finding a better job somewhere else?”
“No.” The answer was quick. “My family is here.” So was Nash, but she’d never admit that she stayed for him.
I worried about Maya. My mother’s modus was to look for young women to inhabit, and Maya already had a relationship with Nash, albeit a strained one. Of course, Maya had dark hair and my mother seemed to prefer blondes. I wondered if my mother was trying to reflect what she looked like Beneath or simply liked being a blonde.
I started losing sleep wondering how to get every light-haired woman out of Magellan. Tourists would soon be arriving by the busload, and I imagined there would be young blond women sprinkled through them. What could I do?
The McGuires went to Tucson to see Amy and returned changed people. I’d never seen them so happy. Maude McGuire told me that Nash refused to visit Amy or even to talk to her. He was furious, and I couldn’t really blame him. Amy had, in effect, used him and dumped him.
I didn’t want to talk to Nash either, but I’d invited him over so I could get Coyote to tell me what he was. Because no one I talked to had seen Coyote lately and I didn’t know his cell phone number, I stood on the railroad bed every morning and night calling for the annoying trickster god. I’d seen him the morning I’d gone to Tucson, but I’d been too groggy and embarrassed by my ménage dream to remember to ask him. But as much as I shouted for him, Coyote never answered or appeared. The crow would perch on top of the juniper and watch me, and I swear she looked amused at my lack of success.
The magic mirror didn’t know where Coyote was either. Jamison and family, who were good friends with him, hadn’t seen him in days.
I’d told Nash to show up on Friday, and Friday night he actually stopped by, but Mick and I were out looking for Coyote, so Nash departed again, not bothering to wait for us.
Coyote did eventually come to me, but in another dream.
We were both naked, standing on a rise in the desert east of town. The deep wash of Chevelon Creek cut to our right, and the moon bathed us in white light.
“It figures,” I said. “Any dream instigated by you will have me naked in it, right? Does everything with you have to involve sex?”
“No fun if it doesn’t.” Coyote looked me up and down and grinned. “Nice rack, Janet.”
I folded my arms, hiding my breasts. “What do you want?”
“You’re the one who’s been looking for me.”
“You don’t make it easy. Where’ve you been?”
Coyote shrugged. “Around. The time is coming.”
“What time?”
“The time when you decide who you are. What you are.”
“I already know. I’m a Stormwalker with a hell goddess for a mother.”
“That’s not what I mean. You have come to a fork in the road, and only you can choose which direction to take.”
“Very sage,” I said. “I can get that advice from a fortune cookie.”
Coyote laughed, loud and long. “Gods, I’d love to bed you, Janet. It would be glorious.”
“Resist the urge. Will you show up?”
Another shrug. “If you think it’s important.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss your coming out for the world.”
On Wednesday, inspectors from the county came to look over the repaired damage to the plumbing and electricity and make sure everything was up to code. It was agony watching the man drift around with his clipboard, examining things, testing with his little devices, checking boxes on his form.
Finally he told me that not only had everything passed but that I’d employed one hell of a talented electrician, and who was he?
“She is Maya Medina,” I said.
“A woman?” He turned around like he wanted to go back over the wiring again.
“I’ll tell her you complimented her work.” I reached for the clipboard and signed off on the sheet. “Thank you very much.”
Passing the inspection meant I could close up the walls and paint again. I doubted I’d be able to open the place until the end of June or beginning of July now, but I could still get some of the tourists this season. Plus those passing through would note the hotel and hopefully tell their friends or return themselves next year. The extra time would also give me a chance to get the Web site up and running. I could start taking reservations now.
The thrill that went through me surprised me. I’d never before contemplated being a businesswoman, thinking I’d be an unwanted drifter my entire life. Now I was worried about Web sites, paint, and advance reservations.
That afternoon I interviewed employees for the hotel, a couple of maids, cooks, and a bartender. I’d have to hire a manager to keep track of all the employees and someone to worry about the endless forms—taxes, liquor license, food permits, and other things I’d never known existed. Hoteliers lived a complicated life.
By six that evening I was tired. I sent everyone home and started making sandwiches. I’d rescheduled with Nash for tonight, and Coyote had promised me in my dream to be here. The least I could do was feed them. I also felt another storm coming, and I hoped I could get through the deal with Nash before it struck. A glance outside showed white stacks of thunderheads to the south and west, another line to the north. The setting May sun made them glow from within.
Coyote hadn’t arrived yet, and Mick had disappeared again. It might be just me and Nash. Or me by myself. Men were notoriously unreliable. Excepting, of course, my father, who lived by such an unvaried day-to-day routine that you knew where he was at any given time of the day or night. He was comfortably predictable.
The men I’d surrounded myself with were not predictable at all. I’d never had girlfriends, not close ones anyway, and my female cousins my age barely could bring themselves to speak to me. I’d always connected better with men for some reason, as with Jamison and Mick. In a weird way, my only female friend in Magellan was Maya.
I changed my mind about that, however, when Maya walked into the kitchen and pointed a pistol at me.
Twenty-five
“Would you like roast beef or ham?” I asked her.
Maya’s eyes snapped black anger over the nine-millimeter. She’d dressed for the occasion in a tight blue dress and matching pumps, as though she planned to go out on the town. Maybe she wanted to look good for the magistrate after killing me.
“Don’t you believe I’ve come to shoot you?” she demanded. “I’d shoot you in a heartbeat.”
“I think you’d do it if you were angry enough. But there’s a big storm building, and it makes me able to do this.” I tapped the power of wind to jerk the pistol from her grip and sen
d it flying. The gun clattered to the floor and I winced, expecting it to go off and shoot me in the foot.
Nothing so dire happened. Maya stared at me in terror. “You freak.”
“Sit down and have a sandwich.” I pushed the plate across the counter. “The building inspector from Flat Mesa complimented your work today. Said you were . . . Let’s see, what was it? ‘One hell of a talented electrician.’”
Maya opened her mouth in surprise, and then her bravado evaporated and she sank onto a stool at the kitchen counter. She contemplated the sandwiches and picked up a ham and cheese. “Nash hasn’t talked to me since you found Amy. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”
I shrugged. “Now that you know what happened, each of you can stop worrying that the other killed Amy and get on with your lives. You and Nash need to shack up for a couple of days and get it out of your systems.”
“Nash wouldn’t. Not with me.” Maya glumly chewed her sandwich. “You’re staying in Magellan, aren’t you?”
“I like it here.”
“I thought this hotel thing was just a cover for looking for Amy. That you’d leave town as soon as you figured something out, or gave up.”
“Nope.” I gave her a cheerful look. “We open in July. Want to be my on-call electrician? It’s an old building; I’m sure I’ll have plenty of problems.”
“I want you to go away.”
“Is that why you came tonight?”
“No, I wanted to see your blood.”
I leaned my elbows on the counter. “I understand. I’m used to being everyone’s scapegoat. You can’t beat up Nash or beat sense into him, so you try to shoot me. I get it.”
Maya finished one half of her sandwich. She sighed. “You really are a bitch, Janet.”
“So people tell me. Next time, just bring tequila.”
Maya reached for the second half of her sandwich, her mouth softening into a near smile. I brought her a beer and popped the top off. She reached for that too, with a little nod of thanks.
“Are you going somewhere tonight?” I asked her. “I mean besides here to shoot me.”
Stormwalker Page 24