“After Betsy called, I felt like there was something wrong. I dreamed there was.”
“Just a dream?” Keni asked.
Amy shook her head. “No. I…” Pausing, she cleared her throat. “My family are dreamwalkers.”
Keni gasped and sat forward. “Really? A whole family?”
“You believe me?” Amy turned in the seat.
Raising her eyebrow, Keni smiled and a burst of lavender light appeared between her hands, swirling and twirling and fading a moment later. Max’s grin was blinding and she felt it—all the way down to the juncture of her thighs. So much trouble.
“Welcome to Pine Valley,” Niko offered.
Amy knew the place was filled with otherworldly people, but this… “You’re all magical?”
“Sorcerer, here,” Keni answered.
“Dragon shifters,” Max said, pointing between himself and Niko. “You’ll find there are a lot of magicals in the Valley.”
A dragon shifter? Betsy had found one of the five that were supposed to live here, and she found him and another right off the bat. Looking directly at Niko, Amy had a single question. “Does she know?”
“Yes.”
An audible sigh of relief escaped her as she turned back in the seat. “Oh, thank God. I was so tired of keeping it from her.” She glanced at them all, and before she knew what she was doing, it was like a dam released and she didn’t care if she wasn’t supposed to talk about what she knew. “You know she’s a locus, right?”
“A what?” Max asked.
“A locus,” Amy repeated.
“It’s a magical focal point.” Niko turned the car down the road as he explained. “She doesn’t have power on her own, but it swirls around her. She’s a change point. Her decisions affect the world and magic around her.”
Amy shook her head. “It’s more than that. There are five loci. One for each element—”
“There are only four elements.” Max sliced into her words.
“There have always been five,” Amy answered. “But the last had never needed to be represented because 3000 years ago, it was universally accepted. Now, we’ve lost sight of it. So, there must be five loci. And wherever those five loci find themselves, that spot will host the new omphalos.”
“The omphalos?” Max scratched at his chin. “Isn’t that in Greece? At Delphi?”
“It is. It has been for thousands of years. It’s the naval of the magical world. But it has to move.”
“How do you know all this?” Keni asked.
Taking a deep breath, Amy didn’t hold back. “I’m a dreamwalker, but not only. I’m part of the Sectorum Esse. We’re keepers. We write down oral history and traditions and folklore, and we pass it down and read it and study it. Thousands of years. Hundreds of generations. And it’s a damn relief to be able to tell you all that. But my point is that Betsy is the Locus Premier. We have to find her and get her to safety. If she doesn’t make...the decision, nothing happens. The omphalos stays in Delphi. If she dies, the world will fall into chaos.”
“And if we don’t find her, I will die.”
Amy looked at him. “What? That’s the second time…why would you say that?”
“Betsy is my mate. Somewhere in the past few days, she triggered the mating process, which starts my flames. Except if we don’t mate, the flames never really ignite, and I burn slowly from the inside out.”
Putting a hand to her head, Amy let out a sigh. “We have to find her. For so many reasons. Wyatt and Wayne are murderers. If she doesn’t play along perfectly, they’ll kill her.”
Niko pulled the car into the parking lot of an apartment complex. There was a vehicle idling near the entrance, and as soon as he saw Niko’s, he climbed out. A moment later, he halted as Keni climbed out.
“Christ, what is going on here?” Amy heard Niko mumble. She had walked into something she didn’t quite understand.
Keni stared at Niko, hard. “Ignore this. He has. For fifty years.”
Well, that was a history she didn’t have time to investigate. They marched over to where Henry was waiting for them.
“What’s going on? I had the place mostly cleaned. There’s just some furniture and leftovers in there.” Shoving the key in the knob, he unlocked it and let them into the apartment. “Are you really so broken up about a thief, Niko?”
“She’s not a thief,” Amy snapped. “She’s playing along with them so they don’t kill her. We just need to find if there’s a cell phone in here.”
“A cell phone?” Henry asked. “You really think she would leave her phone behind? They’re thieves, they would have taken that thing and smashed it as soon as they could.”
“She not only left it, but she left it on.” Amy started pulling open cabinets and drawers. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but that damn thing was still on just less than two hours ago when it pinged. I was on the way here.”
“You haven’t had any outlets installed in weird places, have you, Henry?” Max asked. Even his voice was like satin on her ears.
“I upgrade the electrical in each apartment before it’s rented again or every five years if I need to. I haven’t added any since the Eighties when they changed the code from two in a room to receptacles every ten feet in the town code.”
Niko smiled. “That would put one behind the bed, wouldn’t it?”
Amy darted into the bedroom with Niko and Keni on her tail. She dove under the bed and let out a squawk of triumph, emerging a moment later with a phone—Betsy’s phone—in hand. “I knew she didn’t want to go with them! I knew she wanted out of this!”
Swiping the face of it, the phone opened and there were dozens of app notifications on the top, but she chose the task manager instead to see what might still be running. Niko watched as she paged through, stopping at the note app.
It popped open on the screen, and there was a note sitting there.
Amy and Niko looked at each other.
“Las Vegas,” Niko mumbled. “How will we find her there?”
“I can do some spells,” Keni said. “If you can get me within a few miles of her, they’ll work. Did she give you anything else? Leave anything else? We’ll need something that’s hers…”
“There’s…uh… Yeah. Back at my house. She left some clothes.”
“Good, perfect. Her bra, eh?” Keni raised an eyebrow.
Niko flushed red—it was cute on him. “Yeah.”
“Doesn’t matter. As long as it’s hers. Who’s going with? We have to get going. They have two weeks on us and we need to get there. Hey, the three of you are dragons…can we fly there?”
“No, I can’t fly,” Niko said.
“I can, but I can’t carry more than one person,” Max answered. The hair on her arms stood on end from just his voice.
“I’m not going,” Henry answered.
Keni turned around and stuck her middle finger up at him. “No one, literally no one, asked you, Henry Zheng. So shut up and fuck off.” She turned back to the others. “So Max doesn’t need to go. We only need Niko. Amy and I should go. Amy, do you have a bag?”
“In my car, back at the diner.” She was glad they realized she was going with them, come hell or high water.
“Good, we have to go back there anyway.” Keni nodded. “Sia and Rijn will be here in a minute, and we’ll let them know what’s going on. I’ll go back to my place with them and pack a bag, and we’ll hit the road as soon as we’re all ready.”
Niko laid a hand on her arm. “Are you sure about this? You’re sure you can find her when we get there?”
“We’ll find her, Niko. I like her. She’s a good person. You’re in love with her, and we need her back here.”
“We all need her back or the magical world is going to go off-kilter.” Amy looked around the room at the people standing there. “Thank you all for trusting me. I didn’t know what to expect when I got here. I just sat in the parking lot wondering what to do. I’ve missed my best friend for too many years and k
nowing how important she was without being able to tell her was killing me.”
Keni smiled. “Let’s go get her back. For you and Niko.”
Two weeks later
Tonopah, Nevada
Amy was in awe as Niko shifted from human to dragon—this was not something she had ever thought to witness. Her mental notebook was going at ninety miles an hour.
The irons around his wrists popped as his arms turned into those of the beast—his armor plates made sure of that. He grew to fill the stall with his giant blue form and ripped the eyebolt out of the ground with a simple tug.
His wings opened to keep the heat and fire from touching the three of them standing there.
“Holy...shit…” Amy mumbled.
Reaching down to the stall door, Niko ripped the wall down and tossed it back into the fire behind them.
There was a rumble from his chest and she saw Betsy nod at him.
Telepathy! Betsy and her dragon could talk!
There was no time, though. Grabbing Keni’s and Amy’s arms, Betsy sprinted with them out the barn door, chains rattling and dragging behind them as they escaped the burning building. They ran toward the open field to the north of the house, away from anything that could burn at that moment.
They turned just in time to see Niko’s massive dragon form burst through the roof, destroying the rest of the barn, turning it into tinder for the fire to consume. He continued to rise into the air, his wings beating down drafts into the fire, fanning the flames.
A disembodied voice screamed from behind them, “What the fuck is that?”
The lackeys who had been running out of the hills stopped dead in their tracks and stared up.
Wyatt and Wayne ran out of the house, ready to start screaming orders at the men now frozen and dotted around the landscape.
Clearly, Wyatt saw the dragon first and immediately started running for the front gate. He didn’t want anything to do with this insanity. Amy smirked. She’d always taken him for a coward—especially letting his girl do all the thinking and the work.
Wayne pulled out a gun and started firing at the dragon.
The bullets made a dull thud as they bounced off and disappeared. Wayne wasn’t deterred. “Fire, you morons! Fire! Kill it!”
Niko turned and let out a spout of flame—a spout that lit the landscape around them. The hired guns turned tail and ran back the way they came. There were only two or three left, and those were the ones closest to Wayne.
“What the fuck? Die! You need to die!”
The bullets came fast and furious at the three of them standing there. Clearly, Wayne decided since Niko couldn’t be shot, they were the next best thing.
Amy yelped in shock as two bullets whizzed by, very close to her. Keni pulled them down to the ground. Every shot missed, and then stopped.
Just to be replaced by Wayne, screaming. Looking up, they could see Niko had grabbed him by the arms and did serious damage with his claws.
“No!” Betsy yelled at him, then giggled at something he sent back. But Wayne was held firmly in the massive dragon’s claws, a prisoner.
He was none too happy to be there. “What are you doing? Let me go, let me go!”
“Amy?” Betsy looked over at her friend. “We have choices here. We can take him in or we can let him die.”
Me? Why was this her—oh, because either of them weren’t rational enough to kill him, and she was the lawyer. Yeah, she’d prefer not to have to hand her best friend over for any more than the charges she already faced.
Amy sighed. “Let the families have closure. Jostle him, don’t kill him. The families of those he’s murdered deserve to see him brought to justice.”
The blue dragon inclined his head, unhappy but understanding. Niko swooped down and dropped Wayne hard on the ground. He was well jostled. Soaring back up, Niko made for the front gate where Wyatt was still running.
A moment later, Wyatt dropped out of the claws of the dragon and onto the ground next to his currently unconscious brother. Just after that, Niko hit the ground and turned around to see what was going on.
“Keys?” Keni asked. “Does anyone have the keys to the shackles?”
Niko’s mouth spread into a giant dragon grin and Betsy interpreted for them. “Hold your hands out, Keni. He’s got this now.”
“He’s not going to try and dissolve these with his spit this time, right?”
Niko guffawed, and Amy and Betsy laughed. “No spit.”
Three weeks later…
Amy couldn’t stop hugging Betsy. Her best friend was back, safe, and she was happy and healthy.
And mated.
That was a bit weird, but, she saw the way she and Niko stared at each other. Being magical made love lives easier for most. She was only a dreamwalker and didn’t have the whole fated mate going on.
Still, it was good to have her back.
“Don’t get used to me, Amy. You know I have prison time coming.”
“Well, that sucks, but now you know I’m a dreamwalker and we can have coffee time and chat.”
Betsy laughed. “Cawffee tawk.”
“Girl. You know it.”
Betsy hugged her this time, and then settled into Niko’s side. The love between them was nearly palpable, and their desire…well. She had heard that the night before. It was close to impossible to block out through the wall, but Amy was sure she could have asked Keni to shield the sounds. Instead, Amy unabashedly listened in on their lovemaking that eventually turned to rowdy fucking. She wanted that someday. Someone who would worship her body and someone who could be filthy and fun.
That tall slice of pizza would do well.
Tall slice of pizza? She couldn’t even think about Max without getting all turned around. Eternally grateful she had gone with Keni and Niko to find Betsy, there was no doubt her other motivation was to keep away from Max.
For now.
He was a tall slice of pizza.
Whatever that meant.
The house where they had left from stood stoically waiting for them. The lawn, however, was littered with people grinning from ear to ear. It was daunting to see so many magicals in one place. Where the Sectorum hid in the mountains, it was only their few magical members and the occasional visit from a wanderer. This was…more.
She spotted Sia and Poppy, Rijn, the leprechaun Aaron, Henry the Earth Dragon, and the bear shifter, Fenrick. There were more people than she could count.
Pulling to a halt, Niko took a deep breath. “You ready?”
“As long as I’m with you.” Betsy tried to lie well, but Amy could see the doubt.
He squeezed her hand. “Always.”
They popped their doors open and she and Keni did the same, all of them climbing out of the car. The crowd on the lawn started clapping, and Amy didn’t want any of that. She wanted to go hide in the car again, and just go back to her job as a pro bono lawyer and occasional chronicler of the supernatural.
She hoped this was all going to go away soon.
Before she could sneak off to the side and disappear somewhere less loud and rowdy, she heard Betsy squeal. She turned just in time to see her tear through the crowd and up the front stairs where her father was standing.
Watching, Amy smiled. Carl threw his arms around his little girl and held her tight to him. Even from where she was, she could see the tears in his eyes. As Niko walked over, someone stopped him at the bottom of the stairs, and he grinned. The young woman wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. Amy and Keni walked over to the porch and Keni leaned against the railing.
“You’re looking awful spry, Grandma Frommer.” She smirked.
The woman snickered. “Well, my boyfriend won’t be here for a few more hours.”
“Grandma!” Niko turned red again.
“Please.” She waved him off. “You knew all this last week.”
How was this spry, young woman Niko’s grandmother? She didn’t present as magical at all.
“Nikom
edes.”
The group of them turned and looked at the white-haired man walking up the front path. Niko took a few steps down, two more toward him and stopped. “Pappous.” Amy could tell there was tension in the air as they approached each other. Apparently Pappous and Grandma were from different sides of the family, as the oddly young woman backed up and let Niko and Pappous stare at each other.
“Niko, I’m sorry. I should have been here with you. I should have told you about the Burning and how it would affect you.” The old man looked incredibly sad. “I just had so much trouble walking into the house my son built for his love, and for him to leave you as he did... I’m still angry at him for it.”
“So you decide not teaching your grandson is the best course of action? Just let him figure it all out?” Sia walked forward, staring at him. “You didn’t teach him anything. Not his power, not why things happen as they do.”
“Mind your place, woman,” he said by way of dismissal.
The burst of power from Sia was impressive. A whole new outfit erupted in a flash of red and she walked up to him. “Mind your place, ketea. Don’t you dare think you have power here. Pine Valley protects their own, and you screwed your grandchild. Right now, if Niko told us to remove you, we could and would.”
“You would threaten me—”
“Pappous, stand down,” Niko said. “You did screw up. No referring to women as ‘woman,’ Grandfather. That is disrespectful. Sia, please. Let us talk. Just he and I. If I want him to go, he will go. Right, Grandfather?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, right. Fine.”
Niko folded his arms. “Pappous. You are not the only dragon in the town. You’d do well to remember.”
There were three people standing behind Niko in that moment: Henry, Max, and a red-haired woman whom Amy decided right then and there she never wanted to cross them or piss off.
The old man nodded and held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop threatening people. We are not enemies, and I need to come to terms with the end of my son’s life.”
Skydance Page 2
