Firewalker

by Allyson James

  The big mirror clouded again, and when it cleared I saw the flunky entering a long, dark room. The end was lit by a fireplace—no, it was the cocoon of fire the flunky had wrapped around the councilman. So he’d made it here.

  The room was dark, the windows high in the ceiling and covered with wooden shutters. The only light came from the fiery cocoon.

  Another man, a dragon, stepped from the shadows beside it. He was as tall as the councilman, tattoos covering his neck and reaching up to his cheekbones. “Draconilingius,” he said.

  The word appeared to be the flunky’s name, because he stopped and bowed. “Sir.”

  “The Stormwalker did this, didn’t she?” the new dragon said. His voice was deep like the councilman’s, though a little more gravelly.

  “No, sir. Another creature did. He looked human, but he stank of powerful magic.”

  “In league with her, then.”

  “I’m not certain,” Draconil—whatever his name was said. I’d have to call him Drake. “She joined in the attempt to fight him off.”

  “If he had any Beneath magic, then she was the cause of it. She should be killed now. Where is she?”

  Drake hesitated. He glanced at the fire as though asking for guidance from the flames. “I don’t know, sir. We lost her in the darkness.”

  I sat back in surprise. Drake must know I was here, must have been the one to give the order for me to be brought here. Why was he lying?

  The other dragon snarled. “Find her. I don’t give a damn if she is Micalerianicum’s mate; she’s not a dragon. I want her obliterated. End of problem.”

  Drake bowed again, his entire body deferential. “Yes, sir. Will you be staying here, sir? I can have accommodation readied for you.”

  “No, I have a mate to return to. I’ll see you at the trial.”

  The flunky looked startled. “That’s still going through? Even though...” He glanced again at the cocoon of fire.

  “You assured me he’d recover. We’ll elect another to the council if we have to, but I hope that it won’t be necessary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The second dragon turned away and strode off into darkness without saying good-bye. I heard a door clang, and I wondered if it opened right out into the cliffs. Dragons wouldn’t need to worry about sheer drops.

  The flunky, Drake, turned away from his master and stared directly into the mirror. His eyes met mine, although I knew there was no way he could see me. Drake’s face set, and he strode past the mirror on his way out the door.

  “He sensed you,” I said.

  “I can’t help that. He’s magical and very powerful.” The mirror hummed. “And cute.”

  The lock rattled again, and the door swung open. The two men with guns pointed their weapons at me. One wore an earpiece, through which Drake downstairs could easily give him orders.

  “You are to come with me,” he said.

  I dropped the mirror shard onto the bed. “Keep trying to find Mick,” I whispered to it, covering by pretending to straighten my shirt.

  I followed the earpiece guy down the staircase, fully aware of the other man with an equally large gun coming behind me. We went through another hall to a large dining room. A wide wooden table with heavily carved legs ran the length of it, surrounded by equally heavily carved chairs. The table was bare.

  Drake the flunky stood at one end of the room, waiting. The men with rifles walked me to him, then closed in behind me while I faced him.

  Drake looked unhappy. Lines tightened around his black eyes, strands of hair had come out of his ponytail, and his breathing was uneven. He folded his arms, closing himself off to me while he scrutinized me.

  “Stormwalker,” he said. “Is His Honor right? Should I just obliterate you while I have the chance?”

  “No,” I said, trying for a confidence I was far from feeling. “Because I’m the only one who can save your master. Will you let me try?”

  Nineteen

  Drake’s mouth tightened, but his eyes took on uncertainty. “Let you near my master with your hell-magic? What sort of fool do you think I am? What is to stop you from killing him, and me, and everyone else in this place?”

  “He’s still alive, then?” I hadn’t been able to tell.

  “Only just.”

  “I can heal him.” I didn’t know how I knew that. But I could—if I could channel the Beneath magic, and if it would wake up and answer my bidding. “If you don’t let me, he will die. Not great choices, I know.”

  “You are asking me to trust you.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Drake watched me a moment. “Why?”

  “Why didn’t you tell the other dragon I was here?” I hoped the hired men behind me were loyal to Drake and wouldn’t rush off and blab to the other dragon about me the moment they left the room.

  Drake didn’t seem concerned. “You are my responsibility. My councilman wanted to see you before the trial, apart from the others. He wants to assess the situation for himself. The others now know he was hurt, but not how it happened or why you were near. It is his wish.”

  “Then honor his wish. Let me try, at least. You know he’ll die otherwise, don’t you?”

  “We have healers...”

  “I’ve learned things about dragons living with Mick,” I interrupted. “Shifting to dragon helps you heal from human-induced wounds—gunshots, for instance. Magically induced wounds are different. Dragon healers are powerful, Mick tells me, but they’re earth-magic creatures. The person who did this has magic given to him by a god. I think. I do too.”

  Drake looked anguished, poor guy. He didn’t trust me an inch, but I could see that he desperately wanted to save his master. Finally he jerked a nod at me and gestured the gunmen to lead me out.

  The room he took me to deep in the bowels of the complex was the size of a small hangar. The room was furnished for comfort, I could see, but was also a big enough to house a full-sized dragon if necessary. A tight fit, if I went by Mick’s size, but a dragon could shift here.

  I looked into the big mirror that hung near the door. “Ready?” I asked it.

  Dimly, as though from a radio playing in another room, came my magic mirror’s voice. “Ready anytime you are, girlfriend.”

  A muscle moved on Drake’s jaw. “They should have searched you better.”

  “That’s what happens when you employ humans,” I said. “They don’t know a magical implement from a piece of glass.”

  His eyes glittered. “They should have confiscated everything.”

  “Should have, but didn’t. Good thing. My knowledge and my connection to the mirror can help you.”

  “They had better.”

  I had no doubt that Drake would order his men to open fire on me the minute I did anything wrong. Sweat trickled down my back, and my hands ached from me clenching them so hard. I was all bluff, and I knew it.

  The heat increased as I approached the living flame at the end of the big room. I’d never seen anything like this. Mick might be able to explain what was happening beneath the fiery casing, maybe even tell me what to do. Drake stood silently, watching me like the menace he was.

  I asked the mirror, “Did you find him yet?”

  “No, honey. Sorry. He likes to play hard to get.”

  “If something happens to me here, I bequeath you to Cassandra.”

  Magic mirrors could be owned by one mage at a time—two in our case, because Mick and I had wakened it together. When a mage left a mirror to another mage upon his or her death, the mirror automatically obeyed the inheritor, no matter what other magical creature was lying in wait to enslave it. Bequeathing it to Cassandra meant that Drake couldn’t grab the shard and start using it the minute I was dead.

  “Cassandra hates me,” the mirror complained.

  “She has strong earth magics, and she’ll take care of you. And you’ll still be loyal to Mick.”

  “If I can ever find his sweet ass.”

  I turned to Drake,
who’d been watching me narrowly. “Do you have any sage, or incense? Sticks are better in this case.”

  “That’s witch magic.”

  “Can you stop being all superior-race for five minutes and see if you have any?”

  Drake looked annoyed, but he picked up an earpiece, put it on, and gave orders. I imagined Todd scrambling around the kitchen searching for sage. I wondered if he even knew what it looked like.

  While we waited, I closed my eyes and tried to still my mind, but that was a waste of time. My thoughts couldn’t settle. Coyote would know that I’d called on the Beneath magic—he always did. In fact, I was surprised he wasn’t already here, ready to stop me.

  But if I didn’t try to save the dragon councilman’s life, the dragons would certainly kill me. Todd might have been told that the councilman had brought me here to talk, but Drake had murder in his eyes. He’d sent away the other dragon, yes, but probably because he wanted first dibs on ripping me apart.

  The incense sticks came at last, brought not by Todd but by a young woman. She was blond and as beautiful in the feminine way as Todd was in the masculine. I assumed her job was to wait on the male guests. She handed Drake a box of incense sticks, gave him a quick bow, and left the room. She never once looked at me or showed any interest. Her gaze had been only for Drake.

  I held up three sticks of incense and asked Drake to light them. He did so with a flick of dragon fire, though I could tell he was irritated at my request. I propped the sticks in a copper bowl on one of the tables, and he looked even more irritated. Likely the bowl was a priceless antique.

  The ends of the sticks started to glow. I thought about sitting on my rooftop with Jamison—had it been only this afternoon?—and how I’d awakened the Beneath magic by watching sparks on the lit sage.

  No, I’d awakened it by thinking about how powerful I was, how easily I could summon beings to do my bidding: skinwalkers, Nightwalkers. Dragons.

  Dragons were huge creatures, born of fire and rock. No one had created the dragons, Mick told me—they’d come from the volcanoes themselves. Dragons answered to the earth alone, not to magic of the gods of this world or to magic from Beneath.

  Jamison called dragons Firewalkers, beings that could summon and control fire, make it do their bidding as I used storms to do mine. There was no storm tonight, but a strength inside told me that I no longer needed one.

  With Jamison this afternoon, I’d used the mirror to enhance the Beneath magic, that time to push my best friend off the roof. I’d acted in anger. Could I heal this dragon in desperation to save my own life, or would my Beneath magic take over and try to kill?

  If I killed the councilman, Drake would signal his men to unload their guns into me. Could I stop them before I fell dead at their feet? The magic inside me chuckled, thinking it a nice challenge.

  Shit.

  I focused on the incense, trying to calm myself by observing the shape and intensity of the orange glow at the end of each stick. The dragon fire around the councilman raged on, preserving him and keeping him alive. I’d have to remove the fire, which was powerful earth magic, before I could use the Beneath magic on him. I could do it myself, but I decided it was a good idea to let the dragons think I couldn’t negate their power.

  “Shut it off,” I said to Drake, gesturing to the fire.

  “He’ll die,” Drake snapped.

  “You have to take that chance.”

  I stepped back and waited. Drake’s face shone with perspiration and anger, and his eyes, to my surprise, were wet with tears.

  Giving me a final warning stare, Drake lifted his hand over the fire. The flames streamed upward into his palm, much as the fiery barrier had into Nash when we’d rescued Mick. Drake’s tattoos glowed where they peeked from beneath his clothes, and his eyes took on a red tinge.

  The fire came away to reveal the bloody mess that was the councilman’s body. I flinched when I saw it, and I heard one of the gunmen swear under his breath. I had no idea how the councilman could still be alive, but I sensed his red and black aura, still smelling of heat and ash but laced with the stench of death.

  “Ish,” the magic mirror said in the distance. “He doesn’t look good.”

  I made myself touch the councilman’s aura. It was cold, death so close. I let the aura wrap around my hand, shivering as the death-chill touched my skin. With my other hand, I tried to summon a white ball of Beneath magic, similar to the one I’d thrown at Jamison.

  It wouldn’t come, of course. I swallowed hard, tried again. Nothing.

  I glanced wildly at the mirror, but it didn’t help me. The mirror reflected me, a slender Navajo woman in dirty jeans, her hair disheveled, with one hand held out to her side, the other in front of her.

  Drake started to growl. I’d heard growling like that before, from Mick whenever he got ready to fight something.

  Come on.

  Make the dragons bow to you, my inner self whispered. Hold the elder’s life in your hand, and make the dragons worship you for saving him. Demand it of them, or they’ll never respect you.

  I don’t want their damned respect, I snarled in return. I want them to let me go home and to leave Mick alone.

  And they will, when you command them.

  “I’m sick of people telling me what to do!” I shouted out loud.

  Drake blinked, wondering who the hell I was talking to. There was a restless noise behind me and the small metallic sound of guns cocking. Guns made me so damn nervous.

  “Tell them to back off,” I said to Drake. “Tell them to put the weapons down—in another room preferably—or he dies.”

  Drake hated me. I saw the hatred deep inside him, in his fire, and in his aura. He wanted me to drop dead at his feet.

  “Do it,” he said to his lackeys. “Leave the room. Do not return until I summon you.”

  In the mirror, I saw the two gunmen’s reluctance to obey. Drake kept his glare on them, until one of them said a resigned, “Yes, sir,” and led the other one out.

  I relaxed a fraction. “I don’t like guns.”

  “Neither do I.” Drake called flame to dance in his hand. “Save him or you fry.”

  I willed the magic again. He can’t resist you, it said. You can snuff his puny fire with the flick of your finger.

  I could. And I did.

  Drake took several hasty steps back as the flames in his hand died. He opened his mouth to shout for the guards again, but I said, “Wait.”

  A white ball rose above my hand. I tossed it, almost casually, toward the mirror.

  The ball shot down the length of the room as though I were a pro baseball player. It hit the mirror and returned like a beacon, arrowing toward the councilman’s torn-apart body.

  The light surrounded the body, encasing it in whiteness the same way it had been encased in fire. I still held the councilman’s aura, and now I directed the white light to it. Holding both the dying aura and the light, I found the compassion inside myself that my crazy mother hadn’t managed to crush.

  “Live,” I whispered.

  The light brightened. The councilman’s aura grew hot, hotter, so searing hot I wanted to fling it from me. I gritted my teeth and held on in spite of the pain, knowing that if I let go now, the dragon would die. Finally and completely.

  Drake’s eyes widened behind the white glow as the councilman’s muscles began to knit. As we watched, the bloody pulp of his body started to close, healthy skin growing to replace that which had been torn apart. I could now see the real shape of the councilman’s human body instead of a pile of bones and muscle. His face solidified, became recognizable as that of the stern man who’d approached Maya’s house with the intent of kidnapping me.

  You can still destroy him. You’re plenty strong enough.

  But I was also strong enough to save him.

  I kept the magic going. Drake had clenched his fists, his tension and worry palpable. I felt invincible, power surging through me until I knew I could sprint around the world
and never get tired. If I jumped from the cliffs behind the house, I would soar into the air like the dragons.

  The sensible Stormwalker in me told me that the magic said this because it wanted me to try jumping off the cliff. The Beneath magic would think it funny if I didn’t succeed.

  That makes no sense, I thought in annoyance. If I’m dead, it is too.

  Beneath magic is the magic of gods. It doesn’t understand mortality.

  And that, another little thought said to me, might be what saved me.

  “Gods,” Drake whispered. “He’s alive.”

  The councilman lay on his bier, whole and unbloody, surrounded by my light. I released his aura, which wrapped around his body like loving hands. I closed both my fists, and the beacon shot back into the mirror, like a film in reverse, kicking the original ball of light around back to me.

  As soon as the light hit me, the magic winked out and released me. I fell to the ground like a wrung-out rag, my strength gone. Either I banged my head on the floor, or Drake kicked the hell of out me, because my head filled with stunning pain, and then there was nothing.

  Twenty

  I woke to a warm, bare body at my back. I thought I was home, snuggled down under the covers with Mick spooned up behind me, his large hand cupping my hip. Lips grazed the back of my neck, so warm, so loving.

  I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar room with priceless artwork on the walls and faint light coming through balcony windows. A mirror in a heavy frame reflected me under thick quilts with a man lying behind me.

  “Todd?” I said in alarm. I jumped away to find Mick next to me, watching me with bad-boy blue eyes.

  “Todd? Who the hell is Todd?”

  “A house boy with a wide range of responsibilities.” I pressed a shaking hand to my hair. “Mick, what are you doing here?”

  “The mirror told me where you were.”

  “I mean, what are you doing here giving yourself up to the dragons?”

  “Who says I’m giving myself up? The outside doors aren’t locked, and I can fly.”

  I sat up straight. “Then why didn’t you grab me and haul me out of here? We could be having this conversation back at my hotel.”