“Like a wall …” Nash closed his eyes, sweat beading on his face. “Pushing me out.”
Chandra’s lips parted as she watched him, her eyes growing wider. “What kind of witch are you?”
Nash didn’t answer. Gabrielle jerked again. I tried to still her, but she began jolting and lurching like she was having a seizure.
“No, you don’t,” Jones said under his breath. He closed his hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder and touched the other to her gray and perspiring face.
I heard a groan, which came from none of us—a sound of defeat but also rage. Something dark sprang from Gabrielle and smacked Nash right in the chest.
Maya reached for him in alarm, but Nash shouted, “Don’t touch me!”
The darkness sank into Nash. He kept his hands firmly on Gabrielle, not flinching as the inky blackness shoved its way into his body. Another groan sounded, louder this time, vibrating the walls as Nash folded in on himself.
Nash’s face was slick with sweat as he fought whatever invaded him. Maya balled her hands, and Chandra stared in alarm and some fascination.
I felt as helpless as the two ladies did—for all my dragon might, I could only hold Gabrielle while Nash silently fought whatever had attacked her.
The final bit of darkness streamed reluctantly from Gabrielle’s chest, stretching like an elastic band. But Nash not only had training that made him a ruthless soldier and cop, he had a will of iron. The fact that he was a weak human in the middle of dragons, demons, goddesses, Nightwalkers, and witches never fazed him. I don’t think he noticed.
Nash abruptly let go of Gabrielle and pressed his fists into his stomach. “Get out, you son of a bitch.”
Whatever he fought, whatever tried to best him, didn’t win. Nash gave a final growl and tore at his chest, lifting his shirt from his body. Then he closed his fists and slammed them together.
A last groan sounded, this one ending in a wail of pain. Finally Nash lowered his hands, sat back on his heels, and uncurled his fists.
“Everyone all right?” he asked.
Gabrielle’s chest rose with her breath, but easily as she relaxed. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked blearily up at me.
“Hey,” she said. “Did you come rescue me?”
I gathered her closer, my heart banging in relief. “Any time, sweetheart.”
Gabrielle turned her head and looked at Nash, who breathed hard but otherwise looked unhurt from his battle.
“Nashie,” Gabrielle said, her voice a croak. “Lovely to see you again. Were you who Colby called? That was smart. Don’t tell Maya. She’ll be jealous.” She looked past Nash to Maya, and winked at her. “Hey, Chandra. The gang’s all here. I say we party.”
“No, you get yourself to bed and rest,” Chandra said in a stern voice.
“What she said.” I gave Gabrielle a no-nonsense look. “What was attacking you?”
“I don’t know.” Gabrielle tried to sit up and collapsed onto my lap instead, leaning against me while I held her, which was fine with me. “I banished a demon and sent a witch packing, and then something hit me. Horrible spell or … something.” She shuddered. “Like being buried by a ton of dirt.”
Nash nodded as he sat back, his arms resting loosely on his knees. “That’s what it felt like to me too. I had to push my way out.”
Chandra frowned at Nash. “What are you?” She poked a tentative finger to his shoulder. “I’ve never felt anything like you before.”
“He’s a county sheriff and my boyfriend,” Maya told her in a hard voice.
“He’s a magic null.” Gabrielle gazed at Nash with admiration. “That’s what Janet calls him. He negates magic. He was hit with some kind of spell when he was in the army.”
Nash scowled. “That’s need-to-know information.”
“Chandra’s fine,” Gabrielle said with tired assurance. “She’s a doctor, and I think she has some magical ability, though I don’t know what it is.”
Chandra fixed her attention on Nash. “It’s more than a spell. This one is special.” She turned from him and looked at Maya. “Very special. You must take good care of him.”
“I always do,” Maya said glumly.
Chapter Fourteen
Mick
Drake, Titus, and I surrounded the dragon slayer in the basement of the Crossroads hotel. The binding spell nearly smothered him, but I watched the man with diligence.
I knew from experience how powerful he was—I’d fought him as a young dragon, before he’d come into his full powers. If he hadn’t thrown off the spell by now, he had some reason for retaining it.
The basement was the best place to confine a magical prisoner. Not only was it dark and intimidating, but one end held a pool of shaman magic that could destroy cities, and the other end held a Nightwalker. While the slayer had segued into a demon centuries ago, blood still beat in his veins, blood he needed for life, and a hungry Nightwalker could divest him of that.
We also had Cassandra, Janet’s cool and pale-as-ice manager, whose power I had yet to understand the depth of.
The dragon slayer didn’t look worried as he sat cross-legged against a brick wall, three dragons he’d nearly defeated hovering over him and happy to tear his heart out, Cassandra, one very competent witch, looking on. She’d let us rip his heart out, and he must know that.
Titus filled his hands with fire. “Talk. The longer the conversation, the longer before you die, so tell us everything.”
The dragon slayer gave him a contemptuous look. “This doesn’t end your contract.”
“It will if you’re dead.”
Titus had always been too sure of himself. He’d gotten into the fight with the dragon slayer in the first place, because he’d been certain he’d win, and I had to dive in and try to save his ass. I’d probably been just as arrogant, neither of us realizing how powerful this guy was.
Titus and I had grown since then—mature dragons were a hell of a lot stronger—but our arrogance had grown with us, I guess.
What the slayer would do to us now for ending his games prematurely, I didn’t know. He rarely came to the arena to watch his matches, not obviously anyway. He knew dragons would honor a contract, because we had too damn much honor. He just liked his power over us.
Would he try to kill us or make us finish the games another time? In the passing years, he’d become more and more powerful, like Emmett, but as a demon, not a mage. We might be able, all three of us, with a boost from Cassandra and Ansel, to kill him. And we might not.
“Speak,” Drake said, more restive than I’d ever seen him.
The slayer had almost killed Drake, from what Colby had said, which I could see had pissed Drake off. Most people didn’t understand how strong he was—until he got mad. “What is this danger you speak of?” he demanded of the slayer. “And how do we defeat it?”
“You don’t,” the slayer said. “It is old, older than time. It is Earth magic from so deep inside the planet that it will erase all in its way.”
“Deep inside the planet is molten rock,” I pointed out. “Volcanoes are caused by geothermal incidents, and earthquakes happen when plates shift. The gods take advantage of those things to create or destroy, but the events themselves aren’t magical.”
The dragon slayer smirked. “Smirk” is a word I hate but it is the only way to describe his expression.
“You are wrong,” he said. “I have learned Earth magic from the dawn of time, and the forces are caused by an entity. Every thousand or so years, that entity rises and goes in search of abominations that pollute it. And it wipes them out. Why do you think we aren’t overrun by demons and old gods, and wielders of bright magic like that girl I almost drowned? The Earth devours. It will not rest until it is appeased.”
By “abominations,” I figured he meant Beneath-magic beings, the gods and other creatures that had been shut into the world before this one. Dragons had already existed when the present world rose to dominance, and dragons and gods like Coyote ha
d let the good emerge from Beneath but sealed the evil inside.
Evil got out from time to time, though, like the skinwalkers, demons, and goddesses like Janet’s mother. Then Earth-magic wielders—me, Janet, Cassandra—shoved them back in and closed the way.
But I knew that Earth-magic beings could only do so much against the tide of demons and evil gods who tried to crawl out to this world and claim it for their own. It had taken all my effort, and Janet’s and Coyote’s and Nash’s, to shut off the vortex behind Janet’s hotel, and I wasn’t certain we’d done it permanently.
I realized the dragon slayer might be right—our meager efforts couldn’t possibly have kept the demons at bay for millennia.
From the looks Titus and Drake gave the slayer they thought what he said was plausible too.
Cassandra leaned over the man. She did nothing overtly threatening, but the slayer regarded her worriedly.
“You need to be more specific,” she said. “Everyone in this room has Earth magic. By your definition, we don’t need to be concerned.”
“It is old,” the slayer said. “So old it is almost mindless. It will devour everything magical, including Earth-magic beings in its need to be thorough. But I, my slaves, I know how to fight it.”
* * *
Gabrielle
Not the best start to my job to answer one call, get trounced by an invisible assailant, and be banished to my bed by Chandra and Colby.
Chandra wanted to tell Cornelius what had happened, but she gave in when I begged her not to. I didn’t want to admit to him that I’d gotten hurt on my first assignment. He might have second thoughts and send me away.
Once I was tucked up with a pot of tea on one nightstand—Chandra’s recommendation—and a stiff drink on the other—Colby’s prescription—I asked Colby to bring me the shard of magic mirror.
Chandra had gone. I’d made her leave me so she could get some sleep, and she reluctantly went, not looking tired at all. I wanted to ask her why she’d been up and quick on the scene, and why I felt some magic from her when I hadn’t before, but I didn’t want her around when I pulled out the mirror.
I stared into its depths, seeing that my eyes were sunken and red-rimmed and my hair a total mess. I resisted the urge to reach for a hairbrush and pinned my stare on the mirror.
“What did you mean?” I asked it. “I heard you say I was caught in an Earth-magic sink, like the one that made you. I thought a witch made you, a powerful one a couple hundred years ago. That’s what Janet told me.”
“Sort of, honey,” the mirror said. “A witch did put me together, but she got lucky. The magic that infused the silicon she heated came from a deep magic sink, where I was born … early one frosty morn.”
I cut it off. “Where?”
Colby, who sprawled in a chair at the foot of the bed, his feet on the bedspread asked, “And how did an Earth-magic sink suddenly form in the hallways of a Vegas hotel?”
“You know all those sand dunes?” the mirror said. “The ones in Southern California, south of the Salton Sea, near the border with Mexico? Yep. Lots of sand, Earth-magic sink. Put it together—ta da! Magic mirror.”
“Plus a witch who knew what she was doing,” Colby said. “What does that have to do with what happened to Gabrielle?”
“Beats me,” the mirror chirped. “But she asked.”
“I don’t see a lot of sand dunes around here,” I said. “Maybe the Earth-magic sink travels?”
“Don’t think so,” the mirror said. “But it could grow, maybe.”
“Three hundred miles?” Colby asked. “How could it spread that far?”
I didn’t have a clue how far it was from Las Vegas to where the mirror was talking about, but I took Colby’s word for it.
“I dunno,” the mirror said. “It’s the Earth, so it’s all connected, right?”
A shiver went through me. If the entire world became this Earth-magic sink that had tried to bury me, what could I do against it? Did it sense I didn’t belong here, that my magic was other-worldly, and so had attacked me?
The Earth is rising, the dragon slayer had said. You woke it from sleep.
Mick and the other dragons had taken the slayer back to the Crossroads, Colby said. Janet should be there too, by now. I needed to call her and tell her to beat out of the dragon slayer what he was talking about.
But later. I was weak and sick, and at the moment I didn’t want to explain what had happened to me. Janet would probably freak if I told her I’d been attacked and rush back here to sit on me. Or, demand I return home.
There was one person who usually had answers, or at least annoying, cryptic hints, every time weird shit was going on. I hadn’t seen Coyote around in a while, and I didn’t know exactly how to get hold of him, but I could call Fremont Hansen. Fremont was the font of all gossip in Magellan, and if Coyote was anywhere in town, Fremont would find him.
I started to sit up, but damn, I was wiped. Dizzy, I fell back to my pillows, to find Colby at my side.
“Stay still,” he admonished. “You almost died twice in the last couple of days. I don’t need to be rescuing you a third time because you raced out of here and fell over.”
I had the feeling I was in mortal danger whether I stayed here or not.
I didn’t like the freezing fear that ran through me. I tried to console myself by thinking that Coyote would know what to do, and Janet, with her kick-butt storm magic could help. Janet flailed around a lot trying to figure things out, but once she did, she was unstoppable.
I should be comforted. I had people I could turn to.
But I wasn’t. I was scared shitless.
“Colby,” I said in a small voice. “Would you lie down next to me? You know, like we’re a couple or something. I’d like to sleep with you around me.”
I expected Colby to yell, “Yes!” do a fist pump, rip off his clothes, and dive full-length on the bed. But he went quiet, his cheeks flushing as warmth entered his eyes.
Without a word, he rose from the chair, came around the other side of the wide bed and sat down on it. He looked at me, his black hair falling in a braid over his shoulder—he wore it long, like an Indian.
He quietly unlaced and took off his boots, then rolled onto the bed, landing on his side next to me and snaking his arm around my waist.
“How’s this?” he asked in a near whisper.
I laid my head on his shoulder, imbibing his warmth, his strength. The tatts on his arm were silken soft.
“I like it,” I murmured.
“You go to sleep,” Colby said. “I’m watching over you.”
“Thank you,” I said in all sincerity.
“Oooh, girlfriend.” The mirror’s tinny voice came to us. “Can I see?”
Colby plucked the mirror shard from my fingers, reached across me to jerk open the drawer of the nightstand, dropped the shard inside, and slammed the drawer shut.
* * *
Janet
I made it home to the Crossroads to find everyone in the basement with the dragon slayer.
At least this is what Elena, my cook, told me when I walked in, exhausted, and dropped my bags on the lobby floor.
She followed me ponderously down the stairs. “That man is disturbing me. I can’t cook with him here.”
“He hates dragons,” I said over my shoulder. “You have a lot in common.”
“I do not hate Firewalkers,” Elena said indignantly. “They are nuisances. I hate no one. It is a useless waste of energy.”
I didn’t argue with her as we reached the basement. She might not hate anyone, but she didn’t like that many people either.
The dragon slayer lay slumped against a wall, surrounded by dragons, a purple bruise on his face that looked new. His eyes were closed.
Ansel, his hands on his lanky runner’s legs, gazed down at the slayer.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“I believe he is unconscious,” Ansel answered in his smooth voice, looking like the affa
ble young Brit he’d been in the 1940s. “Likely the result of this dragon hitting him.” He gestured at Drake.
Mick moved to me and slid his arm around me, giving me a half hug to welcome me home. “The slayer called us his slaves,” he said, pressing a kiss to my hair. “Drake took umbrage.”
Drake gave us an annoyed frown. “I feared he was about to break the binding spell. I struck him as a precaution.”
Mick grinned. “The expression on your face didn’t say ‘precaution.’ It said, ‘Fuck you.’”
Drake dipped his head. “There might have been a bit of anger in my reaction.”
“He didn’t tell us much anyway,” Titus put in. “He said that you and your sister woke something whose time was coming.” His eyes, which turned golden, pinned me in an unnerving way. “That the abominations would be erased, that we—dragons—were his slaves. Never mind the binding.” He gestured to the dark, magical threads that engulfed the dragon slayer like a chrysalis.
Drake did not look contrite. “I felt him fighting the spell. We’ll make him explain when he wakes up.”
I let out a sigh. I was tired from the long drive home in Maya’s truck—she’d be coming back with Nash—and I was hungry. I needed a hot meal and coffee. “Any dinner left?” I asked Elena hopefully.
She shook her head, assuming a mulish look. “The kitchen is closed for the night.”
“There must be something …”
More head shaking. “The kitchen needs many repairs. I can barely cook in there as it is. And I don’t want you eating all my ingredients.”
I opened my mouth to remind Elena who owned the hotel, but I prudently closed it again. Elena was an amazing chef, and when she said she could “barely cook,” she’d meant she’d turned out a five-star meal my guests would rave about for years. Besides, if she got mad and walked out, my grandmother would never let me hear the end of it. She and Elena had become BFFs.
“I’ll go to the diner,” I said, averting that crisis. Magellan’s diner was open twenty-four hours and did a surprising amount of business late at night.
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