I’d never entirely control what flooded me—I knew that. But as the magic filled me, I had a sudden insight as to why my mother had wanted nothing to do with me.
Not disappointment in me, as I’d thought. And not because Janet had Earth shaman magic, inherited from her father’s family, the power to control the storms, when I did not.
It was because I had too much Beneath magic. My mother would never have been able to bend me to her will, and she’d known it.
Maybe I had a reason to be so crazy and unpredictable. Self-defense.
The Earth entity in Colby didn’t like what I’d done. Colby spread his wings, driving aside the demons, and came for me.
This was our first dance, and our last.
I flew toward him on a wave of Beneath magic, my body catching the brunt of Colby’s sudden stream of flame. The flame and white light wove around each other and haloed us.
The Beneath magic that I’d become opened like a gigantic maw. The Earth entity screamed, and then I devoured it, dragon and all.
“Colby,” I whispered as the world went away and there was nothing but magic and death. “Give me your true name.”
“Give me yours,” came his response, tinged with laughter.
I didn’t even have to think about it. I closed my eyes and slid the syllables of it to him on his fire.
In return I heard music, pure, crystal notes mixed with Colby’s rumbling bass, swelling in my heart.
The Beneath magic swallowed Colby, and crushed the Earth entity inside him.
* * *
I came to myself kneeling on sand, the room caving in around us. Colby’s body, broken, his tatts smeared with blood, lay in my arms. His eyes were open, filmed over, sightless.
The moan that tore from my throat was inhuman. I’d never heard a sound like that before. It broke through the chaos of demons, dragons, and the sudden laughter of the dragon slayer.
The sound was my grief, an emotion I’d never experienced, not truly. I’d been sad when my stepmother had died, but her life had been hell. The afterlife was surely better for her.
Colby was dead. In my embrace, gone. He’d died so he could save me.
This was why he’d intercepted the mirror’s beam when I’d wanted the entity to take over Titus. I’d figured I could fight Titus, kill him if I had to, and be sorry but resigned.
Not with Colby. We hadn’t had a relationship, not really. Not yet. It had only been budding.
But I grieved. For Colby’s laughter, his friendship, the way he could infuse the direst situation with humor, breaking tension and making me feel less afraid. He took all kinds of shit cheerfully, had even put up with punishment by the Dragon Council because Bancroft, the head dragon, couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
I grieved for what could have been. If I’d been a person instead of a confused, half-insane, half hell goddess, I could have given myself to him without hesitation, without worry.
Colby didn’t deserve this. He’d sacrificed himself. For me, for all of us.
I’d wanted to sacrifice me, and he’d stopped me.
I wailed, my grief too strong to hold inside. I’d never controlled my emotions in my life—never had to, never understood how to.
Hands settled on my shoulders. I recognized the touch, the scent of lightning mixed with dust. My sister Janet sank beside me, tears spilling down her cheeks.
I continued to wail, the hurting tearing at me like a live thing. I couldn’t make it stop.
“Shh.” Janet put her arms around me, the only person in the world who dared to. “You did it, Gabrielle. You saved us.”
I couldn’t breathe, could barely see, but I became aware of the quiet. The demons were gone. The way to Beneath had vanished, the vortex closed.
The roots and boulders had disappeared, and the floor beneath me was still. Lightning had torn the roof open to the desert sky, and a gentle rain pattered to the sand.
I didn’t care. Colby was dead, his body already growing cold. He was gone, and I could never have him back.
“It’s not quite finished,” came a voice.
Janet jolted up and around, but I could only dash tears from my eyes and rock Colby, my fingers on his beautiful face.
The voice was the dragon slayer’s. Janet went rigid as he marched our way.
I had no interest in him and didn’t look up when his dusty boots stopped a few feet away. Janet’s smaller but no less dusty motorcycle boots faced his.
“I will use this host to hold me while I recover,” the dragon slayer said with the Earth entity’s voice. “And then you will pay. All of Beneath will be wiped away.”
“You killed our friend,” Janet said, her voice shaking. “Not gonna let you get away with that.”
“I did not kill him. She did. Of her own accord and her own desires.”
“Wrong answer,” Janet said, and she reached for the rain.
“That won’t work,” the dragon slayer said softly. “The storm has played out. Your witch sister doesn’t have enough strength to sustain it or to call the Beneath entity again. Why don’t you—”
Maya shot him.
I’d seen her come out of the shadows behind the dragon slayer and aim her dark pistol at him. An explosion of sound—then blood and gore took the place of the top of his head.
He toppled. Janet leapt the hell out of the way even as Mick grabbed her and pulled her to safety. The dragon slayer fell over, blood spraying in a semicircle to land hotly on my arm.
Half demon, half human, Mick had said. The dragon slayer had managed to extend his lifespan for hundreds of years, but he was still mortal.
Nash sprinted forward. He put his hands on the dragon slayer’s shoulders, and I heard a scream of protest as the entity streamed into Nash.
Nash let go of the inert slayer and balled his fists over his gut.
Could Nash’s null-ness cancel out the entity? Or would it kill him before he could? Or would it try to leap into another body—Maya was standing behind Nash, wide-eyed, the pistol pointed downward, her finger well away from the trigger.
The entity liked the weakest person in the room, as I’d said in the basement of the Crossroads, which was why it had so readily jumped into Colby, a less powerful dragon than Titus.
“Now,” Grandmother Begay said.
She hobbled quickly to Nash. I no longer saw the Crow, but only a small, slightly bent Diné woman leaning on her walking stick. Behind her came Chandra, taller, younger, more robust.
Grandmother held out her hands. “Give him to me, Sheriff Jones.”
Nash looked at her in puzzlement from his half crouch. “You ladies need to back away,” he said.
Grandmother Begay didn’t listen, of course. She touched his chest with her hand and the head of her cane. She pulled, scowled, pulled harder, then set her feet and yanked.
Nash blew out his breath as darkness shot from him and spun once around the walking stick. I heard a howl as the entity touched the turquoise in the cane’s handle, and then tried to flee from it.
Grandmother Begay shoved the stick under her arm and caught the darkness between her hands. She began to press it together, as she did when she gathered up dough to make her fry bread, compressing it into a small ball.
Chandra watched, hands on hips, the loose sleeves of her top fluttering over her wrists. Grandmother gave her a nod, and Chandra smiled.
She reached out her hands, palm downward, and let white light flow from them to the ground.
I heard an inhale and an exhale, exactly as I had in the hallway of the C the night the entity attacked.
Not the entity I realized. The Earth itself.
A hole opened in the arena floor. Not the frenzied vortex I’d wrought, but a neat hole with straight sides that let directly into the ground. From it came a breath of heat, and red light mixed with white.
“The Beneath world is necessary,” Grandmother said to the ball of struggling darkness in her hands. “From it came all life. The Earth unders
tands that. The two places are not entirely separate, but you have been too obsessed in yourself to understand. So now we will teach you.”
While Chandra held the hole open with her steady stream of magic, Grandmother lifted the dark ball above her head.
“Janet,” she said calmly. “Help me.”
Janet moved to her, bewildered. “How?”
“Just touch it.”
Mick didn’t like that. He was next to Grandmother in a heartbeat, but he didn’t interfere when Janet put her hand on top of the ball. She gasped as though something was dragged out of her, and then Grandmother Begay hurled the ball downward.
A scream, a white light and a red one, and then Chandra clapped her hands together.
The hole sealed, the white light faded, and the sands ran over where the hole had been. I heard another deep exhale, and then all was silence.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gabrielle
Chandra looked at Grandmother Begay. “You didn’t need to give it a lecture,” she said. “You only had to throw it into the hole. I was getting tired holding the way open.”
Grandmother set her cane to the floor with a thump. “Beneath goddesses are so impatient.”
“How did you know how to do that?” Janet asked them, mystified.
“Coyote told me,” Grandmother said. “It was perfectly fine, Mick Firewalker,” she said to Mick, who hovered near Janet. “I needed Janet’s combination of magics to send the entity to the space between Earth and Beneath. It will be absorbed there and not bother us again.”
I heard conviction in her voice, but for my part, I wasn’t so sure. Then again, at this moment, I was aware of nothing but Colby, lying dead on my lap.
He wouldn’t be coming back to me, and I couldn’t stand that. I rocked him, my sobs unceasing. It was as though someone else controlled me, but I knew they did not. This was me, finally realizing what it was to lose someone.
Chandra’s scent of cleanness and lavender touched me. She knelt beside me, resting her hand lightly on Colby’s unmoving chest.
He lay motionlessly, his dark hair, loose from its braid, spreading across my arms. His colorful tatts were beginning to fade as death robbed him of everything.
“We can’t have this,” Chandra said softly. “I will need you whole.”
I didn’t know whether she meant me or Colby.
Grandmother stumped to her. “No,” she snapped. “That is forbidden.”
“By whom?” Chandra asked. “Gabrielle is my niece, my family. She is too young for this grief.”
“It is the way of the world,” Grandmother said in a hard voice, but she didn’t sound as assured as usual.
“Not in my world.” Without further word, Chandra closed her eyes and sent an incredible amount of magic into Colby. She withdrew her hand after a moment and sat back, watching.
I caressed Colby’s bare chest, searching frantically for signs of life, but I found none. His eyes remained empty, his body inert, his heart not beating.
I started to break all over again. Death was too powerful, nothing to stop it, didn’t matter how much I willed it. Chandra was a goddess, with immense magics, like Coyote and my mother. If Chandra couldn’t save Colby, no one could.
Chandra took my hand, hers surprisingly cool for all the magic she’d just worked, and held it with mine over Colby’s heart.
“Call him,” she said.
I stared at her in confusion for a few seconds, then understanding penetrated my fogged and pain-numbed brain.
Call him. The notes of Colby’s true name drifted through my head, the sounds he’d given me just before I’d killed him.
They were many and complex, like steps in an intricate dance, and I was surprised I remembered them all. The music wove through my thoughts, gleaming and clear as glass but with a deep tone that reminded me of Colby.
I heard another whisper, that of my own name, my spirit name, given to me at my birth by a god. I hadn’t realized until this moment which god.
I lifted my head and saw him standing at the top of the arena, in coyote form, his golden eyes still. No one else noticed him—maybe he wasn’t really there. But Coyote locked his gaze with mine, and after a moment, he winked.
Colby coughed. His true name surged through me in a brilliant crescendo, and then it dispersed, a sigh on the wind.
He coughed again.
“Colby?” I scooped him against me.
I was surrounded—Mick, Janet, Drake, Titus, Nash, Maya, Grandmother, and Chandra. All bent to Colby, all praying, I felt, to their own gods in their own way.
Colby’s eyelids flickered and his opaque eyes turned dragon black. They remained that way a moment, then like the sky scattering clouds, his eyes resolved to light blue. He opened his mouth and emitted a groan.
“Colby!” I gathered him up, reckless in my joy, kissing his face, his lips, his hair. He brought up weak hands to me.
“Did we get him?” The words were slurred, cracked, broken. Colby moved his tongue around his mouth as though trying to remember how it worked.
Mick answered, leaning to him, hands on blue-jeaned knees. “We got him, my friend. Or you did. And Gabrielle, and Ruby and Chandra. And Janet. And Maya with a great assist. The dragons owe a huge debt to Maya, actually.”
“It’s good to have friends.” Colby met my gaze, his smile tired but full. “And more than friends. Gabrielle’s a good kisser. Don’t stop, sweetheart.”
“Sounds like he’s all right,” Janet said, her thankfulness clear.
I did kiss Colby. A long, heartfelt kiss as tears poured down my face. His lips could barely move in response but his hand pressed hard on mine.
When I let him up for air, Colby’s grin was stronger. “I’m liking this.” Then his eyes softened. “Are you okay, baby?”
I managed a nod. I had no idea if I was all right or not—if I tried to stand up I might pass out or throw up, and who knew how injured I was—but I knew what he meant. I was alive. And whole. At least for now.
Colby blew out a breath of relief. “Then I guess that means we go out for pizza.”
He wasn’t going anywhere soon, but I laughed and kissed him again, warmed by the laughter of my friends and family.
I sensed Coyote, high above us, turn and go.
* * *
Two weeks later
* * *
Janet
My dad married Gina at her family’s home outside Farmington, in a hogan that had been built and blessed specifically for them. I held Mick’s hand as we entered the hogan, the groom’s family keeping to the north side, Gina’s family spread across the south.
The small space under the wood and mud roof was crowded but blissfully cool. The October air was mellow but warm in the sun, the hogan’s shade welcome.
Mick watched the ceremony in fascination, his eyes going dragon dark as Gina scooped up water with a dipper and washed my father’s hands, and then my father did the same to Gina.
I heard a sniffle somewhere to my left—Grandmother, her chin stuck out, surreptitiously wiped her eyes.
A feeling of great peace came over me as the rite continued—Gina’s sister set a basket of cornmeal mush in front of the bride and groom, and Gina’s father sprinkled white and yellow pollen in two circles over the mush. He then crossed the lines to symbolize Gina’s and Dad’s joining.
My dad, resplendent in his velvet shirt and silver and turquoise jewelry, took a pinch of the mush and fed it to Gina, and she did the same to him. They both laughed when the crumbly cornmeal got everywhere, my father showing a relaxed mirth I rarely saw in him.
My eyes filled, and I squeezed Mick’s hand. Gabrielle, on my other side, started to clap. Not really what she should do, but it caught on, and soon the entire hogan was cheering.
After the bride and groom fed each other, we all were invited to eat the mush and the mountains of food piled in the other baskets. We streamed out of the hogan to finish the feast, the picnic tables outside laden with food. Gina�
��s family had been cooking day and night.
My father flushed as his friends teased him, but I saw his happiness, and whenever he looked at Gina, his eyes betrayed his love.
I was touched by how many people had come to wish Dad well. I figured my large, extended family would fill out the crowd, but they were joined by most of the population of Many Farms and a large number from Chinle, Round Rock, and other communities, as well as Gina’s friends and family from Farmington and surrounding towns. My shy father had cultivated the respect and warmth of many over the years.
Grandmother stood ramrod stiff at the end of a picnic table. Her mouth had moved along with Gina’s father’s during the blessings, as though she willed him not to get anything wrong. Next to her was Chandra—Grandmother had been certain the hogan would fall down when a goddess from Beneath walked into it, but it hadn’t.
That convinced me more than anything that Chandra was not the embodiment of evil my mother was. Blessed ground is a powerful tester.
Gabrielle wandered to us, alone for the moment. She’d been plastered to Colby’s side since the two had arrived together.
She wore a colorful print dress in blues and reds, her hair falling in a silken wave over her shoulders. The high heels she navigated with ease made her tall and stately. I wore a traditional long skirt, velvet blouse, and silver jewelry at my grandmother’s insistence, but I felt graceless in them and kept tripping on my hem.
Gabrielle planted herself in front of Chandra. “Where have you been? I thought you’d be at the C when I went back to work, but no.”
Chandra shrugged. “Here and there. Maybe I was putting things in place so I can take up my medical practice again.”
“Why do you need to? You’re a goddess.”
Gabrielle’s directness was rude, but I wondered the same thing. “I like to stay busy,” Chandra said, shrugging. “And I need something to do while I keep an eye on you. I am a good doctor, and I like to heal people.”
Dragon Bites Page 23
