I had to admit that Mick had been smart to prescribe dinner. Lifting a hot, juicy burger with all the fixings to my mouth made me realize how hungry I was. Fighting all-powerful mages, arguing with Drake and my grandmother, worrying about Gabrielle searching for a magical artifact, and flying back from Santa Fe in a dragon talon gave me a hearty appetite.
A guy in a jeans jacket with a chunky silver wristband slid onto the empty stool next to me. He took up a lot of space and shoved his big elbow into me when he opened his menu.
I looked over to tell him to be careful, then half my burger splatted back to my plate, bathing me in droplets of ketchup.
The guy was Indian, with a long black braid, a wide, handsome face, soul-searching brown eyes, and a white-toothed grin.
“Hey, Janet,” Coyote said.
Chapter Sixteen
“Holy fucking shit!”
My voice carried. Conversation dipped, and every head in the place turned to me. Parents glowered in disapproval, and I think a baby started to cry.
Then everyone gave one another looks that said, It’s just Janet, and returned to eating.
Coyote sat there smiling at me. As though Bear hadn’t stabbed him with a stone knife made by the gods, as though I hadn’t watched him die in the desert and disappear into swirling dust. He looked whole and unhurt, his black button-down shirt unwrinkled, his hair neat in its braid. The cowboy hat he liked to wear rested on the empty stool beside him.
He was there, solidly, but I recalled another night I’d sworn he’d been sitting next to me at this very counter, only to learn he’d been riding in Naomi Kee’s pickup at the exact same moment. No one in the diner had seen him but me.
I swung to Pamela, but she’d left her seat and was making her way to the ladies room, so I waved down the waitress who wandered along the counter, coffeepot in hand.
“Jolene,” I said. “Someone is sitting here beside me, right?” I pointed.
Jolene stopped, smiled, and filled the cup Coyote pushed toward her. “Hi, Coyote. Been a while.”
“You do see him, then?” I asked.
Jolene gave me an odd look as she refilled my cup, but she, like everyone else in Magellan, was pretty convinced I was crazy. “Yes. I see Coyote, the storyteller. He comes here a lot. Are you feeling all right?”
“Fine.” I picked up my coffee cup and dumped half the burning liquid down my throat.
Jolene winked at Coyote. “Giant cheeseburger, rare, and a mess of fries, right?”
“You got it, sweetie.”
Jolene turned away, putting a little wiggle in her hips. Every woman flirted with Coyote.
Then again, Coyote could be deluding Jolene as well. I reached over and pinched his wrist, hard.
“Ow! Hey, Salas, you saw that, didn’t you?”
Emilio, still in uniform but trying to enjoy his dinner at a booth behind us, looked up. “Give it up, Coyote. She’s with Mick.” The other diners either chuckled at the exchange or ignored it completely.
“You know, if you’re into it, Janet, I’m game. We’ll ditch Mick and have some fun. Or he can come with us. I know you two like a little of the rough stuff.”
“Will you stop that?” I said in a fervent whisper. “What the hell is this? You died. I watched you die. Was it a trick? Did you think it would be funny to put me through that? I should kill you myself.”
Coyote lost his grin. “No, that was real. Bear killed me.”
“Seriously—what the fuck is going on?”
“It’s a test. For me. We’ve been doing this for millennia. How else am I going to prove myself to her?”
“Prove yourself?”
“All women need to know their guy is sincere.”
“By letting her kill you?”
“Yep.”
“This is crazy.”
Coyote tore off the ends of five packets of sugar and streamed them into his coffee. “I know your grandmother told you stories about Coyote when you were a kid, the clean ones anyway. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it means you weren’t listening.”
“I was seven. My mind wandered. Give me a break.”
Coyote tore open another five packets of sugar and dumped those into the coffee as well. He picked up a spoon and stirred noisily. “Bear and I go for a while without seeing each other. Decades, sometimes centuries. Then I get the hankering to be with her, so I let her know where I’m hanging out.” He picked up his cup and took a noisy sip. “She comes to find me, but before I’m allowed to touch her, I have to pass her tests. Sometimes it’s feats of strength, sometimes it’s letting her kill me. Several times.”
“Several times? Are you insane? Or is she?”
He shrugged and drank more coffee. “It’s a challenge, Janet. We enjoy it. Let an old married couple play some love games.”
“But if she loves you so much, why put you through that?” And put me through that? “Why don’t you just buy her flowers? Or jewelry. We like jewelry.”
Coyote pressed his broad hand to his chest. “Because I’m Coyote. I love the ladies. I sleep around. I pull wild pranks. Bear has to know that, when I call her, I’m not just bored, or want to use her for something. She’s not going to let me touch her until she’s sure that I really, really need to see her. Not that I just want some.” He grinned. “She has to know it’s not just a booty call.”
“Either you truly love her, or you’re even crazier than I give you credit for. Why else would you do that?”
Coyote took on a fond look, and his eyes softened into an affection I’d never seen in him before. “She’s an amazing woman. Totally worth it. Besides, have you ever been with someone who can turn into a bear? It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced, and it’s something you’ll never forget.”
I snatched up my messy burger. “You could have told me,” I said between my teeth. “You could have told me you’d come back to life, instead of letting me grieve like that.”
“Oh, hey.” Coyote took one of my ketchup-stained hands and pressed it between his. “Sweetie, I didn’t think you’d grieve. Not for me.”
“Of course I would. How stupid are you?”
I had tears in my eyes. Coyote’s smile had completely vanished, his look concerned. “I’m sorry, Janet. I didn’t realize. And anyway, when I was lying out there, I wasn’t sure. Bear knows how to kill me permanently. One day she might destroy the last of my life essence, and I’ll be gone forever. I also never know how long it will be before she bothers to bring me back. It’s a kind of trust thing between us. I’m showing I trust her by putting my life into her hands. Literally.”
“Gods, it’s like an S&M relationship taken to the bizarre.” I wiped my eyes. “Anyway, why didn’t she tell me? I thought Bear was my friend.”
“She doesn’t like to talk about her personal life, particularly her relationship with me. Not her fault you happened to be taking your morning stroll while we were courting.”
“Courting? You’re both out of your minds.”
“We’re gods,” Coyote said patiently. “Comes with the territory. Aw, thank you, sweetheart,” he said as Jolene shoved a platter in front of him filled with the biggest burger the diner made plus a mountain of thick, golden fries. “This looks great. Being dead makes me hungry.”
“I know how you feel,” Jolene said, topping up his coffee. “When I got out of bed this morning, I could barely find the bathroom. Never right until I have coffee inside me.”
She cheerfully walked away, and Coyote dug into his burger.
I’d lost my appetite. “Are you going to sit there and eat like nothing happened?”
“Yep,” Coyote said around bites. He glanced at my plate. “You going to finish that?”
I pushed it at him. “I can’t believe I was grieving for you. What a waste of time.”
Coyote put down his burger, wiped his fingers, and laid his hand on mine. “Did you truly grieve? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure? How would I not be sur
e?” I thought of how torn up I’d been after his body had vanished, and I wanted to smack him.
“I appreciate that,” Coyote said. “I really do.” He looked straight into my eyes. “I won’t forget.”
“Good.” I poked at my own burger, but I didn’t want it anymore. I plucked a fry or two from his plate and ate them. “When you’re feeling less hungry, I need to ask you about something.”
“What’s that?”
“Eat, then come with me.”
Coyote grinned, his lewd look back. “I like the sound of that.”
I didn’t bother with an answer.
Coyote didn’t hurry. He ate his burger and fries, bantered with Jolene, waved at and talked to other diners, and downed the other half of my burger. Pamela finished her dinner without saying much and left without me, not being too fond of Coyote. She didn’t like to stay away from Cassandra long either.
Coyote finally finished and pushed both plates away. He actually paid for his meal with a crumpled twenty instead of foisting the bill off on me or some other gullible person in the diner.
I took him outside and to my bike, unlocked one of the saddlebags and pulled out my wadded up coat, which I’d wrapped around the pot. I unfolded the coat, baring the pot for Coyote’s scrutiny.
Under the weak lights of the diner’s parking lot, the vessel looked as ancient as it was supposed to. The crumbling paint, faded bear and tortoise designs, and even the cracks where Colby had repaired it, made it look old and valuable.
“Where did you get this?”
Coyote’s voice was harsh and cold, all trace of teasing or affection gone.
I gave him a startled look. “From Richard Young, a collector in Santa Fe. He got it from a woman named Laura DiAngelo, who’s an antiques dealer, and Ansel, my Nightwalker. The collector thought he was buying an ancient Indian pot, and instead they gave him this and hid the real one.”
Coyote took it from me. He turned it around in his hands, his expression fierce. “Where did they find the original?”
“In a museum—a private one in Flagstaff.”
“Where did they get it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You need to find out. Now. Then destroy this thing.”
I stared at Coyote as he shoved the pot back at me. “It’s only a replica.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll be coming for it. They’ll take this from you because it points to the real thing—it tells the world what it looks like. They won’t care if they have to kill you to get it, or how rough they are when they tear the knowledge of it from you.”
Coyote rarely showed his anger, but he was showing it now. All trace of the affable storyteller who high-fived kids and swapped greetings with people in the town square had been replaced by a towering man with burning eyes. Coyote the god had returned.
“Who are they?” I asked. “What am I fighting this time?”
“Everyone who’s ever wanted power. The mages, the skinwalkers, Nightwalkers, dragons, Changers, the gods. Destroy this copy, find out how the museum in Flagstaff got the original, and then find the original and bring it to me.”
I couldn’t stop staring. “You’re saying that every magical being in existence could start a free-for-all over a pot?”
“It’s not just a pot. It’s a vessel of the gods. Full of power. Anyone who possesses the real thing could have unlimited access to magic, which means unlimited power. Whoever gains it can kill all other rivals, or start a magical war that scorches the earth. They could open the vortexes and let loose the evil Beneath. They could shake apart the world.”
Not good. Not good at all. “If this vessel is so dangerous, then why am I just now hearing about it?”
“It was supposed to have been destroyed. Tossed into the volcano that’s now Sunset Crater to be buried between the layers of this world and the one Beneath. And it turns up in a museum in Flagstaff.” He snorted. “Humans will stick anything into a glass case and charge admission to see it.”
I held the pot out to him. “If all magical beings will try to kill me to get to it, why don’t you destroy it for me?”
Coyote raised his hands and took a step back. “Because I’m a god. I can’t be found near the thing. Even a replica. Or the other gods will strike.”
“So I have to do all the dirty work?” I asked angrily. “Figure out where it came from and where it is, all by myself? And if you can’t be found near it, why should I bring you the real one?”
“Because I’m strong enough to make myself destroy it before I’m tempted by it. No one else will be. No one. That’s what you need to understand.”
I lowered the pot, which, though light, seemed to drag down my arm. “Laura—and maybe Ansel—knows where the real one is. Wait, that means Ansel already wants this thing?”
“Ansel has rendered himself powerless to live among you in peace. He likes you and trusts you. But if he could have unlimited magic at his disposal, if he could gain revenge for everything that’s been done to him, and no one could stop him. . . What do you think he’d do?”
Dismay was pouring over me, followed by a good dose of alarm and anxiety. “Shit.”
“You must keep it away from him. Even if Ansel thinks he’d doing the right thing by hiding it, he won’t be able to resist it for long.” Coyote held me with a hard look. “When I said no one is strong enough not to be tempted, I meant it. Including Mick.”
My heart sank. “I can’t do this without Mick.”
“Mick has a lot to worry about, including convincing a Stormwalker that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. Mick’s one of the top dragons. Think what he could do with a talisman that built up his magic into a powerhouse.”
“Mick also has a load of common sense. He’s worried about the real pot falling into the wrong hands. We’ve already had a run-in with a mage.” I told him what had happened with Pericles.
“You see?” Coyote said, not sounding very surprised. “It’s started. The sooner you find the pot, the better.”
“Oh thanks. And anyway, what about me? What happens when I get my hands on a vessel of the gods, full of magical juju? I have volatile Beneath magic in me, and I’m sure the Stormwalker side of me wouldn’t mind a boost either. I have a lot of scores to settle.”
Coyote’s grim expression fled, and he relaxed into a smile. He closed the space between us, cupped his hands around my face, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Because you’re Janet. You’re the only one I trust.”
My mouth popped open. “Me? Why?”
“Because you grieved for me.”
I blinked at him a few times, Coyote’s callused hands warm on my face. “That makes no sense at all.”
“Yes, it does. Find the vessel for me, sweetie. And don’t let anyone else get their hands on it. At all costs.” He released me and settled his jeans jacket against the breeze that had sprung up. “Oh, by the way, get your magic mirror fixed. You’ll need it.”
I wrapped the jacket around the pot and tucked both into my saddlebag, locking it again. “You toss off these impossible tasks like they’re nothing. Find the real pot before anyone else does. Fix the magic mirror. Like I can snap my fingers, and all this will just happen.”
I found myself talking to an empty space. Coyote was gone, nothing but the prints of his cowboy boots left in the dust where he’d stood.
“And I hate when you do that,” I said, but my words only died on the rising wind.
*** *** ***
When I got back to the hotel, Pamela was there, lounging against the counter in my lobby while Cassandra finished her spreadsheets for the day. Pamela’s long body, comfortable in jeans and boots and tank top, matched the rangy look of her wolf.
“Mick called for you,” Pamela said when I walked back in, the pot still wrapped in my jacket. “He said he wants you to meet him on the 40 a few miles east of Holbrook. He’ll flag you down.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked in alarm.
“He didn’t s
ay,” Pamela said. “I just took the message. Cassandra was too busy to answer the phone.”
She never moved from leaning back on her elbows, but her annoyance that she had to wait for Cassandra to finish for the night rang clear. Pamela liked her alone time with Cassandra, and didn’t want one minute to go to something else.
“Cassandra, if you have time, do you know a mage—one I can trust—to fix the magic mirror?” If Coyote said it was important, it was important.
“Problematic,” Cassandra said without looking up.
Always a problem telling other mages about a magic mirror. They’d all want it. Like the feeding frenzy Coyote said would happen with the pot.
“Well, any ideas you have, I’m willing to hear,” I said.
Pamela flashed me another look, becoming more possessive of her mate and their time together by the second. I decided to leave them to it. I gave the fake pot to Cassandra to put into the safe, then ducked down the hall to my private rooms to use the bathroom and wash the ketchup from the corners of my mouth before I left to find Mick.
My route, as always, took me through Flat Mesa. I obeyed the slow speed limit through and around the little town, because I knew Nash had trained his deputies to happily write me a ticket for going one mile per hour over and demand the fee be paid before I left town again.
As much as I throttled back my bike though, a sheriff’s SUV pulled in behind me. Lights flashed, and he was pulling me over.
When Sheriff Jones hopped out of his SUV and walked to me, I took off my helmet and pointed at my speedometer. “Thirty-five,” I said. “Not thirty-six or thirty-four. If you changed the speed limit, it’s not posted.”
“I didn’t pull you over for speeding,” Nash said. “I pulled you over because you’re a witness. Or maybe an accessory.”
“Witness to what?”
Nash stood calmly in the glare from his headlights, minus the sunglasses he habitually wore during the day. The lights brushed over his close buzz of black hair and made his eyes a clear gray.
Nightwalker Page 16
