Nightwalker

by Allyson James

  I blinked. The background now showed new figures, emerging under the moon’s silver glow. I couldn’t quite make them out, but they interspersed with the others, adding to the chase, the motion making me dizzy.

  “Janet?” Gabrielle asked. Her tone didn’t so much hold concern as it implied, What are you going crazy about this time?

  I shook myself. The figures on the pot abruptly stopped, again becoming the still outlines of bear, tortoise, and lightning.

  I took the shard of magic mirror from its bag. Even in the white moonlight, it was dark, holding secrets in its heart.

  I moved as close to Nash as I dared, then I tossed the shard of magic mirror directly into the pot.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Nothing happened. I hadn’t thought it would. If Nash could cancel out something as powerful as the artifact, he’d cancel out the mirror, and any magical interaction between talismans as well.

  Nash peered into the pot. “Why did you do that?”

  “Keep it in there for me, will you?” I said. “And let’s go have a talk with our mages.”

  As soon as Nash stepped away from the pickup, pot wrapped again and tucked under his arm, Drake peeled away from Mick and went for Nash.

  He didn’t care that the rest of us were two feet away from him. Dragon fire boomed around us, and Drake came down at our little group, huge talons curled and ready to strike. Dragon fire might not be able to hurt Nash, but Drake could always pick him up and drop him somewhere out in the desert, then pluck the pot from his dead, broken body.

  Elena grabbed Grandmother and dragged her out of the way of the flames. The two women ran back to Nash’s truck, diving inside the cab. Gabrielle ran after them, scrambling into the truck’s bed to stand, Beneath magic in her hands, to defend them.

  Mick charged for Drake, forcing the black dragon to roll away and climb again, but as soon as Mick and Drake were out of the way, Colby attacked.

  I knew Colby didn’t want to, but under his sentence to play slave for the dragons, he went for Nash.

  I pushed my awareness at the gathering storm, grounding myself with it while I drew on the Beneath magic within me. Without the pot trying to enhance me, I might be able to deflect Colby without hurting him too much.

  Colby came on. I saw his huge dragon underside, giant wings, talons as large as my body, as he dove for Nash. Nash ran and then dropped and rolled, trying to reach an outcropping of rock for cover.

  As Colby passed over me, I let fly my Beneath magic, right under his wing.

  Colby screeched as he fell sideways, batting the air with the wing I hadn’t zapped, the other one sweeping crookedly in reflex. He burst out with dragon fire, which I deflected with a Beneath-magic shield. Colby jerked, trying to rise into the air, but his injured wing caught the ground.

  Dust boiled upward as the dragon hit, the fine grains of dirt flying through my shield to slice at my face. The Beneath magic kept out the magical, not the physical.

  I ran for Colby. He raised his head, fury in his eyes. The anger was not for me, but for Drake, who still held him in thrall. Colby didn’t want to attack me, and I didn’t want to attack him, but neither of us had a choice.

  “Colby!” I cried. “Turn human.”

  Colby had tricked Drake out of his chains once before. If Colby put himself under the sphere of Nash’s null influence, Nash’s negating field might be able to unbind him. It had worked the last time.

  Colby gave me another look of pure rage. He got to his dragon haunches, his wings sliding out smoothly despite the hit they’d taken, and he launched himself into the air.

  Damn. I wouldn’t put it past Drake to have added a compulsion spell that kept Colby away from Nash. Drake wouldn’t let Colby trick him a second time.

  Nash made it under the rock outcropping and scooted as far back under its shelf as possible. If Colby couldn’t squeeze a talon inside there, Nash—and the pot—would be safe.

  Colby decided to dive at the rock itself, spitting fire. I countered with my Beneath shield, and Colby shot for the sky again.

  I didn’t want to hurt him. I wished Mick had gone after Colby, because I wouldn’t have minded pounding Drake a little. I was still pissed at him about my hotel.

  High above, Mick and Drake tangled. Drake and Mick were matched in size, and both were experienced fighters. Fire streaked through the air, followed by dragon cries of fury and pain.

  “This is your spectacular plan, Janet?” Nash yelled at me.

  “You have a better one?”

  Colby dove at us again, dragon fire bursting around the rocks and charring clumps of vegetation in a wide ring.

  He came down for another pass. I stood up, balls of Beneath magic dancing in my hands, ready to stop him.

  Spikes of light descended from the black of the sky like bolts of golden lightning. Colby shrieked and flapped out of the way. I looked up in amazement as a dozen tubes of light slammed into the ground like railroad spikes, enclosing me and Nash, still under the outcropping, in a golden cage.

  Crackling power surged out of the tubes, making the hair on my arms stand up. Colby swooped down to study them, but he kept his flames to himself. Good thinking. No telling what these things would do if we threw more power at them.

  Nash peered out at me. “What the hell?”

  The fact that the magical lights didn’t instantly disperse meant that Emmett had calculated exactly how far from Nash’s field of influence he had to place them. Colby was still above us—if Nash moved beyond the rocks to negate the spikes, he’d still be vulnerable to the physical threat of Colby.

  More tubes surrounded the pickup with Grandmother and Elena inside, Gabrielle now sitting cross-legged on the top of the cab. Her laughter floated to me. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

  Emmett Smith looked at me, lenses of his spectacles shining in the residual light of the tubes. “Sorry, Stormwalker. I need you contained for a while.”

  He turned away without waiting for my answer and faced Pericles again.

  Pericles was shorter than Emmett and squat of build, but as I’d learned when he’d lifted me over his head, his body was mostly muscle. Moonlight gleamed on his bald spot, and also on his eyes, which had gone white.

  I never saw the fight begin. One moment the two mages still assessed each other, the next, Emmett was enveloped in a dense black cloud. I felt the edges of Pericles’s spell twenty yards away, choking death meant to squeeze every ounce of life from its victim.

  A glowing shaft like the ones that surrounded us slammed straight through Pericles. Pericles screamed, and the blackness lightened enough for me to see Emmett’s glasses gleaming behind it.

  The spike went right through Pericles, leaving a giant, bloody hole in the middle of him. But as the spike and darkness dispersed, Pericles’s body closed with an audible snap, and the blood vanished.

  He gave Emmett a vicious smile. “That all you’ve got?”

  “I was going easy on you,” Emmett said. “If you like, I’ll let you live. We can meet to fight another day.”

  “Screw you. I’m not letting you get your hands on that pot.”

  “Ah, well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Another shaft of light shot toward Pericles. Pericles deflected it this time, then the air around the two mages became thick with darkness, then mist, light, and blood—as they threw spell after spell at each other.

  Splinters of their spells ricocheted and arrowed toward the rest of us. Many crackled to nothing against the glowing tubes, but the rest came at us like flying shards of glass. Nash unfolded himself from under the rock to step in front of them, letting his null magic cancel them out, and I deflected the others. At the pickup, Gabrielle swatted at the spell remnants with her magic, whooping and laughing.

  Bear, who’d remained motionless throughout all this, suddenly raised her arms. She pointed both hands high into the sky and let out a screaming chant in a high-pitched voice, the kind achieved by the best traditional Indian s
ingers.

  The sound echoed up and down the canyon, bounced from the tall mesas along the river valley, and rang up to the stars. A small rumble shifted my feet, the merest vibration, the ground answering.

  Bear was calling the spirit of the canyon, the thousands of years of life and people and what they’d left behind. Wind sprang from a circle around her, and I heard the first rumble of thunder.

  She was awaking the canyon, and bringing on the storm.

  I laughed. Bear went on chanting. Though she sang in a language I didn’t know, the words took shape in my head.

  She sang of the creation, of the first three worlds far beneath us, which had been filled with gods and magical beings. She sang about First Man and First Woman, about life emerging through the cracks in the world Beneath to this one, the fourth world, the world of light.

  I knew the story, had heard it many times. Bear added to it the tale of the pot she’d shaped, fired, and imbued with god magic. As Elena had told me, she’d presented it to the shamans who’d lived in this canyon long before what now stood in ruins had even been built, then she’d left them. The shamans had tried to use the pot, but they’d become greedy for its power, and it had started to destroy them. Other shamans, drawn by the magic, had fought to possess the pot, and in a conflagration of magic, the entire tribe had vanished from the land.

  The pot had lain hidden here in the places of the dead, undisturbed for years. Other tribes had come and gone, but they’d never touched the graves. Then new people came, digging up the land and stealing from the dead, selling the pottery and artifacts they found to those who paid vast sums of money for them.

  Now Bear had returned for her vessel. She would use it to stop the mages and the evil, then she’d take it and go.

  I stood, mesmerized, listening to her. So did Nash. Gabrielle had gone quiet, and Grandmother and Elena watched, motionless, from the truck.

  Pericles and Emmett paid no attention. The air around them was thick and black but shot through with wild colors. I heard screams among the magic, sounds of agony as well as snarls of rage.

  Bear chanted on, and the storm built. Its tingling consumed me, and I turned in a circle, arms outstretched.

  “What are you doing?” Nash demanded.

  “Storm,” I said. “It’s a big one.”

  “How big?”

  “I’d say, take cover.”

  Nash let out a string of swear words. He crawled beneath the slab of rock again and huddled there, tucking the pot beneath him.

  Bear’s song went on. The mages fought. The dragons screamed and fired, Colby joining their battle.

  Nash made no move to nullify the magic ring around us, even with Colby gone, and I was fine with that, because the barrier shielded us against the backlash from the mages’ spells. Emmett wasn’t being nice to us—when he was done with Pericles, he’d turn his attentions to us and the pot his barrier had protected. Very organized, was Emmett.

  The storm came on. I smelled dust and dampness, and saw the wall of dust rising above the cliffs around Chaco Canyon to blot out the stars, the disc of the moon, and even the clouds themselves.

  The dirt wall filled the horizon from end to end and rose a mile and more into the sky. It came fast, swallowing everything before it—buttes, the canyon walls, rocks, trees, and all light. It swallowed the sky itself, and the wind raged.

  Haboob, such storms were called. They were thick, miles deep and miles wide, and could reach two miles high. Its winds blew everything before it—dirt and debris, which the desert had to spare, sand loosened by sudden rain after days of no rain. All gathered into one giant storm, and that storm poured down on us now without mercy.

  The canyon whirled into darkness. Emmett’s spell lights glowed feebly, and by them I could just see Nash hunkered under the rock five feet away. Nothing else.

  I stretched out my arms and embraced the storm.

  I’d been in bad dust storms before, but this one was different. Whether Bear’s magic had called it, or the magic battle in the valley had enhanced it, or somehow it sensed the pot’s magic, I didn’t know. But I felt the demons in the storm, beings drawn to the magic, and to me.

  I grabbed the winds. I heard my own laughter, wild and strong. I was free.

  My body rose with the wind, but I felt no terror. I rose on the haboob’s waves, and my Beneath magic, ironically, kept me grounded.

  “Woo!” Gabrielle shouted from where she stood on the hood of the truck. “Look at Janet. Go, big sis!”

  The demons in the wind fell back before me. I commanded them—they’d bend to my will. The storm was mine.

  The mile-high wall went straight for the dragons. “Mick!” I screamed. “Get out of the way!”

  Mick, my smart boyfriend, had already seen, already comprehended, and was already moving. He shot away in front of the storm, angling to the south and east, out of its path.

  Drake went right after him. Colby hesitated, wings pumping the air, already hampered by his injury. I reached up with my magic and gave him a shove, and he flapped reluctantly away.

  I turned with the storm toward Emmett and Pericles.

  I hit them with two tunnels of wind, breaking their spells. Black, fragmented magic danced down the canyon, exploding against the walls in brilliant colors, like washes of fireworks.

  Both mages swung to me. They were panting, sweating, covered in blood and dirt, Emmett’s glasses broken.

  They no longer wore the guises of ordinary men they showed to the rest of the world. I could see under their skins, the evil but beautiful things they truly were. They’d once been men, but the power they’d studied, or stolen, and hoarded for years had made them as cold and perfect as marble statues. Flawless. Deadly.

  Emmett hissed. From his mouth issued a darkness so black that it sucked in and destroyed any color or light touched it. I knew death when I saw it.

  I grabbed the wind, shaped it into an arrow, filled it with Beneath power, and shot the death out of the sky before it could touch me. Emmett’s spell shattered like porcelain on concrete.

  I’d never done this before. Usually, I drew on a storm’s power—wind, lightning, rain, snow—mixed it with my natural magic, and let it out again.

  This time, I was inside the storm. It was me, and I was it. I was flying, cradled in its power.

  My awareness expanded with the storm. I stretched fifty miles across the desert, seeing the little towns and pueblos from here to the Colorado border. Sheep huddled together, worried shepherds among them. People rushed home and closed windows and doors, peering out at the giant wave of sand with frightened eyes.

  The dragons fought south of here, almost to the slopes of Mount Taylor, which marked the traditional boundary of the Navajo lands. I saw Drake whirl to face Mick, then the two dragons began to battle, swiping with wings, claws, teeth, tails.

  Colby reached them, but to my amazement, instead of attacking Mick, he turned on Drake.

  I thought for a second that he’d managed to break his binding spell, but with my vision enhanced by my bath of magic, I saw the dark wires of the spell still wrapping him. He was fighting despite his bondage, helping Mick. And it hurt him.

  Mick roared down at Drake, mouth open, claws ready to maul. Drake danced aside, but one of Colby’s back feet managed to rake across Drake’s chest, drawing blood. Drake fired at Colby, and Colby shot out of the way. Mick took advantage to get in a shot of fire across Drake’s back.

  Drake shrieked, his hide burning, but he whipped around and struck, full force of body and tail. Not at Mick—at Colby.

  Colby couldn’t dodge in time. He almost managed to dive out of the way, but Drake’s long, barbed tail caught him under one wing.

  The wing tore in a crackling of cartilage, and Colby rolled like a fighter plane shot out of the sky. Fire burst from his mouth as he fell and caught Drake on the belly. Drake screamed and winged higher, trying to let the wind put the fires out.

  Mick was on Drake in an instant, but Colby
plummeted from the heights, straight toward rocky ground.

  I shot out a cushion of wind to try to help break his fall, but the problem with being part of such a huge storm was that its strength dispersed the farther I moved from its heart. The dragons were fighting on the very edge.

  I slowed Colby’s descent a little, but still he tumbled end over end until he crashed into tall grasses and rock. A billow of dust shot up from his landing place, then Colby lay still.

  Mick saw, but he had Drake on him. My attention was jerked back to the canyon, to Pericles and Emmett, who’d both decided that the biggest threat they needed to take down was me.

  I whacked away the tubes of light surrounding Nash’s truck. As reluctant as I’d been to touch the tubes when they’d first appeared, I now dispersed them with a flick of my fingers.

  “Grandmother!” I called. “Colby needs help.”

  Elena started the truck. “Where is he?”

  I pointed, unable to explain. Elena gave me an annoyed look, but they were magical women—they’d sense the fallen dragon’s aura and find him.

  Gabrielle rolled off the truck and came to her feet as Elena drove away. “I’m not leaving. Bring it on, mages.”

  They did. I left the barrier up around Nash to protect both him and the pot from physical injury. He sat in the middle of it, arms around the pot, and watched.

  “Can I dust them, Janet?” Gabrielle turned her face up to me. “Please?”

  “In this case? Sure!”

  She whooped, and I felt her burst of Beneath magic as she rose into the air beside me. She somersaulted once in midair, laughing. “And people say sisters don’t do enough together.”

  The two mages faced us in silence. Whether they’d discussed working together or just realized it was expedient, they’d put aside their differences to tackle us. Emmett and Pericles locked hands, raised them, and each sent one half of a spell at us.

  The spells combined into a furrow of darkness. My newfound clarity told me that the darkness was designed to get past our magic and rip into our bodies. Neither Gabrielle nor I was immortal. We could die, and with us, our power.