Stormwalker

by Allyson James

  “Questions, questions. Always the questions.” His voice was gravelly, similar to Mick’s, though his body was more raw, more brutish.

  “A coyote changes into a man and watches me through my window,” I said. “It makes me inquisitive.”

  “You have a cute ass.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. “Why are you so interested in looking at it?”

  “You have to ask?” His grin was almost evil.

  “Who are you?”

  He kept smiling but watched me with eyes dark as smoke. “You know the answer to that.”

  A drifter, Nash had called him, one who hung around the Crossroads Bar with the biker gangs. “You’re Coyote as in Coyote the god?”

  “That’s what they call me.”

  “My grandmother calls you a pain in the ass and blames everything that goes wrong on you.”

  “Your grandmother is quite a woman.”

  I somehow didn’t have trouble believing that Coyote knew my grandmother, or at least who she was. I pictured her, a small Diné woman who refused to wear anything but her long skirts, chasing a yelping coyote with a broom.

  “So what do you want?” I asked. “Besides an eyeful of me?”

  “Oh, that. I’m here to stop you.”

  “Stop me from doing what? Finding Amy McGuire?”

  Coyote gazed off into the desert, to a bright star on the horizon. “You know better than that. You’re a harbinger, Janet Begay. A cute harbinger, but a harbinger nonetheless.” His voice lost its edge of humor. “This is a good world. I like it. I won’t let you destroy it.”

  I gave him a startled look. “Do you think I would? Or even could?”

  “I don’t think you’d intend to.” Coyote’s tone was grim.

  I scrubbed my hands through my hair. “I don’t intend anything.”

  “I know. That’s why I haven’t broken your neck and left your bones for the vultures. But people will get hurt. They already have. If you give in to what’s inside you, if you let her win, I’ll crush you. Nothing your big, bad boyfriend will be able to do about it either.”

  “I’d never hurt anyone,” I repeated stubbornly. “I’m more worried about what you’ll do to me, or to Mick.”

  Coyote grinned. “Me and Mick, we’ve tangled in the past.”

  Mick had never mentioned this interesting fact. “Why do I feel like the only one out of the loop? Who is Mick? Why did you ‘tangle’ with him?”

  “He’ll have to tell you that himself. He’ll try to stop you, like I will, but maybe without harming you. Me, I might not be so picky.”

  “Stop me from what?”

  “Being who you are.”

  I heaved an exasperated sigh. “Save me from cryptic god-speak. Do you think I chose to be who I am? To be illegitimate and ridiculed and all but shunned by my own people?”

  Coyote shook his head, his hard face almost sympathetic. “People like us don’t choose our paths. Those choices are made for us, long before we exist. Do you think I want to be an all-powerful, fine-assed god all the ladies love? It’s a lot of work.”

  “Be serious. I tried to run away from this place, but I always knew I’d come back here. I have to. I have to face her. I have to stop her.”

  “About time too. I’ve been poking around this town for years waiting for you.”

  I blinked. “You knew I’d be coming to Magellan?”

  “I knew that, eventually, you wouldn’t be able to stay away. I’m glad it finally happened. Do you know how boring this town can be? Why couldn’t you be pulled to the vortexes around Las Vegas?”

  “They’re not the same.” I didn’t know to what realm the vortexes around the foot of the Sierra Nevadas led, and I didn’t really want to know. The ones here were scary enough for me.

  “No, but I like Las Vegas,” Coyote said. “Lots to do there.”

  I stared at him in sickening suspicion. “You didn’t make Amy disappear, did you? So I’d come out here?”

  “I had nothing to do with that. And no, I don’t know what happened to Amy. I was away at the time.”

  “Thanks. You’re a lot of help.”

  “I’m not here to help. Well, not help you, anyway.”

  I closed my hands to fists. “I’m not your enemy.”

  “Yes, you are, little girl. By the way, you never said thank you for the other night.”

  “The other night?”

  “The skinwalker. You didn’t have enough storm to take him on, though it was fun to watch you try.”

  I remembered the blue nimbus around the skinwalker and how the creature had screamed as it ran off. “That was you?”

  “The same.”

  “You couldn’t have killed it for me? It came back for more while I lay alone in a jail cell.”

  “I was too far away.” Coyote looked chagrined. “Did the best I could. Besides, you got him in the end. I was impressed by your technique.”

  “That’s what Mick said. Next time, I wish one of you would help instead of standing back and being impressed.”

  “You were doing so well on your own.” He sounded like a teacher praising a student. “You should get back to your man of fire before he wakes up. You know, you two have a lot of stamina. I thought you’d never stop.”

  I jumped to my feet. “That’s it. Tomorrow, I’m getting blackout curtains.”

  “Hey, don’t ruin my fun. Before our showdown, you and me could have some good times.”

  I ignored him. I’d heard plenty of stories growing up about Coyote’s sexual appetites, which often got him into trouble. I’d laughed at them then, but it was less funny now that one of those stories could involve me.

  As I strode back toward the hotel, Coyote’s voice floated after me. “You two want some threesome action, I’ll be there.”

  I gave him the finger. I heard his laughter, loud and clear, which turned into coyote yowls before I ducked back inside.

  When I woke the next morning, the sun was well up, and my bed held an indentation where Mick had been. I didn’t need to check outside to see that his motorcycle was no longer parked against the back of the building to know that Mick was gone. The place screamed of Mick’s absence, as though his aura had become part of the walls and now they missed him.

  I grew angry—at Mick and at myself. He’d taken to walking in and out of my life again, and I was letting him. Worse, I’d gone and had sex with him. It had been great sex, mind-blowing sex, after I thought I’d given up sex for good. I’d never let myself sleep with human males, because I feared I’d hurt them, even now that I could better control my storm power. Mick was the only person with whom I’d ever been able to let myself go, and he knew that, damn him.

  I’d wanted to talk to him about my encounter with Coyote, ask him what Coyote had meant that he and Mick had tangled. Mick was strong, but Coyote was a god. Then again, Mick was still alive, leading me to wonder who’d won whatever fight had been between them.

  I went into the bathroom and tried the faucet on the off chance, and sure enough, hot water shot out of the pipes. Fremont hadn’t been able to finish yesterday because of the police, so Mick must have provided this for me again. Maybe Mick should go into the plumbing business.

  After I finished showering and eating a dry cookie breakfast, Nash Jones showed up, just to get my day off to a good start.

  When I unlocked the front door for him, Nash went immediately to the basement to see whether I’d disturbed the tape.

  “Disappointed?” I asked him, when he found it untouched.

  “You have a problem with respect, Begay.”

  “You rub me the wrong way, Sheriff.”

  “Your boyfriend came to see me this morning,” he said.

  I had told Mick last night while we ate in Winslow that Sheriff Jones wanted to see him. Mick had shrugged like he didn’t care.

  I’d have loved to know what they talked about, but Nash didn’t enlighten me. “The woman in your basement was called Sherry Beaumont.”

>   I looked at him in surprise. “You know her name already? That was fast.”

  “She was listed as a missing person about a year ago. Dental records were e-mailed to the medical examiner this morning and confirmed. Name mean anything to you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “She was from Ventura, a tourist. The man who owns Crossroads Bar—Barry—he’s from Los Angeles, isn’t he?”

  I thought of Barry, the lanky bartender I’d made friends with on arriving in Magellan, figuring I needed to be a good neighbor. He let me use the shower in the tiny bathroom behind the bar since I didn’t have any water—at least none that Mick hadn’t magicked up. Barry didn’t talk much, and I didn’t pry.

  “Los Angeles is a big place,” I said. “So is California.”

  “She was married but separated. Her husband said she’d come out here to see the vortexes.”

  The vortexes. My blood chilled. “How was she killed?”

  “There were no signs of trauma on her body, none of a struggle. She wasn’t visibly hurt. She could have died of heat stroke or severe dehydration. Tourists do that.”

  They did. People came out here from friendlier climates, not realizing how potentially deadly the desert was. One of Jamison Kee’s brothers led tours through Canyon de Chelly, a spectacular place but lethal if you weren’t careful and knowledgeable. He’d told me tales of lost hikers who’d fall into crevices and not be found, people wandering off by themselves without water in one-hundred-degree-plus temperatures. “This land might be beautiful and even nurturing,” he’d say. “But it will kill you in a heartbeat.”

  “The medical examiner thinks she passed out from heat exhaustion or sunstroke and died,” Nash said.

  “So how did she end up in my basement?”

  Nash bent me a look. “That’s a good question. The only fingerprints on the paneling were Maya’s.”

  “She was working down there when she found the body,” I pointed out.

  “Sherry Beaumont was also pregnant.”

  My eyes widened. “Was she?” That made it even sadder. “Her husband says the child isn’t his.”

  “That’s something you can’t blame on me, Sheriff.”

  “But you have an interesting boyfriend who turned up out of nowhere, and you claim to know nothing about his past.”

  Damn it. I wanted to spring to Mick’s defense, but it was true that I had no idea what he’d been up to for the past five years.

  “I did a little research,” Nash was saying. “I couldn’t find record of a Mick Burns who matched his description. I mean any record. He has no credit cards, no bank accounts, no property, nothing. This morning I talked to him for forty-five minutes and came out of the conversation with a big fat zero.”

  I wanted to laugh. “I lived with him for six months and didn’t get any more than that. What made you think you could wear him down in forty-five minutes?”

  “People usually talk to me.”

  “I’ll bet.” I had heard the story of how Nash, as a deputy when he’d come back from Iraq, had personally hauled to jail five big-city gang members who’d tried to hide out in Magellan. The hardened youths had been wetting their pants to get away from him in the end, according to Fremont. But then, they hadn’t been Mick. I’d always marveled at how gentle Mick could be with me, when his natural state seemed to be so hard-edged.

  I wished Nash would stop looking at me like that. He was making me wonder all kinds of crazy things, like why Mick had chosen to return the day before a woman was found buried in my basement. And why, if he was so protective of me, had he let the skinwalker nearly kill me?

  “I don’t think Mick did this,” I said.

  “Maybe he didn’t. But I want to know more about him.”

  I wanted to say, You and me both. “Can my workers continue in here?” I asked. “I can’t afford to just let this place go.”

  Nash looked around at the half-plastered walls, the studs still exposed between lobby and saloon, and gave me a reluctant nod. “Forensics say they’re done in the rest of the hotel. But stay out of the basement.”

  “Where my water heater is,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Fremont arrived, ending our conversation. He at least assumed work would be progressing.

  Today, Fremont looked less buoyant, and his face was wan, as though he’d aged ten years overnight. “You all right?” I asked him.

  He gave me the nod of a man determined to bury himself in his work. “I’m fine. I didn’t get your bathroom hooked up yesterday. I want to finish.”

  “Sheriff Jones won’t let us in the basement.”

  Fremont shot Nash a dark look. “I don’t need to get to the basement.”

  I’d never seen Fremont this unhappy before. I felt a large twinge of guilt. After all, the skinwalker had been targeting me; Charlie had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Fremont, I’ve decided to buy you a new truck; you won’t have to wait for the insurance. I’ll just get it for you. Want to go looking for one today?”

  “I don’t care about the damn truck.” Fremont growled. “It wasn’t your fault, Janet. A skinwalker did this. That’s what Coyote is saying.”

  Nash’s voice went hard. “Coyote is a crazy man who should watch his mouth.”

  “Skinwalkers are real,” Fremont said. “Janet knows it. Everyone around here knows it. I want to go after the son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t you dare.” I could imagine Fremont stalking through the desert at night armed with a flashlight and pipe wrench. He might have a tiny bit of magical power, but nowhere near anything strong enough to fight a monster who dealt in death.“Anyway, the one that killed Charlie is dead.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Lightning strike. He attacked the jailhouse when I was there. The lightning burned him up.”

  Fremont gave me a skeptical look. “How do you know it was the same one?”

  “I know.”

  “Listen to you.” Maya in her white coveralls had come in while we talked. She set down her toolbox and settled her cap over her dark hair, her brown eyes filled with scorn. I noticed she didn’t look at Nash. “Skinwalkers, my ass. She’s lying to you, Fremont. She hit your truck and flipped it.”

  “Shut up, Medina,” Fremont snapped. “You don’t talk about skinwalkers like they don’t exist. They can hear you. They’ll come for you.”

  Maya shook her head in disgust. “Dios mío, get me out of this fucking town.”

  “Don’t let the screen door hit you,” Fremont said.

  “Maya.” Nash’s voice was sharp, stentorian. From the look Maya gave him, I had the feeling she had an even bigger problem with respect for him than I did. “I want to talk to you.”

  Maya picked up the toolbox with a jerk. “I’m busy. Appliances should be coming today.”

  Jones’s eyes flashed in fury as Maya stalked off to the kitchen. I could see that he didn’t want to run after her, but he also didn’t want her to get away with blowing him off. Mouth set, he walked to the kitchen, anger in every line of his body.

  More men came to work, and the routine began, my hotel filling with the comforting sounds of construction. The workers talked among themselves, speculating about Sherry Beaumont and her death, but mostly, they just worked. Nash must have finished with Maya, because I saw him move past the lobby windows and drive off in his SUV.

  Nash’s questions about Mick unnerved me. I knew Mick wasn’t human, but plenty of nonhuman creatures inhabited this world incognito. My friend Jamison was a Changer who could turn into a mountain lion, but no one knew that but me, his family, his wife, Naomi, and his young stepdaughter, Julie. Witches are real—maybe not the New Agers who came to Magellan by the busload, but true Wiccans who follow the earth-goddess religion and have more power than people give them credit for. Nightwalkers, bloodsuckers that fiction calls “vampires,” exist as well, indistinguishable from humans though they are thankfully rare. Then there are gods like Coyote who can look like
anything they want.

  I didn’t think Mick was a god, he wasn’t a Wiccan witch, and since he went out during the day and didn’t crave blood, that ruled out Nightwalker. His aura was Changer-like, but if he were a Changer, I thought he’d have revealed his animal form to me by now.

  Yes, his dragon tattoos sometimes seemed to move, sometimes to watch me, but dragons didn’t exist—they were legend. The dragons might symbolize the streams of fire that came out of Mick’s hands, or they might mean he belonged to some cult that symbolized their god with a dragon. Not that I’d ever seen Mick worshipping anything.

  What irritated me most of all was that he wouldn’t just tell me. If Mick had nothing to hide, what was the harm?

  The only thing I knew was that Mick, whose last name was not Burns, was very dangerous, more dangerous than most things out there. I’d known that from the very first night I met him.

  Nine

  FIVE YEARS AGO

  “I called the cops, girl. Do you understand me?”

  I had a broken pool cue in my hands. I had no idea where I’d picked it up or why, but I hefted it as I faced the men in the middle of the bar.

  I’d just wanted a beer. One cold beer to refresh myself after a battle with dark forces—was that too much for a girl to ask?

  Apparently so. Lightning flickered outside in the Mojave Desert, near a town too far north of Las Vegas to be entertaining. These people had no idea what had been crawling around out there, waiting for lone travelers on the empty highway, no idea how hard I’d fought to kill the creatures.

  Ingrates.

  I’d finished with the demons and ridden toward the lights, exhausted and sick, storm magic pounding through me. Thirsty, I’d found a bar in a town with one intersection. The faint neon signs outside advertised brand-name beers and “the loosest slots in town.” By the look of things, they were the only slots in town. A beer to wet my throat, I’d thought, maybe a bit of food if I could keep it down.