Shadow Walker

by Allyson James

  That was perfectly possible. Gabrielle was powerful like an out-of-control tornado—I knew that from fighting her—but she was a little too confident.

  “I’m not worried,” I lied.

  She laughed at me, long and hard, as though I missed something she thought hilarious.

  “I was giving you a chance today,” she said. “A chance for us to be friends. But you’re too hard to reach, too damn stubborn. I won’t hold back when we meet again, all right?”

  “If you touch anyone close to me, you’ll regret that you were ever born.”

  “Threats. I love it.”

  “I’m not kidding. I’ve seen what you can do. Coming after me is one thing, but you leave my people alone.”

  “See?” Gabrielle laughed. “The ‘my people’ thing again. You are arrogant, Janet.”

  “I take care of them. They think they take care of me, but it’s the other way around. So if you touch them—I don’t hold back.”

  “Oh, this is delicious.”

  Gabrielle called me arrogant, but the conceited surety in her eyes was too strong, too certain. I knew then that she’d not stop at anything to humiliate me. That’s how she would see it—humiliation—but I was concerned with more basic things. Survival. Protection. I would protect Mick and my grandmother and my friends to my last breath.

  Whatever we’d have said to each other, and whatever we’d have done next, was cut short by flashing blue lights in a brand-new county sheriff’s SUV. Nash Jones pulled to a stop next to Fremont’s truck and climbed out. He wore a parka against the winter cold, sunglasses against the glare, and a bandage still stark and white on his black hair. I could see his right fingers twitching, not for his gun but with eagerness to write a citation.

  “What are you girls doing out here?” he asked.

  I pointed to Fremont’s tires. “They went flat.”

  “You know this place is blocked off for a reason.”

  Gabrielle was smiling at him, the kind of smile a woman reserves for a man whose pants she wants to get into. The smile was sultry, a woman certain of her charms. Nash, true to form, completely ignored her.

  “I’m fascinated by places where I nearly died,” I said.

  Nash gave me an expressionless look from behind his sunglasses. “If you visited them all, you’d never have time for anything else. Get in. I’ll call a wrecker for Fremont’s truck.”

  “Why don’t you change the tires, Sheriff Jones?” Gabrielle asked.

  Nash looked at me, not Gabrielle. “Janet, who is she?”

  “Gabrielle Massey,” I answered. “She’s Apache.”

  “Like Geronimo,” Gabrielle said, and giggled.

  Nash opened the back door of his SUV. “Ladies.”

  I climbed in. Gabrielle smirked at Nash as she climbed in beside me, and she actually wriggled her butt at him. Gods help us.

  Nash was quiet as he drove us back, which told me he still hadn’t recovered all the way. Nash loved to interrogate. Gabrielle, on the other hand, sat forward in her seat, fingers on the grill that separated the backseat from the front.

  “Nice ride, Sheriff,” Gabrielle said. “I think I’d like it better in the front seat.”

  Nash flashed me a look in the rearview mirror. “Who is she?” he repeated.

  I knew he didn’t mean her name. “Oh, just someone I met in a wash.”

  “Don’t be coy,” Gabrielle said. “Janet’s too shy to tell you. We’re sisters.”

  “You don’t have a sister,” Nash said to me. “I’ve read all your records.”

  “Half sister,” I corrected. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”

  Nash continued to stare until a curve in the plowed road forced his eyes back to it. Gabrielle continued to simper at Nash, and Nash kept on ignoring her.

  I suggested Gabrielle be dropped off at the small bus terminal in Flat Mesa that ran a once-a-day shuttle to Winslow, though I had no idea where Gabrielle was living. “So she can leave the county,” I said in a hard voice.

  “I’m not a taxi service,” Nash snapped.

  “Drop me off too, then,” I said. “I’ll call someone.”

  Gabrielle grinned at me. I felt magic spark in her, and I came alert, but all she did was open the door of the moving SUV. Nash had locked it, but the door now swung wide, and freezing air swept inside.

  “What the—” Nash hit the brakes, but by the time he got the SUV stopped, Gabrielle was gone. Vanished into the wind and the vast plain of snow.

  I dragged the door closed again. “I told you,” I said to Nash. “It’s complicated.”

  Nash dropped me off at the hotel, but he declined to come in, racing away almost as soon as my feet touched the ground. The lobby was warm, and Cassandra told me that Maya and Fremont were still working in the basement. The two of them weren’t speaking at all, which, Cassandra told me in a strained voice, made a nice change from their arguing.

  I’d have to tell Fremont about his truck, for which Nash had radioed in a tow, but I decided I’d wait until Fremont was in a better temper.

  Pamela had moved into one of the empty rooms, Cassandra with her. At least they were happy.

  “Janet!”

  The voice came from the kitchen, the word shouted as only my grandmother could. She used names like weapons.

  I felt seven years old again as I entered the kitchen. “Yes, Grandmother?”

  “How many of you do I need to feed tonight? Is that Hispanic girl and the magician-plumber going to stay? Where’s Mick? And did you know you have jugs of animal blood in your refrigerator?”

  “Those are for Ansel.” I braced myself. “He’s a Nightwalker.”

  Grandmother slammed down her spoon. “A Nightwalker? So this is an all-service hotel, is it?”

  “He’s a nice Nightwalker,” I tried. “He’s sworn off human blood. He collects stamps and watches old movies.” I sighed when her glare didn’t soften. “Let him have the blood. He’s really trying, and he’s handy to have around.”

  “Handy. A Nightwalker.” She didn’t exactly say humph, but I heard the sound hovering. Grandmother went back to chopping vegetables, her silence screaming disapproval.

  I ducked into the saloon and drew myself a beer. My bartender had taught me how to draw from the taps, so I could fill a mug with frosty brew and give it just enough of a head for foamy satisfaction. I took a slow sip, knowing that if I drank it too fast, I’d end up passed out in a short space of time. I’d learned long ago what a lightweight I was. I didn’t touch alcohol often.

  Maya came in, covered with dust and grease and looking out of temper, so I drew her a beer too. She took it gratefully and looked less sour after she drank and wiped her mouth.

  “I need to tell you something.” We sat at a table together, and she gave me a grave look from her dark eyes. “I know I’d want you to tell me if it were Nash. I saw Mick with a woman. Yesterday.”

  “A blond woman?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “Pamela told me.” As long as she wasn’t my mother in another woman’s body, fine, I told myself.

  Maya took off her work hat and tossed it to the chair next to her. Her black curls were matted with sweat. “Don’t be blind, Janet. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if he’d been talking to her at the diner or something. Mick is friendly. But this was Mick taking a woman behind the library and looking damn worried about anyone seeing him. And then talking to her intensely. Very intensely. I think you know what I mean.”

  I folded my hands under my chin. Even Mick flirting with another woman wouldn’t bother me as much as my mother trying to hurt him. There were degrees of badness here. “Was he having sex with her?” I asked. “Out there behind the public library? You think he’d be more discreet.”

  “I’m not stupid, Janet, and you shouldn’t be either. They talked like they knew each other very well, but I have no clue who the woman was.”

  Yes, this was bothering me. Mick didn’t always tell me everything he did or about ever
yone he talked to, but if this woman was important, he would have.

  “Thank you for the information.” I picked up my beer and took a bigger swallow, feeling my nose tingle.

  “I know I’ve just pissed you off. But like I said, I’d want you to tell me if it were Nash. No matter what.”

  I shrugged. “You’re right. But I’ll take it from here, all right?”

  Maya’s stare skewered me. My grandmother bellowed from the kitchen that supper was ready, and the discussion had to end.

  A discussion like that, however, doesn’t simply vanish from your brain. I was already in bed under several layers of blankets that night when Mick slipped in, kissed me on the forehead, and told me to get dressed and follow him.

  Eleven

  It spoke a lot about my trust in him that I grabbed my clothes and jacket, slid into them, and followed him out the back door.

  Yesterday’s storm was long gone, and the night sky was clear and cold. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, a white smudge of more distant stars visible under the nearer carpet of brightness. My breath formed a crisp cloud as I tilted my head back and looked up as far as I could.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  Strong arms came around me from behind, and I felt his lips in my hair. “I brought you out to show you this.”

  A gift of sight. I leaned against Mick’s warm, hard body and stared at the rope of the galaxy stretching before me. The snow hid the desert in a seamless white blanket, rippling a little when it hit ridges to the south and east. All was silent, the hotel asleep, the bar closed, only a few lights glowing in the town south of us.

  Mick put something into my hand. A box. A small velvet box with a hinged lid.

  “I asked around about human mating customs,” he said in my ear. “I don’t know if this is the traditional Diné way, but I was told it was essential.”

  I opened the box with shaking fingers. Inside lay a silver ring encircled with turquoise interlaced with onyx. The ring was finely crafted, beautiful.

  “I was told diamonds are most common,” Mick whispered, his breath warming my skin. “But I knew you’d want turquoise.”

  The ring was gorgeous, exactly the kind of piece I’d wear, with craftsmanship that spoke of talent.

  Mick tugged the ring from the box, lifted my left hand, and slid the ring onto the fourth finger. The silver band was cool, and I felt warmth from the turquoise. “I know you’re not certain,” he said. “But will you wear this for me while you think about it? If you decide no, you can give it back to me.”

  I turned in his arms, my eyes moist. Mick so rarely asked me to do anything just for him. I didn’t know what to say, so I asked the first question that popped into my mind.

  “Is this what you were talking to the blond woman about?”

  Confusion filled his blue eyes. “Blond woman? You mean Cassandra?”

  “No, the one you talked to behind the library. The blond woman everyone in town is so eager to tell me about.”

  “I haven’t been anywhere near the library, and I haven’t spoken to anyone lately you don’t already know. Are they sure it was me?”

  “Sure enough. You’re kind of distinctive. It wasn’t my mother, was it?”

  Mick drew back. “Gods, no. If I ever thought I was talking to your mother, I’d alert the forces, and I wouldn’t have had time to get the ring.”

  I chewed my lower lip. “I’m a reasonable person, or at least I try to be. If she was someone you knew when we were apart, after I left you, I mean, I wouldn’t blame you. I walked out on you.”

  Mick smiled suddenly, blindingly. “Are you asking me if there’s someone else? I like questions I can answer easily. No.” He came to me, putting me inside his warmth. “After I met you all those years ago in that roadhouse, there was no one else for me, Janet Begay. Only you.”

  “We lived apart for five years.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I found you, and that was it.”

  My heart warmed. Meeting Mick had been it for me too. I’d told myself that I’d avoided other men when Mick and I were apart because I was afraid I’d hurt them. My magic was powerful stuff, and Mick was the only one I knew who could take it. But I realized now that I simply hadn’t wanted to make memories with anyone else but Mick.

  “No mysterious blonde, then?”

  “No woman of any hair color. No dragon, no Changer, no human. I’m in love with you and you alone.” Mick shot me a sinful smile, and my heart tripped. “My crazy, beautiful Stormwalker.”

  His kiss was dark and hot. I felt the silver ring heavy on my finger, Mick’s hands warming my back, his solid body against mine. He lifted me, hands under my buttocks, and kept on kissing me, despite the cold, despite the sharp wind coming out of the frozen desert.

  We made it back into my room, stroking, touching, kissing. I had the feeling there would be no safety words tonight.

  The shard of mirror on my nightstand sucked in a breath and let out a long, terrified wail. “Shadows,” it sobbed. “Shadows everywhere. They’re all over him. Make them go away!”

  Mick snatched up the shard of mirror, yanked open the window, and hurled the mirror hard out into the snow. I watched, mouth open, as the glint of mirror skated across the drifts, still screaming. It came to a stop at the feet of a big coyote, who stepped on it.

  Mick calmly closed the window, shutting out the cold. His eyes were still as blue as ever, his aura unchanged. He growled a long, animal snarl, and landed on top of me on the bed.

  “Mick. Gods.”

  Mick didn’t answer. He was filling me, pressing me, his fists bunched on either side of my head. His sweat dripped to my face, and his eyes were so intensely blue I could drown in them.

  My bed rocked, Mick’s thrusts fast, faster. I held on to him, too breathless to make a sound.

  Mick squeezed his eyes shut. His damp hair swung as he threw his head back and let out a heartfelt groan. He opened his eyes, and the strange gray flashed through them, gone before I had time to decide whether I’d seen it.

  Mick grabbed my hand and kissed the ring, his teeth scraping my finger.

  We both came at the same time, moaning and panting. Mick collapsed on top of me, his hands and mouth all over me.

  “More,” he whispered. “I need more of you. Janet, I can’t get enough.”

  I didn’t mind. I rolled over with him until he was flat on his back, me on top. I straddled him, Mick holding my hips. I made love to him as hard as he’d done to me, and I didn’t see the gray white flash again.

  Somewhere before dawn, Mick woke with a noise of pain. I popped my eyes open to find him sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands pressed to his head.

  “What is it?” I sat up beside him, unable to sense anything that could be hurting him, physically or magically. The wards were quiet, as was the mirror in the saloon, everything peaceful.

  Mick dug his hands into his temples, as though trying to grind out one hell of a headache. His body gleamed with sweat, and the dragon tattoos on his arms were shivering.

  Shivering. I’d seen them move before, sometimes circling his arms in impatience, the dragon in him wanting the change. I’d never seen the tattoos shiver like scared puppies.

  I touched a tatt, and Mick scrambled to his feet and stared down at me, eyes wide.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. I knew damn well he wasn’t. “What’s happening to you?”

  “Make it stop.” Mick dug at his temples again. “Make it stop. Please, Janet.”

  “I’m not doing anything to you.”

  I slid out of bed and reached for him, but he jerked away. I dropped my hands to my sides but caught and held his gaze, trying to read him. If someone were possessing him I needed to know who, and how to stop it. The problem was, I didn’t feel anything through my wards—nothing was in my hotel that shouldn’t be in my hotel. No spell, no intruder, nothing.

  Mick’s aura changed. As I watched, it went from familiar fiery hot to gray and white and cold
. Shadows began to swirl around him like thin clouds. His eyes burned that strange gray white, and his lips curled to a snarl.

  I had to help him. I gathered the Beneath magic in me, mentally twining it with the Stormwalker magic I could feel but couldn’t use without a storm. As was my practice, I squeezed a small white ball of magic into my hand.

  “Let Mick go,” I said in a stern voice. “Whoever you are, whatever demon I’m talking to, don’t even think about possessing my boyfriend.”

  “It isn’t possession,” Mick growled.

  Those scary gray eyes focused on me right before Mick lifted his hand and shot an arc of fire at me.

  Instinctively I brought up my ball of Beneath magic to deflect it, but the Beneath magic suddenly wanted to fill the room, to grab Mick and squeeze him in half, to eliminate the threat. To eliminate Mick.

  I squished out the magic and dove to the floor, landing facedown as the fire punched a hole in my plaster wall.

  “Janet.”

  Mick sounded horrified. I looked up, my hands and knees burning from skidding on the tile floor. Mick stood at the bedroom door, stark naked, the whites of his eyes fading to sane blue.

  I expected him to come and help me up, to tell me how sorry he was, that he didn’t know what had happened. But he just stood there. The dragons were now running up and down his arms like live creatures, and I saw in the mirror above my dresser that the flame tattoo on his back was bright red.

  “Mick, what the hell?” I climbed to my feet and went for him, but he backed away, hands out.

  “Janet, when you see me again, don’t try to help me, don’t try to fight me. Just run.”

  “Don’t you dare go anywhere. We need to pull this thing out of you. Stay here. I’ll get Cassandra.”

  “It’s not possession.” Mick’s voice rose in fury. “You promise me you’ll run the other way. That you won’t let me come near you. Promise me.”