Shadow Walker

by Allyson James

  “Dragons heal quickly, and I can help,” I said. “We can’t leave him.”

  “We don’t have time—”

  Colby broke off as thin, dark tendrils of magic emanated from Drake’s mouth. Drake hissed softly, and the threads wound themselves once more around Colby’s aura.

  “Oh, this is so not fair,” Colby muttered.

  Drake’s binding spell tightened, putting Colby right back into Drake’s power, as strongly as he’d been before Nash had negated the spell.

  “We heal him,” I said firmly. “And then you heal me, and we go. With Drake. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

  By the time Colby landed behind my hotel, it was dark again, the day gone. We’d lost hours on the trip east, and Colby claimed he couldn’t fly as fast because of the binding spell. That might have been true.

  Colby had carried Drake in his human form, because Drake wasn’t well enough yet to fly. Drake didn’t like that, but I didn’t have time to consider his feelings.

  I’d tried to have a serious talk with Drake as Colby carried us back, difficult to do when held by a dipping, floating, soaring dragon. Drake had told me he’d hold off advising the dragon council to kill Mick, but only for twenty-four hours. No matter how much I pleaded, that was all he’d give me.

  I didn’t have time either to consider the feelings of Paco Lopez, who waited in my lobby, looking apologetic. Lopez stared at me when I limped in, my face windburned, my clothes covered in dried blood. I was still favoring my wrist though Colby’s and Drake’s healing magic had fused the bones. However, Lopez had learned not to question the weirdness that went on around me, and he got down to business.

  “Sorry, Janet,” he said, lifting his cuffs and making for Colby. “Nash says I have to bring him in.”

  At least I’d been able to let Colby dress. We’d come in the back door and stopped off in my bedroom, where I’d let Colby and Drake wait while Cassandra brought them clothes from their rooms. Now, without a word to Lopez, Drake dragged himself up the stairs and into his room.

  Colby shrugged and held out his wrists. “Fine by me. Take me in.”

  “No.” I stepped between the two men. “I need Colby here. Tell Jones he’ll have to deal with it.”

  “Janet, if I go back without him, Jones will tear my head off,” Lopez said. “Give me a break. I’m too young to die.”

  “Colby wasn’t doing anything illegal in that bar. What’s the charge?”

  Lopez cleared his throat. “Resisting arrest.”

  “He wasn’t resisting. Nash is just touchy. I’ll vouch for Colby.”

  “That won’t be good enough, Janet. Jones will be down here in no time, and I’m much nicer than he is. You know that.”

  Colby grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll be happy to talk to the fine sheriff.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t afford for you to run off again, and I don’t have time for you and Drake to fight it out. I need you, Colby.”

  Colby looked affronted. “I can’t believe you think I’d desert you, Janet.”

  Nice sentiment, but I still didn’t trust him.

  “Please,” I said to Lopez. “Tell Nash that I do need to talk to him but that he has to leave Colby alone.”

  “I’m just a deputy trying to keep his job.”

  “Tell him I stopped you from taking Colby. He’ll believe that.” I stepped up to Lopez and looked him in his dark eyes. “Because I will.”

  Lopez put away his cuffs. He had no magic in him, even though he believed in it, and he’d seen me do some crazy things. Dangerous things. Deadly ones.

  He didn’t agree to blame me, and I didn’t think he would, but at least he left. Colby gave me a cheerful grin and a thanks and ran upstairs to clean up, and I went to talk to the magic mirror.

  The saloon was empty, the hotel still closed. I helped myself to a bottled water from the refrigerator and looked up at the mirror. It hung silently, the bullet hole in its center a testimony to my violent life.

  “Everything is warded tight,” I told it. “He can’t come in.”

  “Oh, girlfriend.” The mirror shuddered, glass tinkling. “What are we going to do? I was so scared out there, I almost peed my pants.”

  “Why were you dark when I first looked into the shard?” I’d have loved to be able to communicate with Cassandra, to have her witch magic help me find a trace of Mick’s true name. Not that it would have done any good, I realized in retrospect.

  “He came here,” the mirror said, dropping to a frightened whisper. “He looked through the window, searching. I didn’t want to show him anything—where you were, where I was.”

  “He knew anyway,” I pointed out. “He found us.”

  “That’s because Drake and Colby weren’t subtle about changing and flying off. Jonesie had to convince all those gorgeous men in uniform that they were tricks played by the meth dealers to distract the cops while they got away. And I saw Mick talking to Barry, who pointed the way Colby and Drake had flown. Probably wasn’t hard to figure out where they were going.”

  Plus when the dragons had touched down in Mick’s lair, they’d likely set off all kinds of magical alarms. But I hadn’t been worried about stealth—I’d assumed that once I found Mick’s name, everything would be all right.

  Instead I had a sore wrist, a dehydrated body, and an injured dragon upstairs.

  “When we were searching the island, did you sense anything? Any music, any touch of his name?”

  “No, sugarplum. I would have said.”

  I was back to square one.

  “How the hell am I going to find it?” I asked. “How the hell did she find it? If dragon names are so elusive, how do witches figure them out?”

  “I don’t know, honey bun,” the mirror said. “But I’ve seen a dragon enslaved to a witch before. Believe me, it wasn’t pretty.”

  I stared at the mirror, my wan face and wide brown eyes reflecting back at me. “You know a witch who enslaved a dragon? How did she do it? Who is she? Where can I find her?”

  The mirror sighed. “She’s long dead, hot lips, sorry. It was the witch who first made me, oh, a couple hundred years ago, a long time before someone drove me out here. She already had the dragon when she made me, so I don’t know how she got his name. That bitch had power to spare, but it wasn’t good enough for her, oh no. She enslaved a dragon, and she made a magic mirror. I knew all of it was too much for her to handle, but would she listen? Noooo. After all that trouble, she died, and I went dark. It was hell.”

  “How did she die? What happened to the dragon?”

  “Now, that’s not a nice story. The dragon, he got pretty weak in the end, because the witch magic drained the dragon’s magic out of him. One day, he morphed into a dragon and ate her. But there was so much of her magic wound around him that when she died, he did too. He looked relieved, poor thing. Last thing I saw before I went dark was him falling over dead.”

  I hung on to the edge of the bar, my heart sinking. A bad story on top of fight wounds on top of a Hawaiian plate dinner and an erratic flight back was not what I needed right now.

  Yes, I did, I told myself. I had to know what I was facing.

  “Is it you she wants?” I asked the mirror. “Not the hotel?”

  The mirror shivered again. “If she wants me, she’ll have to kill you and Micky first.”

  “I’m thinking she’s fine with that,” I said.

  “Please don’t let her.” The mirror’s voice was small and subdued. “I like you, Janet. Even if you’re the offspring of a crazy Beneath goddess, with runaway magic that could melt me like hot lead, I really want to stay with you.”

  What a sweetie. I wanted the mirror to stay with me too, because if a witch did get hold of it, there was no telling where she’d stop. Besides, the mirror was right—I’d have to be dead before the mirror obeyed another master.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’ve helped.”

  “Sure thing, honey pie.” The mirror sounded mournf
ul. I gave its frame a pat as I left the saloon and went upstairs to check on Drake.

  Drake looked better, if unhappy sitting in my overstuffed chair drinking tea Cassandra had brewed for him. He didn’t like witches, but he would accept all the healing magic he could get. Dragons—at least if Mick was anything to go by—hated to be unwell.

  “If you’ve come to ask for more time, I can’t give it to you,” he said. A book lay facedown on the table beside him, something by John Locke. He saw me looking at it. “Micalerianicum accused me of knowing little about humans. I thought I’d start with their political philosophy.”

  “As long as you remember that there’s more to human history than dead English philosophers. I need more time.”

  Drake heaved a sigh. “I am being kind to give you twenty-four hours. I am taking into account the fact that you saved the life of a member of the dragon council last fall, although you did it to save Micalerianicum in a roundabout way. Twenty-four hours is generous. If you can’t free him by then, the council will have to take steps. The witch can’t live.”

  “And Mick?”

  Unhappiness flickered in Drake’s dark eyes. “An unfortunate but acceptable casualty.”

  I leaned down and gripped the lapels of Drake’s fine silk shirt. “It’s not acceptable to me. If Mick becomes a casualty, so do you.”

  He believed me. But though I saw self-worry in Drake’s eyes, what frightened me more was that it didn’t dim his determination. “If it must be,” he said. “We must stop this witch even if it means that I pay with my life.”

  His words froze my heart. Dragons feared so very little. When they were afraid of something or someone, it was best to take notice.

  I released him. “My priority is to get Mick free. If you try to stop me, I’ll stop you.”

  “So be it.”

  I had to give Drake points for attitude. I knew ours was a temporary truce, and that when his time limit was up, he’d be my greatest enemy.

  “Twenty-four hours,” he said from behind his book as I left the room. I closed the door firmly and went back down to the kitchen.

  At least Grandmother and Elena had unlocked the door. They weren’t cooking—they sat at the kitchen table, tea steaming between them, talking intently in low voices. The air in there was cool, a refreshing change from the tropical rain forest of Mick’s island, the heat turned down the way Grandmother liked it.

  “Everything all right here?” I asked them.

  Grandmother took a sip of tea. “You are a mess, Janet. As usual.” She spoke English, so that, if Elena didn’t know Diné, she’d be able to follow my grandmother’s admonishments.

  “We had an encounter,” I said.

  “I know. The mirror told me. Now what will you do?”

  I scrubbed my hand through my hair, noting that the dragons’ combined healing magic hadn’t done anything about my subsequent headache. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m out of ideas. If you have any, they would be helpful.”

  I broke off as I saw a flash of movement outside the back door, someone walking by in the dark parking lot. Not Mick—I would have sensed him. “Who’s that?”

  “No one,” Grandmother said quickly.

  Elena and Grandmother looked guilty as thieves. I frowned at them and marched out the back door.

  “Hey!” I called to the man who was walking swiftly toward the railroad bed. I ran to catch up with him. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Coyote stopped and waited for me. He wore a sheepskin coat against the cold, his black braid shining in the moonlight. I understood why I hadn’t realized who was skulking outside; Coyote could hide his aura from me when he wanted to.

  He shrugged. “Around.”

  “Around? That’s all you can say? Why haven’t you been helping? I’ve been frantically searching for Mick’s name, for some way to get him free, and you haven’t been helping!”

  I seized his arms, fearing he’d shift and run from me, or simply vanish like smoke. Coyote could do that.

  “Janet . . .”

  “Shut up! You know you can make it all better. You can wave your hand and everything will be right. Why haven’t you fixed it? Why?”

  I screamed the last word. I found myself beating my fists on his chest before his strong arms came around me.

  “Hush now, little Stormwalker.”

  I didn’t want to cry and be comforted. I wanted him to do something. But I couldn’t help leaning against him, searching for solace in his strength.

  Coyote’s clothes smelled of warmth and wood smoke and the homey scents of my grandmother’s cooking. His hands on my back steadied me, and his heartbeat under my ear sounded human and normal.

  I sniffled. “Why do you smell like my grandmother’s stew?”

  “She fed me. Well, what she really wanted was for me to bow down and worship her masterful cuisine. But hey, it was a free bowl of stew, so why not?”

  I lifted my head. Despite the amusement in his voice, Coyote’s dark eyes held sympathy and worry.

  “Why haven’t you helped Mick?” I asked.

  “It’s tricky, Janet, even for me. It’s not a simple matter of negating a spell.” He let go of me, brought up his broad hands, and laced his fingers together. “See, the true name gets all tangled up in the witch’s psyche—she’s as much bound to him as he to her. The dragon’s anger at being trapped only feeds the spell. That’s why, if someone like you learns the dragon’s name, then you have a chance of getting him free, because Mick has much stronger emotions wrapped up in you. If I tried to free him . . .” He jerked his hands apart. “I might end up killing him, and even I need the true name to do it.”

  “You’re a god. Can’t you find out his true name?”

  “I’m a Native American god. The dragons have their own gods, their own rules. Dragons are smart enough to hide their names from tricksters like me.”

  My hope was fading fast. “But you must be able to do something.”

  “Maybe. Can’t promise.”

  I thumped him again and pushed away. “Go out there and look, then. I have twenty-four hours—now twenty-three and change—before Drake rounds up the dragon council to take out Mick. No trials this time, just death. An acceptable casualty, Drake said.”

  “That’s typical.” Coyote glanced at the stars. “I wish I could help you out, Janet, but your grandmother, she’s sent me on a mission.”

  I gaped at him. “Wait. What?”

  “Your grandmother has sent me to do something for her.” He glanced back at the hotel, its lights warm against the darkness. “She and your cook can be pretty insistent.”

  “Since when do you take orders from my grandmother?”

  He shrugged. “I like to humor her. Besides, she reminded me how wicked she is with a broom.”

  I remembered my grandmother long ago chasing a coyote away from our house in Many Farms, her broom coming down solidly on the beast’s hindquarters. The coyote had yelped and run off. I’d since figured out that the culprit had been Coyote himself, sneaking around peering into windows as he liked to do. Watching me? I wondered. He was always watching me.

  “What does she want you to do?”

  Coyote dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Sorry, Janet. Gotta go.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned and continued his swift walk toward the empty railroad bed.

  “Wait! Don’t you dare run away from me!”

  Coyote had made it to the top of the railroad bed by the time I started scrambling up it after him. I gained the top in time to watch him trot down the other side as a coyote and then disappear. Completely.

  I saw nothing but darkness, snow clinging to juniper and grasses, and moonlight glittering on frost. My breath fogged in the air as I called Coyote’s name, but I knew that he was gone.

  When I stormed back inside to confront my grandmother, I found that she and Elena had locked the kitchen doors again. I could have magicked my way in and demanded they talk to me, but I had do
ubts about how much they’d tell me, and I was too exhausted to fence with Grandmother tonight.

  I made myself soak in a bathtub but not collapse in despair this time. I tried to focus my attention on the soap suds, on finishing the healing of my wrist, on the soft comfort of clean towels. But I went through the motions with my heart like lead in my chest.

  I dressed in clean clothes, feeling physically better but with my mind still spinning. I had no idea what to do next, short of holding Vonda Wingate upside down over a vat of piranhas until she promised to release Mick. I wasn’t certain where I’d find piranhas in the desert or whether I could get close enough to Vonda to grab her, but it made for a satisfying vision.

  But I knew I couldn’t bluster and blast my way out of this one. I needed to be stealthy. I needed to plan. I needed to think.

  Thinking wasn’t aided by the arrival of Nash, still in his sheriff’s uniform and coat, looking for Colby. He’d taken off the bandage, showing where a patch on the back of his head had been shaved.

  I met Nash alone in the lobby. The hotel was quiet, everyone having either gone home or retreated to their bedrooms. Grandmother and Elena were still locked in the kitchen.

  “Let it go, Jones.” I leaned back against the reception counter and folded my arms. “Don’t you have a mountain of paperwork to do, after all those arrests last night?”

  Nash regarded me with an ice-cool gaze. “That’s why I have deputies.”

  “Must be nice to be so powerful. You know Colby had nothing to do with whatever was going down in Barry’s bar, I know you do. Colby was trying to help me out, and he needed you to negate a binding spell so he could do it.”

  Nash shook his head, his gray eyes still flinty. “I mostly wanted to arrest him to shut his smart-ass mouth. Tell him to consider it a warning.”

  “He does have a mouth,” I agreed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you this, Nash, but I haven’t had the chance. Could you arrest someone for me?”

  “Who? Why?”

  “Ted Wingate and his wife.”