Ted chuckled and raked his win toward his pile. “That’s all right, little lady. Maybe you’ll get me next time.”
Gabrielle scooted onto a chair next to Ted, boldly took one of his chips, and pushed it at the young woman. “Deal me in.”
“Hey.” Ted’s glare softened into a smile as he looked Gabrielle up and down, obviously not knowing who she was. “Well, now, I guess I don’t mind if you want to sit next to me, little gal.”
Ick. I leaned on the table on Ted’s other side. “Hi, Ted.”
Ted swung around, and all the color drained from his face.
I smiled. “Be careful how you talk to my sister.”
“Your sis—” Ted broke off.
I drew on the storm outside, which had started swirling in earnest, and showed Ted, under the table, the white ice whirling in my fingers.
“Sit tight,” I told him. “Let Gabrielle finish, and then we’ll go upstairs.”
Ted gave me a tense look, clearly remembering my icequeen magic at his office. On his other side, Gabrielle glanced at her cards, a jack and a six, and asked for a hit. I resisted rolling my eyes, and the dealer turned over an eight.
Gabrielle shrugged as the dealer raked away the chip. “Sorry, Ted,” she said. “Maybe I should bet more on the next one.”
“No, we’re done.” I put my hand on Ted’s shoulder, letting the cold of the snow burn through his shirt. “Pick up your chips, Ted.”
“I’ve got them.” Gabrielle swept them into her hands and walked away. Ted had no choice but to follow.
Gabrielle went to the cashier’s cage and handed over the chips, eagerly snatching up the stack of hundreds and twenties the cashier pushed back at her. She pocketed the money with a wink at Ted, who choked but said nothing.
Cassandra and Nash were no longer at the front desk as Gabrielle and I walked Ted out of the casino, but I didn’t want to look for them. If they’d found Vonda, Cassandra would have alerted me, and I didn’t want to risk losing hold of Ted.
We waited for an elevator to empty; then I pushed Ted into it, my hand firmly on his elbow. His entire arm was cold now, and he shivered. I waited for Ted to let me know what floor. He said seven. I hoped for his sake he wasn’t lying.
“Gabrielle, you stick on a sixteen,” I said in an admonishing tone as the doors slid closed. The elevator swiftly rose. “You really need to learn about odds.”
Gabrielle fingered the wad of cash in her pocket. “You don’t stick if you’re trying to lose other people’s money. Thanks, Ted. Consider it payback for the trouble you’ve caused me.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Ted said.
“You don’t, but your wife does. Who do you think paid your way into that job in Flat Mesa? Or rented your house? That was me, Gabrielle, your fairy godmother. All you had to do—all you had to do—was get Nash Jones over to your house and have Vonda hold on to him for me. But, no, you two had to play your own little game, and now you’re going to answer for it. You don’t take money for a job and then don’t do the job.”
“I think Ted became a little too fond of his work,” I said. “As the inspector, I mean, making sure I couldn’t possibly pass his little tests. I bet you enjoyed making out that check sheet and waving it in my face.”
Ted’s own face was pale, his lips blue, as the cold from my hands seeped into his blood. “I didn’t have a choice. Vonda said I had to.”
“Vonda needs to answer a lot of questions. I sure hope she’s here.”
“She is.” Ted’s lips compressed from more than cold. “She sent me off to play so she could be alone with your boyfriend.”
My heart constricted, but I refused to let him worry me. One thing at a time.
The elevator doors opened. Gabrielle danced out before us. “Which one?”
“Seven twenty-six,” Ted said in a dull voice.
Gabrielle ran down the hall, not bothering to be quiet. She stopped in front of room 726, and blasted the lock with a beam of Beneath magic. Ted made a strangled noise.
I shook my head. “I can’t do anything about her. Gabrielle’s kind of out of control. But you know what little sisters are like.”
Gabrielle was smart enough to step aside as she slammed open the door. I felt the witch in there, powerful, her aura a strange smoky color, and mixed with hers, the fiery red of a dragon.
I closed my eyes a brief moment and prayed with all I had that we wouldn’t find them in bed. If that happened, I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d try to kill Vonda, and there would go my hope of getting Mick safely free.
The core of me twisted into a ball of pain as I shoved Ted inside in front of me. Vonda lounged on the bed of the large half suite, but she was dressed. Mick stood across the room from her, looking out the window, his back to me. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, baring the dragons on his arms, which vibrated with the same shivering movement I’d seen before.
Something warm flooded through me when I saw him. He was Mick, the man I loved, strong, safe, alive. Everything in me wanted to go to him and slide my arms around him from behind, resting my head on his broad back. I wanted to touch him, smell him, feel his hard body, reassure myself that he was all right.
I missed his warmth in my bed, his sleepy eyes regarding me from his pillow, his slow smile as he suggested we make love again. I missed riding with him on the highway, my arms wrapped tightly around him, feeling wild and free and, at the same time, safe. He was my Mick, and I wanted him back.
“What are you doing, Ted?” Vonda asked, not in the least alarmed at our dramatic entrance.
She sat up, and I faced Vonda Wingate for the first time.
Vonda wasn’t pretty, at least not to me, but like Ted, her looks were striking. She wore her blond hair cut close in an angular style, and her eyes were very blue in a face too pale for my taste. She had slimness without being bony, more like a person who worked out a lot and ate very little. Her white sleeveless shell, gray silk skirt, and the black pumps she’d dropped next to the bed were as tasteful as anything Cassandra would wear. Vonda had paired the ensemble with pretty silver jewelry.
I understood at once why my grandmother and Elena called her “Shadow Walker.” Shadows danced through Vonda’s aura: gray, smoky, dark. She was human, and yet her magic had built upon itself until it had consumed her. It clung to her like scum on the bottom of a dirty bathtub. She might look like a well-off woman in her forties, but I knew this was the picture she chose to project. I couldn’t guess what she actually looked like, but likely something old, because I sensed great age in her.
The most unusual thing about Vonda was the sheer amount of magic swimming in her. If Nash was a magic void, Vonda Wingate was a magic well. She’d been filled to the brim with all kinds of magic: witch magic, shaman magic, chindi magic, and now, dragon magic. The magic swirled around her in the shadows, part of her and separate from her at the same time.
She looked at me, and I suddenly understood my danger. A woman who sucked up magic from others would be more than thrilled that a Stormwalker with Beneath powers had just walked into her lair. She’d simply add me to her collection.
It wasn’t my magic mirror that Vonda wanted, I realized with clarity. She would have to kill me and Mick to use the mirror, and Vonda wanted me alive. Magic mirrors, though rare, weren’t unique. I was.
When Vonda had first come to town, she hadn’t simply grabbed me and sucked me dry. I would have fought her, possibly killed her. She hadn’t been strong enough then.
She was strong enough now, because she had a dragon, a dragon whose magic she’d imbibed, a dragon who did her bidding. Mick still didn’t turn around.
“So you are the Stormwalker.” Vonda’s tone was neutral, not betraying the eagerness I read in her. She looked me up and down, from my messy black hair to my mud-splotched motorcycle boots, unimpressed.
I gave Ted’s arm a squeeze, and he shuddered with cold. “I have your husband,” I said. “You have my boyfriend. How about a trade?”
<
br /> My words were cut off by Gabrielle, who decided to launch herself at Vonda. Vonda coolly watched her come, and I saw wards on the walls around her spring to life. The magic in Gabrielle’s hands twisted around her own wrists, and Gabrielle screamed.
“Mick,” Vonda said.
Mick turned. His eyes were gray white, his face hard and expressionless. He lifted his hand and streamed fire at Gabrielle.
Gabrielle managed to block it with Beneath magic, but she panted with the effort, her eyes wide with fear and rage.
“Mick,” I said.
Mick’s gaze landed on me, his fire died, and my heart broke.
I looked into the eyes of a stranger. Whatever part of Mick had loved me was gone. This man wouldn’t smile at me over dinner in a fancy restaurant, wouldn’t growl as he licked the inside of my wrist, wouldn’t whisper naughty things to me as we stood together in a crowded room. Gone was the man who’d taught me how to control my magic and fix up my bike, who kept me warm when we curled up to sleep, who’d kissed syrup off my lips in the morning.
When Mick had startled me with his proposal of marriage, I’d put him off because I thought I’d have plenty of time to think about my answer. I’d ponder the question awhile until I got used to it, and then I’d tell him what I wanted.
Facing Mick now, I realized that there was no such thing as enough time. Time is snatched away swiftly, while we in our arrogance think it will always be there for us. I’d spent five years traveling alone, trying to figuring out who I was and coming to terms with it, before I’d returned to the vortexes and my mother and faced my fears. I’d been very lucky in that time that I hadn’t lost my father or grandmother, that I’d had a home to return to whenever I liked. That Mick had secretly watched over me and kept me safe.
I could have lost everything in those five years, and the thought had never once occurred to me.
Now I realized that I had to hang on to what I had and savor all of it for as long as I could. So that when whatever I had was taken away—and it would be—I’d have no regret that I hadn’t savored enough.
“Mick,” I said softly. “You can be free of her. Tell me your name, and we can break the spell.”
Behind me, Vonda laughed. “If it were that simple, don’t you think he’d have done it by now? He’s finished with you, Stormwalker. The dragon fights for me now. He’ll do anything for me.”
Her arch tone made me know she wanted me to picture them in bed together. I remembered the scorn in Mick’s voice, when he’d said I don’t have sex with humans. He’d meant it, but I couldn’t know what Vonda had compelled Mick to do since I’d last seen him. I swallowed, trying very hard not to imagine them together. I wondered how Ted felt about it.
I glanced back at Ted in time to see him try to sidle out of the room. I started to shout to Gabrielle to stop him, but Nash walked in at the moment and pointed his ninemillimeter at Ted’s head.
“Stay where you are.”
“Are you all right, Janet?” Cassandra asked as the heavy door swung shut behind her. I sensed the crackle of magic in her, the makings of her binding spell.
“Your pet witch,” Vonda said. She rose from the bed, went to the wet bar, and started clinking ice from a bucket into a glass. One glass. She wasn’t offering. “And the very interesting Nash Jones.” Her gaze lingered on Nash, the muddy gray of her aura brightening as she studied him. “A magic void. I’ve heard of a spell that can make a void, but not inside a person. No wonder Gabrielle wants you.”
I saw Nash’s interest in her comment about a spell, but he was too professional to be distracted.
I pretended to ignore Vonda, as though I’d sized her up and dismissed her. She was a threat, and a big one, but I had to solve the problem of Mick before facing her. After that, the gloves would be off.
“I’m fine,” I answered Cassandra. “Keep Gabrielle away from Vonda.”
“Screw that,” Gabrielle snarled. “This bitch messed with me. She used me.”
She had. Vonda must have been delighted when Gabrielle asked for her help in snaring Nash. Gabrielle, in her arrogant naïveté, had handed Vonda, the magic well, a dragon and a Stormwalker, and now Nash as well.
I didn’t have time right now to sort out Gabrielle’s problems. I shut out the rest of the room, quietly reached for the storm outside and the Beneath magic within me, and walked toward Mick.
He hadn’t moved, not to stop Nash or Cassandra, or even to glance at Vonda pouring a drink for herself. Mick watched me as I closed the space between us, and I watched Mick.
His eyes were mostly white, his pupils black pinpricks, the beautiful blue of his human eyes gone. I hated that, but I forced myself to focus. Nothing in this room mattered but getting Mick free. Nothing.
“Mick,” I said. “Your name.”
He still wouldn’t answer, didn’t speak a word. I took another step, now within arm’s length of him, my magic ready.
Mick was ready too. He reached out, not with his fire, but with his bare hands. As soon as I was close enough, he grabbed me around the waist, whirled with me, and threw me at the window.
The windows didn’t open in this fairly new hotel. Buildings with sealed windows creeped me out—why would you want to entomb yourself in glass and concrete?
But as Mick tossed me at the window, it suddenly wasn’t there. A rectangle of flame melted it, and I flew right through the hot glass and out into the swirling snow, seven stories from the ground.
Twenty-four
First came screaming. Second came me catching the storm and whirling it around my body so fast that the air currents cushioned my fall.
“Cushioned” is a relative term. I bounced off the roof of a car in the dark parking lot, setting off its alarm, rolled down the hood, and landed, hard, on my feet. I staggered, trying to get my balance. The wind had picked up, and the snowstorm raged around me, snow clinging to my clothes. I must have looked like a drunken abominable snowman.
I made it to the edge of the parking lot and stumbled into the desert. Dizzy and scared, I heaved my guts out.
When I straightened up again, trying not to sob, it was to see Mick standing five feet away from me. He was alone, no Vonda or Gabrielle behind him. Snow swirled around him, whitening his dark hair, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold.
“We can’t do this here,” I said. “Too many people. Why can’t you just tell me your name?”
No answer. Mick walked toward me, and I backed away, straight back into the parking lot. I didn’t want to fight him here, not near all these people, with more zooming by on the highway. I could lead him out into the desert, but this wasn’t my terrain. But if I could lead him to a place of my choosing . . .
I turned and sprinted across the lot. Five motorcycles had been parked close together, a group inside either gambling or staying the night. It was easy to freeze off the lock of the first one I came to, and start it up, not with magic, but with know-how. I drove it out of the lot without looking back.
I saw the flaw in my plan as I moved onto the highway. Mick could simply return to Vonda and obliterate my friends.
But he didn’t. Maybe he saw the wisdom of the two of us facing off for once and for all, or maybe Vonda had ordered him to drag me back to her.
Either way, Mick started up his own bike and chased me up the highway, toward the interstate.
When I reached the 40, I headed west, to home and the territory I knew. I leaned forward, not worrying about speeding, and opened up the bike. It was a good Harley, and someone had tuned it into a fine machine. The CCs throbbed under me, and we went like a dream, no hard shaking as sometimes had happened with my own bike.
The headlight cut through the snow, which turned to sleet, then back to snow again as we went. This was a big storm, I could feel it, swallowing the sky for miles.
Mick pulled alongside me, and we rode neck and neck. He wasn’t chasing me but making sure I didn’t get out of his sight. Side by side we rode at ninety miles an hour down into
the canyons, the lights of Gallup flying by on our left, and then across the state line.
I would take him up to Canyon de Chelly. It was in the middle of the Dinetah, the Navajo Nation, my land, my home. The canyon was a mystical place, an ancient place, and my Stormwalker powers would be strongest there.
But when the exit to the north 171 came up, Mick ran his bike up on my right side, nearly swerving into me, so I had to dive into the left lane. I missed the exit, and the two of us sped around a slow-moving semi, ending up side by side again down the middle of the road.
Mick stuck to my right. He didn’t want me pulling off, doubling back. He stayed there for about fifty more miles, until he zoomed to my left again, forcing me down the ramp to Holbrook.
This highway led south, right through town. Again, I couldn’t stop and risk people, so I rode through until we made the other side. The best place to go from there was my hotel, but Mick again had a different idea. I was trying to lead him; he was herding me.
Mick forced me onto the road I’d been riding when the sinkhole happened, and he stuck right by me as we flew down the highway. Our speed reached one that would make Nash write us fourteen tickets, but Nash was back in New Mexico, and his deputies obviously had better things to do than man the speed trap on a snowy night.
Therefore, Lopez and the other deputies weren’t there to see Mick and me zoom by, swing around the black barrier now heaped with snow, and race toward the gaping hole at breakneck speed.
Mick was going to run me into the sinkhole. Well, screw that. I and a bike had already fallen down there once. I wasn’t about to do it again.
Right before we reached the hole, I yanked my handlebars sideways and ditched the bike in, well, the ditch. The bike slid out from under me, and I rolled through soft snow and muddy grass to come to a halt in icy water.
Mick didn’t ditch his motorcycle. He ran it right at me.
I scrambled to my feet and ran like hell on feet numb with snow and water. Mick came on. I noticed distractedly that the sinkhole had gotten bigger. Lopez’s geology professor had warned us that the hole might widen, as the ceilings of the caverns below weakened further. Mick was chasing me right toward the edge.
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