From Jennifer Ashley, With Love: Three Paranormal Romances from Bestselling Series

by Jennifer Ashley

  Bear only looked at him. Rory took a quick drink from his beer bottle, wiped his mouth, threw down a tip as he got up, and quickly walked away from the table and out. Bright sunlight flashed through the dark bar as he opened the door and then vanished. Barry gave me a nod of thanks then went back to wiping beer mugs, his worry over.

  * * *

  I left for the sunshine outside with Bear. The day’s temperature had climbed to over a hundred, and my skin prickled with the heat.

  “You gave the slayer something to think about,” I said. We watched Rory mount a motorcycle and head out down the highway toward Winslow. He never looked back. “Thanks.”

  “He’s not wrong about Nightwalkers, my friend,” Bear said. “And Ansel might have killed this woman.”

  That Bear knew all the details didn’t surprise me. If she hadn’t figured them out by herself, she would have gotten the story out of Mick.

  “I want to hear Ansel’s side before I hand him over to a slayer,” I said.

  “I too have come to like this creature who calls himself Ansel. I will not let a human slayer come near him.”

  No, she’d let me finish him off if need be. If Ansel had to be slain, best leave it to a friend, right?

  I blew out my breath. “Why did you come to the bar? Were you looking for me?”

  Bear gave me a slow nod. “Cassandra told me you were going to a séance tonight. I would like to attend with you.”

  I shot her a grin. “You won’t find Coyote that way, you know.”

  She didn’t smile in return. “This has nothing to do with my game with Coyote. And I have found him, several times. No, I want to know about this woman who is missing, and the sister who thinks her dead.”

  I wondered at her interest, but I didn’t deny I’d feel better at a séance with a powerful goddess by my side. If Heather did manage to let anything through the ether, or worse, out of one of the vortexes, I had no doubt that Bear could handle it.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “Heather likes a show, so the more the merrier.”

  We reached the hotel’s front door. I stopped, looking it over in surprise, then I warmed with anger.

  I’d replaced the door, made by an artisan in Santa Fe, not long ago. His first door had been destroyed in one of my many adventures. The second one he’d finished was as nice—the wood was old and well-polished with age, the aura of it deep and resonating with contentment.

  White chalk marks now snaked all the way up one side of the door and halfway across the top of the frame, signs I didn’t recognize. They weren’t Wiccan symbols, nor were they glyphs.

  They also weren’t magic. Mick and I warded this hotel with invisible sigils, and these markings hadn’t touched those, nor did the chalk vibrate with any kind of spell. Also, they hadn’t been here when I’d opened for the morning.

  “What the hell?”

  I looked at Bear, but she was eyeing them with the same puzzlement.

  Mick opened the door, as though he’d seen us coming. He’d donned chaps and motorcycle boots, ready to ride off again east to talk to dragons.

  “Slayers’ marks,” he said. He frowned as he ran blunt fingers over the symbols. “It’s how they communicate with each other. Marks the abode of a Nightwalker and tells whether they’ve been successful in the kill. In this case, no.”

  “They’re using my hotel doorway as a bulletin board?”

  “It’s both a brag sheet and for safety. They sign in before they go on the kill, in case they need someone to pull their balls out of the fire. It’s like signing in with park rangers before you hike a long trail.”

  I clenched my hands, my anger tasting sour. “You know a lot about slayers. Dealt with them before, have you?”

  Mick looked away. “Let’s just say we’ve tangled.”

  “You tangle with a lot of things.”

  “I’ve been around a long time. The way to deal with slayers’ marks is soap and water. I’ll have Julia or Olivia wash them off.” He named my two maids, cousins of Maya Medina, my electrician. They were young and working their way through college, and had agreed to work for me despite all the stories about the weird shit that happened in Janet’s hotel. They were local and therefore inured to weird shit by this time.

  “I bet that rat bastard in the bar did these before he gave me his friendly warning.” I hadn’t paid any attention to the front door on my way to the bar, having walked around from the back.

  Bear skimmed her hand above the marks, sunlight catching on the silver of her many rings. “Mmm. Not a nice message.”

  “You can read that?” I asked.

  She nodded without conceit. “The translation is simple.” Her fingers floated above the marks as she read. There is a Nightwalker in this house. I claim him. The kill extends to those protecting him.”

  My anger boiled to compete with the afternoon heat. “He has balls.”

  Bear gave me a grave look. “Do not dismiss the threat because he is only human and has no magic. Humans have killed most of the magical things in this world. Look around you.”

  She had a point. So many vastly powerful beings tried to best me and Mick that I sometimes forgot to take the smaller threats seriously. But if I hadn’t been awakened by the wind chimes last night, Ansel might have been a smear on my back porch this morning.

  I went inside, calling to Olivia to please go soap off the doorframe. She looked irritated and said a few choice words in Spanish to whoever had made extra work for her. She was related to Maya all right.

  Bear had vanished by the time I came back out, but I was no longer shocked at the way she came and went without warning. She had much in common with Coyote, who’d she claimed, to my vast surprise, was her husband.

  Mick straddled his big bike, which he’d brought around front, preparing to leave. I closed my hand over his where his rested on the handlebar.

  “You can’t interrogate Drake on the phone?” I worried about him every time he went to the dragon compound, though the dragons had more or less promised not to touch him. But if anyone could bend rules, it was a dragon.

  “Better to talk to dragons face to face,” Mick said. “Trust me.”

  “It’s not face to face I worry about, but flame to flame.”

  He chuckled like I was joking. I wasn’t.

  He leaned down and kissed me. I touched his cheek, wishing he’d stay, but also knowing I had to stop hovering around him, babying him. He was a grown dragon. I had to let him go.

  I kissed him again, didn’t miss his promising look, then he started up the bike and rode out of the parking lot.

  I’d almost lost him this winter, forever. Paranoia was a bitch.

  * * *

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except for the crap that goes along with running a hotel. Clogged drain in room Four. Loose tile in the hall. A pair of low-level witches complaining about the noises in their bedroom, which turned out to be the magic mirror teasing them.

  Those with minor magic can hear something when the mirror makes noise, and it plays things up by moaning and screeching like special effects in a low-budget movie. The witches could hear only muffled sounds, but I, of course, got the full force when I walked into their bedroom. The magic mirror was channeling through the mundane mirror over their dresser, wailing and moaning like a stage banshee.

  I didn’t want to let on that I had a magic mirror in here. Even the weakest witch can use one to her benefit, but the mirror’s current owner has to die before it can be used by the successor. Never believe that deters a mage who really wants a mirror.

  I positioned myself in the middle of their bedroom, raised my hands, and shouted the magic words: “Would you shut up!”

  “Aw, come on. Don’t ruin it for me. Let me have my fun.”

  “I banish thee, evil thing,” I said loudly.

  “Make me,” the mirror said, and made a raspberry noise.

  The witches held each other while I walked closer to the wall on which the mir
ror hung. I said in a low voice, “If you don’t stop it, I’ll tell Mick to flame you.”

  It was tough to kill a magic mirror, even to melt it, but Mick’s fire could make it suffer for a while. I’d seen Mick hurt it before.

  “Oh, that is so not fair.”

  “I don’t care about being fair; I’m trying to run a hotel. You have a cushy place here. Don’t wreck it, or I’ll toss you out with the trash.”

  The mirror went silent, and I held my breath. It was supposed to respond to my every command, but the mirror constantly figured out ways around that when it wanted to.

  “All right.” The mirror heaved a sigh, which made the glass rattle. “I’ll shut up. But I’m not withdrawing from this room. They’re a couple, and no way am I not watching that.”

  I knew I shouldn’t be disgusted with an inanimate object, but the mirror was a complete pervert. “If they complain again, you’re out of here.” I turned to the two young witches, who watched me in awe and admiration. “The demon was trying to come in through the mirror,” I said. “I’ve banished it for now, but just in case, you might want to put a blanket over the mirror at night.”

  They nodded, eyes wide. Behind me the mirror said, “Aw, now that’s just mean.”

  Tough. I ignored it and walked out.

  * * *

  Ansel hadn’t woken before I left for the séance, but I wanted to hear what Laura’s sister had to say. I’d shake Ansel’s story out of him when I got back.

  Cassandra drove me and Bear—who’d showed up again as we were leaving—to Magellan two miles south of my hotel, Cassandra’s look still disapproving. When she dropped us off at Paradox, I thought she’d admonish me to be careful, but she said nothing. Cassandra put her car in gear and drove on toward the apartment she shared with her shape-shifter girlfriend.

  Rows of wind chimes whispered as we entered the store, letting in the warm summer wind from outside, the air inside layered with the scents of incense and sage. Trays upon trays of crystals glittered in the central aisles, and one wall was covered with books on every topic from places to visit around Magellan to spells using sex energy to ways to communicate with the dead.

  Heather stretched out her bangled hands as she rustled forward. “So glad you could come. Is this your friend called Bear?” Heather bowed and a said a few words in mispronounced Diné.

  Bear accepted the greeting graciously. “Ya-at-eeh, friend of my friend.” In the traditional way, Bear didn’t use Heather’s given name—names had power, and using a name could draw demons to that person. The younger generations didn’t always pay attention to that, and my grandmother called me by name plenty, but Bear did it as a courtesy.

  Heather, looking pleased, led us to the back of the store and through a beaded curtain to a short passage that ended in a French door, which led to fairly large private room. Heather’s store was one of the oldest buildings in town, originally built of brick, and shored up with plaster, wood, and cement over the years. The walls bowed, patches of new brick were mixed with old, and the wooden floors squeaked and sagged as we walked on them.

  This had been a rancher’s house, way back when, and supposedly haunted. Heather had purchased the abandoned building and fixed it up, much as I’d done with my hotel. She’d wanted the place for its atmosphere. I’d wanted the hotel so I could have something of my own, a permanent place that was part of me.

  Heather’s research had told her that the ghost that haunted her store was a child called Pearl, who’d died of a fever when she’d been about ten. Poor kid. That Pearl had existed, I believed—town records confirmed it. The story that she haunted the store was a load of shit.

  There aren’t any ghosts. What people think of as ghosts is usually psychic residue, which some people, me included, are good at detecting, whether they know they have the ability or not. The psychic aura can be strong, especially around places of violent death, but it’s not a ghost. Nightwalkers and Changers are real, but ghosts—no.

  Heather, however, believed in Pearl as hard as she could. She waved at a corner in the hall as she led Bear and me into the back room. “You can go to bed now, Pearl. I know you don’t like séances, but it’s okay. I won’t ask you for help tonight. I put your dolls in your trundle bed upstairs.”

  Bear and I exchanged a glance. There was absolutely nothing in the corner, not a presence, not a psychic residue, and definitely no ghost.

  A table had been set in the middle of the room with chairs drawn up to it. Candles clumped in the middle of the table, their thick fragrance battling with the incense that snaked from holes in a wooden incense burner.

  Another woman was already seated at the table. Her features and her dark blond hair told me she was Paige, Laura DiAngelo’s sister.

  Heather introduced us, but Paige didn’t seem interested or impressed with us, even when Heather told her I was a powerful magic user. I took the seat next to her, and Bear sat next to me, composed as usual. Bear spread her large hands on the table, her turquoise bracelets clinking.

  “A few more are coming,” Heather said. “Not long now.”

  The few more were my plumber, Fremont Hansen, and his cousin, Naomi Kee who was now married to my oldest and closest friend, Jamison. With them was Naomi’s deaf daughter Julie.

  Naomi greeted me with her usual big smile as she took the seat across from me. Fremont said a warm hello and took the chair across from Bear.

  Fremont believed himself a great mage in the making. He did have a little bit of natural magic, enough to get him into more trouble than he knew how to get out of. Then he came to Janet Begay, his local Stormwalker, to pull his balls from the fire. Fremont loved séances and ghost lore, so I wasn’t surprised to see him there.

  But Naomi and Julie, no. Naomi had once been the biggest Unbeliever I’d ever met—though she’d changed that status when she’d married the shape-shifting Jamison. Even so, she was skeptical about most of the woo-woo magic our town was famous for, and ninety percent of the time, she was right.

  “I didn’t think this would be your scene,” I said to her.

  “Heather invited us, and we were curious,” Naomi answered. Julie, who had sat down next to her and across from Paige silently signed to me: Séances are a bunch of crap.

  I bit back a laugh as I signed back the way she’d taught me. “I know.”

  “The sun is completely down now,” Heather announced, shutting the French door behind her. “I think we can begin. Paige, did you bring the things?”

  Heather took the seat at the head of the table, and Paige began fishing items out of a tote bag—a photograph, a bracelet, and a hat. Heather gathered them in front of her, put her open hands on top of them, and closed her eyes.

  The aura of the belongings floated around Heather’s fingers like dust motes, a tint of warmth from the missing Laura.

  Heather shivered. “She’s trying to get through.”

  Fremont leaned forward, his balding head shining under the lamplight. He had soft brown hair that he kept cut short and the warmest brown eyes I’d ever seen. “You can feel that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Heather whispered.

  Heather had less magic in her than Fremont did, but both were responding to the faint psychic buzz that clung to Laura’s things.

  Heather let go of the bracelet, hat, and photo, arranged the lit candles around them, then instructed us to hold hands.

  I took the ice-cold hand of Paige in my right and Bear’s warm, strong one in my left. Bear gave my hand a little squeeze.

  Heather turned out the lights and sat down with us, telling us to close our eyes.

  I’d prepared myself for an evening of Heather moaning and then talking extensively to her Native American spirit guide, who didn’t act or speak like any Indian I’d ever met. Heather had a great imagination and conjured things so real to her that she convinced herself she had extensive powers. It made her happy, and she truly believed she helped people, so I let her enjoy herself.

  I was there
fore unprepared when the windows in the back of the room burst open, and an Arctic wind rushed through the close room, stirring my hair and rattling the blinds.

  “Ah,” Heather said, in an excited whisper. “She’s here.”

  Chapter Six

  The temperature today had topped out at a hundred and three, and while the desert cools down pretty rapidly at night, the balmy seventy-five degrees outside now was a long way from the icy air that poured in on us.

  Half the candle flames went out. Bear jumped, her eyes as wide open as mine. I looked out the windows, but saw nothing but a strip of dark desert and a strand of streetlights about a mile away.

  “Laura?” Heather asked.

  She alone had her eyes closed—the rest of us were trying to figure out what was going on. I looked around for special-effects machines. I’d once watched a movie being made in New Mexico, and they’d faked everything—wind, sunshine, snow, rain . . . even when it was raining. The director had wanted to control every detail.

  The machines had fascinated me, and the techs had showed me a lot of stuff. That was back when I’d been traveling the country with Mick, us carefree on our Harleys. He’d known the technical director on the film, who’d let us hang out with him on the movie location. Mick had known everyone, I’d thought, and I’d been starry-eyed in love with him.

  I was still in love with him, with fewer innocent stars but more strength. Some things are better second time around.

  “Are you there?” Heather asked.

  The wind picked up again, and the rest of the candles died.

  “Are you there?” Heather called.

  “Yes!”

  The voice echoed through the room, and everyone but Heather swiveled heads trying to see who’d spoken.

  I am here. Softer now, a woman’s voice, a bit muffled, with both a touch of anger and sorrow. Paige, have you come?

  “Laura?” Paige’s hand clamped down on mine so hard that I clenched my teeth. “Where are you?”

  In a better place.