From Jennifer Ashley, With Love

  Dimly, through the choking dust and dark auras, I saw Bear’s hands go up. The pot, which Nash and Gabrielle still fought over, shot away from them and went straight for Bear.

  She caught it without struggle. The pot glowed, the only bright point in the gloom. The animal patterns again chased each other and the lightning around the bowl. I clearly saw the tortoise morph into a coyote, who chased the bear, who chased the lightning, which chased the coyote.

  Bear sang more words in her high-pitched voice, but these I didn’t understand. The language was so ancient, it probably never had been heard in the world.

  My feet left the ground again, but not by my doing. I dove for the earth, grabbing, but my fingers scrabbled in dirt, fine rocks and dried grass coming away as I was yanked upward.

  I tumbled toward Bear, feet-first, a whirlwind sucking me to her. Gabrielle came as well, jerked from Nash’s side, she screeching and swearing. Emmett slammed into me as he joined me, then Pericles struck me, then Ansel. Nash was the only one I didn’t sense with us.

  Gabrielle, Emmett, Pericles, Ansel, and I were squashed together into one mass. Pericles’ blood was hot on my skin, and the stench of Nightwalker made me gag. Pericles was still alive, though, Ansel weakening.

  We were pulled, painfully, inexorably, toward Bear. Her voice grew louder, filling the skies, and the auras swirled with us, binding us together.

  The shape of a coyote rose behind Bear. He lifted his muzzle as she continued to sing, his huge face turning to the moonlight. There was moonlight again, a hole ripped through the clouds and my storm.

  Coyote howled, not a mournful howl or the high-pitched yowling of a coyote, but a wailing song that blended with Bear’s.

  Coyote wrapped his arms around her, paws laced across her shoulders, not stifling her or hindering her, but joining her.

  Bear and Coyote. Two of the oldest gods. Husband and wife. One.

  The ring Mick had given me stung my finger. I held onto the magic of the turquoise and silver while the wild power around me threatened to batter me bloody.

  We were dragged onward toward the shimmering pillar of Coyote and Bear.

  Just before we reached them, the singing stopped, and a fierce weight crushed me into nothing.

  I heard another scream, a voice familiar to me—not mine, not Gabrielle’s, not Mick’s. The voice, stronger than I’d heard it in a long time, wound up to a horrific shriek.

  “Janeeettttttt! Oh, this is so not goooooood.”

  Before I could react, the screaming cut off, and everything went dark.

  * * *

  My own groans woke me. I opened my eyes.

  I lay flat on my back in darkness, but it was natural darkness. Clouds filled the sky, blotting out the moonlight, and a steady rain fell.

  I was soaked, muddy, and in pain. I licked water from my lips and tasted blood.

  Something large, wet, smelly, and warm lay down next to me. A cold nose touched my face, then a hot tongue swiped across my lips.

  “Ewww.” I scraped my hand over my mouth. “What are you doing?”

  In an instant, Coyote became a man—large, naked, and still wet. “Healing you,” he said. “Coyote spit is clean.”

  “Yuck.”

  “I can keep on, if you want.” He waggled his tongue.

  “Gods, you are such a pervert.”

  Which, in my world, was terrifyingly normal.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “Bear activated the artifact, it did its thing, and she’s gone.”

  “Gone.” I tried to sit up, clutched my head, which hurt like hell, and tried again. I managed to become upright this time and sat unmoving, my head pounding.

  I was still in Chaco Canyon. All was quiet, except for the rain and distant rumbles of thunder. No auras, no spells, no haboob, no Beneath magic. Just me laid out like I’d been on a three-week bender.

  I saw bodies around me, each about ten yards from me and from each other. Nash’s pickup and the dragons still hadn’t returned.

  “Where has she gone?” I croaked.

  Coyote shrugged. “Who knows? She’ll be back. When she’s ready.”

  “What did you mean, the artifact did its thing? What did it do? Besides throw me across the valley?”

  “What Bear made it to do. She put her power into that pot not only to keep herself stable, but to help and protect her people.” He shrugged again, his large body with all its muscles slick with water. “But as well-intentioned as gods may be, our power is vast, and when it falls into the wrong hands . . . well, you saw what happened.”

  “We all went for it,” I said.

  “So she took back the pot and used it for what she’d really made it for. To keep the powerfully magical away from her people.” Coyote’s hand landed on my shoulder, his strength immense, but it was meant to comfort, not hurt. “She could have killed you—all of you. She chose not to.”

  “Oh.” I said, my head hurting so much I wasn’t sure waking up was a blessing.

  “The pot sucked you into it,” Coyote said. “Weird to watch. Then it spit you out again, along with your magic mirror. The pot didn’t like it. Which might also be why you’re still alive.”

  “Nice of Bear,” I said. “And the pot.”

  Coyote gave me a serious look, then he laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  I rubbed my head again, pain stabbing at my temples. The storm magic had been torn out of me, and I was jumpy. Being knocked out plus the blinding headache had subdued the aftershock a little, but I needed to get rid of my residual magic. I needed Mick.

  Once I could see better, I realized that the body closest to mine was Gabrielle’s. Coyote helped me to my feet, but I had to stand still a few moments, catching my breath and trying not to throw up, before I could hobble toward her.

  Gabrielle lay facedown in the mud, her hands and hair covered with blood. Now that her magic had gone, she looked like nothing more than a young, helpless girl.

  I crouched beside her and turned her over. Gabrielle looked even more helpless now, the blood and mud on her face creased with tears.

  “I wanted it,” she sobbed. “Why wouldn’t he let me have it?”

  I smoothed a tangle of hair from Gabrielle’s face, but she jerked away and rolled to sit, drawing her arms around her knees. “Leave me alone.”

  “You don’t need the pot,” I said. “You’re already so strong. What did you want it for?”

  Gabrielle glared at me, her eyes swimming with tears. “To open the vortex, stupid.”

  I didn’t need to ask her which vortex. Each of the vortexes that dotted this part of the world led to different parts of Beneath. The one near my hotel led to my mother’s realm.

  “Why would you want to?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.

  “To see her. To talk to her. To find out why she doesn’t want me.”

  The rain started to pelt down more earnestly. “Evil goddesses aren’t nurturing mothers, Gabrielle. Trust me.”

  “She wanted you. You and your Stormwalker magic. All I got was a father who was a drunk.”

  “I know.” I didn’t say I was sorry. I was sorry for her, but saying so wouldn’t help. Not with Gabrielle.

  “Go away.”

  I stood up. Gabrielle hunkered down into even more misery.

  I stuck my hand out to her. “Come on. We still have two mages and a crazed Nightwalker to deal with.”

  She stared at me with every ounce of hatred and loathing Grandmother and I had tried to ease out of her in the past six months. I thought we’d made some headway, but maybe not.

  I kept my hand out. Eventually, Gabrielle’s expression changed to one of mere sourness, and she let me help her to her feet.

  “Can I kill the mages?” she asked.

  “Depends.”

  Gabrielle didn’t look mollified. I felt her fuming as we made our way through the rainy darkness to the other bodies.

  I did feel bad for her. Our goddess mother had d
ecided that because Gabrielle’s father had no magic in him—he’d lied and told her he was a shaman—she wanted nothing to do with Gabrielle. I wasn’t sure which was worse: our hell-queen mother wanting to rule the earth world through me, or being utterly rejected by her.

  Nash hadn’t been pulled in by the magic, or thrown down when Bear disappeared. He was sitting on the outcropping under which he’d hidden, his arms resting on his knees. He’d retrieved his gun and now held it loosely in one hand. I saw blood on his face, even in the dark, his black hair glistening with rain.

  “You two all right?” he asked us.

  I was stumbling, Gabrielle blood-streaked, but I knew what he meant. “After a hot bath and a good night’s sleep, we will be.”

  “She means after a good night’s screwing with Mick,” Gabrielle said. She gave Nash a look I thought she’d stopped reserving for him. “How about it, Nash? There’s plenty of motel rooms between us and Flat Mesa.”

  “No.”

  He said it simply and with strength. Nash had decided on Maya, and that was that.

  Gabrielle’s smile died, but she shrugged. “That’s all right. I’ve decided that Drake is hot, and I’ve always wanted to do a dragon.”

  “Pick one without ice in his veins,” I said.

  “Like Colby? Mmm, not bad. Let me think about it.”

  I walked away from the bizarre conversation. I heard Nash jump down from the rock and follow me.

  The next body I came to was Pericles. He’d reverted to looking like the short, muscular guy with the balding head who’d attacked me in the basement of Laura’s store, except now his eyes were closed, his face wan. He also had a bullet wound in his chest.

  Nash crouched down and checked him, then nodded at me. “He’s still alive.”

  “Can I crush him?” Gabrielle asked, coming up behind Nash.

  “No,” I said.

  “He tried to kill us tonight. Why not?”

  I felt Gabrielle’s magic building, and I put a hand on her wrist. “It’s one thing to kill him in a fair fight, another to blast him when he’s unconscious. It . . . would be wrong.”

  Gabrielle gave me an incredulous look, but her magic faded. “And you call me the crazy one.”

  Nash nudged Pericles with his pistol. “Hey. Wake up.”

  Pericles’s eyes popped open. He took in Nash, the gun, and Gabrielle and me standing over him. He drew a long breath that ended in a cough and wince of pain. “The artifact?”

  “Gone,” I said.

  Gabrielle smiled. “Too bad, so sad.”

  “You need an ambulance?” Nash asked him. “You took one in the chest. I don’t care how magical you are . . .”

  “No,” Pericles snarled. He gave me a glare that boded me no good, then he vanished.

  Nash rose to his feet and let out his breath. “One down,” he said.

  A voice floated faintly to me, one I hadn’t heard in days. “Somebody? Anybody? Help me? Pleeeeeze?”

  “What the hell is that?” Gabrielle asked.

  The rain was starting to disperse, the moon reappearing through a torn cloud. Under its light, the valley floor glittered with rocks and quartz. One shard of mirror would be difficult to locate.

  “Keep talking,” I said. “I’ll find you.”

  Nash looked around, pistol ready. “Who the hell are you talking to?”

  “Who knows?” Gabrielle answered. “She’s crazy. You get used to it.”

  “Please,” the mirror sobbed. “Take me home. Oh, honey, I’m so scared.”

  I finally spotted it lying about a hundred yards to the east of where Bear had stood. The shard was silver and shining, no longer dark.

  “Thank you,” it gasped in relief when I picked it up. “Sugar-plum, you look terrible.”

  I closed my hand around the shard and turned to find Emmett Smith standing a foot away from me.

  His glasses were bent, one of the lenses broken, but he’d shoved them back on and straightened his blood-soaked tie. Behind the ruined glasses, his eyes were clear and hard and held the intensity of a basilisk.

  “You have a magic mirror,” he said, voice ringing. “You bitch, you’ve been holding out on me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  This was not good.

  Emmett stood before me fully functional, while I was crackling with residual storm magic, exhausted, and had a headache from hell. All he had to do was kill me, and then kill Mick, and the mirror was his. At this point, I was pretty sure he could do it.

  Emmett’s aura was tough, like thick hide, bright white like Gabrielle’s. He had no Beneath magic in him, but the earth magic he’d learned and stored filled every centimeter of his body. I felt that magic stir into a killing spell.

  As Latin words started from his throat, I drew on the vestiges of the storm magic and my Beneath magic and channeled them into the mirror. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough, not against someone like Emmett when I was this spent.

  Just as Emmett let fly the spell, me desperately gathering my fading magic, several tons of dragon poured out of the sky.

  One of Mick’s wings caught Emmett and sent him tumbling to the ground. Emmett’s spell went wide and missed me, to be caught in the gentle wind that played where Bear had stood. I redirected the last of my magic to the spell, sliced into it, and finished it off.

  Emmett was on his feet, fists balled, readying another spell to blast Mick. And then Nash rose behind Emmett, pressing his pistol to the man’s ear, his other arm wrapping around Emmett’s waist. Emmett’s spell, obliterated by Nash’s null field, died before it formed.

  “Leave,” Nash advised him. “And don’t let me find you around Janet or Mick again.”

  Emmett scowled, but I knew better than to think he’d obey Nash. Emmett would be back, now that he knew I had something worth his while. “Better start looking over your shoulder, Stormwalker,” he said in his smooth, cool voice. “If you’ll let go of me, Sheriff, I’ll gladly go.”

  Nash kept his pistol trained on Emmett, but he eased his hold from around the man and took several steps away. Emmett straightened his tie again, then he vanished.

  Mick had landed somewhere off in the darkness, and now he walked out of that darkness as a man covered in rain and streaks of blood. He came for me and lifted me off my feet, holding me against his hot, hard, wet body.

  “Hey, baby,” he said, his voice dark. “Miss me?”

  Nash, two feet away from us, noisily re-holstered his weapon and cleared his throat. “Good to see you in one piece, Mick,” he said. “Where the hell is my truck?”

  * * *

  Elena came driving back about thirty minutes later, steering Nash’s F250 down the rutted road to the canyon.

  While we watched them approach, Ansel rejoined us. He’d come out of the unconscious state the rest of us had been thrown into, and now he stood at my side, staring bleakly at the truck’s approaching headlights. His eyes were normal, no blood frenzy, but I’d never seen him so morose.

  Elena pulled the truck to a halt in the exact same spot from which she’d taken it. Colby, in human form, lay on his back in the truck’s bed, a tarp over him. Drake, naked, bruised, and bloody, sat next to him.

  I climbed into the truck and knelt next to Colby. Mick rested his arms on the truck’s side and watched, concerned.

  “Hey, Janet,” Colby said, his voice weak. “I feel like shit.”

  Dragons are good at healing themselves, but sometimes it takes a while. Colby had been ripped into and then suffered a fall of several hundred feet. His injuries wouldn’t be a quick fix.

  Gabrielle vaulted over the side of the truck. “Aw, poor Colby. You look awful.” Her voice went little-girl sugar. “And this itty-bitty, wittle binding spell can’t be helping you, can it? I’ll make it all gone.”

  Drake grabbed for her, but Gabrielle had already put her hand on Colby and let her magic surge.

  Colby yelled as an arc of pure Beneath magic lifted his body from the truck bed and slammed
it back down. He groaned in pain, but I saw the threads of the binding spell dissolve and disappear.

  Colby took a deep, grating breath, and blinked. He raised his head and looked down at his body, then he blew out the breath and let his head drop back again. “Thanks,” he said, his voice stronger. “I feel better already.”

  Drake’s eyes narrowed as he began to chant the binding spell again, but Gabrielle seized his hand. “No, Drakey, don’t do that. I might have to hurt you.”

  She clamped down on Drake’s hand, and Drake winced.

  “Tell you what,” Gabrielle said. “Spend the rest of the night with me, Drakey, and maybe I’ll let you put the spell back on him.”

  Colby raised his head again. “And that’s fair, how?”

  Gabrielle smiled at him. “You can join in, if you want. I’ll heal you at the same time. It’ll be fun.”

  Colby grinned with her. “That’s more like it.”

  “Gabrielle.” The voice was my grandmother’s, the tone one she’d reserved for me on my most misbehaving days.

  Gabrielle glared at Drake. “Now you’ve gone and gotten me into trouble.”

  She swung her leg over the side of the truck and slid down, moving to my grandmother’s side, arguing as she went.

  Drake raised his hand again, beginning the words to reinstate the binding spell.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  Mick only watched, but I sensed him tense, ready to fight. Drake lowered his hand but gave me a baleful look. “Colbinilicarium hasn’t finished the terms of his sentence.”

  “He’s been your slave for a while now,” I said, “and he nearly got himself killed for you tonight. What did he do, anyway?”

  Drake folded his hand in his lap and clammed up, his eyes telling me nothing.

  Colby chuckled. “You really want to know? Okay, I might have stolen Bancroft’s little black book.”

  I figured it might be something like that. Colby had once had a fling with the mistress of a dragon called Farrell, the head of the dragon council. That deed had landed him in plenty of trouble.