Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) (26 page)

Mick didn’t know where Gabrielle was himself, but he agreed with me and Grandmother that she needed to be found. We scoured the hotel, but nothing. She wasn’t in Barry’s bar, just open at three, either.

“She’s a grown woman,” Pamela pointed out. “With a driver’s license. She could have gone anywhere.”

Gabrielle might be in her twenties in body, but in many ways she was still a broken child. I hoped with all my strength she hadn’t gone to the vortexes to commune with our mother.

Mick and I hiked out that way. The dirt-filled wash that buried the vortex was intact, and neither of us felt anything disturbing from it.

As we turned back, I saw—or thought I saw—the faintest dark ripple pass across the surface of the hotel. It was gone in an instant, the sun shining hotter than ever. Storm clouds were playing over the mountains to the south and the San Francisco peaks to the west, which made me feel better. A little storm never hurt.

Mick had noticed the shadow as well, because he stopped. “What was that?”

“I have no idea,” I said with a feeling of disquiet.

Mick and I exchanged a glance. My turquoise engagement ring seemed to sting as we clasped hands and moved at a run to the railroad bed and on to the hotel.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mick and I reached the hotel at a dead run. He flung open the back door and streamed inside ahead of me, his dragon instinct to make sure the way was safe before letting me follow.

We found nothing wrong. Cassandra lifted her head as we charged into the lobby, her calm face creasing with a frown. The protective wards Mick and I had wrought were intact—I’d have known the instant they were breached. The goblin couple sat at a table playing a quiet game of dominoes and sipping iced tea. They glanced up, then when we didn’t do anything interesting, returned to their game.

Mick moved to the reception desk and rested his fists on it. “Everything all right in here?”

“Yes.” Cassandra didn’t even bother to look around in alarm. She too would have known if something was wrong. “Why?”

“Hmm.” Mick stroked the polished wooden countertop. He was checking its aura, determining whether all was well with the entire building. “See if anything’s up with the mirror, Janet.”

My chest tightening, I hurried across the lobby to the saloon. Carlos was dispensing drinks, guests had gathered for an early afternoon repast, and the mirror hung unbroken on the wall.

I stepped behind the bar and put my hand on its frame. “You okay?”

I feared the mirror still wouldn’t speak to me, but it shuddered under my fingers and said, “Oh, girlfriend, that was
awesome.
”

I relaxed a fraction. Mirror repairs, I’d heard, could change a mirror’s personality, but its voice was still in its drag-queen drawl, its enthusiasm undimmed. I suppose I should wish for a nice, soft-spoken, kindly voice, male or female, but I knew in my heart I’d miss the obnoxious thing if it changed.

“Good,” I said, patting the frame. “Glad to see you back in one piece.”

“Was that a pun? Oh, good one.” It chuckled, the laugh extending far longer than the lame joke warranted. “What’s the matter, sweetie pie? You look shook up.”

“You’re all right? Mick and I thought we saw something, and Emmett is tricky.”

“He is. But he’s not in the hotel. If he’d come in here, I’d have
screamed
.”

The mirror would have, that was true. “Keep an eye out, all right?” I decided against telling it that I planned to use it as bait to lure Emmett here. No sense in panicking it too soon.

“I will, sugar buns. Tell that Flora she can swirl me up anytime she wants. Did wonders for my complexion.”

“I’m just glad it worked. Hang in there,” I said for its benefit.

The mirror laughed uproariously again, and I turned away.

Carlos, at the other end of the bar, said, “You know, everyone thinks you’re loco, Janet.”

“I know,” I said. I shot him a grin, and departed.

***

As much as Mick and I scoured the hotel and surrounding area, we found nothing that could have caused the dark ripple. We found no sign of Emmett, no sign of any other baddie, and also no sign of Gabrielle.

We split up the search—Mick driving up to Flat Mesa, me to look around Magellan. A call to my dad told me Gabrielle hadn’t returned to Many Farms, and also assured me that Dad and Gina were safe.

On a hunch, I drove past Maya’s old house to the house Amy McGuire had occupied before she’d disappeared. The house was up for rent, still owned by the McGuires, but no one had taken it since this past summer.

Gabrielle wasn’t there, and I found no aura of her anywhere on the street.

No one in Magellan had seen her either, not at the diner, the motel where Colby liked to hole up, Naomi’s plant nursery, or Paradox, the woo-woo store. I stocked up on supplies at Paradox, asking Heather Hansen, one of Fremont’s many cousins, if she’d noticed Gabrielle around, but Heather answered in the negative.

I went back to the hotel, found my newest cell phone, dialed Gabrielle’s number, and left her a message to call me. Pamela was right that Gabrielle was a grown woman, but she was a crazy grown woman, and who knew what she was up to?

I also called Emmett’s office building in Phoenix and left a message with his receptionist that he should call me. The receptionist sounded as cold as she had when we’d visited, with no mention at all of Emmett’s blown-out office. As with the jail, Mick had destroyed a part of the building without bringing the rest down, so maybe Emmett had already magicked it back together.

Mick and I went to bed early that night, to close out the world and have a council of war.

“How do we use the mirror as bait?” I asked him as we sat together in bed, sheets and blankets covering us against the evening coolness. I kept my voice low. The mirror could project itself through ordinary mirrors throughout the hotel, including the one behind the closed bathroom door, and eavesdrop. “Lay it out in the parking lot and send up a signal?”

Mick considered. “We could tell Emmett we’re tired of looking over our shoulders and ready to negotiate about the mirror. Emmett will sense a trap, but he’ll come.”

“Then there’s the problem of keeping him here. As soon as he knows our true purpose, he’ll vanish.”

Mick rested his arms on his crossed knees. The sheet covered him to his hips, baring his torso down past his navel. It was distracting sitting on a bed with a bare, hot guy a foot away while trying to discuss battle strategy.

“There’s a way to confine a mage,” Mick said, oblivious of my lustful thoughts. “A circle with very strong wards will hem him in and keep him from using escape magic.”

“I’m sure Emmett knows all about those and can counteract them,” I said gloomily. “Or how not to get trapped at all.”

“We have to try. He can survive dragon fire, but you said it hurts him.”

Mick spoke with clinical interest. At the moment, he was the dragon general trying to find weaknesses in his enemy.

“Emmett is human,” I said. “In my dream, when the dragon fire burned me, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Emmett damped it, but he must feel that too, in the split second before he can do the spell.”

“That split second might be all we have.” Mick rubbed his upper lip, tatts moving on his arm. “I regret that Drake quit the Dragon Council. They’d be handy, for once.”

“They don’t know
why
Drake quit,” I pointed out. “You could always ask them to help.”

“Their help comes with a steep price.” Mick shrugged his big shoulders then stretched out in the bed and settled the covers over him. “I will think on it.” He closed his eyes.

I watched him, waiting for him to open his eyes again, continue the conversation, or maybe reach for me.
 

His body relaxed, his chest rose with a long breath, and he exhaled again with a slight snore.

I sighed. I envied Mick’s ability to fall asleep between one heartbeat and the next. No lying awake worrying about life’s problems or what we’d do come tomorrow. Just
good night
, and silence. It must be nice to have an uncluttered brain.

I got out of bed, pulled on a big T-shirt, and pattered into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I’d already brushed them in anticipation of going to bed with Mick, but I needed a ritual to calm me down so I could sleep. I’d wash my face again while I was at it.

I brushed, rinsed, and spit, then splashed warm water on my face and cleansed it with an aromatherapy wash I’d bought from Heather. The almond and lavender scents were indeed soothing, and I relaxed a bit.

I rinsed my face and looked up into the mirror. Emmett Smith looked back at me.

My scream took me off my feet. I jumped from the mirror and hit the wall behind me, a towel rod jamming into my back.

Emmett was no longer the suave businessman in an elegant suit with designer glasses. His face was gaunt and skeletal, his gray eyes reduced to points of light in sockets.
 

Threads of his brown hair clung to his head, and his lips were drawn and dry, like a mummy’s. His tailor-made suit hung on his bones, his hands shrunken and leathery.

“Janet,” he said in a voice that was a throaty hiss. “You did this to me.”

I whipped my head around and looked behind me, all over the bathroom, but Emmett wasn’t there. He was only in the mirror.

Before I could speak, Mick was next to me, wide awake, not wearing a stitch. He stared at Emmett then gingerly reached out and touched the mirror with his broad finger.

His fingertip met glass, nothing else.

“Why does he look like that?” I demanded of Mick.

Mick studied Emmett before answering. “It’s his true guise. What he covers with a glam.”

Yes, I’d always felt something dark and gruesome in his aura, but I hadn’t realized he was death walking. I shuddered.

Emmett’s black lips curled in rage. “Get me out of here—
now.
”

I reached a tentative finger forward but, like Mick, felt nothing but cool glass. “I don’t know how you got
in
there. Are you saying you didn’t do this?”

“It was me, sweet cheeks,” the mirror said. It sounded both triumphant and terrified. “He came near the hotel when you weren’t looking, so I grabbed him.”

“Hold it, you told me Emmett hadn’t been here. Or did he come after that?” I knew in my heart he hadn’t. The shadow Mick and I had seen on the hotel must have been the mirror sucking him in.

“I said he hadn’t come
into
the hotel,” the mirror answered in a small voice. “He was in the shed, trying to take the mirror I’m part of off your bike. He had another shard with him, and I used both pieces to encircle and trap him.”

“Wait—he had a mirror shard?” I asked in alarm. “Where did he get that?”

Emmett only smiled, his teeth brown and rotted. “Ask your sister.”

“What?”
I pounded on the glass. Emmett’s eyes flared, a scary sight. “What did you do with Gabrielle?”

Mick had his hand on the mirror again, fire seeping from his fingers as though he sought to melt his way in.
 

I yelled at the mirror. “If Gabrielle had a shard—if Emmett took it from her, why weren’t you screaming about it?”

“I didn’t know,” the mirror said, voice tight with shame. “She must have stolen it when they moved me out to the sunlight. I was so distracted by that and by Flora making me hot and swirling that I didn’t know it had been taken, or that Emmett had it until he went to the bike shed. I was afraid you’d be mad at me, or try to come in after him, so I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know about Gabrielle either.”

I remembered hearing a discordant
clank
when the mirror had become whole—was it the missing shard throwing it off balance? Or Emmett taking it away from Gabrielle—I had little doubt he’d wrested it from her.

“I wouldn’t know how to come in,” I told the mirror. I demanded of Emmett,
“Where is Gabrielle?”

Emmett slammed himself into the glass. It was weird to see him do that, as though he stood on the other side of a clear window, yet Mick and I were transposed on him. Emmett’s gnarled hands flattened against the glass, and his mouth moved with the beginning of a spell. The glass started to smoke.

“Go back into the dreaming, Janet,” the mirror shouted at me, rattling in terror. “Stay safe from him. Go there—hurry!”

My eyes widened, even as I kept beating at Emmett’s image. “You mean
you
sent me dreamwalking?” I asked the mirror. “Why?”

“To keep you safe!” the mirror yelled. “Micky could watch over you while you stayed safe from Emmett and learned how to fight him. Dream, Janet.
Please.
”

I opened my mouth to command it to explain
everything
, but a spark sailed from the mirror to smack me in the middle of my forehead. The bathroom wavered, colors running like wet paint in the rain to become puddles of nothing.
 

I collapsed into sleep as Mick had—one breath in, one breath out, then darkness.

***

I awoke to someone poking me with a stick.

I cracked open my eyes to see my familiar bedroom in Many Farms, dawn light eking in through the windows to cast shadows on the painted white ceiling above me. Grandmother stood next to the bed, tapping me with the end of her cane.

When I’d lived in Many Farms, Grandmother hadn’t used a cane. She’d acquired that after I’d gone off to college in Flagstaff, and she’d developed bad arthritis in the joints of her left leg. Any suggestion of knee or hip replacement surgery had been met with a vehement negative—Grandmother had a horror of general anesthesia. She’d succumbed to have her gall bladder out long ago and vowed to never go under again.

“What am I doing here?” I asked, my tongue feeling thick. Already the details of what had happened in the bathroom were growing dim.

“That is a good question. I ask the same one for myself.” Grandmother spoke in the Diné language, and for the moment, I couldn’t remember English anyway. “Get up. I have something to show you.”

I heaved myself out of bed. I was still in Mick’s long T-shirt I’d pulled on at the hotel, and I looked around for jeans to put on under it, but found nothing. I noticed that the room was barren, holding the bed and an old kitchen chair, nothing else. Not the bedroom I’d softened and made mine, which Gabrielle had taken over.