Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) (3 page)

“Who are
they
?” Nash Jones, Sheriff of Hopi County, asked me as he got out of his SUV and slammed the door.
 

Nash was in full uniform, his badge polished to mirror sheen, the gun in his holster just as polished. He looked over the burned-out limo then at Mick and me, knowing one of us had done this.

Mick wouldn’t let me go as he answered Nash. “They work for Emmett Smith. They’re probably harmless.” Never mind they’d just tried to shoot him.
 

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Nash said. “I came to see your sister. Where is she?”

“That might not be a good idea.” I eased out of Mick’s hold. “She’s a little upset.”

“I heard about the convenience store,” Nash said, his frown in place. During the day, he wore dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. Tonight, the light above the door of my hotel made his eyes glitter gray. “State police arrested three men who have been wanted for a string of robberies across the country. They didn’t look too good.”

Nash sounded grimly satisfied. He hates criminals of all kinds, but he doesn’t like dangerous magic people either.

“They scared Gabrielle,” I said. “She didn’t kill any of them.”

“
This
time,” Nash said. “And I’m pretty sure that’s because you and Mick showed up.”

“Could be,” I said.

“Want to tell me
why
you showed up?” Nash asked. “How did you know your sister was holding three armed robbers hostage?”

I said nothing. I suspected the messages in the fortune cookies had come from Coyote—they’d reeked of Coyote’s modus operandi. Any message from Cassandra, the witch who managed my hotel, would have been clear, explanatory, and signed. Actually, Cassandra would have just called Mick. Coyote, on the other hand, rarely used his phone. Cryptic and mysterious was more his style.

I hadn’t seen Coyote for a few months, however, and there’d been no sign of him around the convenience store that I could tell. Didn’t mean he wasn’t watching from afar, though.

“We happened to be passing,” Mick said. “On our way home from dinner in Flag. Saw the magic in the store and realized something was up.”

The explanation wasn’t a lie, strictly. Nash sensed there was more to it than that, but other than giving Mick a sharp stare, he didn’t argue.

“You need to control her, Janet,” Nash said, switching his gaze to me.

“Sure,” I said. “Because she listens to me so well.”

“Those robbers are wanted in connection with a lot crimes,” Nash went on. “But a good lawyer might be able to help them get Gabrielle charged for assault—and maybe you and Mick too.”

Possibly. However, I doubted those tough guys would want to admit that a small young woman like Gabrielle had singlehandedly kicked their asses.

Nash glanced back to Emmett’s men. “You say they work for Smith?” he asked me.

“They do,” I said. “But they’re completely human.”

“Good. I’ll take them in.” Nash wanted in the worst way to arrest Emmett and make him pay for the many problems he’d caused. Nash didn’t give a damn whether Emmett was the most powerful mage in the world or a petty crook, he wanted to arrest the man and give him hell.

Mick helped Nash load the driver and Emmett’s minions into the SUV, the men now locked into steel handcuffs. I wondered if Emmett would send a crack lawyer to get them out of custody, or whether he’d abandon them. Emmett seemed the type to discard people when they were no longer useful to him.

Nash drove away, and I started inside to talk to Gabrielle.

Before I even made it to the front door, Mick’s cell phone buzzed. He answered it, an eye on me, then came alert. “Sure, we’ll be right there.”

I had a feeling my date night with Mick had just been blown even more to hell. “What?” I asked him.

“That was Barry. He says he has a little problem in the bar. Wants us to check it out.”

Mick was already striding across the dirt parking lot that separated my hotel from the Crossroads Bar. I let out an exasperated breath, balled my fists, and trudged after him.

Chapter Three

Barry Dicks owned and ran the Crossroads Bar, which had been open since before I’d bought the neighboring derelict hotel and restored it. Barry was a biker, and bikers liked his place, which was designated neutral ground. Riders came from all over the West and Southwest to stop at Barry’s for a beer and to take a load off.

Barry kept a shotgun behind the bar for any troublemakers and could handle most situations. The only time he asked for Mick’s or my help was when he had supernatural trouble.

The clientele eyed Mick and me sharply as we walked in. The bar was crowded tonight, the tables and barstools plus the pool tables in the back filled with men and women in leather and denim, most of them armed with pistols, knives, or both. The state we lived in didn’t ban handguns in public—individual businesses could forbid them on the premises but they didn’t have to. Barry didn’t bother, knowing his customers would bring their weapons anyway.

The regulars recognized us and either gave us nods or simply went back to what they’d been doing. The strangers stared at us a little longer but kept any hostility to themselves. Mick looked like the biggest, baddest biker of them all, and few wanted to mess with him.

Barry and his assistant bartender were pulling beers and pouring whiskey quickly, responding to the crowd. Barry grabbed bottles of the beer Mick and I liked and thumped them in front of us as we approached the bar.

“Those guys at the back pool table,” Barry said as he opened my bottle for me. “Something wrong with them.”

Mick yanked the cap off his bottle with his strong fingers. “We’ll check it out.”

“Thanks. Beers are on me.” Barry, looking relieved, turned away to refill a beer mug from the tap.

Mick can move quickly and at the same time look like he’s not the least bit interested in where he’s going. He’d made his way through the crowd to the pool tables before I could catch up to him. I wove around clumps of guys, most of whom left me alone. The regulars knew by now that men who messed with me usually ended up on fire or yelling in pain or running away very fast. Those who didn’t know me took their cue from the wary looks of the others.

Mick, in the way only Mick could, had ingratiated himself into a game at the pool table two over from the guys Barry wanted us to check out. Mick already had the man and woman at the table he’d taken over laughing with him.

I didn’t recognize the couple, but pretty soon Mick was best friends with them. Monica and John were from Barstow and had come to visit some friends in Flat Mesa. Monica and John were pretty cool people, it turned out, and soon we were discussing motorcycles and the various modifications Mick had made to ours.
 

Monica had dyed black hair and blue eyes, didn’t wear a lot of makeup, and had tatts that were works of art on her neck, bared shoulders, and arms. I didn’t have tatts myself because for some reason they didn’t take. When I’d first fallen madly in love with Mick, I’d wanted to get a few tattoos like his, but the lines and ink had simply vanished, my skin unmarked the next day.

John wore a kerchief over his hair and had brown eyes in a rugged face that sported a goatee. He also had tatts on his arms and neck, jagged designs I didn’t know the meaning of.

Monica and John, Mick and me, could have been great friends. Anyone looking at us would think so, the way we talked, laughed, and played the game with enjoyment. But I knew that the whole time Mick was joking with John he was keeping his eyes on the guys two tables over.

So was I, and I didn’t like what I sensed. They looked ordinary enough, drinking beer and playing pool, no different from the rest of Barry’s customers. Underneath their ordinariness, though, something was off.

I moved nonchalantly to the rack to switch out my cue, which gave me the excuse to edge closer to the table in question. I kept my back to the players there, but I didn’t need to look at them to sense the auras that touched me—a bite of smoke, a whiff of sulfur and magma.

I calmly lifted down a new cue and strolled back to our table.
 

Mick was taking a shot, trying to get a solid orange ball into a side pocket. He shot well, but the cue ball struck the second ball slightly wrong, and the orange ball bounced off the cushion.

“Aw,” Monica said. “So close.”

Mick shrugged. He could have sunk the shot if he’d used magic, but Mick never did when playing games. He won or lost fair and square.

Mick backed a step. “You’re up, John.”

John, a pool shark, stepped up, shot, and quickly sank a ball, then two. I stood on tiptoe, kissed Mick’s cheek and whispered one word into his ear. “Demon.”

Mick gave me a brief nod. He’d noticed too. He smoothed my hair from my face and touched his lips to my earlobe. “What kind?”

Kind?
There were different kinds of demons?

Of course there were. The demons I knew about, like skinwalkers and similar creatures that poured out of vortexes to wreak havoc, were mindless killing machines. These guys looked human, wore normal clothes, and knew how to play pool. No dressing in the skins of those they’d slain or smearing themselves with their victims’ blood. At least, they weren’t doing such things at the moment.

I shrugged, not knowing what to tell Mick. He responded with another nod.

John finished the game, winning. Monica and I did girlfriend things—she congratulating her sweetie with a kiss, me commiserating with Mick. Mick paid over the money he’d lost to them without fuss. “Good game,” he said.

John tugged Monica into the circle of his arm. “It’s early,” he said. “We’re in a motel in Flat Mesa. Want to come for some beers?”

He and Monica looked directly at Mick, waiting for his response, as though Mick made the decisions for us as a couple. Mick shook his head regretfully. “We have a lot to do tomorrow and need to make an early start.”

This was news to me, but as I didn’t really want to go to Flat Mesa with Monica and John, I didn’t argue.
 

John shrugged. “Oh, well. Maybe another time. Could have been fun.” He ran his gaze over me, and Monica laughed and gave John’s backside a pat.

The two of them made no move to leave—in fact, John started gathering balls for another game. Mick and I couldn’t very well stay after Mick’s excuse, so we put up our cues and made our way to the front. The demon guys paid us no attention.

Mick broke off to say something to Barry, then he returned to usher me out the front door with his hand on the small of my back.

“What do we do now?” I asked once we stood in the darkness. I liked that the air was growing cooler now after the sun went down, bringing the true touch of autumn. September days could still be very hot, but nights were pleasant.

“We watch,” Mick said. “They have to come out sooner or later.”

“Or go on a killing spree inside,” I said glumly.

“I don’t think they will. They’re sizing things up. I told Barry to spike their beer with a little ash.”

Mick led me to the shadows of a cedar, beyond the glare of the parking lot’s light. Barry had only one lamp for safety—the bikers who came there didn’t necessarily like to be lit up.

“Ash?” I asked. Mick was watching the bar, his eyes filling with black, the dragon in him settling in for surveillance.

“Demons love fire, smoke, ashes, anything to do with flame and its aftermath. A little ash will make them happily woozy, kind of like an opiate. That will keep them from going on a destructive kick and easier to handle when they come out.”

“Good.” I settled back into Mick’s warm body, and he put strong arms around me. The dragon tatts on his arms shimmered. “Why did John and Monica act like they were ready to call it a night, and then all the sudden decide to stay and keep playing? I don’t think they’re connected with the demons. I didn’t get any sense of binding around them, and they’re human, not supernatural.”

Mick’s chest rumbled with his soft laughter, as though I’d said something funny. “They wanted us all to leave together and adjourn to their motel room. For sex.”

I turned in his arms to look up at him in amazement. “They wanted us to have sex in their room? Like where? In the next bed?”

Mick turned me around again and held me closer, his cheek next to mine. “You are sweet. They wanted the four of us having sex together.”

I jumped, banging back against him. “Seriously?
Ew.
”

Mick’s body moved with his chuckle. “Some people are into it. I liked that they were cool with us either way.”

I looked at Mick. He had his gaze on the bar and its front door, watching with the patient stare of a dragon who knew he could sit there for years if need be.

I tried to process the group sex idea and couldn’t. Mick had been my first lover, and I’d had no other but him. While Mick could be creative in the bedroom, I was somewhat naïve about sexual practices in the wider world. Oh, I knew they existed, but I’d never come into direct contact with them.

I had to wonder now whether Mick had participated in any menages before he’d met me. He’d been alive a long time, and he seemed unconcerned with John and Monica’s offer. The fact that he’d figured out what they wanted while I’d been oblivious meant this hadn’t been the first time he’d been propositioned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Mick leaned to me again, his breath warm in my ear. “Go home if you want, sweetheart. I can stay and wait for demons.”

I snuggled into his embrace. “No thanks.” If I went back into the hotel, I’d only have to solve problems like leaky faucets and the magic mirror trying to scare the somewhat magical. Out here, I could continue my date with Mick, even if we had to spend it on the watch for demons. He warmed me against the night, and moonlight glinted on the turquoise and onyx ring he’d given me when a breeze moved the tree’s limbs.

After a time, I asked him. “What did you mean,
what kind
of demon?”

“There are several varieties,” Mick answered readily. “The ones from Beneath are pretty much monsters with little going on in their brains. They act on instinct and hunger. But there are other demons, born of the earth as the dragons are, who can live among humans without detection if they choose. They’re still flesh eaters; they’re just more subtle about it.”