Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) (9 page)

He left me to enter the saloon for some of Elena’s good cooking, leaving the door open behind him. A few of the guests eyed Colby askance. He was inked all over in hues of blue, red, and green—beautiful artwork displayed by his motorcycle vest and short-sleeved shirt. His dark hair was caught in a ponytail, his jeans stained and torn.

But Colby, like Mick, knew how to make people like him. He gave a jovial hello to the couple at the table next to his, and soon had them unbending and talking to him. Colby didn’t know a stranger.

“He’s cute,” a mellow female voice said next to me. “Will you introduce me?”

I turned to see a thirtyish woman with dark, curly hair that was cropped short and blue eyes. She wore a maid’s uniform and carried a bucket of cleaning supplies. I’d never seen her before in my life.

“You’re the owner, right?” she said. “The one who’s been in a coma. I’m Flora, Flora Beattie. Cassandra hired me last week. I really like it here.” She gazed at me with eyes like a lake reflecting summer skies. “I see that you have a magic mirror. Want me to fix that big hole in it for you?”

Chapter Nine

My mouth had to be hanging open about six inches. I snapped it shut.

Flora watched me with nothing but helpful concern. She was a little older than I was, closer to Cassandra’s age. Her face was already lined by hard work, her skin liquid brown from a lifetime under the desert sun. Her voice was rich and low, like the sound of a wooden flute.

“Fremont Hansen suggested I come here for a job,” Flora was saying. “Cassandra thought I’d fit in just fine. She’s one incredible witch, isn’t she? And Fremont—he has nowhere near the power he wants to, but he’s pretty adorable. I met him in Tucson at a sci-fi con. We got to talking witchcraft, I said I was looking for a job, and he told me to come up here and speak to Cassandra.” She said all this without pause, regarding me without worry.

Flora’s aura was clean, no black streaks of evil, but the most powerful mages could disguise their auras or hide them completely.

The fact that Cassandra had hired her without waiting to consult me, however, meant that, in Cassandra’s opinion, Flora was perfectly fine. Cassandra was no fool, and as Flora pointed out, an incredible witch. If Flora carried evil within her, Cassandra wouldn’t have let the woman in the front door. Nor would Flora have been able to breach Mick’s and my wards to enter at all.

I reversed through her speech to her first words. “Did you say you could fix my mirror?
How
?”

The mirror had a pretty big hole in the middle from one of my first adventures in the hotel. Only a very powerful mage would know how to fuse the glass again, and a mage that powerful—Emmett, for example—would likely try to kill me and run off with the mirror.

Flora shrugged. She was taller than I was, with wide shoulders and a solid build, pretty in a strong, capable way.

“I know spells. I’m an earth witch.”

She looked as though that explanation would be enough, but I shook my head.
 

“I’m sorry—I don’t know what that means.”

“An earth witch is connected to the earth,” Flora explained patiently, “and to all the elements within it. That means I work with crystals and other stones, and that I draw strength from the earth’s bones and its past. Mirrors are glass and silver, which are earth elements. Easy-peasy.”

“I’m a Stormwalker,” I said, bewildered. “That’s earth magic, but I can’t begin to repair a magic mirror.”

Flora’s blue eyes filled with admiration. “I know you’re a Stormwalker. More powerful than I can ever hope to be. But it’s different. You’re born
of
the earth, like dragons are. I’m human, not supernatural. I can touch the power of the earth, and I’ve studied and trained for a long time. So we’re both of the earth but very different. Cassandra’s magic is air and fire—a wonderful combination. Most witches only have one element in their magic, but she has two. It makes her very powerful. If she could find a way to link to water as well, she’d be unstoppable.”

This was all new to me. Mick had taught me a great deal about magic, but his was mostly fire, and he was a supernatural creature. Now that I thought about it, every spell he’d taught me—working wards into the walls, making talismans, or even the tiny door unlocking spells—all involved some sort of spark or simply lighting a smudge stick with a match.

Flora smiled, a wide, warm smile. “You look confused. I suppose that’s natural, waking up after two whole weeks. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I am,” I said. Much better than I had in a while. “Thanks. But I still don’t understand how, if you say Cassandra is much more powerful than you, you can repair the mirror and she can’t.”

“Sand,” Flora said, as though it should be obvious. “I can make it do as I please. I’ll flow the sand together and fuse it again. The mirror has to let me, of course.”

Of course.
I said, “You mean I’ve been searching the globe for a mage skilled enough to repair the thing, and Fremont found you at a sci-fi con in Tucson?”

Flora shrugged. “Funny how things work out. Anyway, I need to finish, or I’ll get behind, and Fremont asked me out to dinner.”

She beamed at me and bustled away up the stairs.

I watched her go, my mouth open again. Flora gave me a little wave before she knocked on one of the guest room doors, then opened it with her key and slipped inside, humming a little tune.

I made myself turn away, entered the saloon, and caught Cassandra’s eye. She was busy being gracious hostess, but she finished with the customers and came to me, and we moved back into the kitchen.

“Flora?” I asked her.

Cassandra actually let down her cool facade to look chagrined. “Sorry, Janet. I don’t like to hire people without asking you, but she’s fine, and we needed the help. No taint, no sign that she works for someone like Emmett.”

“Did she tell you she thinks she can fix the magic mirror?”

Cassandra nodded. “I don’t know if I believe her, but she insists she can do it. Not that I let her near it while you were out.” She paused. “You talked about having dreams. What happened in them?”

I shook my head. “I think I was reliving when I first met Mick, which probably was a good dream. Why’d you all wake me up?”

I was joking, but Cassandra gave me a dark look. “Visions can be compelling, Janet. Don’t let them seduce you.”

“No worries there.” I tried to sound reassuring. “It was only a dream induced when I was knocked on the head by a demon slave.” Or so I kept telling myself.

Cassandra went back to the customers in the saloon, and I made my way to my office. There I found a note on my desk from Mick.

Gone to meditate and make some phone calls. Be back for dinner. Mick.

I’d have known the note was from Mick even if he hadn’t signed it. He has the best handwriting of anyone I know. While many guys these days write with a scrawl if they bother writing at all, Mick’s handwriting could have been taken from the Declaration of Independence. But who knows? He might have helped with the final copy of the thing.

The fact that he left the note warmed me. A year ago, he would have simply disappeared with no explanation and then expressed surprise that I worried about him. The notes were a courtesy to me.

There was absolutely nothing for me to do in my office. Cassandra had taken care of all the details. Orders were up to date, reservations neatly input, every room filled but not overbooked. The staff had gotten paid as well, the invoices done and the data sent to the paycheck service without error.

I felt superfluous, so I left the hotel in Cassandra’s capable hands and struck out across the parking lot to Barry’s bar. It was open, going full steam under the dusky sky, and Barry was taking a delivery through the back door.

I’d never seen much expressiveness in Barry other than a scowl or careful neutrality, but when he saw me, his craggy face lit up with gladness.

“Janet! Heard you finally woke up. You all right?”

“A little shaky, but not bad,” I said. “Thanks.”

The relief in Barry’s eyes was clear. “We were seriously worried. Mick, man … I thought he was going to die. He’s really into you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I shrugged. “Well, I’m okay.”

Barry looked embarrassed now. He wasn’t good with outpouring of emotions. “So what’s up? Want a beer? On the house.”

I doubted I should drink after being out for two weeks, so I declined. I wasn’t much good with alcohol at the best of times. “Can I take a look around inside? I want to go over the sort-of scene of the crime.”

“Sure, but nothing happened after you and Mick followed those guys that night,” Barry said. He waited until the deliveryman went past with a dolly stacked with crates of beer, then ushered me inside through the back door. “It’s been quiet—well, as quiet as my regulars ever are.”

The barroom was full, the place fairly dark. Guys were drinking, talking, playing pool, or with arms around women who were as tough as they were. I scanned the room. I was looking for auras—unusual ones, demon ones. Anything out of place.

I found nothing. Everyone here was human, no doubt. I recognized most of them as regulars, and any newcomers were human, no hint of supernatural in them. I’d thought the same about Monica and John, of course.
 

I pondered our encounter with them. Why had the demons appeared here at the bar, and why had Monica and John led us to the ambush at the motel? They’d invited us there, then seemed unconcerned when we didn’t want to go. How could they be certain we’d follow them later? Had Mick and I truly been the target, or had we showed up to get in the way of something else?

And where were Monica and John now? According to Mick they’d disappeared after the demons had been driven back. If they were demon slaves, they might have taken off, free once their masters were dead. Or headed out to find new masters—those enslaved by demons sometimes gave themselves by choice in return for power, protection, wealth, whatever the demon promised.
 

Or did they work for Emmett, tasked by him to get Mick and me to Flat Mesa to be finished off? Then again, Ansel had said all had been quiet, an unusual state of affairs at my hotel.

I wasn’t surprised the demons hadn’t returned to the bar. I smelled the clean tang of protective magic, which meant Mick and Cassandra had come over here to set wards. I lingered in the area where the demons had been, but sensed nothing of them. Cassandra and Mick had done a good job cleaning the place.

I didn’t like demons hanging around my territory, though. Those demons had been earth born, not from the netherworld of Beneath. Beneath was a different place, older than earth, with magics from before humans walked on this world. Mick was earth born, as was my Grandmother’s shaman ancestors.

The bar seemed to be secure. I departed, saying my good-byes to Barry. He’d become stone-faced again but gave me a cordial enough farewell.

I emerged into the parking lot at the same time a pickup swung in from the highway. Instead of heading up the new paved drive to the front door, where guests unloaded their bags, the truck drove around to the back, dust rising behind it into the twilight.

I’d recognized the pickup as it pulled past the bar. I stifled a groan as I quickened my pace across the dirt lot.

My fast walk became a jog as the truck halted and people began to pile out. First was the lithe form of Gabrielle, who leapt over the side of the pickup’s bed and raced toward me, her arms open.

“Janet! I was so worried about you!”

From the passenger side of the cab came the unmistakable form of my grandmother, her walking stick planted on the ground, her long skirts swirling. I should have known she wouldn’t buy Mick’s claim that all was well.

The greatest shock came when my father, Pete Begay, climbed from the driver’s side of the cab and then walked around to help his fiancée, Gina, descend.
 

Chapter Ten

My father leaving the Dinetah was an event. When I’d been growing up, a drive with him to Chinle—about fifteen miles from Many Farms—had been an important outing. I knew that now my father and Gina often went to Farmington, where her family lived, but my dad rarely, rarely left the lands of his home.

Now he waited quietly while I approached. He wore his hair in its usual long braid, a denim button-down shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. The only time Dad dressed up was for powwows when he’d wear his velvet shirt and silver rings and turquoise belt buckle. In the winter he wore heavier flannel shirts and coats, but the rest of the year it was denim on top and bottom.

Gina Tsotsie was a large woman, elegant in a blouse and skirt, turquoise on her fingers and in her ears. Her family were jewelry artisans that sold through museum stores and high-end shops in Santa Fe.

Gabrielle blocked my view of them as she wrapped me in her strong arms and lifted me from my feet in an enthusiastic hug. She swung me around, much as Colby had, her smile wide, before she thumped me down again.
 

“You’re okay!” she yelled though she stood a foot away from me. “I made Mick tell me what really happened to you. He finally confessed this afternoon—now that you’re awake and all right. Your dad wanted to come see you.”

“This trip was
Dad’s
idea?” I asked in amazement. I had assumed it my grandmother’s.

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Gina stood with him. Your grandmother said no way unless she came with him, and they weren’t about to leave me behind on my own.”

No, Grandmother would not have left Gabrielle to wreak havoc on the innocent inhabitants of Many Farms. I stood her aside and continued on my way to where my father, Gina, and my grandmother had stopped in a clump a little way from the truck. They’d not approach the door, front or back, until I invited them.

I couldn’t deny, through my surprise, how impossibly happy I was to see my dad. I moved faster and faster until I reached him and folded my arms around him.

My dad was the least demonstrative man I knew, but I saw relief in his eyes that I was upright and alive. His slim but strong body swayed under my enthusiastic embrace, then his arms came around me and squeezed me in a brief hug.