Stormwalker (25 page)

“
She
is Maya Medina,” I said.

“A woman?” He turned around like he wanted to go back over the wiring again.

“I’ll tell her you complimented her work.” I reached for the clipboard and signed off on the sheet. “Thank you very much.”

Passing the inspection meant I could close up the walls and paint again. I doubted I’d be able to open the place until the end of June or beginning of July now, but I could still get some of the tourists this season. Plus those passing through would note the hotel and hopefully tell their friends or return themselves next year. The extra time would also give me a chance to get the Web site up and running. I could start taking reservations now.

The thrill that went through me surprised me. I’d never before contemplated being a businesswoman, thinking I’d be an unwanted drifter my entire life. Now I was worried about Web sites, paint, and advance reservations.

That afternoon I interviewed employees for the hotel, a couple of maids, cooks, and a bartender. I’d have to hire a manager to keep track of all the employees and someone to worry about the endless forms—taxes, liquor license, food permits, and other things I’d never known existed. Hoteliers lived a complicated life.

By six that evening I was tired. I sent everyone home and started making sandwiches. I’d rescheduled with Nash for tonight, and Coyote had promised me in my dream to be here. The least I could do was feed them. I also felt another storm coming, and I hoped I could get through the deal with Nash before it struck. A glance outside showed white stacks of thunderheads to the south and west, another line to the north. The setting May sun made them glow from within.

Coyote hadn’t arrived yet, and Mick had disappeared again. It might be just me and Nash. Or me by myself. Men were notoriously unreliable. Excepting, of course, my father, who lived by such an unvaried day-to-day routine that you knew where he was at any given time of the day or night. He was comfortably predictable.

The men I’d surrounded myself with were not predictable at all. I’d never had girlfriends, not close ones anyway, and my female cousins my age barely could bring themselves to speak to me. I’d always connected better with men for some reason, as with Jamison and Mick. In a weird way, my only female friend in Magellan was Maya.

I changed my mind about that, however, when Maya walked into the kitchen and pointed a pistol at me.

“Don’t you believe I’ve come to shoot you?” she demanded. “I’d shoot you in a heartbeat.”

“I think you’d do it if you were angry enough. But there’s a big storm building, and it makes me able to do this.” I tapped the power of wind to jerk the pistol from her grip and send it flying. The gun clattered to the floor and I winced, expecting it to go off and shoot me in the foot.

Nothing so dire happened. Maya stared at me in terror. “You freak.”

“Sit down and have a sandwich.” I pushed the plate across the counter. “The building inspector from Flat Mesa complimented your work today. Said you were . . . Let’s see, what was it? ‘One hell of a talented electrician.’”

Maya opened her mouth in surprise, and then her bravado evaporated and she sank onto a stool at the kitchen counter. She contemplated the sandwiches and picked up a ham and cheese. “Nash hasn’t talked to me since you found Amy. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”

I shrugged. “Now that you know what happened, each of you can stop worrying that the other killed Amy and get on with your lives. You and Nash need to shack up for a couple of days and get it out of your systems.”

“Nash wouldn’t. Not with me.” Maya glumly chewed her sandwich. “You’re staying in Magellan, aren’t you?”

“I like it here.”

“I thought this hotel thing was just a cover for looking for Amy. That you’d leave town as soon as you figured something out, or gave up.”

“Nope.” I gave her a cheerful look. “We open in July. Want to be my on-call electrician? It’s an old building; I’m sure I’ll have plenty of problems.”

“I want you to go away.”

“Is that why you came tonight?”

“No, I wanted to see your blood.”

I leaned my elbows on the counter. “I understand. I’m used to being everyone’s scapegoat. You can’t beat up Nash or beat sense into him, so you try to shoot me. I get it.”

Maya finished one half of her sandwich. She sighed. “You really are a bitch, Janet.”

“So people tell me. Next time, just bring tequila.”

Maya reached for the second half of her sandwich, her mouth softening into a near smile. I brought her a beer and popped the top off. She reached for that too, with a little nod of thanks.

“Are you going somewhere tonight?” I asked her. “I mean besides here to shoot me.”

“I was going to meet some friends in Flat Mesa. But someone told me you’d invited Nash over tonight. I have to wonder why.”

“I have my own boyfriend. I don’t need yours.”

Maya made a show of glancing around the kitchen. “I don’t see Mick anywhere. Is he hiding in the freezer, waiting to pop out?”

Mick was so unpredictable, he might be. “He’s supposed to be here,” I said in irritation. And Coyote. Where were they?

“So why is Nash coming over?” Maya persisted.

She watched me closely. Remembering the kiss I’d shared with Nash, my face grew warm with guilt. “I told you, Maya. I wouldn’t have Nash if you wrapped him in a bow and gave him to me.”

“Thank God for that,” a dry voice said.

Both of us jumped. Nash leaned against the door frame, looking out of place in his civilian clothes—jeans and a button-down shirt and boots.

I should have felt him come in through the wards, especially with a storm dancing around the darkening desert. But no, he’d walked in right through my protective spells without me realizing it. I wondered how much he’d heard.

Maya was obviously wondering the same thing. Nash’s cold gray gaze went to Maya in her tight dress, then to me.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Two women eating sandwiches and talking about men,” I said without blinking. “Would you like roast beef or ham?”

“I meant what is
that
?” He pointed to the semiautomatic lying on the floor.

Maya and I eyed each other, and I shrugged. “Someone must have left it there.”

Nash retrieved it, unloaded it, and laid the pistol and its magazine on the counter. “This had damn well better be registered.”

“It’s mine,” Maya snapped. “And it is.”

Nash’s gaze flicked to her in surprise. “Since when do you carry a gun?”

“Maya was showing it to me, and I dropped it,” I said.

Nash’s mouth hardened. He didn’t believe me for a minute, but he let it go. “What did you want to see me about, Begay?”

I shoved the plate of sandwiches at him, but he ignored them. “I want you to meet someone who promised he’d be here, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

“I should go.” Maya slid off her stool. She didn’t reach for the gun or look at Nash.

“No,” I said sharply. “Stay.”

Maya frowned at me, not happy, but she sat back down again. She did look beautiful tonight, the blue dress complementing her dusky skin, black hair, and coffee-colored eyes. If Nash would turn his head and really look at her, he might notice, the idiot.

I heard voices in the lobby, male voices, both rumbling and gravelly. “About frigging time.”

Coyote and Mick entered the kitchen through the lobby. I blinked at Coyote, realizing that in all my encounters with him, I’d never seen him in clothes. He’d braided his black hair into a long ponytail, and he wore jeans, a button-down shirt like Nash’s, a big turquoise belt buckle, and cowboy boots. Maya glanced at him without surprise.

“Oh, hey, Coyote. I haven’t seen you around for a while.”

“Been busy,” Coyote said. “Mmm, roast beef. Don’t have any wild rabbit, do you?”

“Fresh out,” I answered. Mick came around the counter to me, kissed the top of my head, and helped himself to a sandwich.

“You and Maya know each other?” I asked Coyote.

Maya answered. “He used to hang out in the town square, talking to the tourists. Everyone calls him Coyote. I’ve never heard his real name.”

“Coyote’s fine, ma’am.”

Nash was giving him a chill eye. “You don’t seem to have a place of residence here, or in Flat Mesa.”

“I’m not homeless, Sheriff.” Coyote grinned. “Me, I have plenty of homes. Did you drive your SUV tonight? Ever clean the pee off the tires?”

Nash scowled and snatched a sandwich. “Is that story all over town?”

“I didn’t say a word,” I said in a mild voice. I caught Coyote’s eye. “So what do you think?”

“Mmm, not as good as your grandmother’s fry bread, but not bad.”

“I meant about Nash.” He knew that; he was just being a pain in the ass.

Coyote swallowed, then grinned at me again. “I think he’s a null.”

Mick made a look like
Interesting
, but I had no idea what Coyote meant. “What’s a null?”

“It means there’s nothing there. He’s like a black hole. Nothing and something at the same time. Like he doesn’t really exist.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nash dropped his second sandwich back to the plate. “I exist. I’ve lived in Flat Mesa all my life, I was in the army, I served in Iraq, and I’m the sheriff of Hopi County.”

Thunder rumbled, the electricity in the atmosphere tingling on my skin.

Coyote looked Nash over. Nash was a big man, but Coyote was bigger, standing half a head taller. “When Janet poured every bit of storm magic into you, you didn’t even flinch,” Coyote said. “Not even when she kissed you. That should have been the kiss of death.”

Maya’s beer bottle fell from her hand and shattered on the tiles. Mick calmly bent to clean it up, but Maya remained stiff on the chair, her fury almost knocking me over. I wondered if she’d shove Nash aside and go for the gun.

Nash went red. “I don’t know what happened that night. I didn’t feel anything.”

“You absorbed her magic and stayed upright, that’s what happened,” Coyote said. “If she’d thwacked me with that kind of power, even I’d go down. Janet also told me you broke a protection spell like it was powder.”

“And Mick’s light spell,” I said. “The little ball bearing you took from me. I saw it spark, and I thought it malfunctioned. But Mick felt it go off. I bet anything you set the thing off without knowing it and sucked down the spell.”

Nash looked at me, Mick, and Coyote as we eyed him speculatively. “You are all insane.” He turned away, saw Maya, and scowled again. “Where are you going dressed like that? You look like jailbait.”

I wouldn’t have blamed Maya if she’d decked him.
I
wanted to deck him.

“Fuck you, Nash,” she said. “I go where I want to.”

A vein started throbbing in Nash’s neck. I saw firsthand what Fremont meant about Maya being able to rile him up. Nash looked ready to explode. “Who are you going to meet?” he demanded.

“None of your damned business.”

“It is my damned business. I’m not letting you go to Flat Mesa looking like a working girl for one of my deputies to arrest.”

“Who says you get to
let
me do anything at all?”

“Are they always like this?” Mick asked me, putting the broken pieces of beer bottle in the garbage.

“Fighting or fucking,” I said under my breath.

“I heard that,” Maya shouted.

“Children.” Coyote held up his hands. “Kill each other later. Right now, I want to know about Nash. How’d you get to be a null? Were you born that way, or did something strange happen to you in the Middle East?”

“Like a building falling on you,” I suggested. “Or maybe you survived the collapse because your magic canceled out the danger.”

Nash got off the stool. “Janet, you’re crazy. I don’t go in for your Navajo woo-woo shit. I told you.”

“
I’m
not Navajo.” Mick’s quiet voice cut through the room. “You might want to move, Maya.”

Coyote grinned and stepped out of the way. Maya took one look at Mick’s face and vacated her stool in a hurry.

“No,” I groaned. “Mick, don’t you dare. I just got everything fixed in here . . .”

Coyote jerked me out of the way as Mick’s eyes burned black. The man I loved raised his hands and let fly a stream of molten fire.

Nash didn’t have time to duck or run. The full blast of fire, hotter than a flamethrower’s, hit him. Maya screamed as Nash’s body went up in flames, engulfed in a white-hot inferno.

Maya ran at Nash and shoved him to the floor, trying to beat out the fire. The flames burned her instead, and she screamed again.

The fire flared up, and imploded. The flames dove straight into Nash’s torso, and then as suddenly as they’d appeared, they vanished.

Nash sat up, breathing hard. Maya cradled her right arm, her pretty dress streaked with black. Nash’s clothes weren’t even singed.

Maya was crying, tears tracking down her soot-streaked face. Nash tried to get her to let him look at her arm, and I knelt on her other side. “You should take her to the ER.”

“I’m fine,” Maya snarled. “It barely touched me.”

“You’re not fine,” Nash said. “We’re going.”

“Let me see.” Coyote bent over the group and lightly touched Maya’s arm. She flinched in pain, then her eyes widened as the blistered, red skin
un
blistered, fading to smooth, creamy brown.

I unfolded to my feet. Mick stood on the other side of the counter, big hands resting on it, the only one of us unperturbed. “Sorry,” I told him.

He’d pinpointed the fire so accurately that not a spark had touched my new appliances and repaired walls. I remembered how, when he’d been a dragon, he’d sent a focused burst of fire that had fried the skinwalker with pinpoint precision.

Mick nodded, accepting my apology. “Everyone all right?”

Nash stood up fast, facing Mick. “What the hell did you do?”

“Hit you with dragon fire, enough to melt you. And you didn’t feel it, did you?”

“Dragon fire. Right.”

Coyote looked amused. “Nash Jones, the notorious Unbeliever. You should be nothing but charred remains. Not even enough left for a barbeque.”

“He absorbed it,” Mick said. Nash’s angry glare didn’t faze Mick; he studied Nash as though he thought Nash an interesting insect. “He didn’t deflect the fire and didn’t turn it back to me. He absorbed every molecule and rendered it null.”

“A walking magic void,” Coyote said. “Could be very useful.”

“Useful how?” I asked.

“We could stand him in front of the vortex while you open it. He could suck all the vortex energy into him and negate it. End of worry about those Beneath.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “We can’t be sure he doesn’t have a limit. That much energy might kill him.”

“Maybe. But those Beneath would be finished. Worth the sacrifice of one human being.”

“
No,
” I said.

Coyote cocked his head to study me, then he burst out laughing. “I love you, Janet. If you’d stood there calmly and said, ‘You’re right, let’s sacrifice him,’ I’d have been sorely disappointed and probably would have had to kill you. But you’re not your mother. You care, even for a man you want to deck.”