Stormwalker (29 page)

My mother flinched during my speech, but when I finished, she smiled. “Too late, my darling. You are exactly like me.”

“I know that if I let myself, I could be. But I don’t have to be. And so I make the choice.”

Emotion swam in her enormous eyes—surprise, hurt, anger. The anger rose and burned until her eyes were black with it.

“No, daughter. You had the
illusion
of choice, and you made the wrong one.”

Wind rose as she spoke, chilled droplets from the fountain sweeping over me like a freezing curtain. The grasses, flowers, and little trees in the meadow bent as sudden black clouds blotted out the sky. Lightning forked across the valley, bringing with it the smell of fire.

“Above, you walk with the storms,” my mother said. “But here in my realm,
I
command them.”

Thunderheads welled up in the sky with purple black ferocity. Fingers of tornadoes reached from flat-bottomed clouds, dust and debris exploding where the funnels touched the earth.

I held up my hand to the storm. “Stop.”

It ignored me.

I stared at the clouds in sheer, watery terror. Never since I’d been a child had I been afraid of a storm. I’d feared what I could do with its power, yes, but I never worried about what it would do to
me
.

Rocks exploded as lightning struck a boulder. Shards of rock rained on me, slicing into my skin. I knew with certainty that if the next bolt hit me, it would splinter me like glass.

Heart pounding, I pointed to the rock I’d been sitting on. “Grow.”

The rock trembled for a few seconds before it burst upward. Pebbles shot out like bullets and slashed red across my mother’s face.

So she could bleed, I thought abstractedly. I wondered if she could also die.

“Cease,” my mother shouted at the rock. It went obediently still. “What do you hope to do, Janet?”

I didn’t know. Confuse her, panic her, scare her? Distract her long enough for me to flee?

She gave me a pitying look and swept her arm toward the garden. The pretty fuchsia and honeysuckle burst out of their beds and shot toward me. I beat at them to no avail as they closed leafy fingers around my flesh. I tried to run, but trees’ roots thrust from the ground and wrapped around my ankles. Lightning bolts struck with wretched speed. I felt hollow and helpless with no weapon, nothing to fight with.

I lunged at my mother. I couldn’t fight the vines that cut my skin, and I couldn’t fight the storm that whipped my hair and clothes, but maybe I could fight her. She still bled where the rocks had cut her.

Rain pounded in my face, and my fingers slipped as I grabbed for her throat. My mother’s stare was disdainful, but finally I managed to fasten my hands around her neck, and I started to squeeze.

Her eyes widened. She grabbed my wrists in a crushing grip, her strength immense. I twisted away, letting her go, but I’d learned something. I could hurt her, possibly kill her. Goddess or no, down here her body obeyed the same laws of physiology that mine did.

My mother flicked her fingers and more vines spewed toward me. I dove to the ground and rolled away, but they rose around me, ready to pin me, to bury me alive.

My mouth was dry with terror as I fought. My mother might have bleated that she loved me and needed me, but once I proved I wouldn’t capitulate, she had no more use for me. She’d kill me and find another woman above to serve as her vessel, trying again to make another Janet, this one more malleable. She’d been trying for centuries, and she’d keep on trying. My little rebellion would slow her only a little.

I had to get away, or I’d die here, painfully. She’d crush me into oblivion and make me scream all the way. She’d kill me and not care.

I kicked and twisted until I managed to get to my feet. I leapt to the top of a boulder, but the vines kept coming. Wind threatened to throw me to the ground again, and the rain beat on me with ferocity.

I jammed my hand into my pocket and dug out the broken piece of mirror I’d shoved into it before I’d run into the kitchen to stop Amy. The mirror’s surface was dark, but when lightning lit it I saw that it didn’t reflect me or this place. I saw desert, thin lightning flickers, a smaller storm. I was looking above, outside the vortex.

“Mick!” I screamed into it. “I need you.”

I waited for several sickening heartbeats while another lightning strike sent me tumbling from the boulder. I landed on my butt, and the earth itself rose to wrap muddy fingers around me.

When the mirror lit with red-hot fire, I laughed with joy. I wrenched myself free of the mud fingers and clenched my hand around the mirror shard, welcoming the pain as it cut into my palm.

I lifted my bleeding fist and shouted, “Up!”

I started to rise. The wind buffeted me and the lightning slammed toward me, but I picked up speed and punched my way into the dense clouds. Below me, my mother stood like a white flame in the middle of the meadow, her eyes gleaming black, her red mouth open.

I couldn’t fight her, couldn’t control what she controlled, but I could command myself, and I could stop her. She lifted her arms, screaming something, and the storm dove at me.

“Up,” I shouted again. I rocketed through the clouds, the magic mirror, made from sands of the earth above, instinctively returning home.

Red fire broke the blackness with a suddenness that made me scream. I started to fall, to where I didn’t know, until something grabbed me and jerked me upward again.

I kicked and fought, but whatever held me clamped like iron. I realized after a terrified instant that I was in the grasp of a dragon’s talon. Remembering the winged formation that had filled the sky before I’d jumped into the vortex, I prayed to any god who would listen that the dragon was Mick.

Wind pounded at me, then hard rain. Lightning flared, trying again to wrap itself around me. Except this time, the lightning wasn’t trying to kill me. It burned through me and made me sick, and my skin tingled like crazy. But the pain was familiar. I laughed out loud and raised my face to the storm.

“Mick!” I shouted. “Please tell me that’s you.”

The dragon screamed in response. I didn’t speak dragon, but the sinful gleam in his eye as he twisted his head to look at me told me that my lover had come to my rescue. My heart wanted to break. Mick was all right.

He swooped, streaming at a dangerous speed toward the desert floor. I smelled dust and rain, the desert heat turning steamy, but it felt nothing like the cloying humidity of the forests Beneath.

The dragon set me on the ground. My knees buckled when I felt my feet on solid earth, but I forced myself to stand. This wasn’t over. Light glowed from the arroyo I’d burst from, and I sensed the Beneath storm reaching up to this one.

Mick shot into the air again, the downdraft from his dragon wings like hot wind. A large coyote sprinted to my side, and under the next lightning flare, he rose to his man shape.

I shouted to him. “Help me close it!”

Coyote put his hands on his hips and regarded me with dark eyes that had seen so much. “You know that if you seal that, you can never go back.”

“Fine by me.”

“You sure, Janet? You’re a goddess there. Here, you’re just a Stormwalker. A good one, but nothing more. Weak flesh. Beneath, you can be all-powerful.”

“Screw that. I like my weak flesh.”

“Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“Are you going to help me or stand there and lecture me? Why would you want to keep it open, anyway?”

“I don’t. I’m just seeing if I need to kill you.”

“I’ll kill
you
if you don’t shut up and help me.”

Coyote burst out laughing. “That’s my girl.”

A dark shape detached itself from the shadows beyond the wash, a drenched and dirty Nash who looked mad at me as usual. “What are you two doing, having a chat? Things are coming out of there.”

White light burst through the crack, solidifying as it rose, resolving into a face of terrible beauty. My mother was emerging, along with a crawling mass of skinwalkers. She grew, rising into the night, becoming bigger by the second.

I reached for the lightning, and it came to my hands with pinpoint precision. I’d never been able to draw it so quickly, so elegantly. With control I’d never known I had, I directed the lightning at my mother and to the crack in the earth.

The white light around my mother shot toward me like a deadly arrow. Nash leapt at me, knocking me aside. The lightning dispersed, I fell heavily to the mud, and Nash took the full power of Beneath straight into his body.

Nash clenched his fists, throwing back his head, his jaw hard with agony. The magic poured into him, faster and faster. Nothing came out of his body; he absorbed every molecule, just as he had the little shards of the protection spell I’d tried on him, just as he had with Mick’s fire.

Mick swooped above me, his wings outstretched like a glider. He dove for the wash’s edge, his mouth opening wide.

The blast of dragon fire flowed through the wash like lava, melting everything in its path. My mother screamed, but she kept growing, reaching Beneath to enhance her power.

Mick’s fire wasn’t enough. I shook off Coyote and grabbed the storm again. The familiar bite of it filled my body; the power made me stretched and warm—and I knew I could control it. The two magics that had always warred inside me swirled together like yin and yang, and I suddenly knew exactly how to mesh them.

I stretched out my hands and lightning burst from them in a focused stream, meeting Mick’s fire and joining it. We poured our magic into the crack, the melding of Mick’s fire with my white lightning warming me like an embrace.

The earth shook, rocks shattered, and then the banks of the wash began to collapse in on themselves. My mother shrieked. As the vortex closed, its swirling energy started pulling her back inside, like a giant drain that had just been cleared.

The Beneath light still poured into Nash, his body deflecting it from Mick and me. Coyote, his animal’s body surrounded by a blue glow, simply watched.

My mother’s form started to crumple, breaking apart and falling into the crack in the earth like rubble from an avalanche. My mother reached for me, her face twisted in hatred, and then the white light plummeted back Beneath, taking my mother with it. The banks of the wash fell, the wash itself becoming a line of tumbled trees, mud, and boulders.

The suction of the vortex faded, and abruptly, as though someone had thrown a switch, the hum of it ceased. The white light winked out and Nash staggered back.

Hail poured down, lightning crackling along the ridgeline. I was shaking all over, my magics breaking down into disparate parts again, which meant my hangover rushed at me with the speed of a Mack truck. The shard of magic mirror fell from my grip and hit the gravel at my feet.

“Oh, sugar,” I heard it say. “That was
something
.”

Mick flew high, turned on one wing, and landed a little way from us. As soon as his dragon feet touched down, he morphed into the tall human I knew so well. I ran for him, which turned into stumbling and blundering, tripping on clumps of grass and thistles. The hail became rain, then slackened to a gentle shower. The lightning gave one last, determined strike before it rumbled away.

My body didn’t calm. Electricity crawled through me, coupled with the Beneath power, again wanting to tear me apart. Gone was the easy, painless magic I’d wielded Beneath, even the controlled storm magic with which I’d sealed the vortex. Back was the horrific, bone-aching, head-pounding insanity that usually greeted me.

“Mick,” I panted.

Mick caught me in arms that were once again covered with the black tattoos. I’d never been so happy to see body art in my life.

He kissed me. The kiss told me he loved me, no matter that I was an insane, out-of-control Stormwalker with mommy issues. However much he’d feared me Beneath, he’d protected me, had been ready to die for me. I rose into the kiss, wishing Coyote and Nash far away so I could make love to Mick right here in the rain.

Coyote came to us, human once more. He’d not helped us seal the vortex, but I could tell he was satisfied with what I’d done. If I’d failed, or tried to join my mother, I have no doubt he’d have killed me and killed me quickly. Gods didn’t have the internal dilemmas of human beings.

“Heads up, kids,” he said.

Then I remembered. The dragons.

They were there all right, hovering in formation over the dark desert, well away from the vortexes. They’d waited, not bothering to lend a hand, or a wing, to see whether I succeeded or failed.

“What the hell?” Nash demanded of Mick. He was drenched and splattered with mud, but other than that he looked pretty good for a man who’d just absorbed a ton of Beneath magic. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “There are more of you?”

The dragons flew toward us, five of them, three black like Mick, two fiery red. I didn’t have to guess at their intention. I was about to become dragon toast, a little pile of ash that someone could put in a museum case and label “Janet Begay.”

Mick took about ten running steps, spread his arms, and launched himself into the sky. He turned to dragon as he rose and flew to meet the others. Dragon bellows shattered the air. They circled one another, growling and roaring, bodies moving in sinuous streaks. Tongues of flames burst into the darkness. I had the feeling that we were going to be hearing reports of unidentified flying objects from here to Gallup. That is, if we lived that long.

Mick came hurtling back at me, five dragons on his tail. Coyote grabbed Nash and yanked him out of the way, but I remained, transfixed, eyes wide.

I expected Mick to change when he landed, but instead he whipped his dragon body around me, enclosing me in a wall of black scales, his hide rising higher than my head. His scales were unexpectedly warm, smooth as silk, as the dragon held me in a protective embrace. A
tight
, protective embrace.

The five dragons attacked. Claws out, fire raining, they dove for me and Mick. Mick answered them with a roar and a shot of flame. The dragons broke apart. I couldn’t see all of what they did, but I heard them surrounding us, Mick bellowing while they screeched back.

I expected the dragons to incinerate both me and Mick at any moment, but after a long time of dragons screaming at one another, the five backed away. I felt a rush of wind from their wings, and then their shrieks faded into the distance and were gone. A rumble of thunder sounded from far away, and moonlight broke through a tear in the clouds.

“Aw, ain’t that sweet?” I heard Coyote say.

“Sweet?” I shouted from behind Mick’s wall of scales. “I thought I was dead. I didn’t hear you trying to talk them out of it.”

“I didn’t have to,” Coyote called back. “He told them you were his mate.”

“What?” I pushed at Mick, but it was like trying to move a mountain.

“Dragons don’t mess with each other’s mates,” Coyote answered. “It’s a law or something. Dragons take laws very seriously.”

Nash would approve of them, then. I pushed at Mick again. “Mick, let me go. You’re suffocating me.”

Instantly Mick’s dragon body flowed apart, and I drew a breath of relief. He lowered his head, tilting it so he could regard me with one unblinking black eye.

I put my hands on my hips. “Mate?”

Mick’s dragon body shrank rapidly, Mick morphing until he became the human I knew so well. The dragon tattoos slithered into place around his arms, black eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He didn’t look one bit sorry. “It was the only way. The dragons will leave you alone now.”

“What about you?” Coyote asked, his eyes shrewd. “Will they leave you alone?”

Mick gave Coyote an evasive look I didn’t like. “Who the hell knows? But Janet is safe.” He came to me again, his body slick with rain. “You all right, baby?”

“Squished, muddy, scared, hurting, and the storm magic is making me crazy. Otherwise, fine.”

Mick slid his hands down my back. “Need me to draw it off?”

“Please.” I needed him. Desperately.

He smiled, the same old Mick smile. Electricity crackled out of me and crawled across his body, huge doses of storm power and Beneath power all mixed up. I’d handled a lot tonight, more than I ever had before.

“No,” I said, trying to break away. “It’s too much. I’ll hurt you.”

Mick kept his hands firmly on my hips. “Jones, come here and help me.”

“Help you what?” Nash asked, but Coyote laughed.

“Come on, Sheriff,” Coyote said. “I’ll show you.”

Nash came to us uncertainly, but Coyote told him to embrace me from behind. Nash slid his arms around my waist, muttering something under his breath. I felt his hard chest on my back, his thighs against mine, and his arousal, though I knew he didn’t want to be aroused, pressing my buttocks.

Mick lowered his mouth to mine, his lips warm and powerful.

Another pair of arms slid around my waist as Coyote pressed against my right thigh. I remembered my erotic dreams about the four of us together, and Coyote, who always seemed to know what I was thinking, laughed softly in my ear.

I let my lightning flow into Mick through his mouth, into Nash and Coyote through my body. Nash absorbed my magic without a sound, as though he barely felt it, which made me realize just how powerful he must be. He’d taken the brunt of magic from Beneath and never said a word, not to mention the storm magic I’d thrown at him when my mother tried to make me rape him in the police SUV. All of that, and he didn’t even look tired.

I let go of those thoughts and concentrated on kissing Mick. I laced my hands behind his neck, pulled him down to me. I loved this man, this dragon, who raced to my rescue, who’d driven away the dragons and saved me one more time.

Having the two other men surrounding me with their warmth was strange but not bad. I felt cozy between them, so safe. Had my dreams been a prophecy? Or wishful thinking?

Mick cupped my face and drew back a little. I moaned. “No, don’t stop.”

He grinned. “Sounds like you’re feeling better.”

“Aw, too bad.” Coyote’s teeth grazed my earlobe, his hot breath tickling.

“Back off,” Mick growled. “She’s mine.”

“Yeah, so you said to the dragons.”

Nash removed his hold and stepped away abruptly. Coyote chuckled and gave my behind a pat. “You’re a babe, Janet.”