Nash nudged Pericles with his pistol. "Hey. Wake up."
Pericles"s eyes popped open. He took in Nash, the gun, and Gabrielle and me standing over him. He drew a long breath that ended in a cough and wince of pain. "The artifact?"
"Gone," I said.
Gabrielle smiled. "Too bad, so sad."
"You need an ambulance?" Nash asked him. "You took one in the chest. I don"t care how magical you are . . ."
"No," Pericles snarled. He gave me a glare that boded me no good, then he vanished.
Nash rose to his feet and let out his breath. "One down," he said.
A voice floated faintly to me, one I hadn"t heard in days. "Somebody? Anybody? Help me?
Pleeeeeze?"
"What the h.e.l.l is that?" Gabrielle asked.
The rain was starting to disperse, the moon reappearing through a torn cloud. Under its light, the valley floor glittered with rocks and quartz. One shard of mirror would be difficult to locate.
"Keep talking," I said. "I"ll find you."
Nash looked around, pistol ready. "Who the h.e.l.l are you talking to?"
"Who knows?" Gabrielle answered. "She"s crazy. You get used to it."
"Please," the mirror sobbed. "Take me home. Oh, honey, I"m so scared." I finally spotted it lying about a hundred yards to the east of where Bear had stood. The shard was silver and shining, no longer dark.
"Thank you," it gasped in relief when I picked it up. "Sugar-plum, you look terrible." I closed my hand around the shard and turned to find Emmett Smith standing a foot away from me.
His gla.s.ses were bent, one of the lenses broken, but he"d shoved them back on and straightened his blood-soaked tie. Behind the ruined gla.s.ses, his eyes were clear and hard and held the intensity of a basilisk.
"You have a magic mirror, " he said, voice ringing. "You b.i.t.c.h, you"ve been holding out on me."
Chapter Twenty-Eight.
This was not good.
Emmett stood before me fully functional, while I was crackling with residual storm magic, exhausted, and had a headache from h.e.l.l. All he had to do was kill me, and then kill Mick, and the mirror was his. At this point, I was pretty sure he could do it.
Emmett"s aura was tough, like thick hide, bright white like Gabrielle"s. He had no Beneath magic in him, but the earth magic he"d learned and stored filled every centimeter of his body. I felt that magic stir into a killing spell.
As Latin words started from his throat, I drew on the vestiges of the storm magic and my Beneath magic and channeled them into the mirror. But I knew it wouldn"t be enough, not against someone like Emmett when I was this spent.
Just as Emmett let fly the spell, me desperately gathering my fading magic, several tons of dragon poured out of the sky.
One of Mick"s wings caught Emmett and sent him tumbling to the ground. Emmett"s spell went wide and missed me, to be caught in the gentle wind that played where Bear had stood. I redirected the last of my magic to the spell, sliced into it, and finished it off.
Emmett was on his feet, fists balled, readying another spell to blast Mick. And then Nash rose behind Emmett, pressing his pistol to the man"s ear, his other arm wrapping around Emmett"s waist. Emmett"s spell, obliterated by Nash"s null field, died before it formed.
"Leave," Nash advised him. "And don"t let me find you around Janet or Mick again." Emmett scowled, but I knew better than to think he"d obey Nash. Emmett would be back, now that he knew I had something worth his while. "Better start looking over your shoulder, Stormwalker," he said in his smooth, cool voice. "If you"ll let go of me, Sheriff, I"ll gladly go." Nash kept his pistol trained on Emmett, but he eased his hold from around the man and took several steps away. Emmett straightened his tie again, then he vanished.
Mick had landed somewhere off in the darkness, and now he walked out of that darkness as a man covered in rain and streaks of blood. He came for me and lifted me off my feet, holding me against his hot, hard, wet body.
"Hey, baby," he said, his voice dark. "Miss me?"
Nash, two feet away from us, noisily re-holstered his weapon and cleared his throat. "Good to see you in one piece, Mick," he said. "Where the h.e.l.l is my truck?"
Elena came driving back about thirty minutes later, steering Nash"s F250 down the rutted road to the canyon.
While we watched them approach, Ansel rejoined us. He"d come out of the unconscious state the rest of us had been thrown into, and now he stood at my side, staring bleakly at the truck"s approaching headlights. His eyes were normal, no blood frenzy, but I"d never seen him so morose.
Elena pulled the truck to a halt in the exact same spot from which she"d taken it. Colby, in human form, lay on his back in the truck"s bed, a tarp over him. Drake, naked, bruised, and b.l.o.o.d.y, sat next to him.
I climbed into the truck and knelt next to Colby. Mick rested his arms on the truck"s side and watched, concerned.
"Hey, Janet," Colby said, his voice weak. "I feel like s.h.i.t." Dragons are good at healing themselves, but sometimes it takes a while. Colby had been ripped into and then suffered a fall of several hundred feet. His injuries wouldn"t be a quick fix.
Gabrielle vaulted over the side of the truck. "Aw, poor Colby. You look awful." Her voice went little-girl sugar. "And this itty-bitty, wittle binding spell can"t be helping you, can it? I"ll make it all gone."
Drake grabbed for her, but Gabrielle had already put her hand on Colby and let her magic surge.
Colby yelled as an arc of pure Beneath magic lifted his body from the truck bed and slammed it back down. He groaned in pain, but I saw the threads of the binding spell dissolve and disappear.
Colby took a deep, grating breath, and blinked. He raised his head and looked down at his body, then he blew out the breath and let his head drop back again. "Thanks," he said, his voice stronger. "I feel better already."
Drake"s eyes narrowed as he began to chant the binding spell again, but Gabrielle seized his hand. "No, Drakey, don"t do that. I might have to hurt you." She clamped down on Drake"s hand, and Drake winced.
"Tell you what," Gabrielle said. "Spend the rest of the night with me, Drakey, and maybe I"ll let you put the spell back on him."
Colby raised his head again. "And that"s fair, how?"
Gabrielle smiled at him. "You can join in, if you want. I"ll heal you at the same time. It"ll be fun."
Colby grinned with her. "That"s more like it."
"Gabrielle." The voice was my grandmother"s, the tone one she"d reserved for me on my most misbehaving days.
Gabrielle glared at Drake. "Now you"ve gone and gotten me into trouble." She swung her leg over the side of the truck and slid down, moving to my grandmother"s side, arguing as she went.
Drake raised his hand again, beginning the words to reinstate the binding spell.
"Don"t," I said.
Mick only watched, but I sensed him tense, ready to fight. Drake lowered his hand but gave me a baleful look. "Colbinilicarium hasn"t finished the terms of his sentence."
"He"s been your slave for a while now," I said, "and he nearly got himself killed for you tonight. What did he do, anyway?"
Drake folded his hand in his lap and clammed up, his eyes telling me nothing.
Colby chuckled. "You really want to know? Okay, I might have stolen Bancroft"s little black book."
I figured it might be something like that. Colby had once had a fling with the mistress of a dragon called Farrell, the head of the dragon council. That deed had landed him in plenty of trouble.
Bancroft was second-in-command of the tri-part dragon council, and headed the dragon compound in Santa Fe. Bancroft had never struck me as the playboy type-too cold-but then, neither had Farrell.
"That"s it?" I asked.
"Well, I might have given a copy to his mate," Colby said.
"Oh, great. That can"t have gone over well."
"And then I might have emailed copies to everyone in the book."
"Colby." Because the dragon population didn"t contain that many females, all the women in the book were probably human. They probably also didn"t know Bancroft was a dragon or about the other ladies in the picture. Bancroft must have had some fun after that.
"c.r.a.p on a crutch," I said. "Do all dragons cheat on their mates?"
"No!" Drake and Mick answered at the same time.
Colby laughed again, the laugh ending in a cough. "Bancroft"s full of himself. He thinks he can do anything he wants. I showed him he couldn"t. Thus, my punishment."
"I think he"s had enough," I said. "Don"t you, Drake? You don"t think Bancroft was being just-I see it in your face."
"Perhaps not," Drake said quietly. "But he is my employer."
"Tell Bancroft that tonight Colby went above and beyond the call of duty for a dragon, and so I commanded you to free him." I gave Drake a smile. "If you don"t, I can always talk to Bancroft myself, or I can let Gabrielle persuade you."
Drake glanced to where Gabrielle was arguing with my grandmother and Elena, and his face lost a little color.
"Fine." He stood up, his body gleaming like one of Jamison"s sculptures. "I"ll leave Colbinilicarium in your hands, and report that you and Micalerianic.u.m forced the issue." Without further word, Drake dropped out of the pickup, walked off into the desert, became dragon in the darkness, and winged away east.
"Aw, thanks, Janet," Colby said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. "Now, how about a bed for the night? And some aspirin? I still feel like s.h.i.t."
Nash agreed to drive Colby and Elena back to my hotel while I went to Many Farms with Grandmother and Gabrielle in my dad"s truck, which had mercifully escaped damage. Mick gave me a long kiss and departed to fly Ansel home before sunrise.
I hadn"t seen Coyote at all since he"d awakened me. He"d completely vanished, as usual. I didn"t worry as much about him this time, as I drove away from the canyon, heading for the road that would take us to Farmington. He"d be back.
Gabrielle sulked through the long drive, which worried me a little, but Grandmother was perfectly serene. Gabrielle cheered up when we finally halted in front of the little house I"d grown up in, the lights in the windows a warm welcome.
Gabrielle ran inside ahead of us, while I waited to help Grandmother descend and make her slower way in.
"Janet was amazing," Gabrielle was saying to my father and Gina when we entered the house. "Did you see that dust storm? Janet rode it and made it her b.i.t.c.h."
"Gabrielle," Grandmother said disapprovingly.
"Then we kicked some dark mage a.s.s," Gabrielle said, ignoring her. "It was awesome.
They got away, but we"ll get them another day. I"m hitting the showers. I stink. Bah-bye, Janet.
Call me when Colby gets better."
I suppressed a shiver as she sauntered down the hall and slammed the door of the bathroom.
Gabrielle and Colby-that would be trouble on the hoof. Or the wing.
G.o.ds, Gabrielle reminded me of . . . me.
My father said nothing at all. He only watched me in silence while I fetched some water from the kitchen and Gina walked with my suddenly tired grandmother down the hall to her bedroom.
I came out of the kitchen. "Dad," I said. "I"m sorry."
He approached me without changing expression, but when he put his hands on my shoulders, his dark eyes were moist. "You do what you have to do, my daughter." My dad has never been one to be overly demonstrative, but the way he squeezed down on my shoulders now conveyed his worry and also his love.
When he released me, giving me the lightest of pats, I also understood that he was making himself let me go.
I had a long ride ahead of me back to Magellan, so I finished my gla.s.s of water and prepared to leave. I could have crashed on the couch for the night, but I wanted my big bed, the safety of my warded and guarded hotel, and I wanted Mick.
I said goodbye to my father in our usual, understated way that spoke volumes, and left him.
Gina came out before I could start my bike. She glanced at the house where my father could be seen moving through the living room, then she leaned close to speak to me so her voice wouldn"t carry.
"It"s hardest on those who love the special ones. And you"re special, daughter of my husband-to-be."
"I didn"t choose this," I said, my throat tight.
Gina nodded. She was a bit like Bear, but she was human, and here. "He understands. Just love him."
"I do. For so long, he was the only one who believed in me."
"He still does," Gina said. "And I believe in him."
"Thank you."
I spoke in Dine, and Gina responded in kind. "Take care, daughter." I rode away, unshed tears blurring my eyes, the storms in the distance rolling off to reveal the gentle night.