Stormwalker (2 page)

Nash didn’t touch me, but he made me hobble in front of him to his SUV. He opened the back door. “Get in.”

“Why? The nice lady with the blood pressure cuff is giving me a ride home.”

“I’m taking you to the sheriff’s office. For reckless driving, possible manslaughter.”

“You are kidding, aren’t you?”

“I don’t kid.”

Jones could glare. He had gray eyes that could turn on you with the intensity of a supernova, black hair cut in the military style he’d brought back from his army time in Iraq, and a hard, handsome face. I’d seen women in Magellan and Flat Mesa turn their heads to watch him go by, his looks marred only by a scar on his upper lip.

“There’s something out there,” I said. “It hit Fremont’s truck, hard enough to flip it. It ran off, but the storm’s dying, and it could come back anytime. It can tear this SUV apart like a paper bag if it wants to. Skinwalkers are frigging strong.”

He answered me with a flat stare. Nash Jones was an Unbeliever, one of those people who didn’t buy the fact that Magellan was built near a mystical confluence of vortexes, where the paranormal was normal. He’d grown up here but derided those who made money from the tourists who flocked to Hopi County in pursuit of the supernatural.

“Get in before I throw your ass in.”

“Were you like this in the army? Not believing anyone who warned you of danger?”

“There I was with trained men. You’re a Navajo girl from a sheep farm. Get in the damn truck.”

“It killed Fremont, easy as anything.” I was close to hysterical tears. I liked gossipy, quirky Fremont.

“It’s not Fremont.”

I looked at him in shock. “What?”

“It’s his assistant. Charlie Jones.”

I’d seen Charlie helping Fremont work on my hotel’s plumbing, a quiet, kind of scruffy kid in his late teens who’d kept to himself. I’d known his first name was Charlie, but that was about it.

“Jones?” I repeated.

“My fourth cousin.”

“Oh, Nash, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Nash gripped me under the elbow and all but threw me into the backseat. “Stay there.”

He slammed the door and clicked a remote, and the locks engaged. As I suspected, the windows wouldn’t roll down for the prisoner in the back, and a black grill separated back from front, with another one blocking me from the storage space to the rear. I decided to be thankful that Nash hadn’t handcuffed me.

I slumped down in the seat, but I knew I couldn’t hide. If the skinwalker wanted to find me again, it would. I didn’t sense it nearby, though. The flashing emergency lights and activity might be keeping it away. Skinwalkers didn’t like light, noise, crowds. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t rise out of the desert and attack again when Nash drove me away.

I also worried about my bike. Would Nash leave it by the side of the road like a mangled toy? I could imagine him doing that, sending impound to retrieve it when he felt like it.

I didn’t have much in the way of possessions, feeling freer without them, but that Harley was important to me. I’d ridden her across this country and down into Mexico, first on my own, then with Mick, then alone again, when I’d finally left him five years ago.

The bike represented my means of escape. No matter how many roots I put down or how much trouble I got into, I could always throw a change of clothes into my saddlebags, swing my leg over my Harley, and disappear into the night.

I saw the poor thing in the flicker of police flares, the wheel bent, the handlebars sticking up forlornly. It was a machine, a piece of metal, I told myself, but it was like looking at the twisted body of my own child.

When Nash finally opened the driver’s door, I smelled no stench of skinwalker on the night. I inhaled, tasting the ozone tingle of the storm. I toyed with the idea of snatching the lightning’s power and zapping Nash with it, but that would make me no better than the skinwalker. Hurting for the fun of it. I shuddered.

“Should I consider myself under arrest?” I asked.

Nash slammed the door and put on his seat belt. “Being taken in for questioning.”

“My bike?”

“Deputies are impounding it. It’s evidence.”

“Damn you, Jones. I didn’t run into that truck.”

“Save it.” He put the SUV in gear and pulled out past the flipped pickup as the deputies lifted my Harley and tossed it carelessly into the back of their truck.

Nash didn’t turn on his emergency lights, but he gunned the SUV and roared down the highway. Ten miles along, the road ended in a T-intersection, another narrow highway heading north to Flat Mesa, the other south to Magellan. My hotel stood here, at the Crossroads, a dark, forlorn square against the darker sky. The Crossroads Bar, which shared a parking lot with the hotel, was lit and swarming with people.

I gazed longingly at the hotel, picturing my bedroom in the back with its waiting bed and bathroom, even if the water didn’t work yet. That hotel was my haven, my defiance if you like.

Nash turned left, passing the hotel without stopping, and drove north toward Flat Mesa.

There were four cells in the jail, empty except for the first one, which held a man drunk on the floor. Nash took me to the very end of the block and slid the bars open on the last cell. Inside was a bunk with a thin mattress and a toilet. Lovely. Nash shoved me inside and closed the grate.

“You forgot to strip-search me,” I said.

Nash gave me a cold stare. “Don’t push it.”

“Don’t I get to call a lawyer?”

“Tomorrow. Tonight you’ll cool down, and tomorrow you’ll tell me all about the accident that resulted in Charlie Jones’s death.”

“No time like the present.”

“Tomorrow,” he repeated with finality.

Bastard. He
could
question me now, but then I might be able to convince him I was innocent, and he’d have to let me go. He’d feel so much better knowing I was sweating overnight in a jail cell.

No one knew where I was, not Fremont, or Chief McGuire, or my friend Jamison Kee, who’d been responsible for me coming to Magellan at all. Jamison had recommended me to Chief McGuire as an investigator of the weird when McGuire turned to unconventional means to find his daughter. McGuire would eventually get word of my detainment, but probably not until morning. I didn’t think Nash would call him, because the accident had taken place on county land, Nash’s jurisdiction. I’d come to learn in the short time I’d lived in Magellan that Nash took his jurisdiction seriously.

I felt awful about his cousin Charlie. Among my people cousins could be as close as brothers and sisters, and the loss of one family member sent ripples of grief down the line. Nash was certainly going to blame me, and it was true that if I hadn’t been out there, Charlie wouldn’t have died.

Nash walked away, his footsteps loud in the silence. I lay down on the mattress and pulled my knees up, my feet flat on the bed. My leg felt better, so I hadn’t sprained or broken it, just temporarily wrenched it. My muttered healing spells helped a little, but I didn’t have enough magic left to make the pain go completely away.

Nash had taken everything: my broken cell phone, the chaps I wore over my jeans, my wallet and keys, the silver ball spell. I didn’t worry about him activating the spell, because only people with magic could do that, and Nash had no aura of magic around him, thank the gods. The spell would remain safely unused, but it was anyone’s guess as to whether he’d let me have it back.

I closed my eyes.

I must have fallen into instant sleep, because suddenly I was floating above the desert, seeing everything as though through a flying creature’s eyes. Below me was the gleam of Flat Mesa, larger than the circle of light that was Magellan. Between the two towns lay the Crossroads Hotel, dark, and the bar, loud and full of light. To the east of the Crossroads, beyond the empty railroad bed that cut through the land like an artery, lay dark desert.

Except it wasn’t entirely dark. Swirls of mist moved through it, glowing an unhealthy white. The air was heavy, warm with the smell of rain, but the wind out of the retreating clouds was freezing cold.

The tightly whirling mists marked the vortexes. Vortexes are places in which mystical energy gathers, combining the magics of earth, air, fire, and water into one concentrated space. Some people claim that standing among the vortexes makes them feel better, more alive. Witches seek them to enhance spells, and mystics like to draw in vortex energy to build up their own. Some New Agers even believe that they hold cosmic energies that aliens use to locate places to land, but that’s complete nonsense.

Few people know what the vortexes really are, but I do. They’re gateways. Sealed gateways, but openings nonetheless, to Beneath.

Beneath is the world below this from which humans once emerged, eons ago. There’d been still another world below that one, and so on. Some storytellers say that the world we inhabit now is the last and best of them; some think there is another, better one beyond this, which we will reach when we figure out how to get to it.

Gods had led the way from Beneath to this world, pushing up through the vortexes and bringing people with them to populate it. Those gods had sealed the way behind them before some of the crueler entities could emerge. The ones who hadn’t made it out, like my mother, were very, very angry.

The vortexes were sealed now, but skinwalkers and other demons collected around them because there they could feed on the tiny residue of power from Beneath. Gods like my mother could direct skinwalkers using that magic.

I could sense her out there now, trying to reach me, the white mists swirling to ensnare me.

Janet
.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed.

Be with me.

“No!”

A long, vicious growl filled the air, and I jumped awake to an overpowering stench and something hitting the roof full force.

I was off the bunk and at the bars before the second blow landed, yelling at the top of my lungs. The building shook. Thunder boomed, a second storm racing through the narrow fingers of canyons to the town huddled under the night.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Nash Jones stopped in front of my cell, his face suffused with anger.

“We got struck,” his deputy told me from behind him. “But don’t worry. This building is solid stone.” He sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“It wasn’t a lightning strike,” I said. “We’re being attacked.”

Nash scowled. “Not the skinwalker story again.”

“Hey, skinwalkers are real,” the deputy said. “At least around here.”

“As you were, Lopez. Don’t encourage her.”

“Listen to me,” I said. “It will tear down this building to get to me, and it won’t care who it kills on the way. Are there rooms behind me?”

Lopez nodded, ignoring Nash’s glare. “Old cell block. Unused. Locked off.”

“Open it up. Flood it with light. They don’t like light. Flood it or he’ll bring the building down around us.”

Lopez looked alarmed, but Nash’s face was like granite. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a lunatic, Begay?”

“Sure, all the time. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Something boomed against the outer wall beside me, and Nash’s gaze flicked to it. I smelled the skinwalker; I sensed it and its rage. Nash acted like he smelled and sensed nothing. Maybe being an Unbeliever made him oblivious.

“Lopez, check out the cell block,” he ordered.

Lopez looked worried, but he squared his shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t check it out alone,” I said quickly.

Nash gave me a withering look. “Lopez is a big boy. He’s not afraid of the dark, and neither am I.”

“You should be,” I said.

Nash walked away. Lopez gave me another scared glance and went after him. I heard Nash tell the guy at the desk outside that they needed to get into the old cell block.

I paced while they talked, taking their time. The stench didn’t fade. At length, Nash came back to my cell, this time without Lopez. I held on to the bars, flakes of rust staining my skin.

“We couldn’t get it open,” Nash said. “The door’s rusted shut.”

“Put me somewhere else, then, somewhere with lots of light.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Your breathalyzer said I wasn’t. I’m not drunk, I’m not high, and I’m not kidding.” I gave up and leaned my forehead on the bars. “It doesn’t matter. It will just track me.”

“Will you shut up about the damned skinwalker?”

“Don’t you believe in the legends of your own lands?”

“No.” Nash said it with a force.

Never argue with an Unbeliever,
my friend Jamison, a Navajo shaman, artist, and shape-shifter, had told me when I first arrived in Magellan. He’d said it with a wry smile that spoke of experience.

“Fine,” I said. “Go away, then.”

I closed my eyes. If Nash couldn’t do anything about the skinwalker, it would be up to me. I didn’t like tapping the full power of a storm, because it tended to leave me sick and immobile for days. What I’d done out there at the wreck had been very little, and the storm hadn’t been full strength.

The kind of lightning I felt playing around outside now was lethal. Clouds from the west had collided with those from the south, swelling over the desert plateau to form one dense, thick entity. If I tapped this storm, it would be heady, exhilarating, and I’d dance in it with a fiery joy. I’d pay the price, but I’d breathe pure pleasure first.

“No more noise,” Nash was saying.

“Sweet dreams to you too.”

Nash walked away without another word. He reached the end of the cell block and went out, the gate clanging behind him. The drunk in the first cell, who’d been whimpering to himself, wound down, and then everything got quiet.

I lay back down on the mattress and clasped my hands loosely over my chest, my shirt already soaked with sweat. The skinwalker’s stench filled the cell, and I gagged on it.

Trying to ignore the smell, I closed my eyes and reached for the storm.

Power whipped through my fingers as I curled myself through the molecules of water and wind, the storm exciting and deadly, difficult to control.

I opened my arms to embrace it. An ache started between my legs and throbbed through my belly like the best kind of sex. I arched back, the feeling welling, until a groan escaped my mouth. I became the storm, channeled it, and power crackled through my fingertips.

Yes.

The warm air from the desert spiraled to meet the ice-cold air of the storm front. Winds whirled together, hot and cold, and thunder boomed. No windows let me see the lightning, but I knew the bolts stalked through the dry grasses surrounding Flat Mesa and the county jail. I unclenched my hands and let the storm unleash its fury.

Hail pounded the roof. Wind tore at the building, shrieking and howling, and the lights inside flickered. My body rippled, my hips rocking as the storm entered me. The ecstasy was raw. The danger was raw too, which wound me up even more.

“Come
on
,” I whispered, drenched in sweat.

I wished Mick were here, adding his fire magic to my power. He’d be lying next to me, laughing, hard with desire, unashamed of his reaction to me and my magic. Damn, I wanted him here. I missed him.

I lifted my hands. White light spilled out of my palms and mouth as I reached for the lightning. Power met power, and I pulled the storm down on the building.

An explosion split my ears, then the jail plunged into darkness. I heard Lopez in the outer room give a yip of panic. The wall beside me shuddered, and stones fell to the lot below.

One more.

Lightning poured up the dark corridor to my cell. I smiled in welcome.

I heard a snarl and a screech, then screaming, as the skinwalker buckled before the storm. The stench flared up, unbearable, and he started bashing the wall double time.

The building shook and shuddered. A hole opened in the cell’s outer wall, blasted by my power on this side, the skinwalker on the other. His stench rolled in, and I saw him, the same skinwalker who’d accosted me in the desert, eight feet tall and mad as hell.

He came for me. I rose to meet him, power arcing around me. The storm I’d handled on the highway had been weak and miles away; this one was right on top of me. He now faced a Stormwalker at full strength. I laughed and let him have it.

The skinwalker screamed as lightning struck his body. He convulsed with it, the forces of my magic and the one my mother had infused him with tearing him apart. His hot blood sprayed over me, his scream dying to a gurgle, and he slowly crumpled into a heap of stinking flesh.

I directed a final bolt into him. The skinwalker burst into flames. He clawed at himself as he burned, collapsing into a pile of ash on the wet pavement of the parking lot. Rain and wind dispersed the ash, and his stench vanished, leaving behind the clean scent of dust and mud, rain and lightning.

I let out my breath. My arms ached, my belly clenched, and I wanted to vomit. The storm tore away from me, the clouds continuing northward to dump much-needed rain on the desert.

I heard Nash’s footsteps and voice, Nash assuming the building had been struck and coming to check on me. He found me huddled in the middle of the floor, making no attempt to crawl out through the hole and run for freedom. The power still gripped me, though the heart of it had receded, leaving me sick and weak. Besides, I figured that if I ran, Nash would just shoot me.

Nash banged open the cell door, hauled me to my feet, half dragged me to the next cell, and tossed me inside. I fell onto the bunk, too exhausted even to swear at him. I wiped away my tired tears and found my fingertips covered with blood.