Stormwalker (9 page)

I’d just wanted a beer. One cold beer to refresh myself after a battle with dark forces—was that too much for a girl to ask?

Apparently so. Lightning flickered outside in the Mojave Desert, near a town too far north of Las Vegas to be entertaining. These people had no idea what had been crawling around out there, waiting for lone travelers on the empty highway, no idea how hard I’d fought to kill the creatures.

Ingrates
.

I’d finished with the demons and ridden toward the lights, exhausted and sick, storm magic pounding through me. Thirsty, I’d found a bar in a town with one intersection. The faint neon signs outside advertised brand-name beers and “the loosest slots in town.” By the look of things, they were the only slots in town. A beer to wet my throat, I’d thought, maybe a bit of food if I could keep it down.

So what did I get? A seedy-looking asshole hitting on me.

I don’t think he’d bathed in a week. He had lank brown hair and a scruffy goatee, and he reeked of stale cigarette smoke, packs of it.

“Come to visit, Indian girl?” Great pickup line. “Maybe I can provide some accommodation.”

I tried to be nice. Really I did. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m just passing through.”

He stroked my hair, and I jerked away. I wasn’t
that
nice. The man scowled. “Now, Tommy don’t like to take no for an answer.”

I assumed that he was Tommy. I hated men who referred to themselves in the third person. “Well, he’ll have to take it tonight.”

I think it would have been all right if Tommy’s friends hadn’t laughed at him. But they did laugh, and he got embarrassed and mad.

He closed his hand around my neck, proving stronger than his gangly limbs had led me to believe.

The bartender said, “Easy, Tommy,” but Tommy was drunk and didn’t care.

He yanked me backward off the stool, hand on my neck like a vise. His armpit was far too close to my face, and I gagged on his BO as he shook me.

“You listen to me, bitch . . .”

I let him have it. Storm magic still raced through my system from the battle in the desert, and I didn’t have to try very hard to tap it. But it hurt—bad. This was going to kill me one day.

I slammed my hand into Tommy’s face, and he arched back with a wordless scream. I gave one push, and his body flew across several tables and tumbled with them to the ground. Tommy’s head hit the floor, and he lay still.

“Shit,” someone said. The room went deathly quiet. I could hear a
drip
,
drip
,
drip
from one of the taps at the bar that hadn’t shut off right.

Tommy wasn’t dead; I’d given him enough only to knock him out. Whatever these people thought, I didn’t kill humans.

I think I would have been all right, even then, if they’d let me walk out. I’d get on my bike and ride away, leaving their town far behind. They’d never see me again.

Tommy’s friends looked at one another. They were as scruffy as he was, one large with a huge beer belly. Beer Belly lifted a pool cue from the nearest table, and his friends did the same.

“Take it outside,” the bartender said. “I don’t need my place wrecked.”

They ignored him, and I didn’t bother to wait for them to strike. I was crazed, sick, and scared, not of them, but of the magic inside me. Tonight, in the desert, as I battled the demons, I’d seen for the first time what I really could do with my powers if I wanted to.

It had terrified me. The storm had wrapped itself around me with glee, and it wouldn’t let me go. I’d killed so many demons, and the others had fled in terror. The triumph that had welled in my throat had made me sick.

And now these losers came at me with intent to take me down. I fought back like a crazy woman. I wasn’t skilled in any kind of martial art, but punching and ducking seemed instinctive. I coupled my rage with the power eating me raw and threw it at them. Bodies flew, but they were so drunk and so angry that they got back up again and kept coming.
Idiots
.

One of them tried to hit me with a pool cue. I sliced it in half and grabbed it out of his hands. I guess that’s how I ended up with it. By now all the people in the bar were on their feet. Some tried to scramble outside; others, men and women alike, dove in to teach the Indian chick that she’d better not come to a white town and try to push them around.

“I called the cops, girl,” the bartender yelled. “Do you understand me?”

I didn’t care. Let them come. I could level this place, kill everyone in it. I could destroy the whole town, turn the cop cars that came after me into fireballs. No one would be able to stop me. I’d hate myself later, and probably die from the forces inside me, but at the moment, my adrenaline and fury made me want to destroy the bar and the malicious people in it. I drew all my power to one bright, hot point.

Arms closed around me like steel bands and lifted me off my feet. I screamed as the air was crushed from my lungs by a tall, brute-like man who hulked well over six feet. I flailed with the broken cue, but with a twist of my wrist, he wrenched the cue away and tossed it to the floor.

I kicked and fought, but there was no budging the guy. I threw my power at him, but nothing happened—it stuck inside me; it was tearing me apart. I screamed, only to find a hand over my mouth. Biting didn’t help.

The impossibly strong man dragged me outside. The crowd from the bar followed; more waited outside. Who knew so many people lived in this wide spot in the road? A few of Tommy’s friends laughed, panting from the fight, as they watched the big man carry me away.

“Put her in her place, Mick.” “Kick the bitch’s ass.” “Show her what women are for.”

I didn’t much care what they said; I cared that I couldn’t fight this man. He was far stronger than I was, even with my body full of magic. I should have been able to throw him twenty feet, far enough for me to make it to my bike and get the hell out of here, but nothing I tried made a dent.

The man called Mick dragged me across the highway to a fleabag motel—me flailing all the way and him not caring. He was going to rape me; I knew it. Cold fear ate through me. I’d never had sex before, and now this man planned to force it on me, and it was going to hurt.

I moaned and struggled. He kicked open a door and dragged me inside, all the way to the bed, which he threw me on.

While he turned to slam and lock the door, I bounded to my feet and ran at him. He wrapped his hand around my throat and pushed me back, firmly, not brutally, but hard enough that I couldn’t resist. I found myself flat on the mattress again.

Mick had a hard face, a nose that had been broken once, incredible blue eyes, and black hair that curled all over the place. He was huge, like a wrestler, broad shoulders, thick wrists, tattoos down his arms. He could snap me like a twig.

I kicked him. “Bastard.”

He held me down, his body crushing mine. The only good thing in the situation was that he didn’t stink. In any other circumstance I might think he smelled nice, like mountain air.

“Do it,” he said in a rumbling bass. “Blast me.”

“What?”

“I feel the power in you. It’s crawling through you, dying for a way out. It will burst you like a balloon if you hold it too hard. Come on, girl. Give me your best shot.”

He had to be crazy. The fact that he could sense and understand my power made me sick with fear. He shouldn’t be able to; no one should.

He
wanted
me to smack him with it? What kind of lunatic was he?

“You’ll die,” I said.

“Do I look like a wuss? Hit me.”

Because I lay there like an idiot, he hit
me
. An open-handed slap, right across my face.

My rage boiled over. I screamed at him the filthiest, foulest things I could think of and poured into my fist all of the power I’d wanted to unleash on the bar.

As I punched him, white light snaked out of my hand, whipped around him, picked him up, and flung him across the room. He hit the wall, cracking the Sheetrock, plaster raining around him. He was on his feet in an instant, arms outstretched as I threw all of my power at him.

Snakes of lightning circled his body like he was being electrocuted, and he shouted words I didn’t understand. I knew I could have run. He was a long way from the door, and my power was besting him. I could be out of there, back across the street for my bike and away.

But I lay there and watched, mouth open, while my magic slowly killed him.

And then—it didn’t kill him. Little by little he absorbed the white light that shook his body; then the last tendrils of power slithered up into his mouth, and he swallowed.

Then he laughed. A big, loud laugh of someone who’d just enjoyed the hell out of himself. He let out a whoop, his eyes sparkling like diamonds. “Baby, that was
good
.”

I kept staring at him from the bed, my jaw probably on my chest. He looked fine. Not fried, not baked, not a heap of steaming flesh on the floor.

“Stormwalker,” he said, grinning. “I thought so when I saw you. You were insane with power, and I knew you’d just ridden that storm. What were you fighting out there?”

I remained on the bed, shocked senseless, staring up at the man who’d just taken a blast of my power and lived.

“Demons. I guess.” My teeth chattered.

“Some of my best friends are demons. But don’t worry. I think I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Things from Beneath. Don’t look so surprised. Not everyone on this side is ignorant.”

“Who are you?” I choked out. “
What
are you?”

“They call me Mick. Who are you?”

“Janet Begay.” I was pretty sure.

“Very nice to meet you, Janet. Do you feel better?”

I got off the bed and realized, once standing, that yes, I did feel better. Walking a storm left me sick and drained. I’d collapse once the storm dispersed, queasy, fatigued, and sore, with a migraine pounding behind my eyeballs. A fight like tonight’s, when I’d drawn from the storm again and again, should have left me groaning in bed for days.

Now I felt like I’d just woken from a good night’s sleep.

“What did you do?” I demanded. “How did you do that? You should be dead.”

“You wouldn’t have killed me.” He grinned. “You’re too nice.”

“Bet me.”

He shrugged. I noticed then that I liked his muscles. They stretched out his shirt in a good way, the fabric molding to each one. When he moved, it was like a beautiful song.

“You look hungry, Janet,” he said. My stomach growled in answer, betraying me. “I know a place in Vegas where the food is good, and they like me there. Think you can make it that far if you ride with me?”

“I don’t want to leave my bike. Not here.”

“Not to the mercy of those assholes? Don’t worry. I’ll get a friend to run it down.”

“A demon friend?”

He chuckled, a warm, toe-curling sound. “Everyday average human being, I promise. He owes me a favor.”

I did feel good. And hungry. And energized. A nice ride with the air in my face would clear my brain.

Janet didn’t do wild things like ride off with biker guys to Las Vegas. Such things would be daring and risky, and I’d learned to be cautious. But I felt daring all of a sudden.

“All right,” I said.

It wasn’t that easy. The cops had shown up, and Mick had to talk fast to keep them from arresting me. The guy called Tommy and his friends were nowhere in sight, but the bar owner pointed me out as the troublemaker. Mick slid his arm around me, told the cops he’d take care of everything, and unbelievably, they backed down.

“Did you glam them?” I asked Mick as he took my hand and led me to my bike.

“Not glam. Sweet reason. If you feel well enough to ride on your own, you can follow me.”

I chose to ride on my own. Yes, I could have cut left when he went right, ditching him and riding away before he could find me. But I didn’t. I followed him to a restaurant on the outskirts of Las Vegas, where everyone did seem to know him. I hungrily ate what the waitress put in front of me, and Mick and I talked and talked.

Never in my life had I talked to anyone who truly listened. There had been no one—not my father, who really didn’t have time or energy to listen to a babbling girl; definitely not my grandmother; not my aunts, cousins, or kids at school—to whom I could talk. I opened up to Mick like I’d never opened up before, telling him the story of my life. I left bits out, like about my mother and her awful revelation to me six months before this, but everything else—growing up on the Navajo Nation, discovering my storm powers, hitting the road after college, my growing collection of photos from my travels, my hopes, fears, dreams. No holding back.

Mick talked too, although not until much later did I realize that though I told him everything, he told me almost nothing about himself.

After we’d eaten, I followed him to a hotel that was ten times nicer than the fleabag where I’d attacked him. Mick booked an expensive room and then took me to it and kissed me while he undressed me.