Shadow Walker (18 page)

“You’re a god. Can’t you find out his true name?”

“I’m a Native American god. The dragons have their own gods, their own rules. Dragons are smart enough to hide their names from tricksters like me.”

My hope was fading fast. “But you must be able to do
something
.”

“Maybe. Can’t promise.”

I thumped him again and pushed away. “Go out there and look, then. I have twenty-four hours—now twenty-three and change—before Drake rounds up the dragon council to take out Mick. No trials this time, just death. An acceptable casualty, Drake said.”

“That’s typical.” Coyote glanced at the stars. “I wish I could help you out, Janet, but your grandmother, she’s sent me on a mission.”

I gaped at him. “Wait.
What?
”

“Your grandmother has sent me to do something for her.” He glanced back at the hotel, its lights warm against the darkness. “She and your cook can be pretty insistent.”

“Since when do you take orders from my grandmother?”

He shrugged. “I like to humor her. Besides, she reminded me how wicked she is with a broom.”

I remembered my grandmother long ago chasing a coyote away from our house in Many Farms, her broom coming down solidly on the beast’s hindquarters. The coyote had yelped and run off. I’d since figured out that the culprit had been Coyote himself, sneaking around peering into windows as he liked to do.
Watching me?
I wondered. He was always watching me.

“What does she want you to do?”

Coyote dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Sorry, Janet. Gotta go.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned and continued his swift walk toward the empty railroad bed.

“Wait! Don’t you dare run away from me!”

Coyote had made it to the top of the railroad bed by the time I started scrambling up it after him. I gained the top in time to watch him trot down the other side as a coyote and then disappear. Completely.

I saw nothing but darkness, snow clinging to juniper and grasses, and moonlight glittering on frost. My breath fogged in the air as I called Coyote’s name, but I knew that he was gone.

When I stormed back inside to confront my grandmother, I found that she and Elena had locked the kitchen doors again. I could have magicked my way in and demanded they talk to me, but I had doubts about how much they’d tell me, and I was too exhausted to fence with Grandmother tonight.

I made myself soak in a bathtub but not collapse in despair this time. I tried to focus my attention on the soap suds, on finishing the healing of my wrist, on the soft comfort of clean towels. But I went through the motions with my heart like lead in my chest.

I dressed in clean clothes, feeling physically better but with my mind still spinning. I had no idea what to do next, short of holding Vonda Wingate upside down over a vat of piranhas until she promised to release Mick. I wasn’t certain where I’d find piranhas in the desert or whether I could get close enough to Vonda to grab her, but it made for a satisfying vision.

But I knew I couldn’t bluster and blast my way out of this one. I needed to be stealthy. I needed to plan. I needed to
think
.

Thinking wasn’t aided by the arrival of Nash, still in his sheriff’s uniform and coat, looking for Colby. He’d taken off the bandage, showing where a patch on the back of his head had been shaved.

I met Nash alone in the lobby. The hotel was quiet, everyone having either gone home or retreated to their bedrooms. Grandmother and Elena were still locked in the kitchen.

“Let it go, Jones.” I leaned back against the reception counter and folded my arms. “Don’t you have a mountain of paperwork to do, after all those arrests last night?”

Nash regarded me with an ice-cool gaze. “That’s why I have deputies.”

“Must be nice to be so powerful. You know Colby had nothing to do with whatever was going down in Barry’s bar, I know you do. Colby was trying to help me out, and he needed you to negate a binding spell so he could do it.”

Nash shook his head, his gray eyes still flinty. “I mostly wanted to arrest him to shut his smart-ass mouth. Tell him to consider it a warning.”

“He does have a mouth,” I agreed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you this, Nash, but I haven’t had the chance. Could you arrest someone for me?”

“Who? Why?”

“Ted Wingate and his wife.”

Nash looked interested, eager even. He tapped fingertips on the polished wooden counter. “What for?”

“Kidnapping and assault.”

“Kidnapping . . . When the hell did this happen?”

“A couple days ago. They have Mick.”

Nash’s alert expression vanished. “I need something better than that, Janet. I saw Mick earlier today.”

“It’s a magical kidnapping. You can arrest them for
something
, can’t you? You were ready to lock up Colby for mouthing off.”

He wanted to. I saw it in his eyes. Nash was a stickler for rules, but I knew that if anyone could find a way to arrest the Wingates without ever breaking a rule, it would be Nash Jones.

I had to wonder about his magic-negating ability and the enslavement spell as well. Would Nash’s magic dissolve the spell, as it had the binding spell that held Colby? Or would the enslavement spell kill Mick if Nash’s negative magic tried to pull him free? The spell Drake had wound around Colby was a simple tethering spell, like a magical leash. Drake hadn’t stopped Colby from thinking. Mick’s entire aura had changed, the enslavement spell holding his mind and psyche rather than his body. Another thing to ponder and worry about.

Nash watched me narrowly. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what is going on?”

I had to. I sat down with him facing me on a leather sofa under one of my art photos of the mysterious beauty of Chaco Canyon, and told him.

I left nothing out. I started with Ted’s hotel inspection, and told Nash about everything in between that and my sudden trip to Mick’s Pacific island lair. Nash Jones had been an Unbeliever for a long time, and he shot me skeptical looks when I babbled about Mick’s true name and dragon enslavement, but to his credit, he listened without argument.

“Mick has tried to kill you?” he asked in a hard voice when I finished. “Twice?”

“He wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been ordered to. I know why the witch wants me dead—I’m the biggest threat to her—but I can’t figure out why she did the elaborate inspection thing if she just wanted Mick to steal the mirror. Which will do nothing for her until Mick and I are both dead.”

Nash waved aside overarching goals and villain motivation. “You’re not certain that my antimagic, or whatever it is, will work to destroy the spell?”

“Coyote says its tricky, and I’m inclined to believe him.”

“I broke the binding spell on Colby, you tell me,” Nash pointed out.

“Yes, but that bound Colby’s body only. The one around Mick involves much more, Coyote said. I want you to arrest the Wingates not to try to negate the spell, but so I can corner Vonda Wingate, study the spell, look for her weaknesses. Cassandra can help with that, and Coyote can too, if I can find him again. This will be more like diffusing a bomb than breaking down a door.”

“But we might have to break down a door to get to the bomb,” Nash said. “While Mick, a dragon, tries to fry me, eat me, or just squash me. Plus Wingate could shoot me before I get near his wife.”

“I think Ted Wingate’s a coward,” I said. I’d made him afraid of me, anyway.

“Plenty of cowards are dead shots.”

“Stop thinking of difficulties.”

“Not difficulties; contingencies,” Nash said. “We need to know every possibility before we go in, and what we’ll do to counteract each.”

“We have to do it within twenty-four hours,” I told him. “Twenty-two now.”

Nash gave me an aggrieved look, but at least he didn’t get up and leave me alone. He was going to help.

Before we could start formulating any plans, Grandmother came out of the kitchen, followed by Elena. The two women, one in long skirts, the other in jeans and a toobright polyester top, made straight for Nash.

“We need your help, Sheriff Jones,” my grandmother said. Standing, she was the same height as Nash sitting down. “Come into the kitchen and talk to us. Now.”

“Grandmother . . .”

“
Now
.” Grandmother turned and marched away, followed by Elena, after giving me one of her dark looks. Nash, damn him, rose quietly and obeyed.

Eighteen

Grandmother told me to serve Nash coffee while she and Elena sat down with him at the metal-topped kitchen table. Grandmother was keen on hospitality but preferred me to do the labor of it. I poured coffee without fuss, curious as to what they wanted from him.

“Gabrielle Massey,” Grandmother said. “We need to find her.”

I splashed coffee next to Elena’s cup, and Elena gave me an annoyed look. I quickly wiped up the spill and returned the coffeepot to its place on the counter.

“I don’t want her anywhere near you, Grandmother.”

“I am not asking
you
, Janet. I’m asking the sheriff to look up her records and find her. She’s important.”

I granted that, but I wanted to be the one doing the finding. Gabrielle could kill my frail grandmother in a heartbeat.

“I did look her up,” Nash said. “After meeting her, I was curious.”

Of course he would have. I sat down. “Might as well tell us what you found.”

Nash took a sip of coffee, held the cup as he talked. “She was born in Whiteriver, lived there for fifteen years, and then was reported missing by her parents. A runaway. She surfaced again three years later in Las Vegas, when she was arrested for shoplifting. Charges were dropped, and she went on living there, saying she had no intention of returning to Whiteriver. She was eighteen by then, so her parents apparently didn’t try to get her to come home. Two years after that, the Masseys were killed in a car accident, on a road on the Rim, her father apparently driving under the influence. Gabrielle was living in Albuquerque by that time. After her parents’ funeral, she dropped out of sight again, until turning up here. She’s now twenty-four, has a record of several arrests for shoplifting and vandalism, but no convictions.”

Her file sounded much like mine, only I’d finished high school and taken a degree at NAU. But except for that, Gabrielle and I might have been the same person.

“Where is she now?” Grandmother asked.

“No record. She isn’t renting, hasn’t purchased anything high dollar, like a car, doesn’t have credit cards, no longer lives on the reservation, doesn’t have a job. She’s dropped off the radar.”

“Except that she’s around here somewhere,” I said. “We’ve seen her.”

Elena moved her coffee cup in gentle circles. Elena, who was from Whiteriver. “I remember Gabrielle as a child,” she said. “A troublemaker if I ever saw one. Her father was an off-and-on drunk. Perfectly nice when he was sober, but once he hit the bottle, mean as can be.”

“So many are,” Nash said.

“Alcohol is evil,” Grandmother said, giving me a fierce eye. She did not approve of me having a bar for my guests and living next to a biker bar.

“That could explain why Gabrielle ran away,” I suggested, ignoring her. I’d had the benefit of a kind, loving father to take care of me, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for Gabrielle.

“Of course it does, but I remember how distraught her mother was.” Elena shook her head. “Bad blood, that one. I’ve told my daughter and my friends to keep an eye out and tell me if she comes back.”

“No,” I said in a loud voice. “Gabrielle is dangerous. Your daughter doesn’t need to go anywhere near her.”

“My daughter is a smart young woman. She can find things out without hurting herself.”

“You don’t understand
how
dangerous, Elena. She’s the daughter of the goddess that made me.”

Grandmother’s face was pinched. “We all know that. But Gabrielle’s very powerful. She either has a hand in Mick’s enslavement, or she can be an asset to getting him free.”

“We will look,” Elena said stubbornly. “Either help us, or stay out of the way.”

The amusement in Nash’s gray eyes was hard to miss. He liked meeting people who could put me in my place.

It was true that we needed to find Gabrielle. I needed to pin her down and figure out what her purpose was, and Grandmother was right that she could be helpful—but only if we could control her. I had doubts about that. Gabrielle reminded me of myself when I was young and unsure of my place in the world, but Gabrielle had an arrogance that I had lacked. I’d tried not to hurt people; she didn’t seem bothered by such things.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help,” I said. “Elena, your daughter and friends can keep a watch for her, but tell them that they are by no means to approach Gabrielle or let on that they’re looking for her. I don’t trust her not to kill an innocent bystander just to prove she can.”

Nash broke in. “Much easier if I do the searching. I have official ties, friends in the tribal police I’ve already contacted.”

“Official records don’t tell everything,” I said. Mine certainly didn’t.

“But law enforcement officers are human beings, Janet,” he said. “They know everyone, and they gossip among themselves. Not everything we know gets put down in an official file, only the things we can put there legally.”

Good to know. I imagined that gossip about my youthful exploits was rife.

I stood up. “Understand something. Gabrielle is unpredictable and dangerous. I want to find her, yes, but I don’t want any of you going near her. None of you is strong enough to face her. Leave her for me.”

“If she tries magic on
me
, it won’t work,” Nash said. “Right?”

“Who knows? We haven’t tested how much you can take. Give Gabrielle a wide berth if you find her, and call me.”

“No, call
me
,” my grandmother said.

“Grandmother . . .”

“I’m not a simple old woman who needs to be protected.”

“I know that, but . . .”

I was saved from the ensuing, and never-ending, argument by the ring of my cell phone. As usual, it was lying somewhere in my office, the tiny peal sounding through the open kitchen door.

I did my usual scramble out of the room and desperate sprint across the lobby, my boots skidding on the tiles as I lunged into the office to snatch the phone out from under a stack of papers. I’d wisely set it to ring many times before it rolled to voice mail, and I managed to catch it on the very last ring.

“Janet?”

“Naomi?” I panted, surprised. “Hey, how are you?”

“It’s Jamison.” Naomi’s panic came through the phone and roused my own.

“What about Jamison? Is he all right? Did Mick hurt him? Don’t trust Mick. If you see him, get away from him.”

“Slow down. This has nothing to do with Mick. Jamison went to the sinkhole. He got excited about those photos you sent him, and he’s gone to take a closer look. I think he’s searching for another entrance to the cavern under it. He was too wound up to explain, he said. I’m so worried he’ll go out there and get hurt. Could you—?”

“Go find him and beat some sense into him?” I relaxed a little, but not completely. “Sure. But seriously, Naomi, if you see Mick anywhere in town, don’t approach him, don’t talk to him, don’t even wave at him. He’s . . . not himself.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She sounded doubtful.

“And if you see Coyote, tell him to call me. Not that he’ll listen.”

“I’ll try.” Naomi hesitated. “Can I come with you?”

“No. I’m sorry, but no. There are things in that hole—might be things in that hole—that I don’t want touching you. I’m not sure what they’ll do. You stay put, and Nash and I will get Jamison.”

As I spoke to her, I dashed around my office tucking a piece of magic mirror into a chamois bag, pulling on my warmest boots, fetching my jacket. I convinced Naomi to stay home and look after Julie—I knew I’d never talk her into staying safe for her own sake, but she’d do anything to protect Julie. She sounded relieved that I’d take Nash with me.

“I’ll get Jamison. Don’t worry.” I sounded so reassuring as I hung up, but I was anything but reassured.

Outfitted against the cold, I made for the kitchen again and gave Nash a tight smile. “I need you, Nash. Sorry, Grandmother. We gotta go.”

Because Nash didn’t like people poking around his accident scenes, he was happy to drive me in his SUV over the dark roads to the sinkhole. He was ready to arrest Jamison on the spot, and right now, I’d be happy to let him.

Jamison wasn’t at the sinkhole. A Flat Mesa police officer guarding the hole told us no one had been near all afternoon or all night. I shivered, the moon close enough to setting that its light didn’t help us much. Why couldn’t Jamison have come prowling during daylight?

Answer: because under cover of darkness, he could roam around in his mountain lion form. He’d see better in the dark, his thick fur would keep him warm, and he could scramble nimbly up and down rocks.

Nash and I crouched by the hole, and Nash flashed his powerful lantern around the steep sides and the debris. Nothing. Even the petroglyphs didn’t look as densely drawn as before, which was weird. This entire place was weird.

“Naomi said she thought Jamison was trying to find another entrance,” I said as we stood up. “You’ve lived around here all your life. Are there caves somewhere?”

Nash scanned the horizon. It was truly dark here, the lights of Flat Mesa hidden behind a rise of land. The stars were hard and cold against black sky, and the moonlight faded and was gone.

“I know a possible place, but those roads are snowed over. Low priority, won’t get plowed.”

I glanced at his SUV with its big tires. “The magic of four-wheel drive?”

Nash gave me a sour look. He had great affection for his vehicles, and bumping his new sheriff’s SUV over a primitive, hole-filled road in the snow filled him with loathing. But Nash was also a law-enforcement officer at heart. If a citizen of his county might be in trouble, he couldn’t leave without recovering said citizen. Nash gave me a brief nod and led the way back to the truck.

How he found the road in the pitch darkness with all landmarks buried in snow, I had no idea, but he did it. Nash drove slowly between two snow-covered fence posts that were barely far apart enough to admit the SUV, and started down a track to nowhere.

The truck listed and bounced, the gears whining as Nash strained to take it slow and steady. I had to admit he was a hell of a driver. We bounced slowly along, the new radio and computer system on his dashboard emitting a crackle or beep every once in a while. Nash had GPS, which explained how he could find the road’s location, but not how he could see the strip of it unwinding before us.

This road hadn’t been graded or raised, and we followed the contours of the land. Every dip might end in a canyon, every rise might end at a cliff. Nash navigated snowy washes that I’d never have dreamed of attempting, bending the SUV to his will.

After about half an hour of this, Nash halted the truck, without bothering to pull off the road. He set the gear and the brake but didn’t turn off the SUV or its lights.

“Over that way.” He motioned to a snow-covered mound of rocks illuminated by his headlights. “I used to play out here as a kid. It hasn’t changed much.”

I slid out of the SUV and he followed, bringing his big flashlight. We were the only ones for miles around, the snow clean and untrodden, the rocks poking in square regularity through snow-covered scrub.

I’d been born and raised in the country, and I knew that the earth beneath us was all connected. The bones of it ran through the bed of the world, and amazing things could be found just below the surface. Magellan and Flat Mesa had an elevation of about six thousand feet, but this part of the land was essentially flat—deceptively so. Canyons cut through the iron-rich sandstone to spill water from the high mountains south of us. The plateau makes all kinds of things possible—dry and wet caves, shallow but sharp-walled canyons, sinkholes—the connections of the earth world. The sinkhole and whatever Nash was leading me to would connect, somehow. It remained to be seen whether that connection was the right one.

“Here.” Nash shone his light on a crack between boulders, and I slid to a halt beside him. Darkness yawned beyond the crack.

“Wait. Move the light this way.” I pointed at a patch of muddy snow. “There.”

We both saw it, a large paw print, the track of a mountain lion.
Jamison
, I thought. Changers’ beasts were larger than normal animals, and this mountain lion would be about two hundred pounds. I squinted into the darkness, wondering whether Jamison’s lion would be big enough to get stuck down there.

We squeezed cautiously between the boulders. Nash went first, and for once, I was fine with that. If someone tried to attack us magically, Nash could absorb it; if they attacked us physically, he had weapons.

“How would Jamison find this place?” I whispered. The tunnel beyond the opening was narrow, not much room between the sandstone walls.

“Naomi must have told him about it. She used to play out here too.”

“And Maya?”

“Maya was younger than we were and had her own friends. Naomi and I were considered kind of nerdy.”

Interesting. “You never thought about hooking up with Naomi?”

“No.” The word was neutral, uninterested. “I wasn’t her type, she wasn’t mine. We stayed friends until I joined the army. She got married but I didn’t like her husband. Her first husband, I mean. Jamison’s fine.”

Naomi’s first husband was Julie’s dad. Naomi never talked about him, but I gathered from Jamison that the scumbag had left Naomi because Julie had been born deaf. The man blamed Naomi for that; Julie’s father had dumped them both. After ten years, Naomi had found Jamison and lived happily ever after. Now I needed to find Jamison and make him go the hell home so they could keep living happily ever after.

Nash led me a long way down a narrow, rocky tunnel, both of us grunting around boulders jutting into the passageway. The ground underfoot wasn’t nice and level, it was strewn with gravel and obstructed by rockfall, the floor sometimes thrusting so high there was only a few feet between it and the ceiling. We’d at least left behind the bitter cold of the winter night, though the chill in here was substantial.

Nash stopped so abruptly I barely kept myself from running into him. He stood at the top of a long rockslide, boulders tumbling away from us into a high-ceilinged cavern. I’d love to say it was a majestic place of stalagmites and stalactites, but nothing so grandiose. It was a big hole in the ground, nothing more, and it had a mountain lion in it.