Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

T he peace of my azure-skied evening was shattered when a gleaming gray pickup flew across the intersection at the Crossroads, tore through the dirt parking lot, and aimed straight for my hotel.

Behind the truck raced at least a dozen motorcycles, the riders with heads down in determination. Behind them came law enforcement—deputy sheriff, town police, state highway patrol. They all barreled past Barry's bar, which shares the lot with my Crossroads Hotel, and gunned toward my front door.

I'd stepped outside to enjoy the cool March evening after a busy day. It was starting to get hot, the brutal desert summer on its way, but for now, dawn and dusk were paradise. It was my habit to take a short walk once the guests had headed out for dinner or settled in at the saloon, to savor the weather and reflect on my upcoming nuptials to Mick. A dragon and a Stormwalker marrying in the human way had potential pitfalls.

The pickup showed no signs of slowing down. In mere seconds, it would plow right through the window-lined wall of the saloon, which I'd just had repaired after my recent showdown with an ultra-powerful mage.

My guests in the saloon turned toward the source of the noise, eyes widening as the vehicles rushed at them. I heard the magic mirror, suspended over the bar, scream.

Oh, honey! Stop them!

I spread my arms as I faced the pickup, as though that would have any effect. I was about five foot two and not very large, not like Mick, who could have simply turned dragon, picked up the truck, and redirected it. Mick, though, wasn't here.

The twilit sky was beautifully clear. The few clouds hanging far away over the San Francisco Peaks wouldn't be useful to a Stormwalker, because I need an active gale to work magic. I had other magic, the horrific powers of Beneath, but those were only for dire emergencies, like the end of the world or battling the mage who'd destroyed my saloon the last time.

If I didn't temper the Beneath magic with a storm, I could implode the hotel, leaving a smoking pit in its place.

If the dude in the truck—I could see it was a man—plowed into my hotel, there would be a lot of carnage. I didn't recognize the pickup, had no idea who the guy was, why half a motorcycle gang was chasing him, or why the bikers weren't breaking off their pursuit and fleeing all those cops.

The hotel was warded by Mick's dragon magic and my Stormwalker powers, mixed with a good witchy dose from Cassandra Bryson, the hotel's manager. Those wards could stave off even the strongest magical attack, but would it make any difference to a Silverado slamming straight into it?

I called a ball of Beneath magic from the depths of my psyche, tamped down the nausea that it caused, and balanced the glowing orb on my palm.

"Stop!" I yelled.

The truck barreled on, the bikers chased the pickup, and the cops kept coming, sirens blaring. The truck would hit the windows any second now.

Throat constricting in panic, I popped the ball of magic onto the ground between the Silverado and the wall of my saloon.

Dust exploded where the ball hit, sending up a wall of gravel that spattered in all directions. I ducked as bits of rock and dirt grated into me. Pebbles smacked the saloon's windows, and every single one of them blossomed into a network of cracks.

The truck swerved at the very last minute, its tires blasting me with another wave of stinging gravel as it roared around to the back of my hotel.

The bikers parted to flow around both sides of the building, and the cop cars followed with an equal split.

I struggled to my feet and then ran after the vehicles. I charged around the part of the hotel that held my private living quarters, past the large juniper tree where two crows perched to watch the spectacle, and into the red-orange earth of desert beyond.

The land here was cut by the remains of a railroad bed, which had been raised about six feet from the scrub-dotted desert floor long ago to carry lumber from Flagstaff and surrounding areas down through the folds of mountains to the Valley. It had been one of many railways snaking through the state, abandoned now, rails and ties long gone.

At present, it was used as a hiking path into and out of Magellan, the nearest town. The man in the pickup was trying to make his truck climb the too-steep incline.

The pickup's wheels slipped and slid in the soft red earth, but did the guy stop? No. Whoever he was, he kept his foot on the accelerator, tires spinning as the truck struggled up the side of the bed.

Finally, the pickup lost all traction and whined in place. The tires spun, slowly digging a shallow grave for the truck and its driver.

The bikers halted with another spray of gravel. The police cars and law enforcement motorcycles also skidded to a stop, men and women pouring from them, vested up, guns out of holsters.

Then there was me, trotting behind them, yelling at the top of my voice for someone to tell me what was going on. No one answered, of course.

I recognized Emilio Salas, the assistant chief of police from Magellan, as well as Deputy Paco Lopez. There was Deputy Maria Abarca, who'd moved here from Los Angeles when Sheriff Jones made a big push to recruit more women into his department. Not in token jobs—Nash said women should be given the same opportunity as men to participate in all aspects of law enforcement. Some admired him for this while others criticized him, but Nash ignored them all. He'd be happy if every man, woman, and child on the planet were special-forces trained.

Of Sheriff Jones himself there was no sign. He had to be out of the county doing something very important, because there was no other way he wouldn't have been leading that chase.

The law enforcement vehicles aimed headlights and spotlights on the truck. Lopez and Abarca approached it together, with Salas behind them, all three stalking forward with extreme caution. The bikers, as pissed off as they were, had moved back to let the cops do their jobs.

I jogged to a biker I recognized as one of Barry's regulars. "What the hell is going on?"

The biker turned his reflective sunglasses on me, showing deep blue dusky sky streaked with intense pink. "That dude is in deep shit," the man growled.

"Why? What did he do ?"

"Screamed past us, throwing dust in our faces, while we were sitting outside at Dusty's. Gave us all the finger and then took off."

Dusty's was a bar on the 66 in Flagstaff, east of the touristy areas, where a lot of Barry's regulars went when they sought the coolness of high altitude in the summertime. Dusty's wasn't usually a dangerous place, but could get rough, especially if the bikers took offense. Big, big mistake.

"He flipped you off, and twenty guys decided to go after him?"

"It's the principle of the thing, Janet." The biker's cheeks became concave as he sucked in a breath of irritation. "He nearly caused three wrecks on the 66 before he hit the freeway. I don't know why he thought he could hide out here . The Crossroads is ours ."

The truck continued to roar as the man inside jabbed at the accelerator, but he only managed to become more and more embedded .

"Maybe if you stand down, he'll stop," I suggested. "He probably thinks you're going to kill him."

"We thought about seriously injuring him." The biker glowered. "Then we picked up all the damned cops."

"Gee, I can't imagine why." I widened my eyes at him, but the biker only looked away, shaking his head.

People were coming out of the hotel to see what was up, including Cassandra, tidily dressed in her business suit and pumps. She walked across the gravel toward me, but no dirt would dare stick to her pristine shoes.

Every cop except Lopez, Abarca, and Salas had shielded themselves behind their vehicles, weapons drawn.

The crows in the tree, one soot black, the other with a mixture of black and white head feathers, continued to watch the humans with corvid disdain.

"Stop the engine and put your hands on the wheel," Lopez ordered the man in the truck.

No response. The guy kept gunning the engine, to no purpose.

Cassandra stopped next to me. She shielded her eyes against the glare of headlights, then made a flickering motion with her fingers and whispered a word.

Instantly the truck's motor died.

"Someday you're going to have to teach me how to do that," I murmured to Cassandra.

She lowered her hand. "It's practice."

Cassandra was being modest. She was one of the most powerful Wiccans I'd ever met.

Even with the truck dead, the man inside didn't move. I couldn't see him well, but the aura I glimpsed was human. He wasn't demon, mage, dragon, or Changer—simply an ordinary person who'd decided to jump into his truck for whatever reason and go on a rampage. He possibly had an insanely high level of alcohol or other recreational substance running through his body.

Lopez, Salas, and Abarca were taking no chances. They'd split up, guns ready, with a deputy on each side of the truck and Salas at the tailgate. They stood well back from the doors, in case the guy made a sudden move or came out with a weapon.

The bikers surged closer. Soon, the truck would be surrounded. I worried that one of the bikers might simply shoot the man through his windshield, despite the cops, end of problem.

Another siren split the air. A large black F250 hurtled around the end of the hotel, a red light spinning on its roof. Sheriff Jones, at last.

Nash drove right through the crowd, the bikers scrambling out of his way. He slammed his brand-new truck to a halt without hitting any people or other vehicles, and leapt out, the truck's door swinging. He wore civilian clothes of a gray T-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, as though he'd been out for a walk when he got the call.

Without a vest, his weapon holstered on his hip, he stormed straight to the truck, passing Lopez and Abarca who stared at him in consternation.

Nash ripped open the door of the truck and glared at the driver. "What the hell are you doing?" he bellowed. "Come on out of there."

The man inside didn't move. I inched closer and realized that he was older, his hair a mix of gray and white, his face lined. He glared back at Nash with as much rage as the sheriff gave him and didn't budge.

"I said, get out ." Nash stated this in a tone that had most perps on their knees, begging for mercy. "I will arrest you. Maybe a night in a cell will give you time to think about things."

"Oh, I have plenty of time to think," the man snapped, his voice free of alcoholic slur. "A cell would be a step up from where I've been."

Nash reached for his hip, but instead of going for his pistol, he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

"I'll call her," he warned.

I blinked and glanced at Cassandra, who also looked puzzled. Call who?

"You are a shit." The man at last slid from the driver's seat and landed in front of Nash. "But you know all about incarceration, don't you?"

The two men squared off. They were of similar height and build, the older guy slimmer. Both had sharp gray eyes, blunt faces, and beaky noses. The older man had a regularity of features that made him attractive, or would have if his face wasn't so crumpled by his scowl.

"I'm doing it," Nash said. "I'm calling Cousin Ada."

The man smacked Nash's phone out of his hand. I distinctly heard plastic crack on the rocks at the base of the railroad bed.

"That's it." Nash had the guy facing the truck in a flash, handcuffs glinting. The truck's driver snarled invective, but Nash clicked on the cuffs. He turned the older man around and marched him to the passenger side of Nash's waiting pickup. "In you go, Grandad."

I realized with a jolt that Nash wasn't calling the man a derogatory name because of his age. Nash was addressing him in the way he always had, probably since he'd been a tiny kid—as hard as was to picture Nash as a boy.

"Son of a bitch," the biker whispered.

We all watched Nash shut the door on the older man, stalk to the driver's side of the truck, and slide in. Without a word to his deputies or anyone else, he expertly turned the pickup, avoiding all other vehicles, and took off in a spatter of gravel.

The law enforcement officers of various branches holstered their weapons, looking around as though they weren't certain how they'd come to be there. The abandoned truck hung on the side of the railroad bed, silent and empty.

"Well, damn." Deputy Lopez appeared at my side, his expression a mixture of perplexity and amusement. "This is going to be one hell of a report."

The biker I'd talked to had faded back, and others joined him. Bikes were pushed quietly to the main parking lot, some men heading into Barry's bar, others starting up and nonchalantly rolling to the highway before the deputies, town cops, and highway patrol thought about going after them .

"I didn't know Jones even had a grandfather," Lopez went on. "I thought Nash just spawned out of a crack in the ground."

"That's a dangerous thing to say around here," I reminded him.

Lopez looked alarmed. It was true that in Magellan, any number of unholy things could come out of fissures in the ground. He gave me a wary nod and strolled away to join Abarca, who was efficiently noting something on an electronic tablet .

I left the now-subdued scene, the crows turning their heads to follow my path, and walked around the hotel with Cassandra. There we halted and gazed forlornly at the ruined windows of the saloon.

Cassandra let out a sigh. "I'll call our repairman." She strode calmly into the hotel, shoulders squared.

I entered behind her to the cool interior of the lobby, lights already on for the evening. The guests inside the saloon had drifted back to their tables, discussing the incident and calling on Carlos, the bartender, for more alcohol. At least this time the damage hadn't been worse than nicked windows.

I veered toward the office, intending to bury my head in my hands and groan, when one of our ward's alarms went off, signaling the arrival of a very dangerous magical person.

Adrenaline shooting high, I dashed through my private hall to the back door, running past the cops still surrounding the empty truck. I scrambled up the railroad bed, digging my toes into the soft dirt, and slithered down the other side.

Behind me, the crows flapped into the air, croaking harshly, to become black specks on the darkening sky.

Sure, abandon me now, I muttered to myself. The crow without any white in its feathers cawed her deprecation.

I held my magic in close reserve as I headed out across the desert to intercept the newcomer.