A man crouched in terror behind the counter, a baseball bat in his hand. He wasn’t threatening anyone with it, just holding it, his head bowed as though he no longer wanted to look at the destruction around him.
Three men, each heavy with muscle and fat, one covered in tatts, one wearing chains on his belt, the third holding a shotgun, were plastered to the pockmarked ceiling.
Below them, her face turned upward in fury, stood my sister, Gabrielle Massey. Dressed in low-slung jeans and a black top that hugged her breasts, she had one hand raised toward the men, the stream of magic coming out of that hand, terrifying.
“Gabrielle,” I said.
Gabrielle transferred her glare to me, which I returned stoically. My half sister is Apache, where I’m Diné, and she’s much prettier than me. She has long, sleek black hair, a plump face, big brown eyes, and a curvy body. She’s taller than me too.
“Janet,” she said, her voice full of rage. “They came in here while I was buying myself a drink and tried to rob the place. Tried to rob me.” Gabrielle pointed to the man with the chains. “That one wanted his friends to hold me down while he felt me up. Are you kidding me?” She punctuated her words by slamming all three of the men against the ceiling. “Are. You. Kidding. Me?”
The men’s faces were wan, heads lolling, eyes full of fear but also pain. They were hurting bad, close to death.
“I think they’ve got the idea,” I said. “How about we give these guys to the cops and go home? Elena’s at the hotel cooking tonight.”
Gabrielle smiled, which was all the more terrible for the power crackling through her. “That sounds nice. Let me just finish here.”
“No!” I said sharply as she wound up her magic for a killing stroke. “You have to let them go.”
“What for?” Gabrielle looked at me in perplexity. “They wanted to touch me and kill that man behind the counter. They need to understand that They. Shouldn’t. Do. That.” Slam, slam, slam, slam!
“I agree,” I said. “But you can’t kill them.”
“Why the hell not?” Gabrielle demanded.
Have I mentioned that my sister is a little crazy? While I couldn’t blame her for wanting to teach these guys a lesson, I knew she wouldn’t draw the line at simply scaring them. Gabrielle’s answer to anything that bothered her was kill first, think about what she’d done—maybe—later.
“Because I’d have to tell Grandmother,” I said.
Gabrielle wavered. The man with the tatts came loose from the ceiling and fell. He landed hard on top of a set of shelves, crushing the few remaining boxes there.
Gabrielle heaved a sigh. “You know, big sis, you really are a bitch.”
“Consequences,” I said evenly. “If you go around doing whatever you want and to hell with it, your choices will bite you in the ass in the end.”
Gabrielle studied the robbers on the ceiling. “Hear that? You go around threatening people, and look what happens to you?”
“Let them go,” I repeated sternly.
“Oh, come on.” Gabrielle’s eyes started to gleam in a way I didn’t like. “Let me play a little while. Why don’t you join me? You and me together can kick some ass.”
I opened my mouth to argue—if Gabrielle went on a rampage, it could be the end of her, and possibly me, and probably this entire town. There’d be another crater in northern Arizona before the night was out.
At that moment, Mick shouldered his way in the door. He solved the problem of persuading Gabrielle to leave by simply picking her up, throwing her over his shoulder, and walking out.
Gabrielle screamed at him. She beat on his back and tried to throw her magic at him.
I could have told her not to bother. Mick was the strongest being I knew, and he shrugged off other people’s powers as though they barely singed him.
At the door, he turned back and casually flicked his hand at the robbers.
The remaining two guys fell from the ceiling, cushioned for a moment by what looked like a wave of fire, which instantly dispersed, letting them drop the last couple feet.
I marched to the man who’d wanted his friends to hold Gabrielle down for him. He was big and would have been mean-looking, if he hadn’t been shaking so hard and half passed out from fear. I bent over him.
“If you try to touch a woman who doesn’t want to be touched ever again,” I said in a calm voice. “It will fall off. I guarantee that.”
I put my fingers to his neck, letting my magic tingle on him. The spark bit, he jumped, and his neck bore a burned circle when I pulled my hand away.
The guy stared at me in absolute fear, and I smiled, hoping I looked as terrifying as Gabrielle.