Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(6)

As soon as the limo stopped, Mick had the door open and was reaching for me. He didn’t seem in the least surprised to see Emmett.

I stumbled out, half pulled by Mick. Mick shoved me aside, not in any anger at me, but so I wouldn’t be hurt by what he did next.

As Emmett gave Mick his annoying smile and started to speak, Mick threw a fireball into the limo.

The human guards and driver shouted and boiled out. They ran from the now-flaming car, but turned around and fired their pistols at Mick.

The guns were yanked out of their hands by ropes of flame. The pistols glowed in the darkness, the bullets swallowed as soon as they left the barrels. The human guards now started to yell and curse, ending up in a huddle together as they watched the limo burn, flame rising into the night. Emmett was still inside.

The flame died with a sudden whump. All fire vanished without even a wisp of smoke to show it had existed. Only the car, burned out, remained as evidence of Mick’s rage.

Emmett emerged from the backseat, unharmed and untouched. His hair was neatly in place, and his glasses were straight.

He brushed off his dark blue silk suit coat as he stood up, but there was no ash or soot on it.

“You owe me two bottles of wine, dragon,” Emmett said. He looked at me and sent me another little smile. “Sweet dreams, Janet.”

And he vanished.

Mick seized me and pulled me around to him. He held my face between his hands and looked down into my eyes. His eyes had gone dragon black, fury wiping out the beautiful blue they were when he was all human.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a hard voice.

“Yeah.” I was shaky, but standing up and alive, which was so much better than things could have been. “I’m fine. Really.”

Mick kept peering at me, checking me over. It’s true that a mage can mess you up in ways other than physical, sometimes without you knowing. Mick was looking into my eyes for signs of damage to my psyche, my brain, my emotions … anything.

I couldn’t tell whether he was satisfied, but he pulled me into a rough embrace, nearly crushing me. I didn’t mind. Being smashed against a tight-bodied man like Mick wasn’t a bad thing.

Flashing lights broke the night. Of course. An SUV marked Hopi County Sheriff’s Department swung through the parking lot and came to a dusty halt next to the guys from Emmett’s limo. The three thugs, minus their guns, couldn’t move. A rope of flame, courtesy of Mick, encircled them, keeping them in place.

“Who are they?” Nash Jones, Sheriff of Hopi County, asked me as he got out of his SUV and slammed the door.

Nash was in full uniform, his badge polished to mirror sheen, the gun in his holster just as polished. He looked over the burned-out limo then at Mick and me, knowing one of us had done this.

Mick wouldn’t let me go as he answered Nash. “They work for Emmett Smith. They’re probably harmless.” Never mind they’d just tried to shoot him.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Nash said. “I came to see your sister. Where is she?”

“That might not be a good idea.” I eased out of Mick’s hold. “She’s a little upset.”

“I heard about the convenience store,” Nash said, his frown in place. During the day, he wore dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. Tonight, the light above the door of my hotel made his eyes glitter gray. “State police arrested three men who have been wanted for a string of robberies across the country. They didn’t look too good.”

Nash sounded grimly satisfied. He hates criminals of all kinds, but he doesn’t like dangerous magic people either.

“They scared Gabrielle,” I said. “She didn’t kill any of them.”

“This time,” Nash said. “And I’m pretty sure that’s because you and Mick showed up.”

“Could be,” I said.

“Want to tell me why you showed up?” Nash asked. “How did you know your sister was holding three armed robbers hostage?”

I said nothing. I suspected the messages in the fortune cookies had come from Coyote—they’d reeked of Coyote’s modus operandi. Any message from Cassandra, the witch who managed my hotel, would have been clear, explanatory, and signed. Actually, Cassandra would have just called Mick. Coyote, on the other hand, rarely used his phone. Cryptic and mysterious was more his style.

I hadn’t seen Coyote for a few months, however, and there’d been no sign of him around the convenience store that I could tell. Didn’t mean he wasn’t watching from afar, though.

“We happened to be passing,” Mick said. “On our way home from dinner in Flag. Saw the magic in the store and realized something was up.”