Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(75)
“I’m sorry,” I said to Maya. “I never meant for you to get caught in this.”
Maya lifted one shoulder. “Bad shit always goes down around you. You’re like a walking disaster area.”
“Can’t argue with you. You have to be resilient to put up with me. Are you allowed alcohol, or are you on meds?”
Maya beamed a smile. “Just off them. What did you have in mind?”
“Go tell Carlos to give you whatever you want, on the house. If you want a road trip, maybe sometime soon we can head to Las Vegas. I’ll drive.”
“Sounds good to me.” Maya gave Nash a little wave and sauntered off. “See you, Nash.”
Nash watched her go with a mixture of longing and worry. “She’s mad at me because of something I did in her dream, and she won’t tell me what. Has to be a first, even for me.”
Nash didn’t often let anyone see his softer side—if this was his softer side. I decided not to reveal he’d actually shot her, and kept it general. “She was remembering seeing you with Amy. That really hurt her.”
Nash’s gaze for once was without its anger. “I regret what I did during that time. I let Maya enrage me beyond reason, and she was right that I was still dealing with what happened to me in Iraq. I should not have hurt her.” His mouth firmed, the softness departing. “Not that she isn’t making me pay for every single minute of it now.”
“It wasn’t your fault, if it’s any consolation. You were bewitched, in every sense of the term.”
“So you say.” Nash went silent, but I knew he’d regret the decision to break up with Maya, coerced or no, for the rest of his life.
“What now?” he asked after a time. “I know Smith busted up my jail. Even if you instigated it by questioning his men, he’d have done it sooner or later.”
“What happened to his guys?” I asked. Even Mick hadn’t known that.
“One was killed. The driver and the other were taken to the hospital in Flagstaff. They’re still there.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
Nash’s grim law-enforcement look came back. “The man who died was wanted for some gruesome murders, so I can’t help thinking he found justice. The other two have spilled all they know about Smith, which isn’t much.”
“Emmett made sure of that. He’s very careful.” I slid my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, a habit Gabrielle had learned from me. “Want to help me take Emmett down?”
“What do you think?” Nash studied the open desert around us, as though hoping Emmett would come walking up so he could punch him. “If I knock him out and sit on him, will the void inside me drain his magic? Make him an ordinary human being?”
“Could be,” I said, enjoying picturing it. “It’s getting him in one place to knock him out that’s the trick. He’s slippery.”
“Then we need bait.”
Nash looked pointedly at me, but I wasn’t what Emmett wanted. He wanted the newly repaired, pristine, polished magic mirror hanging in the saloon.
“True,” I said, cheered. “I’ll set it up.”
***
If I was going to capture Emmett and either let Mick eat him or Nash siphon off all his magic, I’d need help. Emmett would come for the mirror, but we’d have to hold on to him before he vanished or killed everyone in sight.
I decided to recruit the same roundup of people Flora had brought together to repair the mirror—Cassandra and Pamela; Elena and my grandmother; Mick, Colby, and Drake; Ansel if we did this at night, and Gabrielle …
“Where is Gabrielle?” I asked Grandmother and Elena as I barged into the kitchen sometime later. “I haven’t seen her since Flora started the mirror spell.” I realized also that her bite of magic had been missing from the line of people who’d helped Flora. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Elena answered. “She has been chasing those dragons relentlessly. Ask one of them.”
“I have. Neither have seen her.”
Grandmother didn’t like that. She rose from her chair. “Find her, Janet.”
“I intend to.” I glanced around the kitchen, in case my sister was hiding somewhere, making faces, and even checked the walk-in refrigerator. I didn’t sense Gabrielle’s presence—which she could mask, I had to admit—but I didn’t see her either. “Let me know if you spot her,” I said, and left the kitchen.
Mick didn’t know where Gabrielle was himself, but he agreed with me and Grandmother that she needed to be found. We scoured the hotel, but nothing. She wasn’t in Barry’s bar, just open at three, either.