Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(82)

Eventually I’d come out of the mountains and find the turnoff to Magellan. But it would be a long walk, and my bare feet were already sore.

Before I’d gone a mile, however, a pickup came up behind me and slowed to keep pace. The driver in a cowboy hat leaned forward and stared at me out the window. “Hey,” he called. “Want a ride, sweetheart?”

I looked up, a biting retort on my lips, then I saw who the driver was. I grabbed for the door, flung it open, and hauled myself into the pickup’s cab.

“Yes,” I said emphatically, slamming the door. I reached for the temperature controls on the dashboard. “And turn up the heat in this thing.”

Coyote, clad in a denim jacket, jeans, and black hat, grinned at me. He batted my fingers away, cranked the heater to high, then stomped on the gas and let the truck leap forward on the icy road.

***

Coyote drove me to Magellan, but he took a roundabout route, going all the way to Holbrook and the 40 before turning west and heading for Winslow and the turnoff to Magellan there. He could have saved an hour and a half cutting across country, but for some reason, he refused.

“I’m savoring the time,” he said when I pointed this out. “It’s not often I get to go on a road trip with Janet Begay.”

“Why are you on a road trip with me? This is my dream.”

“So you keep saying.” Coyote shrugged. “Dreams are byways through the mind. They teach us things about ourselves that we need to know. Show us our own fears, hopes, dreams, needs. Though sometimes, it’s just the brain blowing off steam. Synapses firing.”

“I don’t have time to ride down memory lane,” I retorted. “Emmett did something to Gabrielle, and now Emmett is inside my magic mirror. I don’t trust him not to figure out how to use being inside the mirror to his advantage. And with me knocked out, Mick is on his own against him.”

Coyote didn’t speed his snail’s pace along the I-40. Eighteen-wheelers were passing us with impatience. I’d ridden along this road with Coyote before, when he’d gone about a hundred miles an hour, but today, he kept it under fifty. I imagined the curses of the drivers around us.

“You’re here to learn how to fight Emmett,” Coyote said. “Learn what he can do. I’d pay attention, if I were you.”

I tucked the T-shirt over my knees, still cold, in spite of the heater and the fact that we’d left the mountains for the winter desert temps of 70 plus degrees. I was probably lying uncovered on my bathroom tile, and would be this cold until someone laid a blanket over me.

“You’re saying the mirror sent me dreamwalking to learn all about myself and about Emmett,” I said after a time.

“Yep.”

“How do you know?” I demanded. “How do I know you’re not a figment of my fevered brain telling me that?”

“I’m a god,” Coyote said modestly. “I can ride your dreams if I want to. You have some pretty good ones.” He gave me a knowing look.

I had no idea whether he was teasing me or really could eavesdrop on my more erotic dreams. I knew he could cause them, from experience. “Stay out of my head, please. You’re bad enough on the outside of it.”

He laughed. “I’m not in your head. I’m in this reality. I took the time to drive you this way so you wouldn’t arrive too soon. There’s more you need to see.”

“Terrific,” I muttered.

“Relax. Enjoy the scenery.” Coyote flipped on his radio, tuned it until he found a station blasting country music, then rested his hands on the wheel and sang along at the top of his voice.

To the sound of Coyote singing—which sounded almost exactly like his coyote howling—we slid through Winslow, passing the place where Emmett had picked me up in his limo, and down the rolling highway toward the Crossroads.

When we reached it, the hotel was the derelict mess it had been before I’d bought it, dashing my hopes for a hot drink before a crackling fire. The sun was sinking into glorious twilight, and Barry’s bar was already full, the parking lot overflowing with motorcycles and bikers, a glow of light coming from the open front door.

Coyote drove behind the hotel, where the moon was rising over the railroad bed, flooding the desert with silver light.

I climbed down from the truck, my legs weak from sitting for so long, and slammed the door. The sound echoed through the air, and a wild scream responded.

I froze. The scream had come from out in the desert, in the direction of the vortexes. I scrambled up the railroad bed, dirt and gravel sliding out from under my feet.

The scream came again, and a desperate voice. “Janet!” Gabrielle yelled in the darkness. “Help me!”