Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(88)

Ansel, however, refused to go. “This is my home now,” he said in his quiet voice as he met up with me in the lobby. “And so I will help you defend it. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you while I ran away like a coward.”

“This is Emmett we’re talking about,” I reminded him. “You remember. The man who threw you around like you were nothing?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Ansel lifted his slim shoulders in a shrug. “He’s human. If he’s distracted fighting you, he might forget to fend off my attack until I have my teeth in him.”

True, but Emmett could dose his own blood to hurt a Nightwalker. I had to admit that Ansel was good in a fight, though, and the more attacking Emmett at once, the better. I told him I appreciated his help and went on with my planning.

My grandmother also refused to leave—no surprise—and so did Elena. “I have my own territory to defend here,” Elena said. “Mr. Smith needs to learn he can’t have everything his own way.”

I knew I couldn’t convince them to go short of knocking them over their heads and dragging them off, so I nodded. “Fine, but stay in the kitchen. This will be bad, and I don’t need you getting hurt.”

“We fought him before, Janet,” my grandmother said. “And won.”

“You were on the fringes of his fight with another mage, and a goddess defeated all of us.” I pointed at the kitchen door. “Go.”

Grandmother gave me an annoyed look, but at least she went, Elena behind her. I found Ansel again and asked him to guard them, and he gave me a reluctant nod.

That left me, Mick, Cassandra, Drake, and Pamela, who refused to leave Cassandra’s side. Colby and Gabrielle were still out looking for Nash.

I took up my position in the saloon, Mick beside me, Drake flanking, and Cassandra with Pamela at a table, Cassandra ready to work some powerful spells.

Emmett filled the mirror. The skull of his face was horrible, and his eyes had enlarged to fill the sockets with glowing white. He still wore his glasses, emeralds winking in the light from his eyes. Like a close-up on a large movie screen, we could see only Emmett and nothing behind him.

I wanted to wait for Nash, who could turn the tide, but all at once the mirror started rattling. Emmett’s hands were on the sides of the frame, as though he could grasp it from his side, and he was shaking it hard.

The frame clanked against the wall, its banging dislodging the wine glasses hanging up near it, sending them shattering to the floor. Then the mirror went dark.

While it was a relief not to see Emmett’s face anymore, my heart dropped. Emmett was learning how to manipulate things inside the mirror, and I had the feeling he was on his way out. I clasped Mick’s hand, said a prayer to any god who was listening, and reached for the storm that was now coming swiftly out of the mountains.

The mirror shattered. The lovely, smooth sheet of glass Flora had restored cracked, and a piece shot out of its middle. The glass took the same crazed pattern it had worn before, a fragment falling from the frame.

Emmett’s reflection shot across the cracks, and then he emerged from the mirror. He didn’t step or fly out, he simply solidified in front of us.

He no longer looked like the gruesome, half-dead thing—his slim body and smooth face was restored, along with his suit. Why he cared about looking like this, I didn’t know, but if I’d learned nothing else about Emmett, I’d deduced that he was severely vain.

He attacked. No waiting. Magic bolstered by Gabrielle’s Beneath power sliced directly toward me and Mick.

Mick saved me by the straightforward method of tackling me to the ground. The Beneath magic slammed across the room and rendered the wall between the saloon and lobby rubble.

“Damn it!” I yelled as I came to my feet. “I just had this place redone!”

Emmett threw another bolt at me. The last time I’d fought him, out at Chaco Canyon, he’d conjured up all kinds of dark, malevolent spells designed to tear us apart from the inside out. Now he blasted away with Beneath magic alone, as though he’d used it all his life.

I anchored myself with the coming storm and reached inside to release my own Beneath magic, letting it flow up in a protective bubble around me and my friends. Emmett, without hesitation, began to hammer it down.

But I’d learned something from Flora and her spell—that magic was stronger if mages banded together. Hence the reason I’d bolstered myself with two dragons, an excellent witch, and a strong Changer. Touching their magic, especially that of the dragons, helped ground me against my Beneath powers as well.

Cassandra, seated at one of the tile-topped tables, Pamela protectively behind her, used her fingers to draw invisible sigils. I felt the air change, growing colder, flowing around her as though she created her own storm. Air and fire, Flora had called Cassandra’s magic. A wonderful combination.