“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I tried to explain over the machine’s electronic notes. “Slots won’t pay out because you punch the buttons harder.”

“Gambling is evil,” Grandmother Begay said, switching her glare to me.

“Then why are you doing it?”

She jabbed the button again. The wheels went around and lined up, three identical symbols in a row. Lights flashed and bells rang.

“You see?” I said. “You won.”

Grandmother Begay stared at the empty coin tray. “Why is no money appearing? It is broken.”

She reached to hit the button again, but I caught her hand. “The slots here don’t give you coins—you get a credit slip.” I touched a smaller button and snatched the paper the machine spit out. “You take this to the cashier, and she gives you the money.”

“No one explained.” Grandmother Begay scowled at me as though the casino’s policies were my fault.

“What did you use to start playing in the first place?” I asked her.

She pointed to a slim opening in the machine. “It said to put in my cash.”

I swallowed. “How much cash?”

“Twenty dollars.”

I relaxed. “Well, that’s not so much to lose. How long have you been playing?”

Her dark eyes glinted. “An hour. Waiting for you.”

“I was busy. I was investigating …” I trailed off. Why could she make me feel guilty about every little thing? I understood why Janet was so jumpy after growing up under that watchful stare. “Anyway, I’m here now, and you only lost …” I glanced at the slip. “A thousand dollars?”

“I lost a thousand dollars?” Grandmother Begay’s voice rose in outrage.

“No, you won!” I waved the slip in front of her face. “You won a thousand. Let’s go cash in.”

“You mean I won nine hundred and eighty dollars,” she corrected me. “I lost twenty.”

My eyes narrowed. “You didn’t cheat, did you?” I wiggled my fingers at the spinners. “No shaman magic?”

Her outrage grew. “Of course I did not cheat. I would never do such a thing. I am ashamed enough that I was tempted to wager.” She grabbed at the paper. “I will tear it up. Twenty dollars is enough to teach me, and you, a lesson.”

I held the paper out of her reach. “No, no. No sense in throwing away money. You can spend it on the wedding.”

Grandmother Begay lowered her arm. “That is true.” She gave me a grudging look. “I will entrust it to you. Now, tell me everything.”

---

We didn’t get much more out of the dragon slayer that afternoon. Titus and Drake had him beaten down, making him too weak to wake up enough to try to break the binding spell.

I didn’t like to kick a man who was down, but on the other hand, it was arguably good that we kept the slayer physically incapacitated. Janet, with her usual dry humor, said she thought that was a good excuse for Titus and Drake.

I stuck close by her when we emerged from the basement to the ground floor of the Crossroads hours later. Janet halted in surprise, and I stopped before I ran into the back of her.

The lobby was packed. It was nearly check-in time, one of the busiest parts of the day, but I’d never seen the lines like this. Cassandra tapped at her computer, quick and efficient as ever, but she looked exhausted.

“What the hell?” Janet’s unease came clearly to me, like a buzz through my blood.

The hotel had twelve guest rooms, which were rarely all filled. In a pinch, guests could use an empty room on the third floor, or Janet could give up her bedroom, but even with that, we’d never house the dozens of people that crammed into the lobby. I saw more outside the open door.

Elena came out of the kitchen and waded through the crowd, her face like the thunderclouds now building on the horizon. The saloon was still being renovated, and she’d been making and serving buffet meals in the lobby.

Janet held up her hands as Elena joined us. “I don’t know what’s going on. We must already be full—Cassandra will turn them away. You won’t have to do any more cooking.”

Elena raised her brows in surprise. “Of course they must stay here. They are magical, and afraid. I will feed them—I will send Fremont for more groceries.”

“Fremont is here?”

Elena nodded. “He stopped to see Flora, but he can make himself useful. Flora is being a great help.”

High praise from Elena, who liked so few.

I scanned the room, the dragon in me sensing magic the same way Janet could sense auras. Many of the people were witches and mages, low to medium level. A few had demon magic, but they were mostly human, and I scented their fear. Changers roved among them, restless and beastlike even in human form. Pamela, who lounged near the check-in desk like a bodyguard, kept a keen eye on them.

None were very powerful. My wards, which I’d reinforced after we’d dragged the slayer here, would have told me if anything dangerous had entered.

Janet looked around again. “They’ve come for protection,” she said softly.

I nodded. “The weak seeking the strong. Word has gotten out.”

“Where the hell are they all going to sleep?”

Elena answered. “Anywhere they can. We will have Fremont round up blankets and pillows.” She sniffed the air. “There is a storm coming.”

October was one of the drier months in the desert, the monsoons of summer having petered out. But October could still bring storms, violent ones sometimes, as the cooling air let in the wind and water.

Elena turned and stared directly at Janet. “Will you be strong enough?”

Janet’s shoulder tensed under my hand. Coyote had said a similar thing to her in the diner. You can’t hide from this. You’ll have to face it. Will you be strong enough?

It was my ongoing dilemma. I wanted to protect this woman with everything I had—it killed me to see her hurt, and she was hurt so often. On the other hand, she had power unlike anyone I’d ever met. If I cocooned Janet as I wanted to, I’d have been dead, or if alive, enslaved, and much of the world destroyed, years ago. The first day I’d met her properly, she’d blasted me with lightning. I’d felt her phenomenal magic and known there was nothing I wouldn’t do for this woman.

The best I could hope for was to fight by her side and lend my dragon strength to hers.

I bent down to her, breathing the scent of her hair. “We’ll get through this.” I kissed her cheek, like satin under my lips. “I’ll be right next to you.”

Before Janet could draw breath to answer, Elena said, “Of course you will be. We need all the dragons here. You must summon them from the compound.” She scowled. “As much as I dislike the Firewalkers underfoot, we will need them. Tell them.”

She turned on her orthopedic-shod foot and stamped back toward the kitchen.

---

I spent some time explaining to Grandmother Begay all that had happened, while getting her checked into a room she didn’t find fault with.

Took us five tries, she not liking the odors—no one else could smell anything—the placement of the furniture—pretty much identical in every room—the pictures on the walls—specially commissioned from famous artists.

The staff of the C was patient with her, but even they were grinding their teeth by the time we finally found a room she said would “do.”

She sat herself down in an antique chair and didn’t move. She didn’t want me to leave her, no matter how much I argued I had a job to get back to, until she met Chandra, who came to see how we were doing.

The two women looked at each other, both with long assessment.

Then Grandmother Begay said, “I will sit and speak with this woman. Go on, Gabrielle. No reason for you to hover over me. I am not feeble.”

No, she was not. She played the frail old woman only when it suited her.

I heaved a sigh, left her to Chandra’s care, changed into a black skirt and top, and returned to my office.

I said hello to Shelly, who was on her way home. She said it had been quiet, but I knew that would change once darkness fell. People liked to work magic at night, though I could tell them spells worked perfectly fine twenty-four seven. Many witches swore they needed the moon to do their magic by, and didn’t listen when I argued that the moon is always up in the sky, even if you can’t see it.

Colby hadn’t returned, and I had to wonder what he was up to, but I figured he’d check in when he was ready. I pretended to myself it didn’t matter whether I saw him or not, but the little voice inside me knew that was bullshit.

I sat down, pattering my fingers on the desktop, thinking about the arena and Chandra’s words to me. Not evil, she’d said.

But how could she know? She’d met me a day ago, when she’d nursed me back to health and helped me shop. I’d been on my best behavior and grateful to Cornelius.

Chandra hadn’t seen the things I’d done when I was a kid and hating my so-called dad, such as throwing him across the room for hitting my stepmom. We’d had to take him to the hospital more than once, and police and child services had been called. I think they made my stepmom take me back home because they didn’t know what to do with me. Anna Massey, my stepmom, had covered for me—a lot.

I pushed Chandra’s assessment aside, no matter how hopeful it made me feel. Once she got to know me, she’d change her mind. People always did.

The phone rang. “Gabrielle, here,” I said listlessly. “What’s the problem?”

“Dark magic in room 2384,” came the breathless tones of one of the maids. “I delivered some towels—lots of people in the room, black candles, a pentagram. They invited me to stay, but I ran.”

“Good choice,” I said. “You might want to leave the floor and take yourself a break.”

“Sounds good to me,” the maid said in relief and hung up.

Repeating the procedure from the night before, I logged the call, snatched up the key card, grabbed my purse, and headed out.

I stepped off the elevator on the second floor to find myself shaking. I’d managed to push the attack last night out of my thoughts, but it had scared the shit out of me. If not for Colby and Nash, I’d be dead, without ever seeing who’d tried to kill me.

The elevator doors slid closed behind me, leaving me alone in the long, silent, hall. Unlike the generic sameness of most hotel hallways, the ones at the C had walls of rich color, little niches with furniture and artwork in them, and chairs to sit down on if you were tired from walking from the elevator to your room.

The corridor bent around a corner, and the lights—lamps or sconces—were out there, creating deep pools of shadow. The room I wanted was around that bend, of course.

I’m not afraid of the dark. The terrible things that come out of the dark are mostly me or beings like me, and those I could handle.

So why did I not want to walk into that blackness? I knew that around the corner was a similar hall—the hotel was a square that went around the vast casino below, with a roof garden on top of that. You could get your workout running laps in the hallways.

I squared my shoulders and marched onward, my black skirt swinging. The top had peek-a-boo shoulders, and my exposed skin grew ice cold.

When I stepped into the shadow, the world abruptly went dark. I couldn’t see the hall beyond, nor where I’d come from.

As I stood there, my feet strangely unable to move, I heard a breath, one from something immense. An inhale, an exhale. Silence.

I saw nothing, sensed nothing, smelled nothing, which was weird. Evil beings tend to stink.

A heroine in a horror movie might call out timidly, “Who’s there?” instead of running for help or turning on a light. Who did she think would answer? It’s me, the ax murderer. Nice to meet you.

I conjured a ball of Beneath magic.

“Are you looking for me?” I said into the darkness. “If so, it’s your un-lucky day.” I shot the orb of magic high, letting it burn like a magnesium flare.

It illuminated nothing. I mean, I saw the hallway with its carved wooden chairs, heavy tables with glass art on them, the brown and black carpet, the paintings on the walls, but nothing else.

No heavy breather, no evil creature, nothing.

“Don’t mess with me,” I told the empty air. “I’m serious.”

No answer. My feet started moving again, and I had a strong impulse to run like hell.

My fear pissed me off. I strode onward through the hall to room 2384, my ball of magic following me, and slammed my keycard through the slot.

“Room service,” I shouted as I stormed inside. “You ordered a bottle of stop-doing-that-shit-in-my-hotel.”

A woman screamed. A man said, “What the fuck?” Another woman cried out, and I heard more curses.

I halted, my magic light dying into a fizzle. I took in the foursome on the bed, the chalk marks on the walls and the herbs on the floor, the candles burning around the beds in total violation of our fire code, and the woman who sat in a chair on the other side of the room, candles on the table next to her.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said.

“How dare you interrupt our sacred ritual?” the woman in the chair demanded.

She was the only one dressed, and she wore a terrycloth robe that came complimentary with the room.

“Sacred?” I asked, hands on hips. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”

They were practicing Tantric. The theory was that an orgasm produced a lot of energy, which could be used to do some nifty magic. If you held it off and built up the release, the explosion of that energy could be harnessed and used to work spells. Two people might do it together, or several couples or triples or whatever could feed that power into one person who collected it and worked the magic.

“Are they having sex?” came an eager voice from my purse. “Let me see. Please.”

No one in the room reacted as though they could hear the mirror. Which meant they were ordinary humans, or low-level mages at best.

The woman in the chair rose to her feet, her frizzy hair tumbling across her shoulders. “Nonbeliever!” she said imperiously. “You have destroyed our work.”

I glanced at the four on the bed, none of them wearing a stitch. They stared back at me in dismay and growing anger. “I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “I can see you’re having a good time, but you’re upsetting the staff.”

The head woman sneered. “This is a holy place. Only those of our brethren are chosen to perform the rites. It is cleansing magic that will bring benefit to everyone in this hotel. You toy with what you do not know.”

“Oh, please. Talking in pseudo-medieval phrases doesn’t make anything sacred. My sister and her boyfriend do Tantric all the time. They strengthen their wards and protection spells with it, which, trust me, is stuff I don’t want to know about. Thank the gods I don’t have to watch.”

“You understand nothing,” their leader said. She fumbled with the knot of her robe, and I took an alarmed step back. Please say she wasn’t about to flash me. “Our magic will change everything.”

“Honey, you haven’t conjured enough to light a candle.” I gestured, and all the candle flames in the room leapt high, and then extinguished themselves. “Now wrap it up, take cold showers, and settle down. Don’t make me send security to throw you out. That would be so embarrassing.”

They glared at me through the smoke, the room smelling of warm wax and the acrid odor of burnt candlewicks.

The woman raised her hands from her robe’s belt, to my relief, and began to chant. I didn’t understand a word—the language could be Latin, could be Celtic, could be made up. I knew English and Apache, a smattering of Spanish, and a few words in Diné that Grandmother Begay muttered at me.

“For real magic, you don’t need words,” I said. “Unless you’re feeling whimsical. Like Presto.” I squashed the candles beside her chair into wide pools of wax. “And Abracadabra.” Her chair flew up to the ceiling.

“And now for my big finish,” I went on. The couples on the beds had untangled themselves and were watching me, openmouthed, one of them modest enough to cover herself with a sheet. The head witch stared at me in sudden and abject fear.

I raised my hands. Before I could speak or whirl my Beneath magic around the room and scare the crap out of them, all the lights went out.

I mean all the lights, including the little emergency ones that were supposed to come on as backup. Out the window, I saw glittering electronic signs marching down the Strip, but all lights in and around the C hotel had been extinguished.

“What the fuck is that?” one of the men cried. He was on his feet, naked body silhouetted against the Strip’s glare, pointing shakily out the window into the darkness.

That was a whirling mass of something I couldn’t identify, heading straight for us.

It hit the hotel with an enormous blow, the walls bowing inward, and then dirt, mud, and tree roots smashed through the windows, like a hurricane composed of the Earth itself, intent on burying its children.