Hexed

water.
    “Fremont!” I yelled.
    “I’m on it!” Fremont grabbed his toolbox.
    “Oh, and Fremont,” I said from the safety of Mick’s arms.
    “Next time you want to sleep with a woman—check with me first?”
    “Right.” I could tell he had no interest in discussing his choice of girlfriends right now. The plumbing called. He charged into the kitchen, and Mick carried me down the hall.
    “Oh, yes,” came through my bathroom mirror. “I get to see some action now. This will make up for my downtime.” The magic mirror’s gleeful chuckles died off into protests as Mick shut off the water in there and firmly closed the bathroom door.

     
    MICK MADE ME leave the hotel for a few days and take vacation. Ansel, remorseful and guzzling cow blood by the gallon, offered to stand guard over it for me, and Cassandra, her cool efficiency restored, assured me she had everything under control. Elena showed up to work the morning after the hex, surveyed the wreck of her kitchen, and started an hourslong rant. I was happy I didn’t understand much Apache. We left her to her kitchen, her diatribe, and her knives.
    I went with Mick to a place outside of Santa Fe that we loved, where the air was frigid, the snow was high, and beauty existed in every breath. We basked in the joy of time alone, especially snuggled up in bed at night, but I was still uneasy.
    Mick hadn’t quite come to terms with his choice of killing Coyote, even though his act had ultimately saved us. I’d tried to find out what had happened to Coyote’s body, but of course, I couldn’t. Plus, I was a bit worried about those flashes of visions I’d had while under the hex. Something coming, they implied. Something not good.
    On the third night, I slid into warm slumber after wild lovemaking with Mick and found myself standing outside under the tall pine trees, stark naked in a gently falling snow.
    I blew out my breath, which fogged, even though I knew I was asleep and dreaming.
    Tracks of a large wolf dented the snow. I followed the tracks deeper into the woods, and there he was, a huge coyote standing in a clearing, moonlight in his yellow eyes.
    I stopped myself from rushing to him and throwing my arms around him. I was naked, and he’d like that too much. “Are you alive? Or is this all I’ll ever see?”
    Of course I’m alive. I’m a god. The god.
    As he spoke, the coyote shimmered and morphed into the man Coyote—tall, broad-chested, black-haired, and as naked as I was.
    “Damn you!” My voice rang to the stars. “It’s been days. Why haven’t you told us you were all right? Mick’s eaten up with guilt.”
    Coyote winced. “Keep it down, Janet. Little animals are trying to sleep. I didn’t tell you right away because I needed to heal. I had a knife in my heart. Give me a break.”
    “You should have told us you wouldn’t really die.”
    “But I did die. I had to die. Sacrifice. Death and rebirth. I told you; I’m a god. It’s kind of in my job description.” He shrugged. “Besides, don’t you know your Coyote legends? I can only die if the tip of my tail is destroyed. I wasn’t letting anyone near that .”
    “Did you know about the demon-goddess? Did you know that Emmett wasn’t the hexor?”
    Coyote shook his head. “I still can’t believe his name is Emmett . And no, I didn’t know. As soon as he showed up, though, everything made sense.”
    “Now explain why you didn’t tell me that your blood would help. I was grieving for you, damn it.”
    “Aw, that’s sweet. But think about it. Whoever sent the hex could have been listening to us the whole time. Plus, if you’d known, you all wouldn’t have viewed it as a sacrifice. You had to believe I truly faced death—and I did. The attitude of the spell caster is as important as the ritual. More.”
    I remembered thinking much the same thing when we chanted Fremont’s spell for his demon.
    Coyote touched his chest, which bore no scars. Not one. “And don’t think it didn’t hurt. Mick’s damn strong.”
    “Wait. You said that everything made sense once Emmett showed up. But you were dead. So how could you know what happened if you were lying there dead?”
    “I was kind of in transition. I heard everything, saw everything, I just couldn’t do anything. I told Fremont to get her with the knife.”
    “You told him? How . . .”
    “He didn’t realize I told him. I planted the suggestion in his head, and he thinks he acted on his own. That’s fine with