Hexed

won’t work.” She fixed me with an accusing stare. “What did you do this time?”
    I started rummaging in a drawer. “Why is everyone assuming that I did something?”
    “Because you usually do.”
    She had a point. I pulled out a screwdriver. “Here.”
    Maya sighed, but she yanked the screwdriver out of my hand and headed for the back of the kitchen, where the junction boxes were. I knew that if anyone could bring the lights back, it was Maya. She was the only one currently in the hotel who wasn’t magical, but when it came to electricity, she had talent to burn.
    I returned to the lobby to find Cassandra trying to get a signal from her cell phone. I couldn’t get one on mine, either, and my landline was out as well. A good curse would take care of pesky things like phones.
    But I had a couple of secret weapons at my disposal. I poked my head into the saloon and looked at one of them. “Mick still on the roof?” I asked the mirror.
    “Yes.” It sounded as glum as Maya. “There’s some bad things stirring, sugar.”
    “That’s why I want Mick.”
    “I mean, really bad, sweetie. I’m having a bet with myself how fast you’ll replace me if I die.”
    “Don’t be so melodramatic. You’re a magic mirror. You can’t die.”
    It sighed. “I can be melted into slag, ground to powder. And then I’d never see your beautiful ass again.”
    I ignored it. Besides, even a melted magic mirror could be re-formed with no loss to its power. “Are you still tied in with the mirrors at the compound in Santa Fe?”
    “The place with Bancroft and Drake and their hottie houseboy? I might be.”
    I had the feeling my mirror had been training his magic eye on the twenty-two-year-old human who did errands for Bancroft, a member of the dragon council. The houseboy’s name was Todd, and his job was to make sure that the needs of the dragons’ guests were met. Each and every need.
    “Drake owes me one, he and Bancroft both,” I said. “Stand by to contact them if we need help. If we need it, that is. I don’t want Drake out here giving Mick hell if it’s not necessary.” Drake worked for the dragon council, and he was more arrogant than the three council members put together. But I couldn’t ignore his potential as an ally.
    “I’ll stand ready, sweet cakes.” The mirror paused. “Could you show me your beautiful bod, one more time? Just in case . . .”
    I made a disgusted noise and left the room. I was surrounded by perverts, but they were powerful perverts, and I couldn’t afford to do without them.
    I ascended to the second floor, took the back stairs to the third, and opened the door out onto the roof. Mick was there, gazing out over the desert beyond the Crossroads—what the locals called the T-intersection of two highways. My hotel and the Crossroads Bar sat on desert east of the T, but the Crossroads was also a mystical crossroads, I’d learned, where magic and reality could blur. A railroad had been built here once but had gone bust nearly a century ago, the empty railroad bed and a derelict hotel the only reminders of its aspirations to glory.
    I paused on the roof a moment to appreciate the fineness of my boyfriend. Mick’s body was broad, hard, and strong, the muscle shirt and jeans he wore, despite the chill, showing it off in a good way. Wind tugged at his wild black hair, which he usually tamed into a short ponytail. Tonight he’d left it loose, and it was all over the place. I wasn’t sure why Mick had hair at all, or why it was always that length, but he never changed it. I didn’t mind, because his hair was wonderful to run my fingers through.
    Mick had been my first lover—my only lover—though we’d spent five years apart before we’d both ended up in Magellan. He was the only being who could tame my Stormwalker magic when it threatened to overwhelm me. Thoughts of how he did it started wicked fantasies bubbling inside me.
    The dirt parking lot I shared with the Crossroads Bar was filling with motorcycles as the sun set in splendid glory to the west, silhouetting the distant San Francisco Peaks.
    Mick turned as my boot scraped on the roof, but he’d known I was there. Mick always knew where I was.
    He gave me the smile that turned my heart inside out. “Hey, baby.”
    I silently damned whatever mage had tracked down Cassandra. Stupid curses. Mick and I should be making love up here under the blaring sunset, the red light touching our skin, not discussing malevolent