Magic.
I think we’d found our man.
We stood there for hours, waiting for the fire to die. We couldn’t see anything through the thick, choking smoke. We also didn’t hear anything but the crackle of the flames, and we didn’t smell anything but burning wood and acrid fumes.
That should have tipped me off right away. Nothing burns without screaming. Nothing dies without moving. Nothing turns to ashes without one hell of an unpleasant smell.
Eventually, the Navajo climbed into their vehicles and drove away. They didn’t seem concerned about us. Considering the lack of evidence left behind, they didn’t need to be.
When the last dusty pickup disappeared into the sun that hovered just above the western horizon, Jimmy spoke. “Now what?”
“Now we douse that fire, then bury whatever’s left in at least four different places.”
Jimmy’s shoulders slumped on a sigh. “Okay.”
“Disappointed?”
“I wanted to kick some ass.”
Behind him, the ashes rippled. The red embers glowed brighter and brighter, then gave a subtle whoosh.
“We might have to,” I murmured.
Jimmy spun as the pyre reignited, shooting as high as some of the oldest trees. The flames themselves became a man, then the man became a wolf, a mountain lion, a writhing snake. Every time I blinked, the image re-formed—now a hawk, next a tarantula, and, once again, a man.
“Shape-shifter.” Jimmy’s silver blade sliced the heated air.
“Worse,” I said, as the blazing man walked out of the inferno completely unharmed. “He’s a skinwalker. That fire only pissed him off.”
As he stalked toward us, his long, dark hair streamed back, the coming night air causing the flames that still licked at the ends to extinguish with an audible poof. He glistened in the dying sun, the tattoos that graced nearly every inch of his body seeming to dance as muscles rippled beneath his skin.
He wasn’t tall; he didn’t need to be. The power, or maybe it was the fury, cascaded off him with such force the grass beneath his feet curdled and died.
“Should we run?” Jimmy asked.
The man approaching us smiled. The expression frightened me. But Sawyer always had.
I stepped in front of Jimmy, my arm lifting to make use of my magic. Sawyer flicked his hand. He was still five feet away; he never touched me, yet I flew off my feet and landed fifty yards south. If I’d been human, the force of the fall would have fricasseed my brains. Instead, I was up and running almost instantly.
I was too late. I’d known even while I was still airborne that I would be.
Jimmy plunged the silver switchblade into Sawyer’s chest. When Sawyer didn’t burst into ashes, Jimmy took a step back, but he didn’t run. Maybe he should have.
Except Sawyer could shift in an instant; he could move faster than the eye could track. There was no point in running. Jimmy’s fate had been sealed long before now.
Sawyer lowered his head to look at the knife. He seemed calm enough, but the pyre behind him suddenly ignited all the way to the sky. Then, as quick as the lightning he commanded, Sawyer yanked the knife from his own chest and plunged it into Jimmy’s.
Even as I shouted, “No!” I was wondering—
Of all the times I’d seen Jimmy die, why hadn’t I ever seen this?
Jimmy collapsed to his knees, then tumbled onto his side. Sawyer tilted his head like the hawk tattooed at the base of his spine, staring at the dying man before him. Blood trickled down his bare chest, glistening in the glow of the dancing flames. But there was less blood than there should have been. His wound had already begun to heal.
I fell to the ground, tugging Jimmy onto his back. Someone was chanting, “No, no, no.” I think it was me.
His eyes were closed, his face more gray than pale, his lips white. All the blood in the world seemed to be darkening his once mint green shirt.
The panic in my head, the utter devastation in my heart was the same panic and devastation that had swamped me upon awakening from every dream where Jimmy had died.