by Anna Elias
“We picked two good ones, didn’t we?”
“Angels, both.” Sam sighed. “Just wish they knew.”
“They do, Sam,” Diego said. “No doubt about it.”
Sam started to challenge his friend’s certainty when the line gave a tug. They had already caught a large stringer of trout, but he wanted one Tahoe sucker or Sacramento perch before nightfall.
The fish bit again, harder this time, and Sam yanked to set the hook.
“That’s our big one, brother.” Diego reeled in his line. “Play him out.”
The fish fought with the strength of a small shark. If it were another trout, Sam hoped for one closer to the forty-one-pound record. An animal that size would go a long way toward feeding their homeless guests, especially since the new tables allowed them to seat even more. Sam’s joy faded as he thought about the battered women and children his son had tossed aside. Would Ron have been so callous had he visited the shelter, seen the breaks and bruises, and heard the stories of abuse for himself?
Sam frowned. He knew the answer. Ron didn’t have ears to hear about people or their plight, or eyes to see anything beyond a bottom line.
“Easy,” Diego said.
The fish struggled and splashed. Sam pushed aside his thoughts and reeled it in.
Diego grinned and scooped the net underneath. Both men gawked in surprise at the—
“Cui-Ni.”
Sam jumped. Chief Wolfsong Black stood behind them on shore. The breeze toyed with his long gray braid. A hawk cried overhead.
Diego didn’t seem surprised.
Chief Black held out his hand and Sam waded over to let him heft the netted fish.
“That one is big for his kind, Samuel,” he said. “He must have chosen you.”
“The fish chose me?” Sam quipped. He’d become very fond of Chief Black in the short time they’d known one another, but he remained skeptical of the chief’s beliefs. “Right. So I could fry him up for lunch.”
“So you can share him with those who need him.”
“It can never just be fishing with you, can it?”
Chief Black smiled. “Come.”
He walked through a stand of trees to a campfire he’d started on a nearby stretch of shore. Sam added the Cui-Ni to their stringer and both men peeled out of their waders. He and Diego each grabbed a beer from their cooler and walked to join Chief Black.
The three men perched on some of the strange, angled tufa rocks. Alcohol from the cold brew warmed Sam’s throat as he watched the last rays of day sink into night. The glassy lake reflected the full moon, and stars blanketed the heavens. At this elevation, without ambient light to conflict, even the smallest satellites winked at them from orbit.
“The Cui-Ni are rare, Samuel.”
Chief Black called everyone by his or her proper name. It somehow sounded right on his tongue.
“No one catches them unless they allow it.”
An owl’s cry punctuated Chief Black’s words. Sam took another sip.
Chief Black stoked the fire, shooting sparks overhead. “There is a power at work here, Samuel, one you do not yet understand. It is why Diego brought you.”
Sam glanced at Diego. “You brought me here to run a homeless shelter.”
Diego toyed with his beer bottle.
“A shelter, yes,” Chief Black continued. “But not just a home for the hungry and sick. Your refuge will also serve as a base for the Vessels.”
A bobcat caterwauled from up in the mountains. Sam shivered inside his warm flannel shirt. “The what?”
Diego stared into the fire.
Chief Black’s eyes remained locked on Sam’s. “My people will serve, Samuel, but you will lead.”
His intensity made Sam feel small and fearful.
“Lead where? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sam spun to Diego. “What’s this about?”
Diego took a deep breath and looked up. Flames danced in his brown eyes. “The Vessels are chosen people—humans at their most broken who have faced death and seen the other side. They are able to host spirits of the dead who come back to right wrongs, restore love, find forgiveness, basically fix things from their past human lives and help loved ones live better in this one.”
Sam’s jaw dropped. The beer slid from his hand. “But that doesn’t ... that’s not ... it’s impossible.” His father was a lapsed Catholic, his mother an active Methodist. They always believed in God and heaven, angels and saints, but not in spirits coming back as flesh. It didn’t make sense.
“These spirits serve the people they seek, helping them overcome sorrow, hate, greed, revenge—whatever darkness holds them back—and restore the good inside. They save us from ourselves, brother. The Vessels make it happen.”
The bobcat howled again, closer this time, and bats skittered across the darkness. A thousand questions surged through Sam’s mind, but he couldn’t imagine any that would provide acceptable answers.
“Have you lost your mind, Diego?” Sam snapped. “Or maybe you’re brainwashed. Or perhaps you think it’s because of that damn fish that—”
“This is because of you, Samuel,” Chief Black interrupted, his voice steady and calm “Your sorrow and loss. The unborn child who should never have been.”
Diego jerked up.
Blood drained from Sam’s face. No one knew about that, not even Diego. “This is insane. I—I have to go.”
Sam jumped to his feet and walked toward the nearby woods. Diego had parked the shelter’s Jeep on the other side and left the keys in the ignition. Sam was certain his friend could get another ride home. He’d barely reached the tree line about ten yards away, however, when a deep growl stopped him cold. An enormous bobcat emerged with muscles rippling under thick spotted fur and eyes that shimmered gold and green.
Sam froze, heart pounding as the thing slowly approached.
“You made amends, you started over, and you saved your family,” Chief Black continued, his voice louder across the short distance. “You turned pain into wisdom, wisdom into love, and love into a life of serving others. For these reasons, you have been chosen.”
The bobcat snarled. Sam trembled. “Diego?”
“Sorry, brother. This is too important.”
The cat stepped closer. “Oh my God. Diego!”
Diego closed his eyes. Chief Black began to chant, low and rhythmic.
The cat snarled and crouched, its nubby tail held straight out in the air. Both ears laid back and its eyes flashed.
“Diego.”
The beast let out a sharp wailing growl and lunged at Sam. Instead of flesh and fur, however, the cat hit his chest like a powerful blast of hot air. Sam felt as if he’d stepped into a lightning bolt. The cat’s body slipped into his, front paws and head followed by torso and strong back legs. Sam staggered backward, currents surging through every cell of his body. His pulse hammered against his eardrums and his nose filled with an overwhelming combination of fresh lake air, fertile soil, and smoking fire. A pulse of greenish-white light blinded him as he and the cat became one.
Blurry, golden green images sharpened into focus, as did the sound of thundering paws racing through woods. Sam was looking out new eyes, cat eyes, at the dirt, rocks, and tree trunks rushing past. The animal burst into a clearing, toward a cliff. Before Sam could scream, it leaped off and soared into the cold night air, sprouting strong wings, sharp talons, and a sharp, hooked beak.
Sam now soared as a hawk, flying on currents that carried him toward the bright full moon and surrounding stars. He soon realized the stars were not stars at all, but an endless blanket of pulsing, pearl-sized mists.
The hawk steered around them, then swept up and looped back at a twisting borealis of light. Iridescent ribbons of blues, violets, and greens vined around the vaporous pearls, and carried them down to an ocean full of people who drifted in open boats or flailed in the water, all of them wailing in misery.
As the hawk flew inside the shifting tendrils of light,
the mists swirled around the humans. Their ethereal bright light cut through the thick darkness and turned cries of suffering and pain into peals of laughter and joy. Sam flew past a small boat carrying two people. He recognized himself and his wife, Fergie. As she held his hand, one of the same mists rose from her mouth and floated up to join the others. Sam reached for her, but she faded into thin air and was soon replaced by their grown daughter, Gale.
Sam heard an angry shout and looked over to see his grown son, Ron, drifting alone in another boat. Sam reached for him, but Ron grew into a giant with eyes that spat fire. He missed Sam’s boat but burned others. Sam yelled for him to stop, but Ron laughed and rowed away.
The hawk swept back up into the sky and turned for the cliff. It soared over the canopy of trees until it spied an opening, dove down and flew back into the body of the big cat.
Once more, Sam found himself peering out the bobcat’s eyes and running at top speed through dense trees. He heard a voice, smelled the acrid smoke of a campfire, and saw himself standing in the clearing ahead. Diego sat cross-legged on a rock with his eyes closed, and Chief Black chanted rhythmic words in the fire’s flickering light.
The cat sped toward the standing figure, lunged at the man’s chest and disappeared inside. Bright light split the night as man and animal melded into one. Emerald beams shot out Sam’s eyes and his soul launched like a comet, exploding into every emotion and feeling he’d ever known—every hardship and happiness he’d ever shared—before sucking back together inside him with renewed purpose and hope.
The cat exploded out through Sam’s back and skidded to a stop on all fours. Sam staggered to regain his footing. His heightened senses diminished and the beams of emerald light began to dim. The chanting stopped. Sam heard only his frantic breathing and the crackling fire.
“Diego? Where are you? I can’t see. Diego.” Sam tripped and stumbled to the ground.
“It’s okay.” Diego took Sam’s hand and lifted him up.
“Is that you, Diego? Where am I? What’s going on?”
“Shh. Breathe.”
Sam panted and blinked hard until his vision started to return. He scanned the fire, the rocks, the trees, Diego’s face. Everything was blurry. Sam’s body dripped with sweat and his heart hammered. “What the hell just happened?”
“Give it a minute.”
Sam took a series of breaths to slow his pulse and calm his jolted nerves.
“Your desire to put others first is rare, Samuel.” Chief Black stoked the fire until sparks rained as tiny embers. “You will recognize that in the Vessels you choose.”
“Me?”
The tiger-sized bobcat growled and brushed against Sam on its way to Chief Black. Sam’s blurred vision restored, and he spun to Diego. “But what about you and me? The shelter? We’re in this together, right?”
Another owl screeched somewhere nearby.
Diego sat back down on the rock and studied his empty beer bottle. “Something came up. I need to take care of the Vessels Program in South America. Their director is—”
Chief Black silenced him with a look.
“I need to help them find a new one.”
Sam’s fingers trembled as he removed his eyeglasses and wiped a handkerchief across his face. “But that won’t take long, right? Then you’ll be back and we can do this thing together. Whatever the hell this thing even is.”
Diego and Chief Black shared another look. “I’m not sure. This may take a while.”
“But ...” The thought of spending years alone in this strange place crushed the air from Sam’s lungs. Though his spirit felt renewed from that crazy, mystical experience, his mind and body were petrified. He plopped on a rock near the fire. “But I’m not ready for this.”
Diego placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been ready, brother.” He gently lifted the handkerchief from Sam’s clutch. “Chief Black asked me to choose my replacement, the one person in all the world I would trust more than any other to lead this Program. Yours is the only name that came to mind.”
“See them with your heart, Samuel. Listen with your soul.” Chief Black looked out over the vastness of Prism Lake. “These Vessels are lost and broken, as you were. They know pain and suffering, as you have. They understand the power of love and compassion, as you do.”
Sam sagged against the cold rock. He couldn’t stop shivering.
Diego returned the folded handkerchief. “You’ve got this, brother.”
Sam wanted to run—back to the shelter, back to Chicago—back to anywhere before this place and that damned fish. Instead, he downed the last dregs of his beer. The liquid was still cold, and it kept the nausea from rising.
He waited a moment then exhaled. “The shelter is full of hurting people. Any one of them could ...”
“You will know, Samuel.” Chief Black’s voice was firmer this time. “And once you do, mark them with this.” He handed Sam a small leather pouch cinched tight around the neck. “For the tattaw. The design is innate; the powder is permanent. The right artist will know what to do.”
Sam eyed the bag. “And how will I find the right artist? Oh wait, let me guess. I’ll just know.”
He rose, wearing the heavens like a headdress. “I have led the Anaho for three generations, Samuel. I am honored you arrived in my lifetime so we may serve these spirits together.” His braid played in the breeze. “They arrive in one moon.”
“What? That’s four weeks. There’s no way I can—”
The bobcat growled him to silence and padded after Chief Black. Diego followed them, and all three figures disappeared into the woods.
Sam no longer felt the rock beneath him, or the brisk night air on his face. He couldn’t sense the sizzling fire, his feet on the ground, or his wringing hands. Instead, he’d become all of them—rock, air, fire, stone, and flesh.
He ran one finger along the stitching of the plain leather pouch. He tugged at the two long cords that secured its gathered neck and toyed with the ancient beads anchoring the tips of each string. Despite his reluctance and uncertainty, a new sensation arose. The feeling squeezed and pushed from inside, as if whatever the bobcat had done to him, whatever new and improved inner being had shot out of him and been stuffed back inside was shaping Sam into someone or something he’d never been before.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ROGUE
Rain-slicked mud shifted under Sanjay’s boots, sending gravel skittering to the rocks far below. The mountain’s sharp turn dug into his back, and he struggled to find traction on the narrow path. Pain helmeted his head and his vision blurred, but Sanjay pressed on, determined to follow this path to the Vessels Program in Peru. He grabbed again for the coin in his pocket. If he held it for ten seconds, the Spirit Guard would come.
But the angry Spirit fought harder, forcing the boy’s hands to his sides and squeezing his brain like a vise until blood trickled from his nose. He would not let Sanjay reach the coin. Not now. Not yet.
Not until I make her pay, he spat his words in thought. She is the reason I suffer.
Sanjay had hosted many spirits in his years as a Vessel, and each had followed the rules. But this one had grown cold and hard, a rogue who wanted things he should not and could not have. Spirits ... cannot ... harm, he replied, his thoughts struggling to cut through the pounding in his head. He reached for the coin again, but searing pain lashed down his spine and his legs gave way.
I’m not going back, the Spirit hissed. He ground Sanjay’s knees into the gravel until the boy howled. Though the Spirit had initially kept his promise, using Sanjay to contact families across South America whose daughters he had murdered in human life, things had soon shifted. With each family he met, with every apology he offered, his past pain and anger returned. The rejection and neglect he’d suffered while human had resurrected into a murderous rage, consuming him with the one desire he had hoped to avoid—find the woman who had taken his life and end hers before the Spirit Guard could stop him.
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sp; Sanjay’s insides twisted as the rogue Spirit tried to swirl them into particles of air and light and beam them away again. With excruciating effort, Sanjay scrambled his thoughts and focused every ounce of his strength to prevent his cells from separating. As the Spirit bellowed in frustration, Sanjay slipped his hand into his pocket for the coin. He’d barely curled his fingers around the engraved metal when the Spirit crushed his hand.
If you will not help me, Vessel, you will die.
He threw Sanjay into convulsions, sliding him off the narrow ledge. Sanjay grabbed for the rocky lip with his good hand, fingers barely catching, and he dropped the coin into the ravine two hundred meters below. The wind tugged at him outside as the Rogue worked to pry his fingers loose.
Sanjay roared in defiance and bent one bleeding knee to the ledge. He ground it into the rocky surface and used the leverage to haul himself back up. He struggled to his feet and planted his back against the cold mountain face. Sweat poured off him, his breath heaving.
You will not win. Sanjay snarled his thoughts. Revenge is not yours to take.
A lone hiker appeared in the distance, farther up the trail. Dark mirth bubbled inside as the Rogue laughed. I already have. He lifted Sanjay’s foot, jerked his leg, and forced his hiking boot down onto thin air. The boy’s torso pitched forward, arms flailing as he tumbled over the side. His screams echoed around the harsh bluff until the sickening thud of flesh hitting rock silenced his cry.
Thunder rumbled overhead as Sanjay’s warm blood oozed across the cold stone. His heart stopped, his lungs disgorged their remaining air, and his gurgling organs ebbed to silence.
The boy’s misty soul lifted like a pearl from his shattered jaw. Its light, love, and peace seared the Rogue’s Spirit, then disappeared into the next realm.
The Rogue shivered at the boy’s powerful essence, making the corpse shudder against the rock. He shoved that feeling aside and peered out the boy’s dead eyes, watching the hiker look down on them from the ledge. The man lowered his cell phone and retched. The Rogue shrank once more into his pearl-sized misty form and hovered in Sanjay’s broken jaw, a spider lying in wait.