Until I see him.
He is huge, broad and tall, and he bends his back to fit through the front door of our trailer. He carries a sword made of white fire.
At first I think he is one of them. Then I see his wings. Wings that aren’t wings at all but hair so long and black that it seems to take flight as it flares out around him. He is terrible and beautiful and there is nothing human about him. I understand. He is a demon, come to punish me for the horrors I’ve committed.
But I won’t let him take me. I won’t make that mistake again. I stumble backward. Slip in a pool of blood and viscera. With my last ounce of strength I raise my knife in front of me, grasping it with both hands to keep it steady, praying for one more miracle.
And the demon smiles.
He tells me his name is Naayéé’ Neizghání and he is honored to have been there at my rebirth. He calls me “Chíníbaá’,” a traditional Diné name that means “girl who comes out fighting.” He thanks me for killing the witch and his three men, as they are the very monsters he’s been tracking for days.
I only killed four? I ask him.
He laughs. Are not four lives in one day enough?
In the grasp of the clan powers it felt like more. But no, he killed two who fled, and left the leader and three others for me.
Mercy, I tell him. Whisper it to him through a hideous bloody smile and gritted teeth. Whisper it again. And again. Until I fall, shattered, into his arms and he carries me away from that trailer and back to his camp. He leaves me to wash the blood of my enemies from my skin. He feeds me. He explains to me that I am touched by death now and that it’s changed me, but I can heal if I have the proper ceremonies and allow the seasons to pass.
I never go back to my grandmother’s house, to that trailer on the ridge. There is nothing there for me. With Neizghání, I have something, even if it is born from blood and violence. He agrees to train me, teach me how to fight, how to use weapons and track slyer creatures than the first ones I killed.
I never have those ceremonies to take the touch of death away from my spirit, but the seasons do pass. In time the wounds of that night begin to scab over, and as long as I don’t pick at the memories, as long as I only use them to fuel my savagery and lock them away in the dark places inside me when I am done, I’m okay.
And it becomes a life. My life. Hunting monsters for trade and learning the ways of violence at the feet of a master. It is a life that I can endure, even sometimes enjoy.
Until Neizghání leaves. And I am left alone to hunt the monsters by myself, both the visible kind that steal away little girls to eat their flesh, and the invisible kind that live under the skin, eating at the little girl from inside.
Chapter 15
The sound of Kai’s laughter wafts incongruously through my memory, and I grasp at it, latching on and holding tight, letting it pull me back to reality. My familiar kitchen, guests in the other room, soft dough in my hands. I blink, expecting tears, but my eyes are dry. My hands are a bit unsteady as I slide the dough into the hot lard, but I manage. The fat sizzles as the bread puffs. It’s good. I’m good. Or at least I’m okay.
I let myself breathe. I concentrate on the simple push and pull of air as it travels through my body. And I lock all those memories away where they belong. Or at least I try. They can’t all go away because I hear Kai asking Coyote, “And this Neizghání spared your life?”
I frown. Ma’ii is telling stories about Neizghání. I try to recall if I’ve mentioned my mentor by name to Kai, but I can’t remember. I know this is Ma’ii’s way of stirring up more trouble, but before I shut him up, I wait to hear which story he is telling.
“He spared my life the one time. But I have died many times in many ways. It is not the dying that is so awful, as the knowing that you must awaken alone the next dawn. I am not much of a morning person.”
“Well, if he spared your life after what you did, he can’t be all bad.”
“It is true he is considered a hero of legend, but then I am no monster for him to slay.” His voice is smooth, almost flippant, but I recognize the undercurrent of anger. Whatever Neizghání did to him has not been forgiven, no matter what he claims now. “I am just a simple Coyote, and he is the son of Changing Woman and the Sun. If you look at it that way, it is a wonder he bothered with me at all.”
I shake my head as I use tongs to gingerly pull a piece of bread from the hot lard and lay another in to fry. Maybe someday I’ll get Ma’ii to tell me what happened between the two of them.
“Changing Woman,” Kai says. “You mentioned her before. She created humans, the five-fingered people, I mean. So she is Neizghání’s mother? And his father is the Sun?”
I hear the chair creak in the other room. “It’s a rather delicious tale of seduction between them. A willing girl with her legs spread, a hot summer day. Would you like to hear it?”
“Another time, maybe,” Kai demurs. “So this Neizghání is a legendary hero. Kind of like Hercules?”
“Who? I do not know a Hercules. Did he kill monsters?”
“In the stories of ancient Greece.”
“Then yes!”
“And he was Maggie’s teacher?”
“And much more,” Coyote says, his voice a lubricious whisper. No matter how he feels about Neizghání, the old Coyote cannot resist a scandal.
“Okay, that’s enough.” I push through the door. Both of them are leaning forward in their chairs, heads together like Chapter House gossips. I point a finger at Coyote. “You, stop talking about things you know nothing about. And you”—I shift to Kai—“stop listening to a trickster.” I jerk my head in Kai’s direction. “And come help me with the food.”
Kai looks chagrined, but Coyote just grins his toothy predator grin and blinks those unsettling yellow eyes at me.
“A little touchy, Mags,” Kai says as he joins me in the kitchen.
“I don’t want you gossiping about me with the Coyote,” I tell him, dropping the last of the dough in.
“Is that what I was doing?”
“Yes.”
“So, if I want to know something about you, you’ll tell me?”
I ladle the chilé beans into the three waiting bowls as I consider his question. “Maybe. Depends. What do you want to know?”
The last piece of frybread is done. Kai picks up two bowls, one for himself and one for Coyote. I take the last one. His lips crook up in a half smile and he leans his back into the door, holding it open for me to pass through first. “Don’t know yet, Mags. But I’ll be sure to come to you next time.”
I eye him suspiciously, but the look he gives me is all wide-eyed innocence.
We eat huddled around my coffee table, crowded onto the sofa and armchairs in my tiny living room. I fold my bread into a scoop, dip it into the bean mixture, and shovel beans into my mouth. Ma’ii watches me closely before he sniffs his own bowl. He takes a spoon delicately in his clawlike hand, long fingernails clicking, and eats like he’s the Queen of England. Kai follows my lead with the bread. We all eat in relative silence, sharing a word here or there, but mostly focused on our food. Coyote finishes first despite his fussy use of a spoon. He wipes his mouth quite crudely on the sleeve of his coat, drinks deeply from what’s left of his coffee, sets the cup down, and retrieves his hat from the table next to him.
“Ahéheé, Magdalena,” he says. “And now it is time for me to depart.”
He turns to Kai. “I have enjoyed your company tonight, Kai Arviso. So I give you a gift. You may call on me and I will hear you. Say my name four times to the four directions at dawn or at dusk, during the changing of the day. If I wish, I may come.”
“If ?”
Ma’ii shrugs. “I am busy and Dinétah is large.”
It’s not much of a gift, but Kai’s serious when he says, “Thank you.”
“Splendid!” Coyote stands, placing his hat on his head. He takes up his walking stick with a flourish and gives me a slow blink with those brassy eyes.
“Walk with me a moment, Magdalena.”
I shoot a look at Kai, wondering if he knows what Ma’ii wants, but he gives me nothing. I haul myself up and step toward the door with Coyote. It’s a little silly. We’ve only moved a few feet away from Kai, so the pretense of privacy is a joke. But Coyote doesn’t seem to care.
“He’s delightful. Very charming. And those hands.” Ma’ii shakes himself, his camel topcoat swaying. “He would make a fine lover.”
“I’ll let him know you’re interested.” Not that he can’t hear everything we’re saying.
“Not for I,” Ma’ii says, annoyed. “For you.” He grasps my arm, face serious, eyes gone cold as dawn. He whispers in my ear, mouth so close his breath is warm and wet on my cheek. “Forget Neizghání. He is a deeply selfish creature. He does not love you. Cannot. You are but a moment’s fancy, a distraction, a curiosity of which he has now tired.” His grip tightens, fingernails digging into my flesh. “The Monsterslayer will only disappoint you,” he hisses.
“Neizghání is none of your business.” The good humor has leaked from my voice, and my eyes match his in bleakness. There’s the old Coyote I know, hidden for a handful of hours tonight under the pretense of friendship, but back now and as cruel as ever. His warning cuts deeper than even the innuendos of earlier.
He made me mad before, roused unwanted memories, but as painful as those memories are, they are years behind me and that distance lends me some control. I can shut them down, lock them away, keep myself safe from their horror. What Ma’ii says now about Neizghání strikes me somewhere else, somewhere in my fears of the here and now, where I have no distance to protect myself. Because what I have not admitted to myself, what I can’t face, is that Ma’ii is right. Neizghání left me without a second thought, without a look back. And not a word since. As if I am already forgotten.
Whether I am a monster or not, he should have cared. He should have found a way to contact me. He should have let me choose to die under his sword before he left me alone.
Ma’ii must see something in my face, something that surprises him. Maybe he didn’t expect the insult to fly so true. He withdraws his hand, adjusts his jacket, and frowns at me. “I suggest you get to Canyon de Chelly with some haste. Find Níłch’i, use the hoops, and call for me.” His voice is crisp with irritation. He pauses for a moment to check his cuffs. “Understand that this is important.”
I open my mouth to remind him I haven’t agreed to even take his job, but he’s gone. I never even see him open the door.
“Where did he go?” Kai asks from behind me.
“Wait,” I say, raising a hand. A moment later a blinding flash of lightning floods the trailer. Kai swears quietly, and I blink as webs of red veins dance across my vision.
“How does he do that?”
I shrug. “They all do that. Wish I knew. It sure would save on fuel.”
Kai scrapes at the edges of the bowl, shoveling the last of his food into his mouth. Between bites he asks, “So that was the Coyote?” Finished, he pushes the bowl away and leans back, stretching his lithe frame out and crossing his legs under my coffee table, arms behind his head. “He wasn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A little less serious, I guess. All the Coyote stories I’ve heard portray him as kind of a fool.” He shrugs. “He didn’t seem so bad.”
I narrow my eyes, mouth open and about to protest.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, holding me off. “He’s sort of intense, kind of a pervert, too. I swear, half the time I think he was making eye contact with my crotch instead of my face.”
I feel like I turn two shades of red, but Kai keeps talking.
“And he gives you the creeps, too, with those yellow eyes and teeth.” A shiver runs across his shoulders and he shakes it off. “One minute he looks human enough, and then you get a flash of something else, like he’s wearing a man suit, but he’s not a man.”
“He can be a little weird,” I acknowledge.
Kai chuckles under his breath, amused at my understatement. “But he’s not a fool.”
I come to sit across from him on the edge of the armchair. “Truth is, I’ve never seen him act like that before.”
“Act like what?”
“Talkative. Telling stories.”
“He’s never told you stories?”
“The only stories he’s ever told me are horror stories. About badgers beating him to death or birds plucking out his eyes. That kind of thing.”
Kai stares at me.
“What?”
“It’s just . . .” He hesitates a moment, like he’s not sure how his next words are going to be received. “Can I give you some advice?”
I gesture for him to go on.
“Some people believe you destroy your enemies by making them your friends.”
I mull it over. “Is that what you were doing? Destroying an enemy?”
“Wasn’t I?”
“I find a gun works pretty well too.”
A moment when he holds my gaze. Then he laughs. “You’re a hard woman, Mags,” he acknowledges. “No offense, because I like you. And I’d like to get to know you. But I don’t think many friendships are fomented at the end of the barrel of a gun.”
“Says who?”
He laughs again, and it feels good. Sounds good. To have him here. I wouldn’t have made it through this encounter with Ma’ii so smoothly without him.
Distant barking makes me raise my head, and I grin. “My dogs are back.”
“Where did they go?”
“Don’t know, but they always take off when Ma’ii shows up. Must be a canine thing.” I stand up and stretch, a yawn cracking open my jaw. “C’mon. I’ll introduce you. You can help me feed them, and then I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
“You mean I’m not sleeping with you?”
He says it like a joke, but I freeze, caught completely off guard. My brain tells me it’s an innocent comment, a flirtation, and I should have seen it coming after all of Ma’ii’s earlier taunts about Kai being my new lover and Tah’s unsubtle matchmaking. I know I’m supposed to flirt back or laugh it off and tell him not to push his welcome, but I can’t make the words come out of my mouth.
Kai must notice, because he immediately backpedals. “Kidding. I’m kidding. I just thought, since you invited me back to your place . . .” He hesitates. “I’ll sleep in here. It’s fine. Couch looks fine.”
I can’t think of what to say. How to explain. I look over at him. The long lean frame, the rakish hair and disarming smile. I bet most girls don’t say no to that. Why would they? And I can’t deny that the idea is tempting. Kai could be something easy and uncomplicated. Somebody warm and willing to chase away the bad memories. Someone not Neizghání.
The truth is that Kai may be what I need, but he’s not who I want.
“It’s not like that, Kai.”
He’s quiet for a moment before he says, “It could be. Me and you, I mean. For tonight at least. If you want it to be. No strings. Just . . . fun.”
“I . . . I have someone. Someone I . . .” I can feel his eyes on me, the question there. If I have someone, where is he? He heard Ma’ii talking about Neizghání. He probably thinks I’m delusional, just like Ma’ii does. But the hope is all I have.
I gesture to the trunk that serves as my side table. “Blankets are in there. Help yourself.”
“Can I ask you one thing?” he says quickly, before I can escape. “You said I could. Ask you, I mean.”
I did, but now I’m not so sure. “Ask.”
“Why do you put up with him?”
At first I think he’s talking about Neizghání, but then I realize he must mean Ma’ii. “He’s not so bad, like you said. You just have to know what to expect.”
“And what do you expect?”
“All that talk about friendship isn’t real for him. I mean, Ma’ii’s an opportunist. He’s good as long as
our interests are the same, but if he sees the chance, he’ll turn on you without a second thought.”
“But you value friendship, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“So maybe we could be friends,” he offers. “Just friends, I mean,” he adds hastily when he sees my look. “If you want.”
For a split second I can’t think of a thing to say. It’s the last thing I expected, and I don’t have an answer for him. I can see him open his mouth like he’s going to take it back, and I don’t want him to. But I don’t know how to stop him either.
A loud bang at the door that makes us both jump, immediately followed by a low whine that is distinctly doggie. The tension in the room breaks and we’re both saved from saying anything at all.
Kai laughs quietly. Scrubs both hands over his face and up through his hair. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say more about it, but then he changes his mind and says, “Well, this is sort of awkward.” He looks around the room, a little defeated-looking. “Don’t suppose you have anything to drink? Whiskey, the local home brew? I’m not picky.”
I want to tell him we could be friends, but instead I say, “Any alcohol I have goes into the truck.”
“Right.” He lets out a gusty sigh and heaves himself up out of the chair. “What about those batteries? We never looked for those.”
“There’s a junk drawer in the kitchen.”
He drops his chin to his chest, like there’s a weight around his neck, something heavy but invisible, and nods. “And then I think I’ll call it a night. That okay?”
I shrug, my arms folded tight over my chest.
He wanders back toward the kitchen. I watch him until he disappears behind the swinging door. Wonder for a moment if I made the right choice about him tonight. Wonder if I made the right choice about anything tonight. Then I let it go. Haul myself up off the wall to feed my dogs.
By the time I come back, Kai has cleaned up the dinner bowls and, true to his word, is curled up on the sofa under one of my spare blankets. His back is to me and all I can see is the shape of his shoulders, the dark mess of his hair. I don’t know if he’s already asleep, but he’s silent and I don’t see any batteries out on the coffee table, so I drop the tote bag by the door and take the hint. I lock the front door and turn off all the lights.
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