“How far is it?” I ask Clive.
He squints into the distance like he can see Rock Springs from here. “About twenty minutes due east from here if we take the bikes and ride like hell.”
“The bikes?”
He points to an open bay in the garage, two doors down from where my own truck is tucked away. Two black electric motorbikes with thick stubby wheels and massive suspension systems sit parked in the opening. They look fast and sturdy, but that’s about as far as my motorbike knowledge stretches.
“You ever drive one?” Clive asks.
“Can’t say I have.”
“Okay. You ride with me, and Rabbit can ride with Rissa.” He checks the sky, where we’re minutes away from full dark. “Let’s go, kids. The monsters aren’t going to kill themselves.”
Chapter 24
Minutes later we’re speeding across the open desert on a pair of Kawasaki off-road bikes. I’m tucked in behind Clive, the goggles he gave me securely in place, and Kai is riding with Rissa. Clive and I are riding point. I’ve got the senses that come with my clan powers, and he’s got a flamethrower strapped to his wrist. He even gives me a little demonstration before I get on the bike.
“Nifty,” I say as the flame dances in his hand.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he agrees with a feral grin.
It doesn’t take long to get there. Clive’s estimation was right on and we pull into the outskirts of the dusty little encampment just minutes after full dark hits. Clive brings the bike to a halt about twenty feet back from the nearest tent, and we wait for Rissa and Kai to join us. Tents flutter in the light breeze all around us. Mostly dun-colored humps that fit two or three people, but also a few of the old-fashioned white frame kind that you see in old army movies, and plenty of the kind that are made of parachute material and zip up in all kinds of fancy ways. Big poles mark the outskirts of the tent city. The poles are crowned with huge halogen lamps, but only one of them is on and it’s flickering haphazardly, like the generator is shorting out. The rest of the place lies in shadow and darkness.
No sound. No people.
And that in itself is enough to send shivers down my back. But then I take a deep breath and the smell hits me full force. Witchcraft, just like up on the mountain.
“They’re here, all right,” I mutter. “You smell that?”
Rissa frowns. “No, but then I’m not one of you.” I’m not sure if she means she doesn’t have clan powers or that she’s just not Diné. She’s right on both counts, of course, but this odor is so strong I figured everyone could smell it—clan powers, Diné, or otherwise.
I look to Kai. “I smell it,” he confirms, pushing his goggles up on his head. “Like a charnel house.”
I don’t know what a charnel house is, but I know what it must mean. Death. He means it smells like death.
The twins exchange one of their looks but say nothing. The breeze picks up a little, the sparse clouds above us moving across the moon.
“Where are all the people?” Kai asks.
“Rabbit’s right,” Rissa says. “There should be people.”
“Dozens,” Kai says. “This is the first town once you make it past the Wall. Everyone coming into Dinétah from the east stops here to get processed. It’s never empty.”
“Well, they can’t all be dead,” Rissa says.
“They could be,” I counter, thinking of Crownpoint. “But there’d be bodies, and I don’t see any. Maybe the monsters are hunting for food.”
“They ate them?” Clive says, his voice climbing an octave.
I catch a whiff of ozone on the breeze. And sure enough, there at the base of a pole, scorch marks. Neizghání. It can’t be a coincidence.
“They’re hiding,” Kai offers. “The people are hiding.”
“Okay,” Clive agrees. “But where?”
Kai looks thoughtful for a moment. Then he smiles. “The tunnels.”
We’re a quarter mile outside Rock Springs, staring at the empty air. There’s a big hill of rocks and oversize boulders to my right. Kai’s sure that if there are tunnels anywhere, they start here underground until they hit the Wall. We can’t see the Wall from here, the night already too dark to see much farther than our immediate surroundings, but we all know it’s there, like some looming silent giant.
“So how do we find the entrance to these tunnels?” Rissa asks.
“I’ve heard of them, that’s all,” Kai answers him. “Smuggling tunnels. Bringing in goods people don’t want border patrol to know about. So they have to pass near the Wall, and this is the closest Rock Springs gets to the Wall, so it would make sense . . .”
Rissa spits in the dusty earth and says what we’re all thinking. “No people, no monsters. It sounds like a false alarm to me.”
I’m inclined to agree with her, except for one thing. “But that smell.” And the lightning strikes.
“And the fact that there are no people,” Kai reminds us. “That’s not normal. I’m telling you there are usually—”
“I believe you,” she cuts him off. “I mean, somebody lives in all those tents. But they aren’t here now. So you tell me what that means. They’re dead? They’re hiding?” She’s only a silhouette in the dark, her gear jingling as she moves away from us. “Don’t know. But I say nothing’s getting answered tonight.” She’s walking back toward the bikes about a hundred feet in the distance. “We’ll come back tomorrow in the daylight, see what there is to see. Because now—”
But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence before there’s a tsé naayéé’ erupting out of what looks like the middle of nowhere, huge sword in hand, slashing open her stomach.
Three things happen at once. Rissa screams and falls to her knees, trying desperately to hold her guts in place. The tsé naayéé’ winds his arm back for another swing, this time at Rissa’s neck. My obsidian throwing knife flies through the air before my brain can even process that I’ve thrown it. And it’s a combination of instinct, training, and clan-power speed that makes that blade fly true, right into the monster’s eye. He, or it, screams, drops the sword it’s carrying, and clutches at the small knife. But its fingers are thick and clumsy and it can’t dislodge the hiltless blade.
I’ve got my Böker out and I’m on top of the tsé naayéé’ in seconds. I use my hunting knife to hack at its neck until it stops moving. Out of the corner of my eye I see Clive swing his rifle forward, scanning the dark for more creatures. And he’s not disappointed. I count two—no, three—hurtling toward us from out of thin air. I curse as Clive lets loose, raining a hail of bullets down on the creatures. They slow, and one actually stumbles, but then they are up and moving toward us again.
“Fire!” I scream. In the panic, Clive’s forgotten what I said about bullets. He keeps on shooting and I realize I’m not making any sense. He is firing. I mean he needs to use the flamethrower.
Kai is next to me. “Go!” he yells. “Go help him! I’ve got Rissa.”
Rissa. I was so intent on bringing the monster down, I forgot about Rissa. She’s lying on the ground less than a yard away, hands clutching her middle. She’s not making much noise, just a low whimper. Blood and other things glisten dark and wet and bulging in the starlight.
“Maggie!” Kai screams. “To Clive!”
And I’m up and moving. I reach Clive’s shoulder just as the monsters are on us. I only have a second to cry, “Burn them!” and reach for Clive’s arm. He flexes his wrist, releasing the spray of fuel, just as I hit the lighter switch. Fire blazes to life in the palm of his hand, and Clive reaches out and smacks the monster’s face as it tackles him to the ground. The creature shrieks as its thick shaggy hair goes up in flames, its skin crackling like kindling.
The next one is on me. I can’t see it, but I can sense it coming. I duck and pivot and feel the terrifying breeze its machete makes as it passes over my head. But I’m where I want to be. I run the Böker across the back of its Achilles tendons.
And I’m moving, mee
ting the next one as it comes. This time I sweep the head clean off on my first pass.
Clive’s lurching back to his feet. The tsé naayéé’ whose face he set on fire is still smoking, the one who I crippled is trying to drag itself away on legs that don’t work, and two others no longer have heads.
“Are there more?” I shout, eyes straining wildly into the darkness to see anything at all. I can feel my strength lagging, the aftereffects of Honágháahnii already dragging at my muscles. “Can you see any more?”
No one answers me, so I limp over to where Kai has Rissa cradled in his lap. He’s made some kind of field bandage from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it tightly around her stomach. It smells faintly of cedar and I realize it must be coated in salve.
“She needs medical attention,” Kai says, voice tight with worry. “More than I can do here. We need to get her home.”
Clive has joined us, his face so pale his freckles stand out like blood splatter on his skin and his eyes are too bright. But he’s calm when he asks, “Can you help me carry her to the bikes?”
Kai’s head jerks up. His eyes go huge as he fixes on something in the distance. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and the look on his face sends cold fingers down my back. I turn to see what he sees.
There’s a dozen more tsé naayéé’ climbing over the rocks and headed our way.
I drag myself upright, muscles protesting. “Clive, I’m going to need your flamethrower. I’m fast, but they’re too spread out and I don’t think I can take all of them before they get to us.”
Clive lifts his palm and flexes his wrist, but the mechanism jams. He rotates the clear tubing connecting the fuel source to the face of the watch, but it’s clear something’s wrong.
“It’s clogged,” he mutters. “Or it broke when I fell.” He slams the whole thing against his thigh, trying to get the tube to catch. But it’s no good. The fuel won’t flow. And it’s all we got.
I swallow and those cold fingers reach deep inside me and clamp down. I’m exhausted, crashing hard from using my clan powers, but I know what I have to do. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” I say. “You’ll have to make a run for the bikes.”
“We won’t leave you,” Clive says.
“Yes, you will, unless you want your sister to die.” I’m thinking about what Grace said to me back there on the porch. About how she’s lost half her family already, and there’s no way in hell I want to be responsible for her losing the rest.
“She wouldn’t want me to run away.”
“Dammit, just go!”
“Wait.” Kai stops us. He lays Rissa’s head gently on the ground and comes to stand between Clive and me. The smell is stronger, choking, and the monsters are getting closer. Fifty feet, forty.
“Give me the lighter,” he says. Clive frowns but pulls the lighter free from the broken contraption and hands it to Kai. “Have your knives ready,” Kai says to me. “Just in case. And Clive, go to your sister and be ready to run on my say-so.”
There’s a quiet authority to his voice that I’ve never heard before. It brooks no argument. Clive and I both do as we’re told.
Kai steps forward. Starts to sing. Navajo words, soft and low.
Closer, within twenty feet, he lets them come. Voice still steady.
Fifteen. Twelve.
And then he flicks the lighter alive, leans in over the flame, and blows.
His breath catches the fire, sends it whirling. Small at first, but then it grows. Tall as a child, but then taller. And it circles, twisting into a cyclone of blue and orange and yellow and red, until it’s a massive whirlwind of fire that builds, builds. The fire is so bright I cringe back involuntarily. I try to hold my ground but am forced back by the inferno. I can hear Kai still singing, and a soft curse from Clive, before all sound is swallowed in the tornado of flames, itself a living entity. That twists down and swallows the charging tsé naayéé’.
They are incinerated where they stand. The flames shift to the right and the bodies of the dead burn too. They go up like dried kindling, quick and bright and hot. Flesh and bone turn to nothing. Until there’s no trace of monsters anywhere in Rock Springs.
And then just as quickly as it came, the wind and the fire are gone. The only sign the cyclone of flames existed is the gray ash that drifts lazily to the ground in the eddies of a barely there breeze.
Only a handful of seconds has passed.
Kai gasps and falls to his knees. His face is drenched in sweat, and he’s panting and trying to suck in air like he just ran across the open desert at top speed. I move to pull him to his feet, but he waves me off. Leans over and braces his hands against his thighs, still struggling to force air into his lungs.
“What the hell was that?” Clive’s voice comes from behind us, saving me the trouble of asking.
“Just a little wind,” Kai manages to get out. “I wasn’t even sure it would work, but . . .”
But it did. And I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even from Neizghání. And suddenly I understand what Tah was talking about. “Weather Ways,” I whisper, words meant only for his ears.
He grimaces. Doesn’t answer me, although I’m not sure I was really asking a question.
Stunned, we all stare at the place where the monsters were just moments before.
Kai finally breaks the heavy silence. “We’ve got to get Rissa home.” He looks over his shoulder at me, at Clive.
Clive looks back at Kai with a hint of something in his eyes. Awe? Fear? Whatever it is, it lingers as he nods and gingerly lifts his unconscious sister over his shoulder. I help him strap her partway to the bike and partway to her brother with strips of fabric and rope I cut off a collapsed tent. Kai and I stand there for a minute and watch them go. Wait until the sound of the engine fades into the desert night.
“She’ll be okay,” Kai says quietly. “That salve was an antibiotic, but she needs stitches. A healing prayer couldn’t hurt either. As long as Clive can hold her together until we get back . . .”
“What was that, Kai?” I ask him now that we’re alone.
He stares into the distance like he didn’t hear me, but I know he did.
“Did Tah teach you that?”
He laughs. “No.”
“Then what? Some kind of Burqueño magic?”
He looks over at me sharply.
“Because I’ve never seen anything like that. You called the wind.”
“The wind was already there,” he explains. He’s breathing normally again, the superhealing no doubt kicking in, but his voice is dead tired. “I just . . . coaxed it into something greater. And the fire came from this.” He holds Clive’s lighter up, still in his hand. “I can’t create elements from scratch, but if they’re already there, they . . . listen.”
“Is that the Weather Ways?”
He doesn’t answer me. The silence grows between us, and the wind, the very normal wind, picks up a little, shaking the tents and the decorated flag poles behind us.
I rub my hands along my arms, chilled. Whatever power Kai has—medicine, foreign, clan, or some combination of the three—it’s more likely to be feared than praised, and that I understand at a soul level. Someone who can create tornados could raze whole towns. That’s dangerous. And dangerous people need to be controlled. And if they can’t be controlled, best they be put down. No wonder he’s keeping secrets.
“You think they’re gone?” he asks.
“I can’t smell them anymore,” I say, letting the subject of his powers drop for now.
“Me neither,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t come back.”
“What do you think happened to the people? There’s no ch’įdii here, are there? Like at Crownpoint?”
“No. Hiding, most likely,” he says. “Probably safer than us, standing out here like big targets for whatever else might come over that ridge.”
He’s got a point.
“Did you see?” he says. “They looked like they came from out of thin ai
r. Where do you think they’re coming from? And who’s making them? And why?”
I remember the lightning strike burns by the main camp, and a horrible suspicion starts to form. It seems outrageous, even blasphemous, but Tah said it himself. Neizghání doesn’t think like humans do. And he would have access to the kind of sacred objects it would take to make monsters. Suddenly I am cold to the bone.
I try to shake it off. Shake my hands out and roll my neck.
Kai watches me as I walk back to the remaining bike. I swing my leg over and pull my goggles back into place. I’m not ready to share my suspicions yet. Too outrageous. Too damning.
“Let’s go,” I say, my mind still reeling from the idea that Neizghání might be our “witch.” And then I realize Kai’s not moving.
His eyes are downcast, and he’s waiting, like he’s not sure he’s welcome. But that’s crazy. He may have some kind of wild magic that’s beyond what I’ve ever known, but he did just save our lives. I cock my head and give him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re too good to sit bitch now.”
He looks up, breaks into his signature smile, and chuckles as he jogs over to slide on behind me. Pulls his own goggles on and then wraps his arms around my waist. Pushes his chest up close to my back and wedges his thighs tight around me. I shake my head and laugh a little. Whatever he is, he’s still a shameless flirt.
“Were you even going to mention it?” I ask him.
“Ah, Mags.” He sighs against my neck. “Where’s the mystery in that?”
Chapter 25
Kai and I pull the bike through the gates of the All-American, and Freckles, whose name I still don’t properly know, waves us through with a thumbs-up and a goofy grin.
“Guess that means Rissa is still alive,” I say over my shoulder to Kai. He makes a little humming sound against my back, which sounds a lot like “told you so.” I breathe deep through my nose and feel a giddy sense of relief. For all Kai’s assurances to the contrary, part of me was sure we’d come back to a grieving mother and another death to lay at my feet.
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