“So you think you’re evil?”
“No. But if it gets on you . . .”
“ ‘Gets on you’? Maggie, listen to yourself. Whatever happened to you may have been evil, but you aren’t evil. And out of that evil deed came a blessing, not a curse.”
“I don’t believe—”
“But you did once, didn’t you?”
I remember herding sheep for my grandmother, pink pajamas with hearts on the back. Watching Westerns and laughing. But then I remember other things too. “Not for a very long time.”
“You know Tah thought that you hung the moon. Used to brag about you to me, try to convince me you would save our people. He believed you were a hero.”
“Tah was always—”
“Was it Longarm who makes you think this way? I remember what he said to you. Did you swallow the poisoned Kool-Aid that prick was selling?”
“Of course not.”
“Then who? Neizghání? That teacher you clam up about every time his name comes up? Did he tell you that you were poisoned, some kind of natural-born killer? Did he convince you that you couldn’t have friends? Couldn’t be loved?”
“Kai, stop! It’s not like that. You don’t understand.”
There’s a loud roar from the pit, signaling that the fight is over. We both turn and lean forward to try to catch a glimpse of the winner. And the loser.
“Then make me understand,” he whispers as he turns back to face me, his voice urgent. “I’ll listen. Make me understand.”
What do I say? It’s the only life I know? It’s the only thing I’m good at? Killing is the only thing I have that makes me worth anything to Neizghání? And Neizghání was the only thing I had that makes me worth anything at all?
“I . . . I can’t,” I stutter. “You don’t know what it’s been like for me. You have friends. People love you. You saw how people react to me.”
“People like to kick my face in,” he says, his voice wry. “Uriostes, Law Dogs. Is that what you mean?”
I laugh, despite myself. “Oh God, that’s true, isn’t it?”
He sighs. Nods, then takes a deep breath and looks at me, his face serious. “One of the first lessons Grandpa taught me. Clan powers are a gift, not a curse. We may not understand them, why they only come to some of us, what their full potential is, but he was sure they were an instrument against dark times, against the coming of monsters. And like any instrument, they can be used for good or evil. A good man can use a hammer to build a house. A bad man can use it to kill his neighbor. The hammer is the same.”
“I’m more gun than hammer. I’m a weapon. Specifically meant for killing.”
“A gun, then, Maggie. But one that can be used to protect just as much as destroy. Or neither. Melt down a gun to its essence and all you have is metal that can be shaped into anything you want. Nothing says you can’t do the same.”
“I know what you’re saying, but you don’t know me. Not really. You don’t know the things that I’ve been through. Or the things that I’ve done.” Gray eyes going dim as I slide my blade across a throat. Wiping my knife on a dead man’s coat. Longarm, a face like hamburger meat. And a little girl, her head rolling down the side of a mountain.
And more. Countless more.
“I don’t need to know,” Kai says. “Everything you’ve done, your past, it’s all just a story you tell yourself. Some of it is true, but some of it is lies.” He brushes my cheek with the back of his fingers.
I frown and pull away. “You think I’m lying?”
His voice is almost unbearably kind. “Only to yourself.”
The same words Ma’ii used, but I don’t have time to contemplate the coincidence. The far gate slams open. We both turn to look. It’s one of the Bear clan guards. We stand up as he enters and watch as he marches through the cell to open the chain-link gate with a key. Kai grabs my hand, holds it tight. I let him. Maybe even squeeze back a little.
“Two minutes,” the guard growls, handing me a knife. It takes me a moment to realize it’s my Böker. Seven inches of edged steel, slightly curved, heavier on top to weight a downward strike. They opened the lockbox.
The guard grins. “Be grateful you’re getting it at all. But Mósí figured you’d fight better with your own weapons and she wants a good fight.”
I slide the knife into the empty sheath on my belt.
“They’ll call your name. You come out. A little showmanship never hurts. Runs the bets up. You’re a girl, so they’re already betting hard against you, and, well . . .” He chuckles, low and mean.
“Well what?” I ask.
“Who’s going to bet against him?”
“Him? Who’s ‘him’?”
He grins, an evil spread of his thin lips. “You still haven’t guessed who you’re fighting?”
“No.”
“Everyone’s been waiting to see this one.”
I frown, puzzled. “I only just agreed to fight. How could anyone be looking forward to my fight?”
He laughs. “Mósí knew you would come. She’s been spreading the word about this fight ever since the Coyote brought her that thing you both are fighting over.”
“What?” Ma’ii brought Mósí the fire drill?
“She wasn’t so sure about your opponent,” the guard continues. “The Coyote promised, but we couldn’t believe he’d actually show up. But the Coyote called it.”
“Ma’ii. You’re talking about Ma’ii.”
“Why would Ma’ii bring Mósí the fire drill instead of just giving it to us to begin with?” Kai asks, just as puzzled as me. I shoot him a worried look. What is the trickster up to?
“And he said you’d come for sure,” Bear clan says. “That you couldn’t stay away. He’s got your number down, girlie.”
I ignore that last part. “So Ma’ii set this whole thing up?”
The Bear clan man shrugs his massive shoulders. “I don’t know what he and Mósí worked out. I just know this is going to be a hell of a fight. Or . . .” He studies me, no doubt trying to decide if he bet on a winner or a loser. “. . . if the stories about you are just bullshit, it may be a bloodbath.”
“A bloodbath?” My stomach drops like a stone. “Who the hell am I fighting?”
But he doesn’t have time to answer me. They’re calling my name.
Chapter 31
I enter the arena.
Shouting slaps my senses. Blood rushes through my veins, pounding in my ears, turning everything into a dull roar. I scan the crowd, packed to capacity and screaming in a frothing frenzy, but I can’t see much with the bright glare of the lights in my face. Mósí is a shadow in a glass box, same with the place where Clive should be. Kai is lost to the gloom somewhere, waiting back in the cell I just came from, ready with his medicine bag and what prayers he knows, should I need them.
And then something bright catches my eye. Ma’ii. Still in his cerulean and tangerine. He twirls a short soot-blackened stick though his clawed fingers, grinning. It takes me a moment to realize what it is.
He touches the drill to the tip of his top hat, a salute. Or a sendoff.
And I know. I know who is waiting for me on the other side of the ring a split second before they announce his name.
“Naayéé’ Neizghání!”
He steps out of the tunnel opposite mine and the crowd falls to a hushed awe. He is as magnificent as I remember him. Handsome, yes, but feral and utterly otherworldly. Waist-length ebony hair swings freely down his back. Eyes dark as the hour before dawn. His face chiseled by a master. Sharp cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and heavy brows. He’s without his flint armor today, his bare chest banded with thick muscle and a stylized lightning tattoo over his heart. His broad legs are clad in soft leather, and he wears traditional hunting moccasins. He’s every inch the hero of legend, stepped out of the stories and into the pit to fight me.
Silence falls as he strides out into the arena, graceful and deadly. I know him, have trained with him for years, am sworn to
try to kill him tonight, and even I stand open-mouthed and stunned in his presence. He lifts his hand and he’s holding a lightning dagger, a smaller version of his iconic sword, in his fist. He smiles. Bedlam erupts, the crowd chanting his name.
He looks at me, those terrible eyes boring into me, and his smile breaks into a grin, warming as the sunrise.
“Yá’át’ééh, Chíníbaá.” His voice carries over the din of the crowd, rolling over me like thunder. “I did not expect to see you this day.”
I struggle for a moment to think. Manage to croak out a single word.
“Why?”
My voice is taut as a drum. I am shivering, sweat running down my back, my hands so slick that it’s hard to hold my knife. Mósí is saying something about the fight, announcing odds or rules or something equally irrelevant. The only thing I can think of is the man in front of me. A million questions roll through my mind. I want to run to him and wrap my arms around him, hold on and never let go. I want to sink my knife into his heart and make him suffer like I’ve suffered. But most of all I want to know why. Why did he leave me? Why didn’t he come back? Why now? Why here? Just . . . why?
He laughs, a deep earthy rumble. “Where else shall I be? I have come to claim what belongs to me and mine, by blood if I must. The question should be, why are you here? Death comes to all the five-fingereds in time,” he continues. “Are you sure that this is your time?”
I try to speak, but my voice has abandoned me. My heart jackhammers in my chest.
He lifts both his hands, silencing the crowd. Light blazes off the tip of his dagger. “Let no one say Neizghání is not without mercy!” he shouts. He turns to me. “Walk away now, Chíníbaá.”
“No!” A shriek from the glass box. Mósí. “You are promised to the ring, as is she. You cannot forfeit the fight without angering the Diyin Dine’é.”
Neizghání lifts his chin and shouts back at the Cat. “What is the anger of the gods to me? Will my mother turn away from me? Will my father strike me down? I am not afraid.” He looks at me, but he’s playing to the crowd. “And you, Chíníbaá,” he says with a knowing smile, “are you afraid?”
I swallow. Lick at lips that are dry, and remember why I’m here. “Ma’ii’s played us both. He has the fire drill.”
He looks surprised. “Of course he has the Black God’s drill. He stole it from my mother’s House in the West. He has promised to return it to me once we are done here.”
“But . . .” I stutter, my mind trying desperately to process this new information. Neizghání knows? Does that mean I’m right and he’s part of this? Or does it mean that the drill has nothing to do with the monsters at all? But then how . . .
The crowd is too loud. Screaming for our blood. I can’t think.
Neizghání looks down at me, something like pity on his face. “Cede the fight, Chíníbaá. Go home.”
“No.” I know I’m being irrational. That I don’t need to fight Neizghání at all. What little logic I can muster is telling me that Ma’ii is behind this, that the promise of the fire drill was just a ploy to lure me here to face Neizghání. I’ve been set up and the only way out of the trickster’s game is to walk away. But I can’t. Pride and fear and too much anger make it impossible.
The Bear clan guard was right. Ma’ii’s got my number down.
I stand up straight. My eyes rove over the stands. I remember what the Bear clan guard said about playing to the crowd. I dig deep, past the fear and shock, rally long enough for this: I cock my hip out, raise my Böker, and with a kind of easy confidence that Kai would be proud of, I start cleaning my nails. Slow, unconcerned. With seven inches of sharp steel.
“Perhaps you are the one who should surrender,” I say. “Let it not be said that I, Chíníbaá, am not without mercy!”
It’s the most ridiculous kind of bravado, but it works. The crowd roars. And now they’re chanting my name. Chíníbaá! Chíníbaá! Not as loudly, but it’s better than it was.
His frown deepens. “What are you playing at?” His voice is low now, pitched only for my ears.
“You left me,” I hiss. “I thought you weren’t coming back.” A thought occurs to me. “Were you coming back? Ever?”
He doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Just stares me down. Son of a bitch. And I realize I’m not scared anymore. I’m pissed off.
“We fight!” I scream, throwing up my arms. The crowd echoes me, picking up the chant of my name, pushing it to a frenzied pitch.
He shakes his head, disgusted. “So stubborn,” he mutters. He’s not happy.
“You should know,” I fire back. Childish, but I don’t care.
“Just remember that you chose this.” He brings his hands together in a booming clap. “No mercy, then. We fight!”
And the bell rings.
I strike.
He blocks my attack, pushing me back, light on his feet. But I am light on mine, too.
We circle, testing. Strike, parry, again. It is so familiar, this violent dance. We’ve done it a thousand times in practice.
His reach is twice mine. He slashes, lazy, ripping across my bare arm. The ice of his blade burns across my skin, and then searing heat, and blood trickles down my bicep. He’s drawn first blood. Easy. Just like that.
I don’t wait. I draw on my clan powers. Liquid fire flashes through my veins, like drinking flames, and time seems to slow as I speed up. My muscles flex and bulge, expanding. Power buoys me, sends me soaring. And now we are closer to matched. But the clock is ticking on my clan powers, and he’s moving again.
He rushes me, trying to take me to the ground. I wait until the last moment, then move, bringing my foot in to sweep his legs and let his momentum carry him down. He hits the dirt with a grunt, surprised. I lung for his kidneys, knife pointed, but he rolls and I hit air.
He’s on his feet, eyes wide with disbelief. “Are you actually trying to kill me?”
“That’s the idea.” I know he hasn’t seen me this fast since that first time, and I’m not a desperate little girl anymore. He’s made sure of that.
One minute he’s there, and the next he’s on me. This time he anticipates my speed. He wraps huge arms around me, pushing to take me to the ground. I fight him, digging in and pushing back. He roars, muscles bunching. Then he lifts me off my feet and slams me down. My breath flees, and I gasp for air.
The crowd explodes in screams and he laughs, raising his arms theatrically at their cries. He turns that smile on me. He’s not even breathing hard. “I miss this,” he says. “I miss you. Come back to me.”
I lie there trying to breathe, trying to understand his motives, his next move. “You left me.”
His face is virtuous, but his voice mocks me. “I needed some time.”
“For a year?”
“Was it that long? You seem none the worse for it.” His eyes travel over my chest, so much of it bared by the shirt. “In fact, I think it did you well.” He grins big, flips his hair back over his shoulder. “Maybe you should thank me.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. Roll and swing my knife, plunging it into his leg.
All humor drains from his face and he grits his teeth, holding back a howl of pain. He grabs me by the forearm and plucks me off the ground. For a moment I dangle at the end of his reach like a fish on a line, and then he tosses me away.
My arms pinwheel as I fall, but I manage to catch myself on my elbows instead of flat on my back this time. My head snaps back painfully, but I still hold my weapon.
His dagger hilt comes down brutally, and I feel something shatter in my wrist.
I scream and my fingers release with a spasm of agony. With a kick he sends my Böker skittering across the pit, out of reach. I drag my useless hand in close to my chest and try to roll away. He pins me, straddling my stomach, keeping me on my back.
I lift my hips and throw my legs up around his chest, trapping his arms. He tries to break free, but I hold. I rock my hips, forcing him down, as the same forc
e raises me up. For a moment we sit entwined, face-to-face.
I have the advantage, but my hand is useless. I do the only thing I can think of. I slam my forehead into his nose. Blood spurts and he roars and break his arms free. As if I weigh nothing, he throws me across the arena.
I crash into the dirt, shoulder crushed at impact, head bouncing off the ground. I lie there, stunned. He’s playing with me. Of course he is. Even with all my clan powers, I am no match. This is a game to him. But now I’ve made him mad and I can sense the game is over.
I have to move.
But I can’t. Something bad has broken in my body, and I can’t get it to respond.
My heart hammers loudly, the only thing I can hear. The crowd has faded to the hazy rumble of a far-off windstorm. I blink, but it’s slow, so slow. My clan powers are depleted, used up under the stress of the fight, and I can’t even move. Shocked, helpless, and hurt, I just watch as he stalks toward me.
I fight to even stay conscious. Darkness closes in at the edges of my vision.
I think I see Kai, struggling against the Bear clan guards. Yelling something that I can’t hear. But something’s wrong. He’s so far away. And he’s glowing, an impossible silvery figure surrounded by a dark nimbus of shadow. That can’t be right.
Neizghání’s hand grabs my good shoulder and flips me on my back. I scream as pain shoots up my spine. He stands over me, his chin and chest covered in blood. I shattered his nose.
He drops to his knees, straddling me again. This time, I don’t have the strength to challenge him. He’s heavy, and he grinds his weight into my pelvis. Panic grips me, and I struggle weakly to get away. He squeezes his thighs, holding me still.
I begin to shake. The aftermath of the massive doses of adrenaline the clan powers require. Or shock. Fear washes over me in a blinding wave.
He leans over me, his long silken hair a caress against my skin. His big hand reaches down to grasp my neck and pull my face to his. I wait for him to crush my windpipe, but instead he runs a gentle thumb down the side of my throat. I look up into his eyes, fathomless pools of night.
“I could break your neck with the turn of my wrist,” he says matter-of-factly. “Is that what you want?” His face darkens. His hand squeezes my throat.
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