by Misty Evans
A man as tall as Rife but more slender, strode out of the forest. He wore animal skin leggings and a shirt made from deer hide. A red strap hugged his flattened forehead and held his ghost-white hair close to his scalp.
Keva sucked in her breath as the heat in her stomach flash froze into ice. Even knowing Enann was the shaman who killed her sisters, seeing him made it real. How can this be? You disappeared with the rest.
Enann’s gaze traveled over Rife with acute interest and his eyes, black in the shadows, narrowed. Then his gaze fell on Keva.
Evil intent curled his lips into a smug smile. “Hello, my Chieftess.”
The ancient language coming from Enann’s mouth sounded harsh, even in his sultry tone. Keva’s old life—the guttural syllables of magic and a vanished world—blazed to life in front of her. “What are you doing here?”
He answered her again in their native language. “You must right the wrongs you committed.” His gaze flicked to Rife before returning to her. “Your betrayal with this half-breed is unacceptable. You belong to me.”
Keva took a step forward, anger heating her blood now. Rife’s arm shot out, stopping her, but she refused to stay quiet. “How dare you come here and try to bend me to your will. And why kill my sisters? They were the last of our people.”
Enann watched, amused. “Your people, not mine. Tainted blood and not worth one pebble under my feet. But then—” his gaze traveled over Rife again, belligerent and filled with malevolence, “—you always did have a weakness for bad blood.”
Rife’s already tensed body tightened further. “She does not belong to you.”
Keva’s head snapped around. He’d spoken their language. He understood what they were saying.
Enann tilted his head. “Nor you, War Chief.” He stepped forward, confident. “This is why I have come. You live. She lives. I must separate the two of you once and for all time.”
Rife sank into a crouch as Enann rushed him, but at the last second, Enann swerved, grabbing Keva by the arm.
The movement was too quick for a mortal and his grip too strong. Her bones screamed in pain under his fingers.
Before she could break away or Rife could reach for her, Enann had her by the hair and jerked her off her feet.
Her body slammed into the ground, sending a solid wave of pain through her and jamming her teeth together. With superhuman speed, he dragged her across the yard, laughing as Rife ran behind them.
Keva slapped at Enann with her hands, and struggled to twist out of his grasp, but couldn’t free herself.
“Say goodbye,” Enann mentally taunted her. “This time, it is forever.”
Rife’s face contorted with sudden understanding. He, too, had heard Enann’s thoughts. “No!” he yelled.
He flung himself forward to grab her. Just as his fingers brushed her bare feet, Enann turned her loose, tossing her sideways. She bounced and hit the ground with another teeth-jarring thud and rolled three times, her head smacking the trunk of a tree.
Seconds passed before she could move, pain blazing all along her right hip, ribcage and shoulder. Dazed, she struggled against the pain and twisted around to see what was happening in the yard.
Enann and Rife had locked each other in an embrace, each wrestling the other for control. As Enann caught Keva’s eye, he began chanting a spell she didn’t know. Their past language but with a different cadence, a different edge to it.
Before she realized his intent, he smiled at her. “I will see you once more in the time and place this all began. If you’re shaman enough to follow me, Chieftess.”
She tried to scream, tried to warn Rife what was about to happen, but the next second, his body and Enann’s vaporized.
Chapter Sixteen
Present Meets Past
No longer tied to a solid body, Rife’s spirit floated, weightless. A kaleidoscope of color surrounded him, as if he were riding a rainbow. The sensation was pleasant and for a moment he let go.
Where am I? Am I dead?
Confusion roped him in, bringing more questions and, on their heels, dread. Bits of the ancient past mixed with the recent past and swarmed like bees in his mind. War was about to break out. He lay dying in Chieftess Keva’s lodge as poison ripped his guts to shreds. Enann had disappeared.
Present-day Keva called his name, reaching for him…
Without warning, his spirit reconnected with his body. Pain seared through his arms and legs, making him buck from the force. His throat refused to let air pass and his lungs cried out in desperation. In his ears, he heard the erratic pulsing of his blood.
The next moment, he was freefalling, wind racing past his face and tumbling him over and over as he dropped from nothingness into being.
A grunt escaped his lips as he thudded to the ground, but before he could draw a breath, Enann landed on top of him, dead weight pinning him down. Enann’s eyes, blue as a summer sky, were full of dark intent. He reared up on his knees and punched Rife in the stomach, making Rife double up.
Enann laughed, seemingly unaffected by traveling through time. He pushed the red cloth on his forehead up an inch. “Welcome back, you filthy dog.”
Rife’s head throbbed in unison with the ache in his gut. His joints were on fire, and he was so weak he could hardly part his lips. Still, he refused to lie there helpless and take Enann’s abuse. Fisting his hand, he called up his energy and returned the punch, hitting Enann in the solar plexus.
Enann’s face twisted in surprise and pain as he jerked back.
Wait till he told Chee he’d fought a ghost. “Fuck you,” Rife said in English.
Enann regained his feet, rubbing his upper stomach. His lips rippled with a humorless smile. “Fuk yu,” he mimicked awkwardly, his words still in the ancient language of their ancestors. “Is this a curse?”
God, I hope so, Rife thought, pushing himself into a sitting position. Twilight filtered through a dense growth of trees, throwing deep shadows all around. Rain fell, coating everything and dripping off branches onto the ferns below, only to drip from their fronds to the ground. Beneath him, wet fir needles and soft moss carpeted the forest floor, emitting the smell of pine and wet soil as he crushed it under his body.
The forest was familiar, but something deep in Rife’s brain told him he was not anywhere near his grandfather’s house.
“Your balls,” he said, speaking in the native Salt Coast tongue to make sure Enann understood him, “are going to shrivel up and fall off tonight while you sleep.”
Enann paced in front of Rife, staying out of reach, but close enough to study him. “Tonight I will die when Thunderbird eats the moon. Tomorrow I will rise and live the day over for the last time.”
Either the guy was loony or Rife didn’t understand as much of the ancient language as he thought. “Where are we? What did you do with Keva?”
Enann’s pacing slowed and pride showed on his face. “Keva will come for you. When she does, I will control her.”
The burning anger in Rife’s veins flared white hot. “I will kill you before I let you hurt her.”
Enann stopped and faced Rife. “You failed before to end my life and it cost you your own. Do you not remember me poisoning you and you dying by the Moon Water knife?”
Rife leaned against the tree trunk behind him, gauging Enann’s height and weight against his own. Playing dumb seemed his best option. Enann didn’t realize their language was long dead and Red Fire warriors were extinct in the present day. That worked to Rife’s advantage. “I’m not this warrior Kai you and Keva believe I am. My name is Rife St. Cloud and I’m just a normal human being, living a normal life a thousand winters from now.”
Enann ignored his claim. “How did Keva give you and herself immortality?”
Best to keep playing dumb. “I’m not immortal, you idiot.”
He resumed pacing, a new sense of awareness quickening his steps. “She was able to raise you from the dead, then?”
“She did not raise me from the dead.�
� Rife slid his back up the tree and didn’t miss the way Enann’s body tensed as he slowed his pace. Commanding his shaking legs to lock so he didn’t fall back down and show Enann just how weak he was, Rife raised his voice. “I am not Kai. The only reason I even know Keva is because you tried to kill her. In my world, it’s my job to stop killers. If you’d stayed here where you belong, none of this would have happened.”
Enann responded, a petulant tone subduing his voice. “Keva is at fault. I only wished to bring her back here, but she fought me, and then the others…”
Every criminal Rife had ever interviewed had a rationalization, but this bastard was a murderer, regardless of time and place.
And Rife was a cop. “The others, what?”
“They sought to protect her.”
“So you killed them.”
“No one defies me and lives.”
Even after five years in criminal profiling, the language of aggression, of murder in particular, still chilled Rife to the bone. “Why did you mark their bodies with the symbols?”
Warming to Rife’s interest in his work, Enann resumed his pacing. “Keeping mind control over five women, and especially a strong shaman like Keva, took much energy. Marking them before they died intensified their fear. I fed off the fear to increase my energy to transport Keva with me here.”
Mind control? The drug of choice for evil shamans. Chee’ll love that. “And where is here?”
Seemingly satisfied that Rife didn’t intend to rush him, Enann put his hands on his hips and gazed at the sky. Rain dripped off the fir trees onto his face. “You know this place, warrior. Do not pretend otherwise.”
The pounding in Rife’s head ratcheted up a notch as he followed Enann’s gaze skyward. Like in his own time, a full moon hung in the center of the treetops, a tiny shadow nicking the left side of the moon’s white belly. A cloud?
Something clicked in his brain. He’d seen the dark shadow at the edge of the moon before. In a few minutes, the shadow would cover more of the bright surface until the moon seemed to disappear. As a boy, he’d watched a lunar eclipse with Chee and rose to dance around the fire his grandfather had built on the ridge. “Dance not,” Chee had warned. “The moon will not bless you on this night.”
To the young Rife, the phenomenon was too much to resist. He had watched the eclipse recede and sent up a prayer to heaven, asking the God his mother believed in to protect her from the man who constantly called and showed up unannounced on their doorstep. The man who forced his way into the house, even when Sora St. Cloud told him no.
Three days after the eclipse, Sora was dead.
Another memory, recently revisited in his grandfather’s kitchen, sprang to life in Rife’s head—his body, bound to an ancient fir, with a thin cut on his chest that dripped blood. The bonds around his wrists breaking from his brutal strength. The feel of Keva in his arms and the warm sex smell of her body engulfing him. His body forcing hers to the ground.
Forever, Chieftess.
The binding ceremony. He was back in the spot where Keva had married Kai’s soul—his soul—to hers for all eternity.
“I saw you two that night.” As Rife met his gaze, Enann’s eyes blazed with hatred. “It started on Starved Rock and I should have killed you then, but I still believed the High Chieftess and I would marry. That I could quench her desires and end her lust for you. Every time the two of you left camp to rut like dogs, I followed you. Every time you stuck your half-blood cock in her, I cursed you.”
While the FBI would label Enann a mass murderer who’d snapped when he caught Keva with Kai, stalking was a serial killer MO. Did serial killers exist a thousand years ago? “Did you ever kill anyone before Kai?”
A genuine smile broke over Enann’s face. “Your brain is leaking from the time jump. Of course I killed others.” He snorted in contempt. “Your slave mother for one.”
My mother…
As if a dragon opened its mouth and breathed fire inside him, the rage that had been building in him since his mother was killed ripped through Rife’s body. Without thinking, he pushed himself off the tree and lunged at Enann.
One of Enann’s hands moved and an invisible force stopped Rife as effectively as a brick wall, sending him backward. A second later, another move of the hand threw Rife against the tree, pinning his body against it. His arms and legs were paralyzed.
Enann advanced, now cocky sure of his safety. “When Keva arrives to rescue you, her immortality will not yet be in effect. She will be mortal again. I will force her to intercept High Chieftess Keva of this time and stop whatever magic she performed that made you live. The High Chieftess of the Salt Coast Clan will be mine once more. You and the Keva of your world will both die at my hands.”
Moving the only thing he could, Rife opened his mouth. “Fuck you,” he said and really did hope Enann’s balls fell off.
Chapter Seventeen
Keva pushed a fir tree branch down an inch and viewed the rear of the church. Besides Tessa’s rusting minivan, there were two cars in front of the church: Chief Chee’s and a government car.
She needed Chee’s help, but would do anything to avoid the agents. They’d want to interrogate her and she didn’t have time for that. She had to find a way to follow Enann and stop him from hurting Rife.
The sweet moments before Enann had intruded confirmed Keva’s belief that Kai had been reincarnated. She’d succeeded in awakening his memory at least partially, but even if she hadn’t—even if Rife had just been Rife—she now realized she’d still feel the same. Rife St. Cloud was a noble, respectable man, one worthy of love and a happy life. Even if he wanted to deny his previous lives, he deserved to live the present one any way he wanted.
The only way to bring him back and allow him to live that life was to find Enann and stop him for good. “I will see you once more in the time and place this all began.” Enann’s challenge taunted her. He wanted her to meet him at Starved Rock a thousand years in the past.
As a shaman, she’d performed magic many times, some spells particularly complex and difficult. Following a ghost through time, however, was out of her league. She needed her Moon Water knife, along with the timeless marker of Starved Rock and a boatload of luck if she was going to succeed.
By road it was five miles from Chee’s cabin to the church. By forest trail, it was two. Stepping from the protection of the trees, Keva ignored her bruised bare feet that had brought her here. She barely felt the scratches and cuts on her legs from her run through the forest either, she was so focused on doing what needed to be done.
She had nothing left to live for and she was tired of just surviving. It was time for her to act, not just out of a sense of duty, or because of her deep-seated guilt. She’d denied herself the most basic of human needs—love—for too long, believing it would only cause her more pain and guilt. Now, she knew the truth. Love was the only thing worth living for.
Easing along the cedar shakes of the church façade, she let herself into her bedroom through an unlatched window. The scent of lavender clung to her legs after climbing through the blooming plants under the frame. As she dropped her feet to the floor, she listened for Chee and the FBI agents. Murmured voices rose and fell in agitation, but they weren’t from the living beings in the sanctuary. The voices she heard were female. The sensation of feathers brushing her skin sent hope surging through her.
“Tessa? Liselli? Angel?”
The air in the room cooled dramatically. They answered, but she couldn’t understand what they said. Their voices were still muffled.
Were they under a spell? Enann had silenced them, she was sure of it. His spell had to be wearing off, though, if she could now hear their souls where before only silence had accompanied their touches.
And even though she couldn’t understand what their spirits were telling her, they could still understand her.
Checking the corridor outside her bedroom, Keva saw no one, heard no one. She backed up and softly closed the door.
>
In a whispered voice, she sang a song to the spirits of her sisters and smiled as their muffled voices settled down. She felt soft caresses against her skin and opened herself to fully communicate.
In her mind, she related all that had happened to her and to Rife, explaining her plan to trap Enann as well. If she traveled back through time and got stranded there, no one would be left in the present to sing their bodies to the Star People and their souls to Thunderbird in the After Life. She promised to do everything in her power to return, but warned them she might fail. That maybe it was better if she did.
Her heart contracted with sadness, but she ignored it. If there was any way to help Rife, she’d do it. Any way to stop Enann, she’d find it. Keva pulled on jeans, socks and shoes from her closet. Digging past the pile of shoes on the floor, she found her backpack.
After slipping out of her bedroom and down the hall, she went into the bathroom and scanned the shelves for items that might come in handy on her quest. If she had to face Enann, she might as well use all the tools at her disposal. Magic to one person was nothing more than a can of hairspray to another.
Lost in thought of the details of her ancient life, Keva jumped when she looked up and found James Chee watching her in the mirror. His face gave nothing away even as he scanned her from head to foot and noted her wardrobe additions. “When did you get here?”
She surveyed what area behind him she could see in the mirror, looking for the agents. “About ten minutes ago.”
As if he read her mind, he dismissed her anxiety with a wave of his hand. “Feds are headed to their hotel in Ashland. They’ve seen all the evidence and the crime scene, but they’ll be back in the morning to question you. I had to do one hell of a tap dance to get them to wait. Where’s Rife?”
“About that. We need to talk.” She turned to face him. “Rife’s gone and I need your help if I’m going to bring him back. I need the Moon Water knife. Do you have it?”