by Misty Evans
“Hang on, Rife, I’m coming, but you have to keep saying my name so I can find you.”
“I’ll help you find him,” Enann’s voice, smug and cocky, responded.
The sound of his voice in her head made her stagger. Dark energy descended on her, engulfing her as effectively as the pouring rain. Out of the darkness, three sets of glowing eyes emerged, seeming to hover in the air, bodiless.
The wolves?
No, these eyes belonged to men. As lightning cracked overhead, faded light illuminated the pitch black scene and Keva’s heart thumped hard again.
Enann and two warriors stood where the wolves had just been. His buckskin pants were soaked and muddy. Twigs and pine needles sat tangled in his unkempt hair, loose from its tieback. Paw prints were painted on his cheeks.
Before the light vanished, Keva saw him smile. “I have been waiting for you, Chieftess.”
Prepared to fight, she sank into a crouch and raised her arms in front of her.
Without warning, her bones suddenly turned to stone. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream. A memory rose in her mind. Enann’s hand reaching for her heart as dozens of the Divine Feminine stared down at her.
This is what I felt at the church when Enann killed the others.
Now, in the woods, she was paralyzed, staring once more at nothing except Enann’s glowing eyes.
“No,” she mentally screamed at him. “I won’t let you win.”
Enann’s hand shot out, punching her in the face. Pain shot through her head as it snapped back. She fell to the ground and Enann sprang on her, raining more punches on her face, chest and stomach. She tried to fight back, but her body wouldn’t respond to her commands and Enann continued to beat her.
The physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional. Her mind wanted to call to Rife, but she shut it down, not wanting him to know she was doomed.
Instead of continuing to struggle, Keva let go. The last thing she saw before passing out was Enann’s bright blue eyes going wide with surprise.
Chapter Twenty-six
At the top of Starved Rock, Rife no longer felt the pain in his gut. The pain in his heart had superseded it.
Keva lay in a bloody heap at Enann’s feet as rain poured down on the group, made up of both past and present members, all gathered around a dying Kai. Enann claimed Keva was dead, but Rife didn’t believe it, refused to believe she couldn’t be saved. On his knees and bound once again by one of Enann’s spells, Rife flinched when Enann kicked her limp body for emphasis. She had been unconscious the entire climb up the trail, Enann’s bodyguards carrying her between them. Enann himself had forced Rife up the slippery slope. Rife hadn’t fought him. In fact, he’d pretended to be even sicker than he was, hoping Enann might let his guard down. The bastard hadn’t.
High Chieftess Keva, guarded by Star Root and Odem, cried over Kai’s writhing body. The warrior, Rife’s past self, moaned in the flickering light of the fire barely burning nearby. It was all Rife could do not to moan with him.
While he’d accepted he was Kai reincarnated, it was still a ride on the crazy train to see himself in this past life. Amazing what the mind could take in, wrap itself around, though. Being cheated out of seeing Kai after all the shit he’d been through in the past twenty-four hours—or was it forty-eight?—would add insult to injury. But none of that mattered if Keva died at the hands of a sick killer and he couldn’t stop it.
Star Root fed the fire with one eye on Enann, who stood with his own entourage, watching Kai writhe in pain and High Chieftess Keva cry over him, his face devoid of emotion. “Kill the bastard,” Enann demanded of the Chieftess, “or I kill your family.”
Even though Enann was paying little attention to him, Rife knew he couldn’t take on Enann with his supernatural powers and his two henchmen as well. The spell Enann used to immobilize him was too strong. The poison in his system made him too weak.
The one thing he could do was convince High Chieftess Keva to kill Kai, setting the chain of events in motion that would once again make present-day Keva immortal. It was the only way Rife knew to save her.
“I will not take his life,” High Chieftess Keva spat at Enann as she moved an arm to cover Kai. Her love for the warrior was evident in every move she made. Her anger at Enann was just as apparent. “I demand you let me search for the roots that will stop this poison so I may save him.”
Enann crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You broke your oath to your people and mine. You will rectify this. Kill Kai and marry me and your people will be spared. If you do not obey me, Chieftess, I will give the command to destroy your village.”
High Chieftess Keva’s eyes lit with an intense pain. She would do anything to protect her tribe.
Except willingly kill her soul mate.
Rife saw it in her eyes—her confusion, her fear, her desperation. “You must do it, Keva. For all of us.”
Her gaze swung to him. She did not understand his presence there, and yet somehow, she did. She cut her eyes to her future self lying on the ground and hung her head.
Kai moaned and grabbed his stomach. “I will die tonight…Keva. You must…kill me…to save the others.”
Rife studied himself, lying in agony a few feet away, feeling the snake in his own gut slithering and coiling just like Kai’s. The warrior’s tattoos and scars were the same as in Rife’s visions.
With acute clarity, he remembered the days leading up to this moment of the past. How happy he’d been, living only in Keva’s world and ignoring his own. Her white, healing light, so full of joy and wonder, had shown him what it was like to be happy. He’d ignored his half brother’s jealousy, denied to himself that Enann could do anything to upset the new life Keva had given him. Kai had found true love and let himself drown in the heady feeling.
Now, Rife watched as Kai reached for her hand and the Chieftess took it. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs, and Rife’s heart cracked at the same moment Kai’s did.
With one swift movement, Kai used his free hand to pull the Moon Water knife from High Chieftess Keva’s belt. He caught her hand, and she gasped and tried to jerk back, as he forcibly wrapped it around the hilt. Even in his pain-racked state, he was able to overpower her as he brought the tip of the knife to his chest.
“Do your duty,” he whispered. “You must…do…your duty.”
Before the Chieftess could yell “no,” Kai forced her to drive the dagger into his chest. Wildly, she beat at him with her other hand, but his strength was too great until it was too late.
Weeping, Keva began to chant and sing over his body, even as his immense hand held hers on the knife. Rife closed his eyes and listened to the words that had cursed their souls. He couldn’t help it. Even at that moment, he loved her to his core.
“Stop!” Enann shouted at her. “What are you singing?”
The Chieftess raised her head. “I must sing his soul to Thunderbird.” Enann eyed her with suspicion and Rife held his breath. Then Enann laughed into the roar of the ocean waves below. “Sing your song, shaman.” He kicked Keva’s limp body at his feet. “It will do no good this time.”
A minute later, Kai was dead and High Chieftess Keva lay over his bloody chest sobbing. Rife opened his eyes and stared at the small form of his Keva nearby. The fire dimmed, throwing shadows over and around her, and Rife strained his vision to see if she was still breathing.
“Come on,” he told her, “wake up. You’re immortal now. You can come back. Just like you did in the church.”
But she didn’t move. How long did it take her to recover from serious injury? Or had the spell come too late? Was Keva really dead?
Enann sneered at him, having heard his mental pleas. He stepped over her body and strutted to the tip of Starved Rock. Another sudden burst of rain fell on them and the fire in the pit went out.
Utter darkness descended. Rife could no longer see Keva, past or present.
But he heard the Chieftess’s anguish turn to bitter and vengeful anger.
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br /> “I will never accept you as my husband,” she hissed in the dark at Enann.
Rife sensed Enann turning to face her. “Then I will kill you and make the Moon Water people my slaves.”
She sucked in her breath. “They are innocent of wrong-doing. A peaceful people. Why would you do that?”
“I loved you, but you rejected me. Rejected your duty to your tribe. You must pay for that, and now I have the power to exact that payment.”
To his left, Rife thought he heard the slightest movement. His ears strained to distinguish if the sound was animal or human. Was Keva coming back to life? He dared not even glance in her direction for fear Enann would sense her too.
In fact, the time seemed right to cause a distraction. “Prove it,” he bellowed to the bastard of all bastards. If there was one thing he knew about his half brother, it was that Enann couldn’t resist a challenge to his authority. “Prove to the Chieftess that you are man enough to bend her to your will.”
A heartbeat of silence passed. Rife teetered on his knees, his guts roiling. He heard Enann draw a sharp breath and heard him murmur words. As his voice rose in a chant, the wind rose in velocity. Drops of driving rain stung Rife’s cheeks and he blinked to clear his eyes from the assault.
When lightning blazed around them, Rife saw Enann facing the ocean, his face tilted to the heavens and his hands raised in the air like a preacher winding up his congregation. Out of the corner of his eye, Rife saw Keva—his Keva—moving.
In a crouch, she ran by Kai’s body, grabbing the knife and jerking it out. As the light faded, Rife saw her throw the knife. Thunder cracked so loud overhead, it rang in his ears. Rife ducked reflexively.
Lightning zigzagged again, following the thunder and touching the ocean. In its wake, Rife saw the knife lodge in Enann’s upper back, heard the man’s sudden cry as he arched forward. Enann twisted around, his white hair blowing in the wild wind, to look back in surprise at Keva. His lips moved but his voice was lost in the roar of the wind, and then his face froze and his expression of surprise turned empty, his soul tearing away from his body. As everyone watched, he pitched backward, falling in slow motion off the edge of Starved Rock and disappearing from sight.
A second later, darkness again descended and Rife heard the solid thump and the sound of breaking bones mix with the crashing waves on the rocks below. Enann’s spell, holding him immobile, broke at once, sending Rife falling face forward.
Commotion to his left and right signified both Red Fire and Moon Water warriors moving, trying to find each other in the dark for a fight. Rife rolled into a pair of legs and the man he hit fell over him. He didn’t care, didn’t stop moving himself.
“Keva!” Reaching his hand out into the darkness, he searched for her with his senses as well as with his touch.
A moment later, he felt her cold, wet hand take his. “I’m here.”
Enann was dead and Keva was alive. Relief like none he’d ever experienced swamped him. “Thank God,” he whispered, pulling her to him. “Thank God.”
“Yes,” she whispered back as she sank into his arms. The sound of fighting raged around them. “Thank you, Great Mother.”
Keva’s flashlight chose that moment to work again, illuminating the warriors who were fighting nearby. Enann must have been fascinated enough with the “magical” possessions she’d brought from the future, he’d carried them to Starved Rock. As the flashlight defied the weather and faulty batteries, Keva couldn’t help but laugh in frustration at its timing.
Her body burned with pain from the beating she’d taken even as it shivered in the cold rain. Forcing her mind away from the physical aches, she staggered to her feet, lugging Rife up beside her. “Stop,” she yelled to the warriors.
Men in the midst of a battle were hard to control, their focus on their opponent too intense. A couple of the warriors darted glances at her and the strange glowing object to her right, but they didn’t break from the fight.
Beside her, Rife straightened to his full height and bellowed. “I command you to stop.”
The Red Fire warriors, Kai’s warriors, froze in midswing. Before the Salt Coast warriors could take advantage of the moment, High Chieftess Keva stepped to Rife’s other side and added her voice to the mix. “Halt!”
As the panting, bleeding group of men stepped back from each other, High Chieftess Keva took Rife’s hand in hers. Keva snatched up the flashlight, and following her past self’s lead, took his other hand. United we stand.
High Chieftess Keva spoke, her face fierce with determination. “There will be no more fighting this night.” She motioned with her head to the men who’d carried Kai on the litter to Starved Rock. Her voice hitched momentarily, but she continued. “Return my husband’s body to the sacred Moon Water lodge. I’ll follow shortly.”
The warriors stared at the three of them as if seeing ghosts. Keva raised the flashlight, shining the beam first at High Chieftess Keva’s warriors and then at Kai’s body. “Do as your Chieftess commands you.”
The four men stared in awe at the flashlight for a second, exchanged a look and decided en masse to follow orders, no questions asked.
Rife squeezed Keva’s hand and she sensed him squeezing her counterpart’s as well. He drew in a deep breath as if it were a struggle before speaking. “Red Fire warriors, these people are not your enemies. Return to your campfires and wait for further instructions from the Chieftess.”
As High Chieftess Keva’s men carried Kai’s body away, the Red Fire warriors gave Rife wary glances, but did as he directed. A minute later, the two Kevas and Rife stood alone on Starved Rock, the flashlight’s beam fading once again in the pouring rain.
Rife released both their hands and bent in half against some pain. Keva dropped the flashlight and grabbed him, supporting his weight with her own as best she could.
High Chieftess Keva spoke, her face still fierce in the soft glow of the flashlight. “You must tend to your war chief, and I must tend to mine.”
Keva agreed, but there was something else they both had to tend to. “Enann’s body must be recovered and his bones burned or he will haunt us both.”
The Chieftess nodded in understanding. “His body is on the rocks below. I will take care of it after I negotiate the release of my people from the Red Fire tribe.”
“We must do it now,” Keva insisted. “The Moon Water dagger is yours to keep, but I may need the Thunderbird amulet to complete this Pathwalk. I believe Enann has it on him.”
Contemplation furrowed the Chieftess’s brow. “He is a noble. His people will want his body returned.”
“He’s evil and I believe they suspect that. Tell them his body washed away into the ocean. We must take care of it ourselves before we do anything else.”
They stared at each other, both stubborn in their differing resolves, and then the Chieftess nodded. She motioned to Rife. “What about him?”
Laying a hand on the right side of Rife’s face, Keva hesitated. Leaving Rife alone in his current state scared her. If she didn’t ensure Enann’s spirit wouldn’t come after her and Rife again, however, what they had accomplished tonight would be worthless. And without the amulet, she wasn’t sure she could summon enough magic to send Rife back to the present.
As if he read her mind, he raised his head. “Go,” he said. “Take care of that bastard. I’ll be fine.”
Rife was first and foremost a warrior. He wouldn’t be fine, but he understood what she needed to do. Her heart warmed with love for him all over again, and she helped him over to the doused fire so he could lie down. “Try to sleep, okay?”
Shadows covered his face but she saw his eyes close as he nodded. “Hurry back.”
“I promise.” She snatched up her backpack and the flashlight before joining High Chieftess Keva on the trail leading off of Starved Rock.
While the descent was every bit as treacherous as it had been earlier, the two women held onto each other, sharing more than their physical presence. They didn
’t speak, didn’t read each other’s minds, and yet their movements seemed to be completely in tune, as if they were two halves of one body. In a strange way, they were.
By the time they reached the jagged rocks under Starved Rock’s enormous outcropping, the rainstorm had passed. Enann’s body blended in with the dark rocks, only his white hair giving him away. Keva could feel his spirit hovering nearby and knew High Chieftess Keva felt it too. Spurred on by their mutual fear, they worked quickly to carry his body, broken and bloodied, to the opening under the outcropping which led to a cave. Travelers and hunting parties often stopped there to spend the night or wait out the area’s frequent rainstorms. The opening was only four feet high, but the cave wound deep into the mountain’s belly. Struggling against Enann’s weight, they wrestled him inside to a spot where the ceiling rose enough so they could straighten up. Old fire pits from previous visitors lay scattered on the rocky floor.
Using her flashlight’s barely there light, Keva gathered dried sticks, driftwood and moss from a stash the previous visitors had left behind to help those coming after them. Pay it forward wasn’t solely a modern-day concept and she sent blessings to the Great Mother for her people’s consideration.
While Keva built a fire bed long enough to engulf Enann’s body, the Chieftess removed the pouch from his neck, stripped off the red band from around his head signifying his royal blood and removed his clothes.
Keva opened the backpack and found the lighter and a bottle of astringent she’d brought from the future. That would get the fire going, but it would take days to burn the body to her satisfaction. She’d need a fire twice as hot, and then it would still take too long to reduce Enann to ashes.
The hairspray. That’s what she needed. Using it along with the other stuff she’d brought from the present, she could intensify the fire. Digging in her backpack again, she grabbed the can of hairspray and also pulled out Liselli’s sugar scrub and Tessa’s nail polish remover.
Spraying the hairspray would mean she had to stand too close to the fire, though, and puncturing a can under high pressure was more dangerous to her than Enann. As the Chieftess watched her through the growing smoke, Keva handed her the nail polish and body scrub. “Cover his body with these.”