Storm of Locusts

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  A Keshmish party.

  It’s so outrageous, so unexpected, that I have to cover my mouth with my hands to keep myself from laughing. I was expecting . . . something else. A militarized force, armed to the teeth with black-market guns and hoarded explosives. Doomsday fanatics in long robes and shaved heads. At the very least, people held prisoner, wings cruelly grafted to their backs, faces caught up in some beatific trance like Caleb.

  But these people look normal. Happy. Laughing and drinking at a lavish Keshmish party.

  As I look more closely, I see that the decorations are not quite as bright and new as they first appeared. The golden paint is peeling off the ornaments. The white candles are melted-down stubs, reduced to pools of watery wax. The tinsel is frayed and peeling around the edges. They must be the last decorations the Amangiri used before the Big Water, likely stored in boxes for years before Gideon and his people came along to pull them out and string them throughout their dining room.

  Gideon’s people are dressed in their party clothes. Nothing in comparison to the wealth I saw at the Knifetown auction and certainly nothing as otherworldly as what I remember from the Shalimar. But the people look clean. Well fed. Their clothes well taken care of. A swirl of a red dress here, the shine of a dark suit jacket there. And then there’s the wings. Not everyone has them, or at least has them on display, but enough do. They look a bit like fairies, more ethereal than insectoid under the Keshmish lights. They are strange, but beautiful, too. More artwork than grotesquerie.

  As I watch, they gather around the huge table, taking their seats as if their places were decided, leaving the head chair empty. The energy in the room seems to climb, a sense of expectancy in the air, like everyone’s waiting for whoever belongs to that seat. It has to be Gideon, and I welcome the chance to finally get a look at the monster in the flesh.

  And then I hear it. That laugh. The one that saved me so many times. That pulled me from the darkness in my head. That made me feel safe. That saved my life.

  Kai is seated at the table, one seat away from the White Locust’s chair. His back is to me. He’s wearing a royal blue velvet suit jacket that gleams soft and lush in the golden light. His head is bent in conversation with the person next to him. A woman with long blond hair that cascades down her back. Kai’s hair is longer, too, grown out in the time we’ve been apart. It covers his neck, brushes the tops of his ears, and hangs down in a thick wave across his eyes. I watch as he tilts his head back, pushing his hair from his face with long, elegant fingers, familiar turquoise rings catching the light. And God help me, my heart does a little flip-flop. It’s not that I’d forgotten the effect he has on me, the sort of otherworldly beauty he possesses. But maybe I had forgotten how susceptible I was to it.

  And I’m not the only one.

  I watch as the blond woman takes a small bite of something from her plate and holds it up for him to eat. He tries to take it from her hand, but she pulls back teasingly. He gives her a little half smile and opens his mouth. She feeds the morsel to him, her fingers lingering against his lips. And then she leans in and kisses him.

  And something inside me free-falls.

  She pulls away, giggling. Touches a hand to her chest and rolls her head back, a pantomime of pleasure, and Kai smiles.

  I’m on my knees. The rough concrete bites through my leggings, tearing my skin. Nothing, really. Bruised bone and torn flesh. Such a small pain.

  Kai slips his arm around the back of the blond woman’s seat, leans close to whisper something in her ear. And for a moment his eyes flicker my way.

  I press my hand to the glass.

  The color on his face drains. His fingers tense, digging into the back of her chair, and his eyes . . .

  I wonder what he sees. A girl on her knees just past the glass doors, palm pressed against the barrier that won’t let her in. A stubborn fool stuck out in the desert cold, while he laughs and feasts and kisses golden-haired women in the warm light.

  He starts to rise from his chair, when something draws his attention back to the room. And then everyone is standing and applauding. A bilagáana man, midthirties, enters. Tanned skin and brown hair. Tall, fit, handsome. He greets people as he moves through the gathering, shaking hands and touching shoulders. He smiles with sparkling white teeth. I hear them shout his name, even from out here. Gideon. He’s wearing jeans, a matching denim shirt, a leather bolo with a silver medallion shaped like an insect. A locust.

  Kai tries to leave, pressing a hand to the blond girl’s arm and mouthing excuses. She looks back over her shoulder, directly at where I am, but I can tell by her expression that she can’t see me.

  But Kai sees me. I can feel it.

  She grabs his hand, not letting him go. He tries again, but now Gideon is there, wrapping an arm around Kai’s shoulder and giving him a one-armed hug. And he’s saying something, and I can barely follow his lips. But then I do.

  Son. He’s calling Kai “son.”

  Kai shoulders fall slightly, but he covers it with a smile. The blond woman gazes at Kai adoringly. And Gideon takes his seat at the head of the table, with Kai on his right.

  Chapter 36

  I sit for a while, my feet dangling in the deep end of the empty pool, listening to the party. I should probably be somewhere less visible, but I know Kai saw me. I can only hope he’ll come. And if someone else finds me first? Well, I’m not sure it matters.

  My breath frosts in front of me, and for a moment I’m surprised I’m still breathing. I’m surprised I’m still alive at all.

  I track the path of the stars as they travel across the sky. They’re faint out here, so close to all this electric light. Neizghání used to encourage me to learn the names of all the stars, but I was always a terrible student. Náhookos Bika’ii, I recognize. The man lying on his side near what the bilagáanas call the Big Dipper. And Náhookos Bi’áadii, the woman. The man and the woman. Watching over a ruined world.

  I hear him before I see him. A burst of conversation, cut off abruptly by the soft whoosh of a sliding door. The quiet tap of party shoes. The scratch of a match and the punch of sulfur. And then the scent of mountain tobacco.

  He stands there, silent behind me. The only noise is the inhale and exhale of smoke from his cigarette. The night stretches, cold and distant as the stars.

  “You’re wearing his sword,” he finally says.

  I flinch at the accusation in his voice.

  “It’s my sword now,” I say, eyes still on the night sky.

  He’s quiet, and I can only guess what he’s thinking. Surely the Goodacres told him that I buried Neizghání alive and took his sword for good measure. Or maybe he thinks it means something else, something about where my loyalties lie.

  “It doesn’t mean anyth—”

  “I can only stay a minute,” he continues quickly, cutting me off. “They’ll come looking for me if I’m gone too long. Did you get my message?” he asks. “I left you a message at Grace’s.”

  “I got it.”

  His voice is sad. “Then why did you come?”

  Because you said you loved me, and nobody’s ever said that to me before. “You were missing. There was blood at the guardhouse. I thought maybe you needed—” I stop myself from saying “me.” I say “help” instead. I turn to face him. “Plus, last time I saw you, you were dead.”

  He pales, his hand going to his chest reflexively, the place where I shot him.

  “You look good,” I say stupidly. Because he does. He’s taken off his blue jacket and the sleeves of his black button-up shirt are rolled up to his elbows, the collar loose and open despite the cold. His familiar rings glint in the light, the big turquoise one I like so much. Everything about him is elegant, even the way he holds the softly glowing cigarette between his long fingers.

  “You look good too,” he whispers, perfectly sincere.

  “Not like you.” I gesture to his party clothes.

  “Your hair got longer,” he says.

  �
�So did yours.”

  He smokes some more, and I wonder when he started smoking outside of ceremony so much. His hands are shaking slightly, and he unconsciously twists a ring around his finger with his thumb.

  “When I woke up,” he says, voice unsteady. “When I woke up from being . . . gone, I was pretty messed up. I couldn’t remember what had happened. Where I was. Just darkness. And pain.”

  I don’t want to hear this, but I know I have to. I know this is my burden too.

  “For the longest time I’d wake up every morning thinking that I was back in the Burque. It was like no new memories would stick.” He laughs self-consciously. “That was a shit show. But Clive was there, and I remembered him. I did a lot of ranting. And the nightmares,” he says quietly, scraping at his throat, as if he were still screaming. Clouds pass overhead, temporarily blocking the stars.

  I have to ask. “Did you remember . . . ?”

  “That you shot me?” He says it lightly, but I can almost taste the undercurrent of bitterness. “Yes,” he says, lowering his eyes, “but I remember that I let you.”

  I smile, thin and pained. “It was the only way. Neizghání would have never—”

  “I know,” he says gently. “I remember it all now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s no reason to be sorry. We agreed. I agreed.”

  “I need to say it. I need you to know.” I need it so badly that it feels like a physical thing, a rip in my belly that won’t stop bleeding, a fist crushing my heart into dust.

  He looks at me, asking me something. But what? We hold, neither of us saying anything.

  “I know, because I also remember the look on your face,” he finally says. “When you pulled the trigger. Right before I died.”

  I close my eyes, and something inside me drops like a ten-ton weight. “Clive didn’t tell me any of this.”

  “No. I told him not to.”

  The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Is that why you didn’t come to me when you woke up? You . . . hate me?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “No, Maggie.” He takes a step toward me. “The opposite. It’s the opposite. I was a wreck. I couldn’t come to you like that. I would have been a burden, like I was to Alvaro after the Uriostes. Like I was to my father after my mom died. I wasn’t going to do that again, be that person again. I had to get myself together first. And then Gideon showed up, and he had a lot of answers. A lot of smart things to say. I felt like maybe, maybe, if I could learn from him, then I could start to heal. Get better. If I saw you again, I wanted it to be when I was whole.”

  “If?”

  “I needed to heal.”

  “How did you even meet Gideon?”

  “The All-American. He came to the bar one night. We talked over a few beers. He said he could see that I was suffering. That I was . . .” He blows out a breath. “Everyone else had been tiptoeing around it. Clive would listen, but he always had this look on his face.”

  “He pitied you. The medicine man who couldn’t heal himself.”

  He looks away.

  “And Gideon didn’t,” I say.

  “He understood. He’d been there too. A death experience, and he had been reborn. With purpose.”

  “What is his purpose?”

  “He’s gathering people to him. People who believe that things could be better in the Sixth World. That the corruption and greed that led to the Big Water was a rot in the human heart, but that it can be cured.”

  “I’ve seen his flyers, Kai. That’s not about healing. That’s about punishment. Fear.”

  He takes a drag from his cigarette, watches me through the smoke. “He’s a good man.”

  I roll my head on my neck, left, then right, trying to understand what’s going on. What Kai sees that I don’t. “He’s a cult leader.”

  “He’s not.”

  “He calls you ‘son.’ ”

  He pauses, clearly taken off guard. “How did you know that?”

  “Who’s the woman with the wings?”

  He blinks at my change of subject. “The woman? Oh, Jen? The blonde? No one.”

  “She didn’t look like no one.”

  “It’s a party,” he says, as if that’s explanation enough. “She’s been drinking. I didn’t encourage her. She wants to get close to Gideon as much as she wants to get close to me.”

  “She didn’t kiss Gideon.”

  My accusation hangs in the air until he clears his throat. “If you saw Clive, I assume that means Caleb made it back to the All-American?”

  “So I guess we’re not talking about Jen.”

  We both hear the door slide open behind him. He curses, hurries back around the corner where I can’t see. I hear him whisper furiously to someone, and a female voice answers in concern. Jen. And then his tone shifts, a low, persuasive murmur. I know what he’s doing. I can almost see his eyes flash silver. Bit’ąą’nii Dine’e.

  After a moment the door closes, and he comes back. This time he walks around to sit near me on a patio chair, one of those long chaise chairs from Hollywood movies. He taps the space next to him, wanting me to join him. So I do. Because even now I want to be close to him, God help me.

  He takes my hand, rests it on his thigh, and covers it with his own. “Jen is one of Gideon’s favorites. It’s important that she like me, that she trusts me. And if that means . . .”

  “If that means what?” I ask, tone sharper than I mean it be. But I remember that Kai was willing to sleep with me if it meant I would help him fight Neizghání.

  “Not that,” he says, looking taken aback. “Maggie, I meant what I said at Grace’s.”

  “But you left.”

  “Because I had to. Because maybe Gideon has some answers. Because being here, having a purpose, drove the darkness back a little.”

  “And I don’t drive the darkness back,” I say, knowing the truth when I hear it. “I just bring the darkness closer.”

  “You are who you are. I’m not asking you to change. But Maggie, there’s so much death on me,” he says. voice barely above a whisper. “It’s like I can’t think sometimes.”

  I know that feeling, am intimate with that feeling. “You need a ceremony. You don’t want to end up like me, Kai.”

  He nods. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. You were right, and I didn’t know.”

  “You were right too. People can change.” I take a deep breath.

  “There’s something else. Caleb didn’t come back to the All-American,” I say abruptly. “We found him nailed to the Wall in Lupton.”

  He blinks, caught by surprise. “Caleb Goodacre? No. Gideon sent him back to the All-American. I helped heal the wounds from the graft, but it wasn’t going well. Even with my clan powers, he wasn’t healing like he should have. His blood wouldn’t clot. We argued about it, but Gideon agreed to send Caleb home. He left him with Ziona in Lupton until he was well enough to travel.”

  “No, Kai. Caleb was nailed over the gate in the southern Wall at Lupton, pointing us out to the Malpais clear as a ransom note. Did you really not know?”

  And from the look on his face, I can tell he really didn’t.

  “But Gideon promised,” he says, sounding defensive. He rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I . . . I made the deal to help Gideon with his work so Caleb could go home, and Gideon promised. I would have never, Maggie. If I’d known, I would have never.”

  “I know.” At least I think I know. I know the old Kai would have never, so I have to believe this Kai wouldn’t either.

  “Is he . . . ?”

  “He was with Clive, headed back to Tah when I last saw him.”

  Kai stiffens. A shudder rocks his body, and he bends at the waist, head between his knees like he’s going to be sick. His cigarette drops forgotten from shaking fingers.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, alarmed, reaching for him out of instinct. His back trembles under my hand. “Kai? Kai! What’s wrong?”

  �
��What did you say?” he asks, voice thick. “About my cheii?”

  He doesn’t know. Of course he doesn’t know.

  “He’s alive. Tah is alive.” I don’t know why I didn’t tell him sooner. It should have been the first thing out of my mouth. “He was out shopping when Ma’ii came that morning, and he slipped away in the chaos of the fire. He was at my place after Black Mesa, waiting. He’s been living with me in Crystal.”

  “That’s impossible,” he says when he finally finds his words. “My cheii is dead.”

  “No, Kai. He’s alive. And he’s waiting for you.” I rush on, scared that if I stop, I won’t say it. “I’ve been waiting for you too. Both of us. You have family in Dinétah. That’s your home.”

  “But Gideon said . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. I have a feeling Gideon has said a lot of things. Kai looks at me, and there’s something different about his posture, something of the man I know. But it’s gone almost as quickly as it came.

  “What’s going on, Kai?” I ask, suspicious. Because that look. I know that look.

  “I think I may be a fool, Maggie,” he whispers to me. “I think everything I’ve done may end up being for nothing.” His eyes search my face, looking for . . . I’m not sure what. And he looks so alone, so . . . scared, that I impulsively lay my hand against his cheek. He leans into my palm, kisses my bare skin, and desire thrills through me.

  “I’ve started something here,” he whispers against my hand, “and I have to see it through.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. But can you trust me anyway?” he asks. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and things look bad right now, but if you could . . . if you could have faith, just a little longer . . .”