by Dinah McCall
“Yes, yes, sorry. I put you on loudspeaker so I could get to my bookshelf.”
“What is it on that tape? We already know it’s not a tornado. In fact it’s not anything the National Weather Service has ever seen.”
“That’s because it has nothing to do with weather,” Lydia said, then found the book she was looking for and hurried back to her desk.
Harper gave a nervous laugh, as if embarrassed to be saying this aloud.
“I have someone here in the office saying it has something to do with a Native American prophecy.”
“Yes, yes, sort of… here, here it is,” she said, running her finger down the page of the book she’d just opened. “Windwalker: Man/spirit that can exist both in the world of the living and the world of the dead. It’s something like a Guardian and appears only when The People, and in this case it’s referring to the indigenous people, not people in general… when The People are about to experience great deprivation, or are in danger, say from something that could threaten their extinction.”
Harper frowned. “So how does that connect to the woman who disappeared?”
“What happened to her afterward?” Lydia asked.
“They found her in her hotel room, naked and bloody as hell from the fight with the gang, but alive.”
Lydia jumped up and began pacing. “Oh my God, that means she’s been chosen.”
Harper rolled his eyes. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Something is coming that will be of great danger, maybe to this country, maybe to the world, but the Windwalker’s appearance would pertain only to the Native American people and what would happen to them. She’s been chosen to lead them to safety.”
Harper snorted. “So what are you saying… that she’s going be some kind of female Moses and lead her people through a wilderness?”
Lydia heard the derision in his voice and was immediately insulted.
“You called me for information. I gave it to you and now you decide to be a smart-ass? Go to hell, Harper.”
Lydia hung up, then began re-watching the video as her phone began to ring.
“Asshole,” she muttered, and let it ring.
****
Prince Institute
Binini Island – West Indies
Landan Prince believed in all things magic and things unseen. It had driven every aspect of his adult life to the point that he’d abdicated his British title and dissolved the accumulation of centuries of family holdings to fund the institute bearing his name.
Twenty-four years of experiments in breeding and research had yielded some interesting, if less than profitable results. The paperweight on his desk was a perfect square of yellow crystal supposedly meant to move people between dimensions, although none of his experts had ever been able to decode it.
He invested his billions according to psychic predictions and it paid off more often than not, which was proof to him of their validity. His office was a museum of maps, diaries, and ancient parchments yet to be examined. There was an octagon-shaped box on his desk that he couldn’t open, made of a metal purported not of this earth, and an old, tattered cloth with rusty stains that were supposedly blood stains from a victim of Jack the Ripper. He was convinced that if he could find the right medium to channel the victim’s spirit, he would discover the Ripper’s true identity.
A misshapen fetus with an abnormally large head and tiny undefined limbs floated in a large jar of embalming fluid on a back shelf of his library that was supposed to be the offspring of a woman and an interplanetary alien. He’d bought stolen treasures on the black market and raided tombs, all in the name of science, but it was actually the secrets they held waiting to be unlocked that turned him on.
Twelve years ago he’d paid an inordinate amount of money to a gypsy psychic and a man who felt no pain to study a healthy child born of their union. He’d gotten two for the money when she gave birth to twins she’d named Adam and Evan.
Something the woman ‘saw’ after their birth had given her pause for thought and at the last minute tried to back out on the deal. Prince had been kind but firm, and when she persisted he made her disappear and took the twins.
Twelve years later all he had to show for her murder were two boys who conversed only with each other, and in a twin language no one else could understand. The only reason he had yet to dispose of them was his belief that they might still manifest some kind of powers at puberty.
He held séances and ghost hunting forays with a woman on his island named Madam ReeRee who practiced the occult, and when he wanted something he could not get legally, he had her call up the devil, and promised another small piece of his soul in trade for the prize.
He had a team of investigators who combed the internet daily for anything related to the paranormal, and when they sent him the YouTube video of the Layla Birdsong incident, he was immediately intrigued.
The first thing he’d done was try to track down and buy the original video, but it had already been seized by the U.S. Government, which meant he was going to have to hustle to beat them to the woman. Prince set experts to the task of breaking the video down frame by frame, and discovered some confusing aspects that could not be confirmed.
To identify a wind speed that would peel the flesh of a man’s skin was impossible because it had never been measured.
To have a whirlwind move independently of present wind was an impossibility of physics.
But it was the brief glimpse of something reaching out of the wind to pull the woman in that made his heart pound. If he had the power to control something like that, there were no boundaries to what he might be able to achieve. At that point, he sent a team to the United States to find her, but when they finally reached New Orleans, she was gone.
****
They arrived on the reservation just before dark. Layla watched the sun set in a wash of colors from the backseat of her grandfather’s pickup. Her heart was heavy with fear and regret. Even though she was coming home, it felt as if she was already separating from the safe and the familiar.
Her grandfather was asleep beside her.
The Nantay brothers occupied the front. There was no conversation to speak of between them and Layla Birdsong. They knew she had a quest before her that neither would have wanted to face, but at the same time, were in awe.
They’d seen the video. They’d seen her swipe bloody war paint on her cheeks in a defiant gesture and go for the man with the knife. She’d killed her enemy as valiantly as any man could have done.
But there was something Layla knew that the others did not. Ever since they’d crossed the border into Arizona, she’d been hearing drums, and the closer they’d driven to the reservation, the louder they had become. Right now they were so loud that she felt like she was at a powwow, and could almost smell the dust from the hundreds of feet circling the ceremonial fire.
The neighbor’s dog barked as they drove past the house. The children still playing outside near the porch were students in the school where she taught, and then she amended that thought. Where she used to teach.
There was a moment of sadness for what she was losing. Not only the simplicity of her life, but the freedom and anonymity. She didn’t yet understand what would be expected of her, but accepted it, just as she’d accepted death that night before the storm.
George Begay woke up when the dog barked.
“We’re home,” he said, as he scrubbed the sleep from his face.
When they stopped, the brothers jumped out ahead of them. Johnston helped Layla out, while his brother Montford helped George.
George paused to shake their hands. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“No thanks necessary,” Johnston said, and set their suitcase on the front steps while his brother carried their own bags to the truck they’d left at George’s house a week earlier.
“Call if you need us,” Montford said, gave Layla a brief glance and then quickly looked away.
Layla watched them leave wit
h relief. She and her grandfather were finally alone. After all the chaos and crowds and the crazy media attention, the quiet here was both startling and welcome.
“Are you okay?” George asked.
“I’m fine, Grandfather, and you?”
“Tired, but home looks good.”
“Yes, home looks good,” Layla said, as they went inside.
The house was simple in furnishings, but comfortable enough for one woman and an old man, although not the same house it had been when her grandmother, Frances, had been alive. She’d always had something good cooking on the stove, and a pitcher of George’s iced tea chilling in the refrigerator. Now it was as if the house had forgotten how to breathe.
It smelled a little musty from being shut up so long. George wasted no time turning on the window air conditioner as Layla went to her room. All she wanted was a shower and her bed. She dug her nightgown out of the suitcase and headed for the bathroom, when George met her in the hall.
“You need to eat something. You didn’t eat when we bought sandwiches at the last gas station.”
“I’m too tired to eat, Grandfather. I think I’d rather just take a shower and go to bed.”
He patted her arm. “Are you in pain?”
“Not too bad,” she said, fingering her cheek where the scar was beginning to form. “I’ll take a pain pill before I lay down.”
“Then you will need some food in your belly. Take your shower and then come to the kitchen. I’m going to scramble eggs.”
She hugged him. “As usual, your suggestion is a good one, and thank you. I won’t be long.”
When George smiled, it always made him look like his eyes had disappeared. As a child, she’d thought his face looked like he was hiding secrets. Now, she knew she’d been right.
She stripped quickly then stepped in front of the mirror, ignoring the heavy curve of her breasts and narrow waist to check out her war wounds. The scar on her cheek would eventually fade some, but it wasn’t going to go away and she didn’t care. It would be a lifetime reminder to never quit when the going got tough.
She turned from one side to the other, eyeing the length of the healing cut down the back of her arm and the changing colors of her bruises, then faced the mirror and traced the other new scar forming on her belly.
“Not quite stripper material,” she muttered, and carefully stepped into the shower.
A few minutes later she was at the kitchen table eating eggs and toast with her grandfather, who ate with one eye on small television set on the kitchen counter, and the other on her plate. Every time she made a decent dent in her eggs, he spooned another bite or two from the bowl onto what was left.
“Good for you,” he would mutter, then keep watching the news.
Layla laughed. “That was anything but subtle.”
He shrugged. “There is no need for subtlety. I am a straightforward man. Eat your eggs.”
“I’m eating, I’m eating,” she said, then got up to get jelly out of the refrigerator.
All of a sudden she heard the drums. They were faint, but nothing to ignore. She turned quickly but saw nothing of which to be concerned. And then she noticed the picture on the television screen and froze. That image of her face with the blood streaked on her cheeks was now being sported by hundreds of ‘Birdsong fans’. Were they serious? She had a fan club of people who wore war paint? Why couldn’t she be old news?
“What are they talking about?” George asked.
Layla carried the jelly back to the table and sat it down with a thump.
“Crazy people,” Layla muttered.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She frowned. “It seems that I now have a fan club. It’s wrong to celebrate a death, even if the man deserved what happened.”
“Is that in New Orleans?” George asked.
Layla sighed. “And in Dallas, and in St. Louis, and Chicago and obviously all over the country. It’s what they call going viral, thanks to YouTube and Twitter.”
She spread the jelly on what was left of her toast and then ate without tasting it. She was gathering up her dirty dishes when she caught George looking at her curiously.
“What?”
“It’s already beginning, isn’t it?” he asked.
She ignored the fear that shot through her.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she muttered, and carried the dishes to the sink. “I need to lie down, Grandfather. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
“Sleep well. We will talk tomorrow.”
He was running water to wash dishes when she left.
She crawled between the covers, rolled over onto her side, pulled a pillow over her face to hide the sound and cried herself to sleep.
****
He stood before her, silhouetted by a light so bright that all she could see was the outline of his body.
“They are coming for you.”
She wanted to be angry for what he’d caused, but the sexual pull between them was too strong. She fell to her knees and rocked back on her heels, pounding her legs with her fists.
“You started this by saving me. Why didn’t you let me die? I can’t stay here and bring danger to my grandfather and the people on the reservation.”
“In a short period of time all that you know will begin to die. Your cities will lose power. Your water will be fouled. There will be riots, and there will be death, and then the earth will burn.”
“Why? What have we done?”
“You did nothing when it mattered most.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
“What is expected of me?”
“Tomorrow you will look to the East. Be prepared and say your goodbyes.”
“Am I going to die then?”
“No. I am going to teach you how to live.”
Layla woke up with a gasp and looked at the clock. Only a couple of hours before dawn. The reality was crushing. She’d come to the reservation to take care of her grandfather, not to abandon him. She didn’t understand the warning, but felt powerless to stop it.
Her heart was heavy as she got out of bed to dress, and when she was through, braided her hair into one thick rope and fastened it off. She packed her sturdiest clothes and hiking boots into a backpack, tossed in pain meds and toilet articles, added soap and shampoo, then dug a smaller bag from the back of her closet and laid the items out on the bed.
It was all she had left of her father’s things – a knife for skinning and filleting fish – a big Bowie knife he always took hunting – and a silver chain with a bird charm that he’d worn until the day he died. When she pulled the chain over her head, the small charm settled in the valley between her breasts. It was good to have all she had left of her father that close to her heart. She packed the knives into her bag then carried it into the living room.
He had said look to the East. The sun was only minutes away from making an appearance when she heard the floor creak behind her.
“What are you doing, Layla?”
Her grandfather was standing in the hallway with a frightened expression on his face.
“I have to leave.”
She watched his eyes widen in surprise then his voice began to shake.
“No. We will protect you here.”
“He said something bad is going to happen to the world.”
George flinched. Then what he’d been seeing must be true.
“Then you should stay with us. We’ll find a way to be safe.”
“That’s not my path, Grandfather, and I won’t be alone. He’s coming for me.”
George’s shoulders slumped.
Layla glanced toward the window. The sun was up. She opened the door and carried the backpack out onto the step.
At first, all she could see was the glare of new sun upon the bare earth, and then the shadows it made as it continued to rise. She sat down on the step. Sound carried in the desert, and the sound of a motorcycle in the early morning hour
was unmistakable.
George sat down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. His voice was trembling.
“Be strong, Layla. Stay alive.”
Tears welled as she threw her arms around his neck, wishing she could turn back the clock, wishing she’d never gone to New Orleans.
“I love you, Grandfather.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
The sound was louder. She looked into the morning sun and saw a dark blur on the horizon. As it grew closer, the sound of the engine grew louder.
The motorcycle was visible now, but she was looking at the rider – coming closer – coming faster – coming for her.
Chapter Four
Layla stood up.
George stood with her, his gaze focused on the rider in the distance.
“He comes as a man, not a spirit.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“That you will be able to interact with him as you do with me.”
Layla thought about all that implied then stepped out into the sun, shading her eyes as they watched his approach. The rumble of the bike was louder. They could smell the rooster-tail of dust billowing up into the air behind him.
“He is in a hurry,” George said.
Layla’s heartbeat was accelerating as her anxiety increased.
Fear has no place between us.
She staggered slightly, as if the world had suddenly shifted on its axis, and then the feeling was gone along with the anxiety. She slipped her arms through the straps of her backpack and shifted it to a comfortable position.
The neighbor’s dog trotted out to the road as it did every time a vehicle approached, then inexplicably turned tail as quickly as it had come and disappeared.
George’s legs were shaking. Looking upon a Windwalker, even in human form, was frightening, but George was more afraid of losing Layla.
The rider slowed the bike as he rode through the street between the houses, rolling it to a stop only a few feet from where Layla was standing. The quiet that came when the engine rumbled then died exacerbated George’s panic, and yet as the man of the house he stepped forward.