Golden Anidae (A Blushing Death Novel)

by Suzanne M. Sabol

  I stepped inside Georgie’s house and, evidently, back in time. I glanced down. Nope. No bell-bottoms here. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t look good in bell-bottoms.

  Georgie’s living room was brown. The long shag carpet was shit brown. The furniture was a hard bristled fabric that appeared as if it would be painful to sit on in a shade of golden brown I hadn’t seen since Old Yeller. The walls were covered in dark wood paneling, making the room collapse in on itself. I chomped at the bit to get the hell out of the claustrophobic cell. On the wall, a gold starburst clock with surrounding starbursts connected together by gold chains was the only decoration.

  Oh. My. God. Wow.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” Georgie asked, striding down the hallway, away from the brown room.

  Raiden and I followed him into the kitchen where the shag carpeting from the living room and hall continued.

  Jesus!

  I sat down at the kitchen table next to Raiden. The thick white plastic with bright naval orange cushions was like a time capsule to the 70’s. The padding on the chairs had lost its bounce years ago and I sunk into the support beneath as the metal rails dug into my thighs.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  The old man opened the ancient fridge from the 1950’s and got out two beers. “Suit yourself,” he quipped with a shrug. He sat down at the four-person table across from me.

  Georgie’s eyes were dark, rich and deep, focusing completely on me. I kept waiting for him to say something profound but he sat, didn’t move, didn’t even take a drink of his beer which bothered me more than anything else. Why open the beer if you weren’t going to drink it? He watched me with an unrelenting focus that was uncomfortable. I glanced between the beer and him, expectation thumping against my rib cage.

  I cleared my throat and met Raiden’s eyes. “So,” I said in a voice that echoed in the empty silent house. “When can I go back?”

  “Are you in a rush?” Georgie asked, finally bringing the sweating bottle of beer to his lips. He took a long drink. Somehow, that one swig made me feel so much better, making him seem more relaxed and me feel less on edge.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. Enza was back home by now and was probably worried sick. There wasn’t anyone she could call, and once we’d crossed the desert into the reservation, my cell signal disappeared like we’d driven into a no man’s land. Not to mention that every moment I hung out in the middle of nowhere was another minute that Soraida was somewhere she didn’t want to be.

  “You bear too much weight on your shoulders,” Georgie said. His gaze bore into me like he could see my soul shining through my skin. I doubted it but the expression on his face and the knowledge in his glare creeped me out nonetheless. His eyes were deep like a bottomless black ocean in a face that was etched with both laugh lines and worry lines. His hair was the silver of Christmas tinsel but he was strong. In his youth, he had probably been a very good-looking man. Now, all I saw were the lines of age and responsibility marring his face.

  “What do you know of me?” I growled into the quiet kitchen, the vibration of my voice tingling down my throat.

  The pressure of Georgie’s gaze fell on me like a Mack truck. His evaluation twisted and tightened the pit of my stomach until it was almost painful.

  “This is a big country,” he said with a slight twitch of his lips. “But ours is a very small world.” He took another sip from the beer and set the bottle down on the table.

  “Ours?” I asked. He smelled human but then again, so had I once.

  “Georgie’s the tribe shaman,” Raiden answered.

  A shaman? Shouldn’t he have a better name like Running Wolf or something cool like that?

  “What does that mean?” I asked, having the good sense to lay off the name bit and keep my snarky comments to myself. Patrick would be so proud of my diplomatic efforts.

  “It means that I am somewhere between this world and the next.” His voice was soft and comforting like my father’s had been when I’d scraped my knee or crashed my bike. This world and the next kept playing in my head like a broken record, gnawing at my gut with a vengeance.

  “Oh,” I whispered with quiet clarity. He was like me. “You see . . .”

  “I see, hear, speak, and guide those souls that are lost.”

  Attempting to hold back the tears, I leaned in. I’d never met anyone like me except for my father and I’d known about him too little too late.

  I gathered myself, forgetting all the pain and confusion that being alone had caused. I met his understanding expression and sat straight, my shoulders back and my chin up.

  “How does everyone know about me? How do you know about me?”

  Smiling, he watched me in a way that made me feel like I was twelve years old again which I didn’t particularly like.

  “Vampires, for all their immortality, are always fearful of death,” he said, shoving his empty bottle away. “Word of you and your kill count spread through their community like the plague. Now that they know you’re here . . .”

  “What?”

  “They know that the Liege of the Northwest Territory no longer has his weapon. That information spread just as quickly as your existence did.” His solemn face sent chills up my spine as reservation lit his eyes.

  Sitting back in my chair, I crossed my arms over my chest and exhaled. His words rattled around in my mind, letting my anger simmer and overflow. I closed my eyes, pouting.

  “You’re nothing but old biddies, the lot of you,” I snorted. I knew humans that gossiped less than the preternatural community.

  A warm-hearted chuckle sounded from around the table.

  I opened my eyes to two grown men laughing at me. “I’m glad you find this funny,” I snapped.

  Georgie leveled patient eyes on me with just a hint of the laughter he tried to stifle. “You think of us in such human terms. It’s refreshing.”

  “You scare them, more than you know,” Raiden said, his tone hushed as he focused on his beer instead of me. “You scare me.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Raiden tapped his index fingers on the beer bottle much like he’d tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in the cab of the truck. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  I glanced to Georgie, hoping he had answers. He shrugged and took another swig of his beer. I turned my gaze back to Raiden and stared at him, willing him to answer.

  “I don’t know what you are, I don’t know who you are. All I want to do is to protect you, follow you. If you gave me an order right now, I don’t think I could refuse you,” Raiden said, fear quaking his voice and scorn shone in his eyes.

  “You see,” Georgie interceded, “Raiden has been a solitary coyote for many, many years. My great-grandfather first met you in . . .?”

  “19 aught,” Raiden answered with a small quirk of his lips.

  “Yes, 1900,” Georgie confirmed, continuing. “Raiden has been welcome on the reservation since then, but he doesn’t live here. He comes and goes as he pleases. He lives nowhere and answers to no one.” Georgie sounded almost jealous.

  I knew all too well what the weight of the world felt like and could understand Georgie’s desire for relief. Isn’t that what I’d sought in leaving? Some peace?

  “When I saw you out in the desert, I couldn’t turn away. I’ve never had an alpha but if you pressed it, I wouldn’t be able to refuse you,” Raiden said with a harsh undertone of fear.

  “I’m no werewolf,” I answered in disbelief.

  “No,” Georgie offered. His eyes narrowed on me as he cocked his head in question. “You’re something else entirely.”

  “The vampire’s fear you, too,” Raiden said. “They fear you because you can kill them, because you could rule them.” Raiden’s voice sounded
so . . . certain.

  My breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened as my bottom lip trembled in disbelief. Anything that feared me that much would hunt me and everyone I loved until we were wiped from the earth. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Come.” Georgie got up from the table. “We’ll talk about this under the stars and perhaps the spirits will guide us.”

  Raiden stood, taking a step to follow the old Paiute then stopped. He turned to me with confusion crinkling his brow. He held out his arm to me like he was escorting a debutante.

  I took his arm, slow and cautious, knowing that it cost him a lot to have to do it. I gave him a sad, apologetic smile and hoped he understood I was sorry, that none of this was what I wanted either. He nodded, running his hand through his coal black hair, and away from his face.

  “I don’t know what the wolves call it but the coyotes have a name for what you are. Kachina, Rout leader and spirit guide,” he offered in a hushed whisper.

  “Eithina,” I breathed. “The wolves call it Eithina.” It was the first time I said the name out loud and actually believed it. I couldn’t escape who and what I was anymore. The truth was staring me in the face with a frightened glint in his sapphire eyes.

  Arm-in-arm, Raiden escorted me back out to the living room in all its brown glory.

  Georgie opened the sliding glass door for me, and I stepped out onto the patio, into another world.

  The desert stretched on into eternity as the moon hung effortlessly over the horizon. The desert air bordered on frigid with the sun down and the cold licked at my skin as if it was trying to steal my warmth. In the center of the patio and surrounded by the unending vastness of the desert stood a professionally built fire pit with heavy stone benches surrounding it like an ancient druid circle.

  Georgie turned on the gas and brought the flames to life.

  I sat, quiet, waiting. This wasn’t what I’d expected at all.

  Georgie watched me, amusement in his black eyes, crinkling the corners of his mouth, showing deep laugh lines. I must have seemed disappointed. “Not authentic enough for you?” he asked.

  I swallowed loud enough for everyone to hear the lump in my throat, lodging and sticking. I shoved my hands between my knees and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He grinned at me, understanding in his expression. He sat slowly as if his knees ached with every bend. Raiden sat on a third side of the rounded fire pit and kept his mouth shut. Good man.

  Georgie, in a low tenor, sang over the fire in a language I didn’t understand. The octave highs and lows of his song made my skin turn to gooseflesh and my muscles relax with the mesmerizing lilt of his voice. Georgie’s song sent chills up my spine like listening to the wolf chorus at the Manit, oddly familiar and soothing.

  Closing my eyes, I watched the flames dance behind my eyelids. I swayed, the symphonic sound of his voice filling the emptiness of the desert air. I opened my eyes. Raiden had disappeared and I hadn’t heard him leave, hadn’t felt the rush of air that should have accompanied him standing so close to me. I hadn’t felt the rush of power that should have come with a change. Somehow, though, I knew he’d changed. Once I focused on the fire, I could feel Raiden, his power and his coyote out in the desert, chasing something and running free. A single howl in the vastness beyond the fire announced he felt me, too.

  Georgie reached into his pocket, throwing a fine dust onto the flames. Striking in an explosion of smoke and power, magic weaved around me like a python going in for the kill. Georgie’s chanting had stopped, and his eyes fixed on me as if death itself stared him in the face. I couldn’t move, frozen, locked in his gaze. His dark eyes peered over the flames, boring into my being like he could see the lightness, and darkness of my soul.

  “The Golden Anidae,” he whispered over the flames. His breath cleared a path through the fire and smoke as his words hit me like a slap in the face.

  “What?”

  He shook his head as if he hadn’t heard me, waving me away. He tossed another handful of powder onto the fire and the flames climbed even higher. The air around me heated and thickened, making it difficult to breathe.

  “You’re right, pup. She does need watchin’,” Georgie muttered to someone but not to me.

  What the hell?

  “However, I think your presence has caused more damage to her than you know,” he said.

  Georgie stared into the fire and beyond but never met my gaze. He bobbed his head up and down as if he heard voices that I couldn’t.

  “She may yet.” He finally glanced at me with a keen eye and then off again to the rippling air around me.

  Who the hell is he talking to? I didn’t see anything and I had all my receptors wide open. I shot a quick glance over one shoulder and then the other. I saw nothing, no one.

  I closed my eyes, listening to the fire cracking, Raiden’s paws padding across the desert floor, Georgie’s breathing, my heart thundering, and the faint whisper of a familiar voice prickling at the back of my brain.

  “You watch her until she needs you and then be off with you. You’re not meant to hang about forever like a lapdog,” Georgie barked.

  A familiar warmth surrounded me, caressing my skin like a breath of warm spring air. Then, like the wind, it was gone. I knew though in the pit of my stomach I’d lost something precious.

  Tears burned behind my eyes as the smoke changed direction, singing my nose and eyes with its harsh scent. I blamed the tears on the smoke, not the empty feeling festering in my chest.

  Georgie’s eyes closed and his whole body sagged with exertion. I’d never had to work that hard to see ghosts or spirits. In fact, I had to work that hard every day not to see them.

  Georgie straightened his back, taking a deep breath of smoke and flame. I had so many questions that needed answers. I opened my mouth to ask but nothing came out.

  “I feel better knowing it’s not power that drives you,” he whispered into the flames. His gaze drifted off into oblivion.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, frustration giving my voice a dangerous edge.

  “It means that although you have power, more than you probably know, it doesn’t drive you to do the things you do.” He turned shining white eyes up to meet my gaze, pupils and irises gone.

  Terrified, I shoved back away from the fire, scuttling across the bench. I wanted to run. But I wanted answers more.

  “What’s a Golden Anidae?” I asked after clearing my throat and shoving all my bravado to the front.

  “Why . . . you are,” he said, entertainment tugging at the corners of his lips. His white eyes peered into me. “The first in possibly more than a thousand years.”

  “The Fertiri,” I whispered.

  “The vampires say tomato, I say tomato,” he almost sang. “You are a bridge between this world and the next, between life and death, between reason and instinct. The vampires named you for their golden God a millennium ago. The wolves named you for an elusive golden wolf. Each is the other. They are the same. One cannot exist without the other.”

  “But, I’m not a werewolf,” I managed to mutter. Pressure built in my head as his words bounced around my brain, and exhaustion from the past several days wore on me. I was tired, my head throbbed, and my brain had stopped functioning on all cylinders a while ago. Wonderful!

  “You can’t dictate to magic what it’ll do. It does what it wants, what is needed. Especially wild magic,” he said, cryptic and annoying as all hell.

  That didn’t answer anyfuckingthing.

  “But I’m not infected from a werewolf,” I explained with frustration.

  “Mhmmm,” he groaned.

  “Could we be a little less cryptic?” I snorted, stomping my feet back down on the ground. Fury simmered in my chest, filling my body with white-h
ot rage. “This could mean the difference between life and death for someone!”

  “I’m sure it will one day,” he said as an unsettling, knowing smile crept across his lips.

  “All right,” I snapped, standing. I stalked away from the fire. “I’m done.” Stomping to the door, I felt the lure of power at the back of my neck making me stop. I turned to Georgie and watched the fire extinguish all on its own in a cloud of gas-filled smoke as his eyes faded back to normal. “So, you got a place for me to crash?” I asked, my voice trembling. Yeah, he scared the shit out of me. I didn’t think he would kill me, and I was pretty sure I could take him if he tried. He was powerful, though, with a magic I didn’t understand.

  He gazed off into the darkness of the desert stretching over the Earth. “Raiden will be back by dawn to take you into the city,” he said, stretching every muscle in his worn body. Bones popped and cartilage ground after years of use, even after hearing all his joints pop, I wouldn’t underestimate him. No way. “You can sleep on the couch if you like,” he said. “I don’t have a guest room.”

  I followed him inside, closing the sliding glass door behind me. “That’d be great.” I didn’t trust him but I could be nice. “I’ve slept in worse places over the last couple of months,” I finished, plopping down on the couch. It was scratchy and uncomfortable for sleeping but then again, who was I kidding? I wasn’t getting any sleep.

  Raiden and Everett gave me the same protective urge. But Raiden was broken inside and had managed to survive. Some part of me wanted to help him live, not just exist but stretch his legs and enjoy the life he’d been granted.

  Georgie, on the other hand, was a nice old man whose power and magic scared the shit out of me. I didn’t believe he’d hurt me or he meant me harm. Still, I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he left the room.

  Georgie’s bedroom door clicked shut. I sat on the couch, watching the darkness on the other side of the sliding glass door.