by Sandy Wright
"What about small caliber?" Nicholas asked. "I have a pistol. You could take it tonight to the gallery show."
"Actually, I have my own. I nodded toward my purse. "I take threats to my life seriously. Don't worry, it's licensed, and this is a concealed carry state." I picked up the Phurba pot. "But I prefer this guy. It's more personal." I left him shaking his head and headed into the house to shower.
I took my time getting ready, as Nicholas paced: Black skirt, black tights and jade green sweater to match my eyes. He stopped pacing long enough to watch me pull on the thigh-high boots, and smiled slightly when I slipped the Phurba dagger into the right one, folding the boot top down for easy access. I tucked Renard's map in my purse and turned to him. "I'm ready."
"By now they've discovered the binding has been severed," Nicholas said tersely. "They'll be looking for you."
I nodded.
"I still think it's crazy for us to go tonight. We can stay here, bunker in, I'll increase the wards on the house."
"What would you do if I wasn't in the picture? Sit here alone and let them surround you?"
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "You studied the map of the gallery? Memorized the exits if you need them?"
I nodded again.
"If I'm not beside you, I will be on the second-floor balcony, watching."
"Nicholas, we've been over this a dozen times."
"Humor me and repeat it once more. If we're separated?"
I picked up my cloak. "The fountain, across the street."
He took the black wrap and settled it around my shoulders, holding me for a long moment, pressing his lips to my hair. "Samantha, I want you to know, just in case I…we." His voice sounded harsh and ragged. "I am so sorry I hurt you. I will never doubt you again."
I put my palm to his cheek.
"I know."
Chapter 57: New Year Resolution
The sky overhead was clear, although a thunderhead built on the northern horizon. The full moon hung low in the east in brilliant opalescence, waiting for its later star performance.
Every nerve in my body was twanging. Nicholas kept a suspicious eye on a ring of teenagers huddled with their backs to us. As we passed them, a flash of light sizzled. Bang! I jumped backwards and Nicholas muttered a quiet curse. "Fireworks. Damn fools."
Rod Standing Bear stood outside the ornate, wrought-iron double doors, greeting visitors as they entered.
"Samantha. I hoped you would come. How are you?"
"Couldn't be better," I lied. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."
He gave me a penetrating look before turning to shake hands with Nicholas. I realized my palms were sweating. I rubbed them down my skirt and took a deep breath.
"Please find me inside when we can talk longer," Standing Bear told us.
Nicholas left me to do a quick reconnaissance from the upstairs balcony, while I walked the gallery row, following the flow of the crowd and keeping in plain sight.
He leaned on the second-floor balcony rail and scanned the crowd in the vaulted gallery below. The interior was dimly lit, to showcase the painting spotlights, and he gave his eyes a moment to adjust. He had already spotted Samantha stopped about a third of the way down the far wall. She'd been in front of a particular painting for quite some time; the rest of the patrons parted and moved around her, like water flowing around a rock in a stream.
The whole setup made him twitchy. There were far too many shadowed crannies where a person could hide, two floors and five exits, counting the elevator and the fire escape. He swept his eyes around the room again, studying each face, looking for a man with long blonde hair, or one with his hands in his pockets, or someone with a tense set to his shoulders.
Outside the gallery, it was even worse. It was New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake, and downtown Sedona. The street had filled with revelers in costumes: Vampires, bats, witches, and fetish wear, it looked like damned Halloween all over again. Add a full blood moon to the mix, and we're asking for it. No wonder he was a loner; the mundane world was full of lunatics and crackpots.
The stars shone as pinpricks of silver, and the light breeze soothed his nerve-heated skin. He looked up at the full moon, thinking that nothing of the madness of the world here below reflected in the tranquil heavens above.
All his life, Nicholas thought, he had done what he was meant to do, what was expected of him. He had turned away from his own needs, his own desires, to devote himself to this path. I protected my family, my tradition, he thought. Of course you did, the cynical voice in his head replied. That worked out well for all involved, didn't it?
And now he was protecting Samantha, trying to keep her close and at arm's length at the same time. I thought killing would be the hardest thing I'd ever do. But love is harder, knowing I could lose you. His lips moved, forming her name like a caress. The pain of it burned into his heart. Happiness could be his. He wanted to believe it more than he'd ever believed anything.
He flicked his gaze again around each exit and over the crowd below. Samantha was still in front of the painting. Giving his tense neck a quick roll, he descended the stairs to join her.
* * * * *
I stopped at the painting of Vision Butte Standing Bear had been in the early stages of painting when I'd visited his studio. It was eerie to see the finished work and to be so intimately familiar with the features he had added.
I stepped closer and examined the painting. A female figure on the top of the mountain danced, as a thunderstorm built on the horizon. Lightning illuminated another face painted into the dark storm clouds, an old medicine woman with eyes black as night. I realized I was holding my breath, and released it in a sigh of wonder. Standing Bear had painted me in his dream of the mountaintop, as Wakanda Ondear, the old medicine woman, watched from the heavens.
Behind me, I heard a sharp intake of breath. Nicholas stepped forward until he was only inches away from the painting. Frowning, he studied a scraggly pinon tree in the corner of the canvas. Then Kamaria squeezed my arm and gestured around her. "Who knew we were in the presence of such talent!"
"How do you like the finished canvas?" Standing Bear asked.
"It's amazing," I smiled at his kind, solemn face. "I had no idea this was how you'd finish it."
"Nor did I," he admitted. "But your spirit spoke to me and so I painted it. Does it make you self-conscious?"
I looked at the painting and shook my head.
"No, I'm flattered. Honored, in fact."
Standing Bear regarded me with a serious expression. "This is the night of the blood moon your mother referred to in our meeting. Has anything happened?"
"A lot has happened, but I have survived so far." Nicholas shot me a look, which I ignored. "While we're here, I have a question for you." I dug around in my purse for the envelope containing Renard's map. Opening it up carefully, I handed it to Standing Bear.
"The butte you've painted, Vision Butte. Would you mark it on this map for me?"
Standing Bear looked at the map and pulled out his pen. "It isn't on most maps you know. Only my People know where it is."
I figured while he had a lull in visitors, I'd hit him up for eve-rything. I pulled the raven-woman totem from my purse and handed it to him.
"Beautiful work. Is this from Sinclair?"
"Yes. Kamaria started telling me about the symbols on the medicine shield, but I wondered if you might know even more."
Standing Bear turned the statue in his hand, then pointed at a tiny figure on the shield. "This is the thunderbird, messenger to Wakan Tanka, the giver of revelation symbolized by the lightning bolt. It is believed that thunder and wind storms are caused by the flapping of his wings, and lightning flashes from his eyes when he blinks."
"I'd like to see more examples of the symbolism in your work, and hear how you drew your inspiration," Kamaria said. Standing Bear excused himself politely, and he and Kamaria continued down the exhibit wall i
n deep conversation.
When they were gone, I pulled Nicholas to my side. "This place, Vision Butte, is the portal." I pointed to the painting. "Come with me."
I lead him through the front doors and down to the adjacent building. The sign read Sedona Jeeps, and inside an advertisement solicited, "Vortex Tours!" and a map of landmarks.
I pulled Renard's map out of my purse and spread it next to the wall map. "See, here's Cathedral Rock. If you do a straight line of sight from there…." I ran my finger across the valley to an unnamed hump on the tour map. "Here's Vision Butte."
"It's not labeled," Nicholas said.
"Not on their map. It's a sacred site and off-limits for tours." I pointed to the emblem in the corner of Renard's hand-drawn map. "So she left a clue."
I folded the map and slipped it back in my purse. "Now that Standing Bear has painted it into his vision art, I'm sure of it."
Nicholas lit a cigarette and looked at me over the smoke. "What are you thinking?"
"I've seen this symbol several times. First, on the cloak. But I didn't put it together until I found the same symbol in the grimoire. And now the map."
He dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his heel. "So, you think Nuin and his buddies have an idea how to open the portal for this dark invasion, but not where it is?"
"Exactly."
Then go say your goodbyes. Let's make sure we get there first." Nicholas gave his head a terse jerk toward the gallery.
We made a short job of it and headed for the coat check.
"I need to use the restroom." I headed into the adjacent door. "Get my cloak and I'll be right out."
I had just locked the stall door when I heard a scream from the gallery, followed by a thud. Then all hell broke loose in the main room, and I heard running feet heading toward the back of the gallery. Someone yelled, "Get a doctor!"
Nicholas stuck his head in the bathroom door and called my name.
"What's going on?" The hairs on the back of my neck raised.
"It's Kamaria. Stay here. I'll be right back."
I unlatched the stall and stepped out. A black-robed arm snaked across from the first stall, blocking my view. I reached for the dagger in my boot, but he kicked my legs out from under me. He grabbed my hair, jerking my head back, and I stared up into Nuin's face, contorted in hatred.
"You got away once; you won't be so lucky this time, Ice Queen."
He pressed a medicinal-smelling rag against my mouth and nose, and I buckled, crumpling into his waiting arms.
I was briefly conscious enough to feel him swoop my body off the ground in one swift gesture and cover me with his cloak.
Then he slipped from the bathroom, pushed open the gallery door and melted into the midnight throng outside. Then the blackness of unconsciousness pushed me down and I was gone.
Chapter 58: Curious Raven
Nicholas knelt by Kamaria on the floor. Her nose was bloody and one arm hung loose at odd angle, but she was conscious. A man, identifying himself as a doctor, pushed to the front of the crowd and checked her pulse and pupil reaction as he gave clipped instructions to the emergency operator on his cell phone.
"Is she alert? Can she speak?" he asked Nicholas tersely.
Leaning closer, Nicholas spoke to her softly. "Kamaria, do you know me?"
"Nicholas," she whispered. "Find Sam. He's here."
"Who?"
"Nuin."
A chill of dread ran up his back, cold fingers tracing the ridges of his spine.
Kamaria repeated urgently, "Find Sam."
* * * * *
The bathroom was empty. Nicholas sprinted up the gallery stairs and scanned the crowd. Where did she go? A wave of panic passed over him but he fought it down. Would she be foolhardy enough to leave alone? No, they'd rehearsed this evening carefully. Something else had happened. Something bad.
He tore out of the building and into the crowd outside. More people had gathered in the square in anticipation of the ball drop, but Nicholas plowed through, sloshing drinks on people without apology, to the fountain in the middle of the street. He vaulted onto the ledge of the fountain and strained his eyes in the semi-dark for a glimpse of her while punching in her speed-dial number with one hand. No answer.
Summoning all the self-control he had, Nicholas stood perfectly still amidst the midnight chaos of streamers and noisemakers, and emptied his mind, humming softly under his breath as he reached out to her. A cacophony of images poured over him, most of them dark and blurry, until one jarred his eyes open. The scraggly pinon tree. Vision Butte.
* * * * *
Banks of clouds sped across the moon and the wind swayed the limbs of a tree over my head. I lay on my back shivering in a thin, white gown that fluttered in the breeze. Something hard poked into my back. I tried to shift my body to sit up and realized my hands and legs were bound. Then Nuin's face blocked the sky above me.
"Ah, good, you're awake. It wouldn't do to have you unconscious and miss our little party, since you're the featured guest." He leaned closer. "Where's your boyfriend? I thought he'd be here by now."
I cleared my dry throat. "Where am I?"
He chuckled perversely. "I should thank you for the directions, by the way. We found your map." He dangled my gun under my nose from one finger. "And this."
I closed my eyes and pushed my mind out to Nicholas. Vision Butte. Come now and tell Sinclair.
Nuin slapped me across the face, making my ears ring.
"No fair passing out on me. You have a lot of work to do tonight." He patted the welt forming on my cheek and laughed when I winced. "Let's get you ready for your performance, shall we?"
He yanked me up by my bound wrists. I sat on a flat slab of rock, set up as an altar. A dirty yellow, foul-smelling circle had been drawn around the slab. It smelled like rotten eggs.Brimstone, I thought, mixed with ashes. Pulling a dagger from his belt, Nuin held it to my chin with a hint of a smile. "Don't move, Red, or I slit your throat." I stared back at him without blinking. He threw a scarlet cape around my shoulders, wound a gold cord around my waist, and stuck a thin gold band around my hair, then shoved me back onto the rock. "Behave yourself, it's almost show time." He backed away from the altar.
Not on your life, I thought grimly, working my wrists against the bindings. They held fast, so I tried my ankles. At least they'd left my boots on. I tried to pull my feet out of them, but they were my best pair and fit like a glove. Damn! I lay still for a moment to catch my breath and think, and heard a faint rustling above me.
A skinny raven perched in on a branch of the gnarled juniper tree, watching. Nice of you to join us, a scratchy voice said in my head. I looked closer into the bird's unusually intelligent black eyes. Sinclair? The raven bobbed its shiny head. Curious raven loves puzzles. He chuckled.
The bird fluttered from the tree to the rock and put its beak to the rope binding my hands, pulling at the knot until it loosened enough to work it free. I pulled the cape over my hands while the raven hopped to my feet to work on the knot there.
Nuin had turned back to me. He ran up to the bird, waving an unlit lantern. "Shoo, you mangy scavenger!" The raven flapped away as a flash of lightning split the sky just to the west, followed by a loud peal of thunder.
Nuin stared after the bird for a moment. I counted in my head, one thousand one, one thousand two, waiting for the thunder. Just under two miles away.
Cupping his hand around his lighter, Nuin lit four lanterns and set them in a circle a few feet from the base of the rock. Another dark man placed a ritual sword on the ground at the foot of the stone, lit the charcoal in the censor and added incense.
When Nuin looked at me this time, his normal belligerently sexual swagger was gone. He seemed uneasy and shifted from one foot to the other, his hands wrapped around his mid-section. When one of his cronies walked up, however, he attempted his usual sarcasm.
"Meet my friend Samantha, our soon-to-be Prieste
ss of the Dark."
The man beside him sneered, but Nuin didn't smile. He looked like he might collapse. "Leave us and get the others." His head swiveled in my direction. His pupils glowed a dull red and his upper body seemed distorted. He rippled. Something under his skin was stirring, getting restless.
Inside my boot, I felt the Phurba vibrate in response to the dark energy so close by. His smell drifted to me then. Old and damp and out of place, like a pantry full of potatoes gone rotten; the soft, overpowering, cloying scent of decay.
Don't look at him.
I raised my eyes to the sky, drew in a long, silent breath and released it slowly, watching the puff of air leave my lips in a swirl and disappear into the dark. With it, I let all emotion retreat, forcing my mind away from him, imagining myself behind a walled fortress of thick, white ice.
"It will do you no good," Nuin whispered in my ear. His breath smelled of dead, rotted meat. "He will have you no matter the shields you put up to resist."
I closed my eyes. He spoke the truth. It was going to take more than shields.
Chapter 59: Demon Stand
Nicholas drove like the wind down the dirt road winding out of town toward Cathedral Rock. Clouds roiled around the moon, silhouetting the jagged spires one minute, casting the desert in darkness the next. One hand on the wheel, he tried Sam's number again, then dialed the number she had given him for Rod Standing Bear, leaving an urgent message when no one answered: "Tell Sinclair it's Vision Butte tonight. Now!" He considered calling the local police, but what would he say? My girlfriend's been kid-napped. I suspect a demon?
No, they were on their own, he thought grimly, not great odds. But he would have surprise on his side.
He cut the truck headlights well before the base of the hill, in case they'd posted a lookout above him. There was barely enough moonlight left to drive slow the rest of the way. He flipped off the automatic dome light before he opened the truck door and got out. He patted his sheathed leg for his dagger and stuck his gun in the band of his pants.