by TM Simmons
She unsnapped her seatbelt to reach into the backseat. Without asking, she retrieved two blankets and handed one to Nodinens. Nodinens only nodded her thanks, eyes focused on the activity in the clearing. When Channing had snuggled into her blanket and looked back over the truck's hood, she saw the final two men, both naked, tanned and fit in the shimmering moonlight, entering the sweat lodge. The last one was Keoman, and just before he closed the door, he looked at their truck.
When Channing glanced at Nodinens, the other woman smiled. "It doesn't matter how old we women get, we can still enjoy the sight of a male body."
"I have to remind myself about that sometimes when I'm examining a patient," she admitted with a chuckle. "Compartmentalize my mind."
A moment later, more dense, white smoke flowed from the chimney, dissipating into the still night air.
"They have begun to pour water or snow on the heated rocks to fill the lodge with purifying steam," Nodinens explained. "They will soon start the ceremony. Even though we are not in there, we should show reverence with our quiet."
They sat for a long while. Without the engine running, there was no dash clock to show them how much time was passing, and Channing didn't want to remove her arms from the blanket warmth to check her wristwatch. Also, she wasn't sure such a gesture wouldn't be against the reverence Nodinens had asked for. Tired, at one point, her eyelids fell, but she resolutely forced herself awake.
She jumped when a white owl with a large wingspan swooped across the clearing, although she managed to stifle her startled squeak. The bird descended toward the snow, and when it rose, a small animal dangled in its talons.
"Not good," Nodinens whispered. "I will have to tell Gagewin and Keoman of this."
"A bad omen?" Channing asked.
"Yes," Nodinens said in a soft, sorrowful voice. "It probably means there will be more children disappearing."
"Oh, god, I hope you're reading this wrong," Channing told her.
"As do I," Nodinens said. "But I am afraid I am not."
A horrible screech split the silence, and Channing's blood ran cold. She barely kept herself from diving to the floorboard for protection. For a second, her mind tried to rationalize that the owl had found a prey it couldn't handle. However, the scream sounded far too human, full of pain … full of evil.
"My god," Channing breathed. The evil entity was near. Without a moment's hesitation, she started reciting a prayer Grant had taught her. "Saint Michael, the Archangel. Defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snare of the devil."
As she continued the prayer, Nodinens began her own chant in words Channing couldn't understand. They sounded like the ones she had used at the resort, and the tone of her voice signified a tense fear that echoed Channing's own.
"Mino-dae/aeshowishinaung
Tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen."
Channing waited for the entity to appear, but all she heard was another agonized scream. The sound decibel rose to what should have been an impossible level. Channing clapped her hands over her ears and started to lower her head onto her lap. But the spider-cracking windshield caught her attention.
"Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin!" Nodinens shouted. "Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin!"
Channing watched in astonishment as the windshield crack halted, then ever so slowly retreated and disappeared, leaving only pristine glass behind.
"What did you say?" Channing whispered.
"Against evil prevail," Nodinens replied, her gaze never wavering from the clearing. "The Old Words are strong."
One of the men from the sweat lodge — Channing thought it was Keoman, though the man moved too fast for her to be certain — raced toward the trucks. He vanished into one, slamming the door behind him. The engine started and headlights flared. Seconds later, Keoman emerged, fully dressed, including his heavy, hooded jacket. He carried what looked like a shield in his hand. As he walked, he pushed his right arm into a loop on the back of the shield to hold it in front of him. He yelled, but in the sealed pickup, Channing couldn't make out what he said.
Two more men dashed out of the lodge, one into each pickup. Keoman stalked out into the middle of the clearing and stood silently.
Nodinens started her pickup and flicked her headlights to bright as she said, "There is no reason now not to be warm."
"What's Keoman going to do?" Channing asked, heart thudding as she thought of being out in the open with Nenegean.
"His actions will probably depend on what Nenegean does," Nodinens answered.
Channing whispered the St. Michael's prayer again, although this time, she revised the words. "Defend him in battle. Be his protection against the wickedness and snare of devils and demons."
Without any warning, or even a slight movement of underbrush or tree branches, the woman stepped out, directly in line with where Keoman was watching. She appeared the same as back at Channing's cabin: ragged clothing that wouldn't protect a living person against the cold, snarled hair, knee-high moccasins. Keoman took two steps toward her, and Channing heard him shout something. Despite the cold waiting outside the window, she pushed the button on the armrest to roll it down.
Nodinens unsnapped her seatbelt and inched her small body onto the console to lean closer to Channing and also try to hear what was being said between the entity and Keoman. Anxiety radiated from the elderly woman, a match for Channing's own emotions.
Keoman spoke in the Old Words when he next yelled at the monster, and Channing could only understand the tone of his voice. He appeared to be taunting, or at the least, confronting.
"He is asking her why she came back," Nodinens said. "Saying she needs to be gone."
"I hope he knows what he's doing," Channing said.
"As do I."
Channing frowned. "I don't hear her answering him."
"She might be communicating into his mind," Nodinens explained.
When the elderly woman translated what Keoman said next, her explanation as to what was happening proved correct. "He is telling her that she is dead. That she must leave this existence."
"No," Channing said, reaching for the door handle. "First she has to tell us where Lark is."
"Do not!" Nodinens ordered as she clenched Channing's shoulder. When Channing released her hold on the door, Nodinens continued, "If she has Lark —"
"She does!" Channing interrupted. "We saw the evidence of that at Sandy and Walt's house!"
The dash light illuminated the fierce look on Nodinens' face. "I will not be so rude as to tell you to shut up. But you must leave this to Keoman. He is a strong Midé. However, any negative thoughts or actions can be dangerous to him."
Gaze locked with Nodinens' for several long seconds, Channing at last conceded. "I'll shut up."
She stared back into the clearing. In the short time she had been looking away, Nenegean had closed half the distance to Keoman. Keoman held the shield in front of him, but left his head clear as he said something else.
For a moment, Channing thought Nodinens was angry with her and wasn't going to interpret. But when the other woman gasped, Channing gave her a quick glance before she focused once more on the confrontation between Keoman and the entity.
"He is telling her that her powers and magic will be useless against us," Nodinens finally murmured, perhaps having forgotten she was still clenching Channing's shoulder. The grip grew painful as Nodinens continued, "Against his powers. That they will send her somewhere she cannot hurt the children. That they will find Lark, because we know where she took the girl."
"Do you?" Channing asked, finally forced to reach over and loosen Nodinens' brutal hold. "Know where she probably is?"
Nodinens shook her head sadly. "We know the general area. We know the lake. But it was hundreds of years ago. The cabin will be gone … rotted. And without it for us to use as a bearing, we might never find the cave that is supposed to be there."
"But?" Channing asked. "There's something else, isn't there?"
>
Nodinens said in a barely audible voice, "I do not want to tell you that now. Ask me later."
Channing sucked in a breath and quickly refocused on Keoman. A thought flashed in her mind. She'd asked him that day in the clinic if his abilities were working. She understood from things Grant had shared that some beliefs in the supernatural were based on actual gifts various people had. Gifts and abilities they were able to strengthen over time, to use both for communication with the other world as well as to protect themselves from malevolent creatures they encountered. But Keoman had admitted to her that his were lacking.
Then why was he the one confronting this evil entity?
Keoman shouted again and raised the shield, shaking it at the monster. She threw back her head and laughed, the eerie sound rolling through the clearing like thunder forewarning an approaching violent storm. Channing shivered, but not with cold. From the corner of her eye, she could tell that Nodinens clutched her thermal blanket even though the pickup was now fairly comfortable from the heat spilling out of the dash vents.
"He said …." Nodinens hesitated, then went on," He said she is a useless, foul thing. That she needs to return to death or she will have no odjitcag, no spirit, after he sings his nagumowin."
"Nagumowin?"
"His song," Nodinens explained. "It is used for protection against wicked entities. And to remove them from the existence we live in ourselves."
Oh, god, Channing thought, I hope they know what they're doing by eradicating Nenegean before they find Lark.
In the clearing, Nenegean was still several yards from Keoman. The Midé's next words rose on a pitch indicating he had commenced his song to attack the dead woman.
Channing never saw Nenegean leap. It was as though the entity was in front of Keoman without movement, in a flash of mind, merely wanting to be there. Keoman tried to move, but the frozen crust beneath the new snow broke on his first backward step. He fell.
The shield protected him. When he shook it at the monster, she screamed another one of those skin-crawling sounds and circled him.
Keoman heaved to his feet and turned to keep the shield between him and Nenegean. His path trampled a mound of snow a foot high surrounding him. Nenegean paced around and around, once in a while lunging in to attack. But Keoman always managed to turn so she couldn't assault him from behind, where he was vulnerable.
Finally, Keoman cautiously slipped his arm from the leather loop on the back of the shield. The next time Nenegean rushed him, he swung the shield. It connected with an audible thud, knocking her several feet away.
Shrieking, Nenegean scrambled up. The reverberations from the sound she made shook several of the pines and even the branches on the hardwoods. Snow fell in distinct whispers. Then the monster raced toward the woods, her path away from both Keoman and the sweat lodge.
An inane thought crossed Channing's mind, and she unthinkingly spoke it aloud. "Why does she sometimes move as though just thinking herself at a different place, like she did when she was suddenly on Keoman? Then other times, move visibly?"
"She's a monster," Nodinens replied in a flat voice. "As I have told Keoman before, do not make the mistake of trying to understand the actions of such as her. And I will also add that you should not put human emotions or sentiments into something like this. They leave most of that behind when they become aapidingwaami. When they die."
Channing breathed a sigh. "At least he defeated her."
In her side vision, she saw Nodinens nod in agreement, but they both maintained focused gazes on Keoman. Her medical training instinctively kicked in when she saw him slowly lift his hands to his head.
"He's getting one of his migraines," she said apprehensively. She reached for the door handle, but didn't dare try to exit the pickup without Nodinens' permission. As she started to ask for that, several more men emerged from the sweat lodge and hurried to the other two trucks.
"They will help him," Nodinens assured her as Keoman swayed slightly.
The first man to get out of a pickup fully dressed was Gagewin. He hurried down the path in the snow to Keoman and slipped his arm around the other man's waist. Keoman grasped Gagewin across the shoulders, and they both started toward the trucks.
A piercing scream preceding her appearance, Nenegean raced back out of the woods.
Evidently thinking themselves safe, neither man had bothered to pick up the shield, which already lay several feet behind them.
Chapter 16
Nodinens didn't try to stop Channing when she threw the door open and sprang out into the snow. Hand on the white doeskin pouch Keoman had insisted she wear, she shouted, "Saint Michael, the Archangel! Defend us in battle! Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil!"
When she realized Nodinens was beside her, yelling her own protection chant in a voice sounding too loud for such a small person, Channing joined the other woman in the words she had now learned.
"Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin!" Nodinens and she repeated, over and over again. "Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin! Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin!"
Nenegean ignored them and stalked toward Gagewin and Keoman. For the first time, the entity yelled what sounded like words instead of just screaming. Nodinens halted her chant abruptly, and when Channing glanced at her, she saw Nodinens staring intently at Nenegean, as though listening. But confusion marred the elderly woman's face rather than understanding.
Two men emerged from the pickups, one carrying a rifle. He aimed at Nenegean and the blast of the shot overrode any other noise in the clearing. Channing gasped when it appeared the bullet had hit the monster without a sign of damage.
Nenegean attacked the man with the rifle. The second man made it back into the truck, but the entity grabbed the shooter and ripped off the arm holding the gun. As he screamed in agony, she tossed it toward Keoman and Gagewin. They instinctively leapt back from the grisly object, drawing Channing's attention away from Nenegean. When another shrill scream from the man rent the air, Channing covered her mouth to stem the nauseating bile. The monster held the man in one hand and dragged a jagged fingernail down his stomach, gutting him. Entrails spilled into the red-stained snow.
Keoman now lay on the ground, Gagewin standing over him. Nenegean flung the dead man's body aside and faced them. Bravely, two more men emerged from the pickups. One held a bow and arrow. He shouted at Nenegean to get her attention, and when she faced him, he released the arrow notched in his bow.
The arrow worked its damage. It tore halfway through Nenegean's chest and stopped with only the tail feathers visible. She screamed in fury and reached for the arrow to remove it. Instantly, she drew her hand back as though it burned, a venomous snarl on her face.
Channing was already at the shield, one hand on the white doeskin pouch. But she had to use both hands to lift the surprisingly heavy shield. With it in front of her for protection, she lunged toward where Keoman lay just as the monster got to Gagewin.
"Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin!" Gagewin yelled, standing his ground.
He was between her and the entity, and the chant didn't protect him. Nenegean snarled a vicious growl and reached out.
Channing nearly tripped in the deeper snow when she sidestepped from the beaten path. The entity had Gagewin now, his face frozen in a grimace of terror. He threw a fist at Nenegean, but the shield landing on her back caused the creature to release the man.
Channing clenched her fingers so she wouldn't lose her grasp. Both hands on the strap on the shield, she swung again. The side of the shield connected with entity's neck.
Nenegean leapt backward. Her face morphed into a countenance more demonic than human. When she snarled, two rows of fangs on the top and bottom of her mouth dripped slime down her chin.
Another arrow buried itself in the monster's chest. She glanced away from Channing toward the pickups. Channing hadn't realized that Nodinens had followed her, but the tiny woman stepped up and tossed a handful of some
thing at the entity.
Nenegean threw back her head and screeched, slime smelling like rotten earth and spoiled meat spattering Channing. She nearly dropped the shield to wipe away the repulsive mess, but Nodinens stepped closer and gripped her smaller hands beside Channing's.
One moment, Nenegean was there, the next, Channing could only see the back of her vanishing into the woods. As Channing scooped up snow to wipe the disgusting slime from her face, the scene in front of her gave irrefutable evidence of the creature's presence.
For a long moment, Channing continued to sense the barrier that encased the clearing. Its presence was more a feeling of what was not there, than what was. No sound penetrated. Though Nodinens had left her truck running, there was no audible engine noise.
Then Keoman moaned and tried to sit up. A flurry of activity split the silence.
Channing's medical instincts kicked into triage mode. Carrying the shield with her, she headed for the man Nenegean had torn apart, although there was hardly any hope for him. Steeling herself, she knelt in the snow beside the strewn entrails and felt his neck for a pulse. She had seen people damaged in car wrecks this badly who still lived, but this man would not be one of the people who survived horrible physical damage. His skin was already losing heat in the snow. She checked his pupils just to be sure, but the man was clearly dead.
Two men from the sweat lodge waited for her decision when Channing stood. She only shook her head, then went to check Keoman.
Nodinens had her small hand on Keoman's shoulders. "If you stand up before Channing gets here to look at you," the elderly woman was saying, "I will make your head hurt again."
Keoman sat back down in the snow, one hand to his forehead, the other holding his own medicine pouch at his throat. Gagewin stood beside the two of them, his expression one of shock. Channing motioned him toward the trucks, where the rest of the men were emerging.
"What if she comes back?" Gagewin whispered.
"She is gone … this time," Nodinens assured him. She nodded at the shield, and Channing handed it to Gagewin.