by Faith Hunter
Soul looked us over, thinking. She splashed a fin and studied the droplets of time in them. Her eyes went wide. “You have . . . You might . . . This is a new possibility, one not yet posited or evaluated by the Conseil d’Arcenciels.”
From the darks of the crevasse, I heard the clatter of movement and saw lights. Soul slid deeper into the water, half-alarmed, uncertain, as she splashed and studied the droplets my words had changed. The noise of humans grew closer. Liz, the redheaded witch, walked into the small clearing, looking over the wounded and the exoskeleton. She bent her knees, putting one to the earth beside Eli, looking me over. “Dayam, woman, you look bad.” She placed a duffel beside Eli and opened it. “Got what you asked for.”
Eli reached in and pulled out the small white box holding my medicine bag. His face like stone, he opened the box and lifted the thong over my head, settling the bag on my chest. “Your teeth from when you were five,” he said. Then he removed le breloque and placed it on my head. It sealed to me tightly. I raised my eyes to him. I hadn’t been thinking about using the crown, but then I wasn’t exactly strategizing for an op. “Your crown, my queen,” he said, straight-faced, serious.
Shaddock was holding the Glob. “Ugliest thing I thing I’ve ever seen, and pulling it out of a bug skull wasn’t fun, but you know?” He flipped the Glob over and over as if testing its weight. “The power in this thing is mighty amazing. Don’t reckon you’d want to sell it?”
“Like the crown, it chooses its victim.”
“Mmmm. Dawn’s coming. We need to get moving, Queenie.” Shaddock placed the Glob in my hand, and when he realized I couldn’t hold it, he tied it in place with a strip of cloth he cut from his own shirt. “Your scepter.”
Gee flapped his wings and tossed something down. “Your arcenciel scale,” he said. “I found it in the rocks, covered with your blood, from the battle with the Flayer of Mithrans.” Edmund caught it and Eli tucked it into the sticky wrap holding my bandages in place.
I looked at Gee, perched in the tree overhead. “You said you’d show me the way through the rift and back, so I didn’t get lost.”
“I would guide you, but the Dark Queen has an angel to guide her, if she lives or dies. Heavenly power is far better than any assistance or pathways I might offer.”
I wanted to argue and call him foresworn, as I had Soul, but Bruiser was dying. I whispered, “Put me in the rift water, Eli. If I don’t drown immediately, put Bruiser and the others in.”
That strange expression was still on his face. “And if you die?”
“Then I’ll have screwed up, you doofus.”
A faint smile ghosted over his face.
I searched through my memories, through poorly learned protocol, and half-recalled Cherokee words and phrases. I couldn’t move, couldn’t touch his chest, over his heart, but at least I had the words. “You have been my protector and shield bearer, my brother in thought and deed. Nvwadohiyada,” which meant “Harmony to you,” said as a type of blessing to the warrior who had fought for me. I had already taken care of Eli and Alex and the Everhart-Truebloods in my will, and I had positioned them in a place of power in Clan Yellowrock. This last blessing was all I could do at this point.
Tears gathered in Eli’s eyes. His nostrils trembled; his lips went hard and thin as if he held in a scream.
“Throw me in the pool, Eli. Let’s see if I sink or swim.”
Gently he slid his arms under my knees and beneath my shoulders. Even with the Anzu feather, the pain was a red-hot razor of agony. Eli lifted me and carried me the few feet to the pool. Soul was on the far side, watching. Silent. Not her usual self, but then she was a fish. Or an aquatic mammal. Whatever. He knelt again and eased me into the heated water. Instantly my bones stopped aching. My muscles relaxed. But I started bleeding again, a pale cloud of pink in the water. Dudley was hurting so bad it was off the scale, even with the new Anzu feather and spinal damage. I held in a scream, knowing that if I ever started wailing, I might never stop. I breathed short and fast as Eli settled me with a rock at my back and the arm holding the Glob around another rock. Floating.
Other than that, nothing happened.
Edmund was dribbling his blood onto Bruiser’s throat and into his mouth. Bruiser wasn’t breathing, wasn’t bleeding. But what had Gee said? “His soul is ready to depart.” Not “His soul has departed.”
I turned my head, able to move that much, healed at least a little by vamp blood. “Put Bruiser in. Fast,” I said. Edmund lifted my honeybunch as if he weighed nothing and placed him in the water with me. The master vampire had to hold Bruiser up by his shoulders or he would have slid beneath the water.
I had said the word, Nvwadohiyada, the word and meaning lodged somewhere in my brain. The way of the war woman was not always to lead others into violence. The war woman could also lead to peace. The way of the Cherokee was harmony and harmony was peace. To achieve harmony with our clans, our tribe, with other tribes, and with nature, we went to water. Water was sacred. Holy.
Some water was more sacred, holy, and healing than others. More of my blood spun into the water, whipped away. I wondered where the water went. It was rising from the deeps of the earth, a hot spring. It had to go somewhere. I looked down into the deep blue of the hole in the earth. It was so dark down there; it was blacker than the darkest night. Darker than my soul home. Darker than the shadow’s mind had been.
“Eli? Find a small stick? Something that will float?”
He squatted, holding a six-inch stick, dead and dry. “Hold it down in the water,” I said. He frowned at me but he bent over the water and stuck his arm in to the shoulder, lower and lower, until it was as deep as he could push without going under.
The water grabbed the stick. Whirled and spun his hand and arm. Sucked the stick out of his hand and down into the dark. He jerked away, his eyes hard. “You can’t—”
“The water comes up and shoots back down,” I said. “Don’t let go of us.”
“Not planning to, Janie. But we need to remove the silver shackle on Soul’s ankle. Anyone got an idea how to remove a magical ankle cuff?” No one spoke. Eli gave a tiny shrug, pulled a U.S. version of a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and unfolded a pair of metal snips. He gestured Soul over. Unsure, she raised her scaled and burned ankle. “When in doubt,” Eli said, holding me with one hand and leaning out over the water, “use the training provided by Uncle Sam.”
I didn’t watch, not taking my eyes off the blackness of the deeps, but heard small clicks, one, two, a third. A moment later, Soul flashed by me and dove into the blackness. Just as she disappeared, she transformed into her rainbow-dragon form. And once again she had promised what she didn’t deliver. No arcenciel help. No helping me with the rift. Nada.
Yet . . . I had an angel to help me. And maybe angels and arcenciels didn’t mix?
I angled my gaze up to Eli and smiled. “Mr. Fix-It.”
“That’s me, ma’am,” he said, miming tipping a hat at me.
“Make sure that Shimon is still in pieces,” I said. “Keep him away from the water. Put the others in. Hold on to them.” I felt the presence of others being added to the pool with me, though I couldn’t have said how I knew.
I looked down at the magic within me, motes of scarlet, black, silver, and charcoal, from witch, vamp, Anzu, and skinwalker power, unique among magic users. Now that the magic had been cut and pierced with steel, the star shape was broken. I felt the magic in the corona, old and austere around my head. I thought about the Glob, a thing made of suffering, death, lightning, witch magic, and from my body. There was power here, magic and life. And there was no reason why I couldn’t use the magic in my middle to heal myself, to heal us all, if I knew how. Except that if I tried, I was as likely to kill us as heal us.
I pulled on the Gray Between, still open around me. Using my own skinwalker magic and the power of my soul home, I mentally
twined the darker magic of le breloque with the brighter, newer magic of the Glob. I began braiding the three strands of magic. My own weird power, the Glob’s, and the crown’s. The braid began to glow, to sparkle, visible in the water to human eyes, which I knew when Eli casually asked, “Janie? Whatcha doing?”
“Changing my life,” I whispered. “Changing my magic. Flying by the . . . throne of my power.”
I took the long tail of strange new energies and draped it around the others, first around Bruiser, then Stacey, and Tex. My body was above the current only feet below, my neck and chest muscles the only ones still working. “Hold me,” I whispered to Eli. I let my head drop beneath the water. Eli’s fingers tightened on my shoulder, anchoring me in place. I arched my neck slightly, resurfaced, and said, “I call on Unelenehi, the great one, who is the sun.” I dipped my head below the water again, tying the braided power off, sealing it in place, and to a purpose. I resurfaced and said, “I call on Selu, first woman, the corn mother.” I went back beneath. I tried to resurface but I couldn’t, not alone. This time I needed Eli’s help, his hands strong on my shoulders, lifting me. “I call on Kenati, her husband, the first man.” I went beneath the water and Eli pulled me back up. “I call on the great female spirit, Agisseequa.” I dipped again. “I call on the redeemer, who gives everyone a second chance.” I went under a sixth time and opened my eyes, staring at the blue, blue water and the dark hole below me, opening into the earth.
I broke the surface and said, “I accept the power that has been given to me. I accept the cost that will come to me.” I whispered to the injured, “Be healed.” Magic, the power of the Glob and le breloque, sparked and flew from me and into them. Looking up into Eli’s eyes I smiled. Without taking my eyes from his, I said, “Let go of me.”
“Janie.”
“Do it.” His eyes went cold, the hard, blank gaze of his battlefield self. He released me. I dipped the seventh time. Snapped the magic braid away from them. The current caught me. Sucked me down. And pulled me into the deeps.
The water buffeted me, boiling up and sweeping down. My body followed the current. But instead of taking me straight down, it swept me under a ledge to the side and swiftly into the dark beneath the crevasse. The light vanished. I crashed into rocks, unable to protect my broken body. Pain shot through me and I figured the rocks had broken me open again and I was bleeding out what little blood I had left. I was desperate to breathe, but my throat seemed to have closed down again too. I was too weak to fight any longer.
The water began to cool. Then grow cold. The underground river rushed me through the mountain. In the cold dark, I opened the Gray Between wider around me, pulling the new magic into me, twining it about myself, about the star magics, about Dudley, tied it into le breloque and the Glob. I didn’t struggle. Couldn’t struggle. The water grew colder and colder. My bodily functions began to close down. I gave in. I let the darkness take me.
CHAPTER 22
Dudley Had Caught Fire
I woke in the dark. I was lying in frigid water, the ground sandy beneath me. The roar of water surrounded me. Mist rose and fell. The sound and smell of this place was familiar. I was in the water below the waterfall in my soul home.
I had no idea if I was alive or not.
A light appeared in the darkness. On the bank over the stream stood Hayyel, his body glowing, his wings spread. He was dressed in white, loose pants and a tunic belted with a vibrant blue. He stepped down, across the rocky drop, the broken boulders looking suspiciously like the rocks below the cave in the crevasse. Which was odd.
He took my hand and pulled me from the water. Lifted me to my feet. I could stand, but I wasn’t sure this was real; it might be a vision. Probably was.
Hayyel helped me up the grade to the level floor of the tunnel. There he dropped my hand and turned, walking back toward the main room of my soul home. I was pretty certain that this wasn’t real, but something that was happening in my brain as I died. Not that I could change it. So I went with it.
I walked beside him, my clothes wet and clinging, my feet squelchy, in moccasins. I wasn’t in pain and when I touched my middle, I didn’t feel Dudley. I was wearing the woven cloth pants common to the men of my clan, with a long overshirt, tied with an even longer scarf. I was dressed kinda like Hayyel, or he was dressed like me. My vision, so my rules? At the thought, my clothes were dry. Yep. This was a vision.
My medicine bag and my doubled gold necklace were both around my neck. The Glob was in my belt. The Anzu feather was tight against my skin at my waist. My hair felt strange, and when I touched my head, I discovered two braids, the strands woven with feathers and beads and bits of ribbon and lengths of leather, which made no sense. The Cherokee didn’t adorn their braids often, and certainly not in a spirit dream. The hair was sort of like the vision of the soul. They should represent my spirit, my image of myself. Ornate and pretty wasn’t it. The braids swung with each step.
I was wearing the crown. Pulling it off, I threaded my left arm through it, propping the crown on my shoulder to carry. It felt good there.
After a bit, the angel said, “You did not take the path I expected.”
“Yeah. Drowning myself. Who’d’a thunk it? Surprised me too. Am I dead?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Okay. Sooo. What am I doing here?”
“You are in your soul home,” he said, stating the obvious. “The place where you first changed your shape and became We-sa. Bobcat. The place where you were welcomed into your clan. Where you fulfilled the genetic call to walk in the skin of animals.”
“Wait. No.” I plucked the clothing. Dry. Not stuff I owned. “Nope. Not reality. The rift did not take me to the actual cave.”
Hayyel chuckled. His laughter warmed me to my toes and rang through the darkness. Angel magic. “No,” he said. “This is no miracle or loop of time. This is your brain, taking you where you need to go, to your beginning. To your own origination story.”
Interesting choice of terms. “Like the origination story of the shadow.”
He nodded, clasping his hands behind his back as we walked. The sound of the waterfall fell behind. “Shimon and Yosace sacrificed their sister to bring back their father. Shimon ate her and took in her soul. You and your Beast sacrificed yourselves twice, the first time to survive together, becoming two-souled. And just now, the second time, to keep others alive. It is not exact, of course, but there are parallels. Your life has been one of violence, of death and war and pain. You are dying. And you have chosen a remarkable way forward.”
“The beloved woman was adaptable. War women have to be to survive.”
Hayyel glanced sidelong at me, amused. “You gave me the head of your enemy. I took her spirit to the other side.”
“Hell? Heaven?”
He unclasped his hands and flipped one back and forth. “Judgment is not my responsibility. But your choice was unforeseen.”
“I can’t see how. What else was I supposed to do with the spirit head of the shadow?”
“I expected you to kill the vampire and feed the soul of the shadow to your weapon.”
He meant the Glob, the thing that absorbed magic and stored it. I had no idea where the energies went when the Glob absorbed them. Which was kinda scary. As scary as where the death-magic energies went when Molly used her power. Maybe they went to the same place. I grunted, a sound that might have meant anything.
We entered the main cave, the roof in a dome above us, stalagmites and stalactites rising and falling, the few columns where they met holding up the roof. A fire burned in the fire pit, smoke rising, smelling of hickory and cedar. The fire was warm, which was a surprise. There was a pitcher made of fired clay and a wood ladle. A war drum, like the one from the sweathouse. A basket of dried and fresh herbs rested near the drum. A large, elliptical stone, flat on top, with a long stone channel down the middle, rested beside it, a rou
nded stone in the groove. It was a hand mill used to grind grain or macerate nuts. To the other side was a much smaller mortar and pestle for grinding herbs. Wood and kindling were stacked in the shadows.
A pile of deer hides were folded nearby. Packs were lined against the walls. Cured-hide water bags hung near the far wall, some wet and dripping. I turned to the fire and saw Beast, lying on her belly, resting, head up, ears pricked, looking into the dark. She wasn’t dead, at least not in my vision.
“I’m not sure why I’m here,” I said. “I’m even less sure why you’re here. And even more so, I’m not sure whose side you’re on.”
Hayyel laughed, that joyous sound that quavered along my nerves the way vampire laughter did. Odd thought that, a comparison for a later time. “You thought I was a watcher?” he asked.
“I thought you were one of the fallen.”
That sobered him fast. “Few of us have autonomy. Guardians are among the few.”
“You’re saying you’re my guardian angel?”
At my disbelieving tone, he gave me that amused expression again. “No. I am guardian to many, including Angelina Everhart Trueblood, but in this place, I am Beast’s guardian.”
I opened my mouth and shut it. Started to speak again and didn’t. I sat and added wood to the fire. Warmth from the flames heated my body. I put my crown on the rock to my left and Hayyel sat to my right. I picked a sprig of rosemary from the herbs and dropped it on the burning wood. The strong scent of the burning herb rose on the air. “Okay. You’re Beast’s guardian angel. And Angie Baby’s. And you fight demons. And save werewolves. And help with vision quests, assuming that’s what this is. You’re a busy angel. I’m dying. I figure you’re here to take my soul to be judged, right?” He didn’t reply and my eyes narrowed as I watched the flames climb along the dry wood and char the rosemary to ash. Tone sour, I said, “But you’ve got something you want me to do first.”
