by Elisa Paige
I had the hazy image of something tall rising over me, a taloned blow descending toward my unprotected belly. Then Koda was there, swift and deadly as he threw himself onto my attacker. Still gasping for air, I struggled to my knees, and far too slowly, got vertical. Koda roared and I stumble-turned, appalled to find him wrestling a thin, gray creature that was even taller than his six-foot height. The thing swiped at him and he nimbly dodged, but as fast and skilled as he was, the wendigo’s speed was astonishing—and Koda had said in New Orleans that his presence slowed these creatures down! Another taloned strike, another evasion, then the combatants closed with one another and I couldn’t tell who had hold of whom.
Koda spun the thing away from him, snapping a kick into its fanged face that dropped the wendigo to its knees. Looking at me, Koda snarled, “Get out of here!”
All too fast, the creature shot to its feet and launched itself at him. He ducked the first swing, then they were locked together again.
Everything about the hairless thing set my senses screaming at its…wrongness. There was just no other way to describe the horrid pall it cast, from its backward-bending knee joints to its yellow fangs to its three-fingered hands with their gleaming talons. That Koda was fighting it unarmed broke the bizarre spell the creature’s appalling presence cast and I scrambled into motion.
Never without my daggers, I drew both. Leaping onto the wendigo’s knobby, bent back I buried the blades to their hilts in its dry, crackling flesh. Using my weight and all my strength, I sliced the ehrlindriel’s wicked-sharp edges downward, severing sinew and bone and whatever crap the creature had for innards.
Its shriek nearly shattered my eardrums and it took all my will not to release the pommels to cover my ears with both hands. Screaming with pain, I withdrew the daggers and plunged them in again, slicing and stabbing in a maddened attempt to silence the ghastly thing. When it turned on me, the sight of Koda collapsing behind it turned me into a madwoman.
I flew at the wendigo like I was possessed, bellowing with rage and terror, hacking and gashing every inch of desiccated gray flesh within reach. When it would have retreated before my insane onslaught, I viciously pursued it a half-dozen steps before hamstringing its left leg. It shrieked again, but this time I dashed close to crush its larynx before it could get enough volume to hurt. The thing staggered, making a wild swipe at me. I danced aside, the long talons whistling past my flank. A quick strike hamstrung its right leg and it collapsed face-first. With savage efficiency, I followed it to the ground and severed its spine.
“The…heart,” Koda rasped, his head hanging.
Plunging the dagger in my right hand deep into the thing’s chest, I twisted the blade savagely. Knowing that monsters never die easily—and, once dead, don’t always stay that way—I hacked the beating organ from the bastard’s chest and diced the misshapen thing into ichor-drenched pieces. Snarling, I sliced the wendigo’s throat, my dagger’s ehrlindriel making short work of decapitating the thing. Kicking the ghastly head far from the body, I sheathed my sticky daggers and ran to Koda’s side.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Terror clawed at my throat, making my voice raw, thready.
“My…” Lifting a weak hand, he vaguely waved toward his left side.
Horrified, I bent to look at the wound, the pale moonlight and my own night vision making it possible. When I lifted his torn and bloody sweater, three long gashes stretched from just below his armpit around his chest and down to his navel. The wounds were so deep, I could see white ribs through the torn flesh.
“Koda.” I whispered his name the way humans say a fervent prayer.
As bad as the injuries were, I’d seen enough claw-and knife-inflicted lacerations to know that these weren’t life-threatening. My senses, however, reinforced what my acute nose told me—the wounds were suppurating. Which meant the wendigo’s talons had injected something foul into Koda’s body. Something that was, even now, draining the life from him. I could literally feel how he’d weakened in the seconds it took me to look at his side.
“How do I stop the poison?”
“Can’t.” He tried to get to his feet but his legs wouldn’t hold him. I caught him on the way down, staggering under his weight. “A-Ahanu.”
Terror lent me strength as I got a better hold around Koda’s waist. “I’ll find the sonuvabitch and he’ll damn well fix you,” I snarled the vow, determined to convince us both. “You’re going to be fine, Koda. I swear to you, you’ll be fine!”
He did what he could to help me, but his legs weren’t working well. For the millionth time, I cursed my DNA that let me shade—which was utterly useless at the moment—and not shift.
He began to wheeze, fighting for every breath he drew as tremors racked his body. More of his weight sagged onto me and I almost collapsed under it.
“Don’t you dare die, Koda,” I gasped, hanging onto him for dear life and keeping us moving through sheer force of desperate will. “Don’t you dare!”
If he responded, I couldn’t hear it.
Somehow, I got us back to the cabin and maneuvered him into the truck’s backseat, just as I had that time in Dallas. I realized I was chanting under my breath, “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die…” and slammed the back door, hard.
Remembering that he’d left the key in the ignition, I jumped into the driver’s seat. Although he’d been in the truck seconds, the sickly sweet stench of his wounds filled the interior. Sparing a quick glance over my shoulder, I choked on a sob to see that his chest was barely moving.
The twenty miles between Koda’s front door and the reservation felt like a million, but I got us there in under fifteen minutes. The big truck’s engine roared as I gunned it down a dust-covered, rutted street past mobile homes in various stages of disrepair. Clotheslines with bright-colored shirts and jeans and sweaters fluttered in the late-night breeze, caught in freeze-frame by my headlights as I fishtailed the pickup around a corner. I barely registered my bike tearing itself loose and flying out of the bed.
Three blocks ahead, I saw the glow of an enormous bonfire and the elongated shadows of hundreds of people flickering on the buildings around them. Cars and trucks were parked all along the narrow road, making it impossible for me to get any closer. Slamming on the brakes, we slid a few feet before the tires’ heavy treads found purchase, rocking the pickup to a sudden stop. I already had my door open and was sprinting toward the people, screaming at the top of my lungs for Ahanu.
The sound of drums, dancing feet and singing filled the night, making it impossible for the humans to hear me until I was twenty yards away from the group’s fringes. Then heads began to turn, their faces going from friendly to openly hostile as my ears, my eyes and my form registered.
The drums and people fell silent even as angry shouts rang out—some in another language, Lakota I guessed, and others in English. Outrage and hatred sound the same, no matter the words, and suddenly, the people were in motion, surging toward me.
Humans in both casual modern clothing and gorgeous native regalia surrounded me, their hostility pounding against my senses, hammering my awareness. I kept yelling for Ahanu, kept begging someone to help Koda, but the crowd was making too much noise.
“We don’t want you here!” a man roared, getting in my face.
A woman spat on the ground at my feet. “Go away! Get out!”
“Fae bitch!”
A fist flew toward my cheek. Hoping to prove my harmlessness, my refusal to fight, I let it hit me. The blow rocked my head on my neck. Reeling, I kept my hands out to my sides, well away from my daggers. That I’d not reacted did the opposite of what I’d hoped—emboldened, more fists descended from all sides and dodging them became impossible.
Spitting blood from a split lip onto the dry dirt, I kept trying to make them listen. I begged them to listen. “Please! Koda is hurt! He’s in the truck and he’s hurt!” I screamed until my throat was raw, but the blows kept falling, staggering me and pushing my determination to
not fight to the absolute limit. My senses were shrieking warnings about this mob’s growing threat level, insisting that I shade and escape or battle my way clear.
The terrifying knowledge that Koda was dying kept me solid. And it kept me in place as the crowd moved in ever closer, hurling insults and whatever missiles came to hand.
Without warning, the mob grew still, silent. Swaying on my feet, dizzy from too many blows to the head, weeping with fear for Koda, hope gave volume to my raw voice. I spun in a circle, begging the humans nearest to me to help him. Whirling back around, I appealed to an elderly man the crowd parted to let through.
“Koda,” I rasped, beyond desperate, tears pouring down my face. “In the truck! Please, please, listen to me!”
The old man let his eyes travel across my features, his expression a mask. “I hear you,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “What has happened?”
I almost fell to the ground with relief. “A wendigo attacked us. Koda…it clawed him. His side. There’s some kind of poison in the wounds. He said Ahanu could help.” The words spilled from me, I was so anxious to make the old man understand. When he just stood there, I moved toward him, lifting a hand in a beseeching gesture.
Four men surged forward, thinking I meant to attack their leader. Suddenly, I’d had enough. These people wouldn’t respond to my peaceful imploring, then I’d damn well get their attention in a far more emphatic way.
The humans dogpiled me and I waited until they’d gotten a good hold. Then, flexing muscle and feeding it with rage, I flung all four off in one smooth move. The large men went flying into the crowd, taking others down with them. To make my point, I shaded and leaped throughout the mob, re-solidifying to slap two dozen faces hard enough to leave vivid handprints. I wanted to be damn sure these humans—my instincts sneered the word—understood that I had allowed myself to be surrounded. That I’d taken their abuse and insults and not retaliated by destroying the lot of them.
“Enough!” the old man said, his voice carrying over the crowd’s panicked cries.
I re-formed in front of him, chest heaving. I could feel my eyes flaring, could feel my fury and my fear for Koda filling the air around me. When I turned on him, I saw in the elderly human’s gaze his awareness that I held myself tightly in check.
Keeping very still, I bared my sharp teeth. “Only fear for Koda’s welfare stays my blades, old man,” I snarled.
He nodded. “He is not only our friend, his kind are sacred to us. We will help him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a half-second before demanding, “Is Ahanu here?”
“He is.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so? Let’s get Koda to him now!”
The chief lifted a hand, staying me. “While you were…distracted, it was done. He is in Ahanu’s care.”
“Thank you.” The breath went out of me and relieved tears coursed down my cheeks. Scrubbing at my face, I tried to get myself back under control. Feeling hollowed out by my consuming fear for Koda, I asked in a tremulous voice, “Where are they?”
The human didn’t immediately answer. After studying me for a long moment, he asked, “You care for him?”
I didn’t like that this person thought he had a right to know, but I figured cooperation would go a lot further than confrontation. Mute, I nodded.
All around us, the crowd watched in utter silence. Being the focus of so many hostile gazes kept my instincts roused, making me edgy.
The old man tipped his head to the braided leather at my throat. “You wear Koda’s binding.”
“It is a necklace,” I corrected him.
“Perhaps it is now, but it began as a binding. I can sense it.”
Stubbornly, I said, “But it is now a necklace. One I choose to wear.”
An emotion crossed the old man’s face, there and gone before I could figure it out. “Why?”
Tired of the inquisition, beyond ready to get away from the aggressive mob, I crossed my arms. “Are you going to tell me where Koda is or do I have to search building to building?”
Not impressed by my anger, the Sioux’s leader met my gaze, letting the silence build. “You wish to remain while Koda is seen to.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “I insist on it.”
The crowd stirred, outraged, but the old man just looked at me. “On one condition only will you be allowed to remain.”
“Name it.”
He cocked his head. “You make no conditions in return?”
“I will not leave until I know that Koda will live.” It almost killed me saying the words since my unhelpful mind supplied a bleak but what if he doesn’t?
In a challenging tone, like he expected this to be a deal-breaker, the old man said, “You will submit to being bound. You will give your word that you’ll do nothing to escape imprisonment. You will in no way strike out against my people or cause them to be harmed.”
My breath stuck in my throat at even the idea of restraint and his rheumy old eyes saw every bit of my panic. But I asked only, “You would accept my word?”
“I wish to know if you will give it, and once given, if you will honor it.”
I bit off a bitchy response. “And in return?”
“You may remain on the reservation until we know whether Koda will survive his wounds.”
“He will survive!” I hissed, hating the Sioux leader for implying that any other possibility existed.
“I hope you are right.” The old man’s eyes filled with tears, startling me. “Will you give your word?”
Forcing myself to breathe evenly as the same four burly men I’d tossed returned with ropes and chains in their hands, I thought only of Koda and that he was fighting for his life. I knew I could force my presence on the Sioux, could shade back and forth all over the reservation and could find wherever they’d taken him. But the uproar that would cause might detract from the effort to make him well again. If Ahanu was the only other anzhenii at Tallgrass, then I wanted him focused solely on healing his brother. Not fighting me.
I also had something to prove to Ahanu and to the old man staring unwaveringly at me, the challenge plain in his steady gaze.
In a slow up-and-down movement, I nodded. “I give you my word and will be bound by it.”
With an arthritic hand, he gestured the men forward. As they cautiously wrapped the ropes around my upper arms, compressing them against my ribs, my panic began to rise. The air whistled in and out of my lungs and my vision tinged red as my instincts shrieked at me to shade.
The leader said sharply, “You gave your word.”
Grinding my teeth together, I forced the terror down, succeeding only marginally. My heart still thundered in my chest, my muscles remained tensed to fight. My instincts remained locked onto the humans around me, hammering at my will and insisting I either escape or destroy them all. But I did it—I held myself together.
When I made no move against them, the old man nodded, his eyes hard on me as I stood, trembling, within the tightening ropes and chains. When he was satisfied, he led the way to a small box-shaped building made of gray cinderblocks. Bound as I was, with a short piece of rope between my ankles, I couldn’t manage more than a snail’s pace and no one seemed inclined to help me. One of the men opened the heavy metal door, the rusty hinges screeching in protest. Turning on a flashlight, the guy started down a dark set of stairs to a space that smelled of damp earth and mildew.
One of the men shoved me roughly from behind and it took all my determination not to turn on him. When I had the violent urge under control, I moved carefully to the top of the narrow, steep steps, thinking how I wouldn’t be able to catch myself if I slipped and fell now. Or if the asshole pushed me again.
“This is a storm shelter,” the old man said as he followed me down. “It is made of steel and reinforced concrete. Between that and the iron chains around you, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about your good intentions of staying bound.”
Head
up, shoulders back, I let the panic for Koda and rage at my captors escape my tight control, just the littlest bit. Meeting the old chief’s eyes, I saw in them the reflection of my silver gaze glinting with supernatural anger. Saw him blanch as my awareness filled the air around us and shimmered across his mortal senses like sharp static electricity.
Wanting these men to be perfectly aware of the very fine line they were straddling, I let my lip curl. “Iron and steel are nothing to my kind, human. Only my word and the promise that Ahanu is helping Koda bind me.”
One thing I’d learned of humans is that fear breeds belligerence in them, especially in muscle-bound males who are unaccustomed to worrying about much of anything. So I should’ve expected it when the same jackass damn near broke my jaw with a roundhouse I barely saw coming. I went sailing over the cot, snapping the wooden supports like matchsticks. The thing slid and fell, taking me to the cold floor with it. Unable to roll, I bonked my head on the wall, making me see stars.
When my vision cleared, I was alone in the dark underground space, with only a camping lantern to see by. Crabbily, I wondered how long the batteries would last. It didn’t do to think about how long I’d be down here. Especially since I had nothing but the usual pants pocket full of jelly beans. Bound as I was, it would take an effort even a contortionist would find challenging to get to them.
Weariness washed over me as the last of the adrenaline fled my system. Only the heart-stopping terror for Koda remained, closing off my throat, freezing the blood in my veins. Turning my face to the cold, damp concrete floor, I closed my eyes as tears streaked down my cheeks.
Koda would be okay. He would.
He just had to be.
Chapter Eighteen
Marking the passage of days underground was impossible, but I had plenty of time to memorize every shelf in the shelter. To fix in my mind every one of the supplies and to note that somebody was incredibly anal, having matched canned foods by color—all the red and white labels on the top two shelves, yellow on the next, while the green-labeled cans had four shelves all to themselves. Pity I had no way to open the damn things—I’d noticed my daggers’ absence before I’d begun cataloging my surroundings. The guy who’d slugged me must’ve taken them while my head was still woozy.
