“I got that part. Why?”
“I don’t know, Zeke,” Layla snapped. “Maybe because you told her she’d moved through time and space.”
“She’d have figured out she’s not in Santa Fe pretty quick.”
“You’re an idiot. No one told her portal travel existed. She just saw Coyote for the first time, and her mom’s missing.”
I nodded so hard, I thought my neck would snap. And there were saguaros. And scorpions and . . . my mom.
“She’s freaking out,” Layla said, her voice filled with worry. “She doesn’t do well when she gets upset. We don’t have time for one of her epic headaches.”
“Make her stop,” Zeke said. He sounded nearly as freaked out as I was.
“I can’t,” Layla snapped. “They have to run their course.”
“C’mon, Layla. Help me out. I’m not good with this kind of thing,” Zeke said, his voice plaintive.
“You’re the reason she’s so upset!”
“Look, I need to go now if I have any chance of catching Coyote. I don’t have time to, you know, counsel or whatever.”
I curled tighter into his chest. “Don’t drop me,” I whispered.
“I won’t.” His voice softened when he spoke to me. I liked that. A lot.
I opened my eyes and stared up into the face I’d desperately wanted to see this close. Reddish-brown brows, wide and thick, set above brown eyes. His lashes were long, his nose thin, his lips wide and set in a determined line. His chin was firm. His gaze flicked down to my face.
Our eyes met. Oh. I knew him, more than the memory from when I was a child. More than just now. I’d looked into these eyes more than once. Maybe confided in him.
My breath caught in my chest as I struggled to drag out the memory. It wouldn’t come, but the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming. “I know you,” I whispered.
“You do.”
“I can’t remember, really. But we’ve met. In person. Before.”
“I’ll keep you safe, Echo,” he whispered.
“Coyote said Sotuk is gone,” Layla said, bursting the private moment. Fear threaded through her voice, making it quaver. “Do you think—”
“I don’t know.” Zeke’s brows drew down as he set his jaw. “That’s why I need to catch up with them as soon as possible. Take her.”
He slid his arm out from under my knees and I slid down his chest. He gritted his teeth as he bent down to settle me on the ground.
“You’re short.” He smirked. “Smaller up close.”
I let the comment slide because I had more pressing problems. Like standing. I kept my fingers gripped tight into his leather shirt. His arms circled my waist. For a moment, I pretended he wanted them there.
“Don’t leave,” I whispered.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “This is my house.”
I blinked up at him. “Your house?” Why would he bring me here? And where was here, exactly?
“You didn’t think I’d drop you off at a—what do you call ’em?” He looked past me toward Layla.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Layla said, tossing him a dirty look.
Zeke smiled, clearly loving his punch line. “Loony bin.”
He turned his head, spoke a series of words in a language I’d never heard before, and a dark hole appeared. I had no other way to describe it. The scent of ozone permeated the space around us. Layla stepped forward and grabbed my hand, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze.
Zeke stepped into that black void and disappeared. The portal shrank until it closed with a tiny pop.
“Did I come through one of those?” I shivered as his warmth slowly dissipated from my skin.
“We all did.”
“That was creepy,” I said, my teeth beginning to chatter.
Layla shrugged. “You get used to portal travel. It’s a great time saver.” She frowned at where the hole had been. “Wish I could do that.”
I shook my head, still staring at the place Zeke had stood. “No,” I choked out. “No way.”
Layla pulled her attention back to me, her gaze softening at what had to be my totally freaked out appearance. “Hang in there, E. I totally understand the freak out. It’s a lot to take in, especially when you’re so unprepared.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples trying to massage out the murky images. She looked at me, her big gray eyes oozing concern.
“Explain what’s going on.” I swallowed hard, trying to keep my chin from trembling. “Please.”
“You’re the daughter of a god.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Sotuk. Yeah, I figured that out from my mom’s conversation with Coyote.”
Layla dipped her head in acknowledgment, her eyes never leaving mine. “Are you upset?”
“About what, exactly? The fact that gods exist? That one just stole my mother from me? Or the fact that you—” my voice cracked. I cleared my throat and glanced up. The sky was still impossibly blue. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was still in Santa Fe, mere blocks from my house. “You kept my heritage from me. For years.”
“E—”
“Don’t try to placate me,” I said. My voice was icy. Good. Better than the tears that still threatened to spill. “I know Zeke started watching me when I was ten. Maybe younger.”
“You remember that?” Layla asked, her eyes wide, voice soft.
I tossed my dirty hair over my shoulder to cover the shudder taking hold of my body. “Amazing what happens when you’re flying through the sky.”
“Don’t be flippant.”
I raked my hand through my hair this time, still needing something to do with my hands. “I don’t know how to deal with any of this. Being flippant seems better than losing it. Fair warning: I’m close to doing so.”
Layla touched my arm. I flinched, shocked by the four crescent-moon-shaped cuts at my wrist. Layla made a noise deep in her throat as her hand hovered over my small injuries. One still oozed blood. “It’s a lot to take in.”
I snorted. No argument with her there.
“My mom.” I had to swallow hard before I could continue. “Where did she go?”
Layla looked up. Benign puffs of bright white clouds drifted across the huge expanse. She shrugged a little, her glance flickering briefly to mine. “I don’t know.”
“But you have an idea,” I pleaded. I’d beg. I’d do whatever I had to in order to see my mother again. “She’s gone. That place . . .” My breath hitched. My knees gave out. Layla gripped me tighter, holding me upright.
“E, let me help you into the house. You can sit down.” I met Layla’s gaze, hers telling me to keep my shit together.
I didn’t want to keep tight rein on my emotions. I wanted to rage and scream, not just at her, but also at my mom—at least I assumed my mom was responsible—for doing something to me to make me forget chunks of my past. I was even angrier with my mom for getting captured. For lying to me about my father.
For leaving me alone.
Much as I hated to admit it, something deep inside me—that primal part I’d awakened—didn’t think I’d see my mom again. At least not alive.
I sealed my lips, refusing to let the moan claw its way out of my throat.
“Echo. Focus. On me.” Layla gripped my arms, hers steady. “That’s it. Breathe.”
My disheveled reflection in her eyes stared back at me. My top was streaked with dirt. Glancing down, my lower lip trembled. My new pants were ripped, showing my bloody hip. My pretty new clothes were the least of my problems, but they seemed to tip the scale. Hot tears blurred my vision.
“It’s going to be okay.” Layla’s voice was soft.
“You can’t know that,” I whispered back.
I had no idea how I’d gotten the cuts on my hip or thigh, but it must’ve had something to do with Coyote’s mass of warriors who’d tried to yank me into the pit while the spirits in the pendant tried to pull me up into the sky.
“What about my aunts?�
�� I gasped.
“Do you want to do this right now?” Layla asked, her lips pinching in that way that meant I wasn’t going to like what she had to say next.
I considered her for a long moment before answering my own question. “We’re not related, are we? My mom inserted us there, into that family.” An ache built in my chest and spread, faster than Coyote could move through my body. Everything hurt, especially my heart. I thumped my fist against my unmarred thigh. “That’s why I always felt so disconnected from them. Like I was an impostor.” I spat the word. Hating the feel of it on my tongue near as much as how it made me feel.
Unwanted. Unloved.
Layla bit her lip, looking away.
“And . . . and I’m not hum—”
I couldn’t say it. No way. I had to be human. I shuddered, a hard, painful jolt forcing my body to reset.
“Where’s ‘here’?” I finally asked.
“Yupkoyvi.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deep through my nose. “That’s one of the Native American names for Chaco Canyon, Layla. Look around.” I spread my arms out wide, encompassing the obvious Arizona landscape. “We aren’t at Chaco.”
“Never said we were,” Layla said.
“So where is ‘here’?” I asked again.
“Near the Second Mesa. In ancient Hisatsinom land.”
“So we are in Arizona?”
“Yep.”
I snorted. Leading with the actual location would have been so much less confusing.
“How did I get here?”
Layla smiled, her eyes brightening as her teeth flashed white. “Here, specifically? Coyote opened a portal inside the wind tunnel his warriors used to travel to your house. A very efficient means of transport, if you can use it. But you have to disguise the gateways—we call them sipapus—from the humans.”
“Zeke opened one.”
“He’s the only non-god I know of who can. Part of the original reasoning was to keep the kachina, hell-spawn, and everything else horrible from here. I mean this world. There’s way more to feast on here than in the dead lands of the three lower worlds.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. Frustration bubbled through my head, making it throb with the precursor of a massive headache. I pressed my fingers to my temples. None of this made any sense.
She walked forward, nearly dragging me onto a small porch.
“Basically, Coyote opened a sipapu and hid it in a cloud in case he needed additional reinforcements to take down your mom. She’s pretty formidable in her own right. For a half-god.”
Another shudder. I wasn’t going to be able to process all this information. Holding my breath, I nodded. “That’s why they grabbed me.”
“But you froze that one kachina, which they weren’t expecting. And neither was I, because I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do that.”
“Then how did I?”
“Maybe you’re a spirit seducer. That’s what they’re called in the old legends.”
I nodded. I was familiar with the stories.
“Why did I pass out up there in the sky?”
“Those spirits overcompensated and you went too high before you fell into the portal.”
I glanced around the room Layla led me to. It was large, more so because of the sparse furnishings. There was a rustic leather couch and two chairs of the same style. Not quite Southwestern, but definitely with that flair. The floor was made of large-plank pine. Two rugs in a bright weave covered portions of the room near a Shepherd’s fireplace. Copper-bottomed pots, varying from small saucepans to a battered Dutch oven, hung on the far wall behind a small counter.
I laid my hand on the wall, needing a moment to adjust to the darker interior. The wall was rough, the iron gray of adobe bricks. So similar to what I’d grown up around, yet the differences were stark.
Layla stepped aside, away from me. Panic spiked, zinging through my system at DEFCON one. She was the only person who could help me figure out what had happened to my mother and the world I’d thought I lived in.
I lunged at her, digging my fingers tightly into the sleeve of her long, striped tunic. She looked down at my white-knuckled grip before she met my gaze.
“Try to relax. That’s the best thing you can do right now. For your mom, for yourself.”
I swallowed hard and cleared my throat.
“Then don’t walk away. Please.”
I forced my fingers to unwind from her sleeve. I stepped back and watched Layla walk toward a wall sconce. One of those old-fashioned kinds that I’d seen in historical movies. I’d always associated those with drafty castles and maidens in long dresses. Opening a small door in the wall, Layla pulled out a red plastic fireplace lighter. With deft motions, she lit the first candle and moved to the next. After lighting six of the large tapers, the room was bright enough for me to no longer jump at the shadows that lurked in the corners.
Layla settled into one of the chairs and looked at me, her eyes expectant.
“You’ve been here before,” I said.
“Many times.”
The way Zeke and Layla had talked . . . they’d known each other for a while. I swallowed down my jealousy. Just how close were Layla and Zeke?
I rolled his name around in my head. I’d spent so much time with books; I’d read the Bible twice, so I knew Ezekiel meant “God Strengthens” in Hebrew. Yep, the name suited him just right. But he couldn’t be Christian—not if he hung out with Hisatsinom gods, killing demons.
“So why would Zeke be named after a prophet for a different religion?”
Layla shrugged, nonplussed by my question. “I don’t think it’s his original name, but it’s not like he really talks about himself all that much.”
“So, he—what? Chose his own name?”
“That’s not what Shakola said. She’s the cloud goddess. She said Masau picked it. Masau thought it sounded very human. Earthly.”
“So Zeke knows other gods, then? Besides Masau and Coyote?”
Layla nodded. “He’s always lived here, on the ancient lands. I promise, he’ll do everything he can to locate your mother,” she said, her voice fervent.
I’d argued with my mom this morning. Now I might never see her again. We hadn’t had a chance to make up. Not properly. I fidgeted.
I needed to find my mom. Now. I had to apologize. To tell her I loved her. To make sure she was safe.
“You need to stop thinking so loud. Anyone can hear you.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d trusted me,” I snapped. My frustration and anger threatened to spill over. I slammed my lips together, locking my jaw. I was well aware of the power of words and how much damage they could do. The silence built until I forced my gaze back to Layla. Weariness glazed her eyes, making them dull.
“I know, E. Gods. I know.”
I turned in a tight circle, seeking . . . something. I didn’t know what to do, or think, or even be right now. Layla stood, wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into her, shuddering.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“I know you’re worried about your mom, E. I am, too.” Layla’s eyes welled with tears.
My lower lip quivered. No. I pulled away and stood.
“I want to go search for her.” I kept my voice firm, my breathing steady. Inside, though, everything hurt and worry flooded my system. Terrible images of what could be filled my mind and I nearly caved in, sinking to the floor to gasp and blubber.
I managed to hold on. Barely.
“You can’t. I know it’s hard. But you’re the one Coyote wants.”
I gripped my hands together as I began to pace the room. “I hate this, Layla. I can’t just leave my mom out there somewhere. Coyote was angry.”
“You’re not. Zeke’s looking. He’s amazing. If anyone can find her, it’ll be Zeke.”
I exhaled in a long trail of negativity as my mom had taught me to do. I’d do what I always did when I wanted to redirect my con
cerns. I’d ask questions, gather information. Learn. Build likely scenarios in my head. Fix the problem.
“Who is Zeke exactly?” I asked. I needed to know where and how he fit into my life. And why I’d dreamed about him.
“He’s Masau’s adopted son. He’s lived with Masau since he was a toddler.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He never told me.”
“But he’s been protecting me. And you’ve met him before.”
“Yes. Though, technically, he’s been protecting both of us. It’s just that you didn’t know it.”
I twisted a section of my hair around my finger. “You know what doesn’t make sense? For me to have a protector. Who are the Four?”
“That’s not important right now,” Layla soothed. She smiled. “Let’s worry about some other details first, okay?”
“No. I want to know.”
“I can’t tell you. Not while you’re this upset.”
I slammed my fist against the nearest object, a wooden chair. The wood bruised my hand. I turned back to Layla, rubbing the sting out of my skin. Her hair glowed golden and her eyes were like molten silver. She stood so tall and lithe, almost a sprite. But more. My jailer at the moment.
“Are you even real?” I demanded.
She blinked at me, her eyes round, her lips parting in surprise. She threw back her head and laughed. The sound edged toward hysteria, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She clutched her belly.
“Were you ever my friend?” My voice was low because I had to force the words out. Layla quit laughing and her gray eyes darkened to flint as she studied my face.
“That’s what you’re worried about? After what you’ve seen in the last hour?”
“Seems fairly important to find out my best friend isn’t what she said she was,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I mean, I just found out Zeke’s been stalking me for years. You know him. Apparently, I know him, too, but . . .” I exhaled. The answer was there, staring back at me in all its ugliness. I’d guessed it already, prayed I was wrong. “My mom wiped my brain. Without my permission.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples, willing my mind back to the memory of meeting Zeke, but my headache blazed again. My eyes slammed shut against the sharp pains from the light. I took a few deep breaths, hoping to bypass the worst of the nausea.
The Spirit Seducer (The Echo Series Book 1) Page 4
