Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1)

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  I realize he’s not oblivious to the stares he’s getting at all. He’s on alert, just like I am. The thought relaxes me a little and I take the glass, pretend to take a sip. The raw fumes get in my nose and I gag. Tequila has never been my drink.

  “You want to know how you look?” he asks me.

  My heart speeds up. He did hear me when I asked. I nod. Hold my breath.

  “Like a monsterslayer.” He gives a little salute with his glass and downs the tequila in a shot.

  I frown. “What does that mean?”

  He signals the bartender for another drink. Gets it and immediately slams the tequila in one swallow. Wipes at his mouth and says, “What do you think it means?”

  “Are you saying I don’t look any different?”

  “Do I?” He tilts his head, gives me a twisted kind of smile. I’m not sure, but I think he’s drunk, or at least on his way.

  “Do you think that much tequila is a good idea right now?”

  “Absolutely not,” he admits as he motions to the bartender for another.

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Dying,” he mutters, so low I’m not sure I heard him right.

  “You’re what?”

  He turns abruptly, eyes bright and focused on me. “You didn’t answer my question, Mags.”

  “What question?” In my irritation, I’ve already forgotten what he asked me.

  “Do I look any different?” he says again. He holds his arms out, on display.

  I won’t admit it to him, but he looks better. His skin seems to glow bronze and his eyes have turned an otherworldly silver, hard to look at. The curve of his jaw is stronger, more elegant, and he radiates a kind of charisma, an impossible attraction, beyond even what he had before. It’s almost preternatural. No, not almost. It is.

  “You look the same to me,” I lie.

  He nods, earrings flashing, like he knows exactly what I’m seeing and what I’m thinking and that I’m not telling the truth. He drops his empty glass on the bar. “See, Monsterslayer? We’re all liars.”

  I have no idea what to say to that. “What’s going on, Kai?” I ask. “What’s gotten into you?”

  He shakes his head, almost sad. “Let’s just find this Mósí and get out of here,” he says, a shiver rattling his whole body. “This place is messing with my head.”

  I don’t disagree with that.

  He straightens. “I’m going to go explore a bit. See what I can find out.”

  “We should stick together,” I protest, thinking of those greedy eyes on him.

  “No. There’s . . . It would be better if I go alone.” He laughs, and I catch a burst of liquor on his breath. “No one’s going to talk to me with you stalking around like you’re going to stick a knife in them. Let me go alone. I’ll be back.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I can take care of myself, remember?”

  I’m not happy about it, but I let it go. He’s a grown man and I’m not going to argue with him.

  “Fine,” I agree. He leans in, his lips brushing my cheek. I tense as the conflicting mix of cedar and alcohol floods my nose.

  “To your left,” he murmurs, hot breath on my ear before he steps away. He doesn’t look back and soon he’s lost in the crowd, as much as someone like him can be. I wait a few seconds before looking to my left. I spot what he wanted me to see immediately. Football-player proportions with a shock of red hair. What is he doing here?

  Hovering at the edge of the crowd, with a somewhat sheepish grin, is Clive. He’s wearing a Western-style suit and bolo tie, the suit cut too tight for his big frame and solid muscle, and in an unflattering shade of brown. But it kind of works in a Rambo meets Howdy Doody kind of way.

  “I kind of expected better,” I tease as I walk up, gesturing at his outfit, “considering what you whipped up for me.”

  He shrugs and straightens his bolo. “I can’t find much in my size besides fatigues.”

  “I’d be happy to trade up. I bet you’d look great in a halter top.” I ask the obvious question. “What are you doing here? You come to check on my hair?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. Although . . .” He licks a finger and reaches forward, as if to touch my face. I rear back, hand going for my knife.

  Color drains from his cheeks. “I was just going to wipe that silver stuff off your eyes. It’s a little too disco, even for me.”

  I flush, embarrassed, and drop my hand. “Sorry,” I say, rubbing my bare arms. “Didn’t mean anything. I don’t like to be touched,” I offer weakly.

  “S’okay,” he says. “I thought for sure I was going to lose a kidney sooner than this for giving you bangs.”

  I frown. “Ha ha.”

  “I respect your skills, but you got a rep, girl,” he says as he leans his back against the bar and takes a sip of his beer. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  “As a psychopath?”

  “That’s a little strong. Let’s go with violent and antisocial.” Clive’s smiling when he says it, but it still stings.

  “Like that’s a surprise,” he says at the look on my face. His eyes move across the crowd. “So someone had to touch you long enough to put that on your eyes. Who was the lucky soul?”

  “Who do you think?” I don’t tell him it’s not for show, but instead serves a more practical purpose. Kai wanted to hide the medicine from Coyote. Maybe Clive doesn’t need to know either.

  “Where is that gorgeous man of yours anyway?” Clive asks, still scanning the room.

  “Not sure,” I admit. “He took off without me. Said he had something he had to do.”

  He blinks long ginger lashes. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  I shrug. “He’s a grown man.”

  “Yes he is,” Clive says, voice appreciative. He laughs when he sees my look of surprise. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to steal your man. But just for the record, you do know he danced with me last night.”

  “You danced with Kai?”

  “More than once. And he’s not bad. Although, I still can’t believe he’s a medicine man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, shouldn’t there be a rule against medicine men being that damn sexy?”

  I agree, but say, “If it’s any consolation, he hasn’t finished his training.”

  “You saw the same thing I did in Rock Springs,” he says, suddenly serious, all the joking familiarity of a moment ago gone. He takes a sip of beer before he continues. “Anyway, any luck finding this clue the Coyote told you about?”

  “Not yet,” I admit, happy to change the subject.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  I narrow my eyes, suddenly suspicious. “You never did tell me why you were here, Clive.”

  “Oh, some clients at the All-American said there was going to be a fight here tonight. Some kind of epic grudge match. I thought it might be worth checking out. And since you guys were here anyway, I thought I could help out.”

  “The Shalimar hosts fights?”

  “Every once in a while. It’s usually a pretty good show.”

  I look around the room, but I can’t imagine where a fighting arena might be hiding. Through one of the flat two-dimensional doors, down a rabbit hole with no bottom, through a wardrobe. “What is this place?”

  “Good question,” Clive says. “Nobody really knows. It appears and disappears on its own schedule. Sometimes it’s here, other times . . .” He makes an exploding gesture with one hand. “Guess that’s what happens when your establishment is run by a cat.”

  “Does Kai know? About the fights, I mean.”

  “No idea. But you can ask him.” He throws a nod toward the crowd and I see Kai headed back our way.

  “I found out the Shalimar is hosting a fight night tonight,” Kai says. He seems normal enough again, no signs of inebriation. I hadn’t thought about it before, but his healing powers must counter the effects of the alcohol. Whatever Kai
’s trying to drown doesn’t stay drowned for long. “Tournament fights to begin with,” he says, “but there’s a mystery billing on the last fight. Rumors of a legendary grudge match.”

  “Heard the same,” Clive agrees. “Lots of money to be won if you can make book.”

  The fights are interesting, but gambling doesn’t appeal to me. That’s more Ma’ii’s domain, with its impossible odds and the potential for double-crossing. And then I remember what the doorman said about high rollers. “Clive, is there a resident bookmaker here? Someone who runs all the bets? Hosts the fights?”

  “Yeah,” he confirms.

  “Would her name be Mósí?”

  “That cat I was talking about. Yeah.” He narrows his hazel eyes. “I thought you said you’d never been here before.”

  “It’s got to be her,” I say.

  “What are you thinking, Mags?” Kai asks, wary.

  “I’m good in a fight,” I say. And it’s true. I don’t have any fancy martial arts skills, but Neizghání didn’t neglect my hand-to-hand, either. My technique is more down and dirty—strike fast, hit hard, and get out. Add my fighting skills to my clan powers and I have no doubt I can hold my own for a few rounds. That should be enough to get the attention of the Shalimar’s resident bookmaker.

  Kai massages the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “If you do sign up to fight, do you think it will really get us closer to her?”

  “We aren’t even getting into the arena otherwise,” Clive says. “Guy at the door said the fights are sold out. Participants and support team only, from what I hear.”

  “I’m going to do it,” I say. “We need that fire drill and if I have to beat the crap out of a few thicknecks to do it, so be it.”

  Kai stares at me a long minute before he speaks. “You don’t have to fight,” he says, holding up three slips of paper in his hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “Our way in.”

  I take the tickets from him. “Where did you get these?”

  “How did you get those?” Clive asks, taking the tickets from me. “Jesus, these are front-row seats.”

  Kai shakes his head. “Do you want to go or not?”

  I give the boys a grin. “Hell yes.”

  Chapter 29

  Despite the promised VIP status of our tickets, we are stuck in a haphazard line of waiting spectators, just like everyone else. It’s slow-moving, mostly because of the two Bear clan muscle doing a weapons check at the door.

  “I’m not giving up my weapons,” I complain to Clive as we near the checkpoint.

  “Looks like you’re going to have to,” he says.

  Clive’s right. I watch a man a few people in front of me pull a nine-inch blade from his boot and drop it in the proffered metal lockbox. One of the Bear clan guys secures the box with a small key, pushes the box onto a shelf crowded with a dozen similar boxes, and then hands him what appears to be the only copy of the key, dangling from a length of rope. The man slips it over his head, obviously familiar with the process, and keeps moving.

  “It seems pretty secure,” Kai says. It does seem like I will be the only one with key access to my stuff, assuming no one steals the boxes. I have to believe that at least in the fighting area, stealing is frowned upon. And severely punished. Keep the customers happy, keep the money flowing. That seems to be the motto of the Shalimar.

  When we get up to the table, one of the big bouncers takes one look at me and his lips curve down in disapproval. He grunts and reaches down under the table to pull out an oversize metal box. Gestures for me to get to work. First off is the bandolier, then the shoulder holster and the shotgun. I strip the Glock, just to be sure, and then put it in the box. Then my knives, all three. I close the box and accept the key, and then Clive and I are moving through the line, Kai trailing a few steps behind. We pass the metal detectors and move closer to the gathered crowd and the main event.

  “You’ve been to one of these before, Clive?” I ask as we filter into the arena. “How does it work?”

  The arena’s not huge, but it’s not small, either. And it wasn’t down a rabbit hole or through a wardrobe, but it was through a door that otherwise blended into a detailed painting of the OK Corral. There’s probably room for two hundred people or more, which, considering we are still underground, is impressive. Not for the first time, I wonder who or what built this place. The actual fighting floor is a clean-swept area of dirt that’s been dropped down into the ground about a dozen feet. Risers that look like they’re salvaged from a high school gym cluster around the edge, affording the spectators an unobstructed view of the action happening in the center of the ring.

  And there’s already been some action. We missed an early opening bout, and splotches of blood, still fresh enough to be wet, paint the dirt floor. Violence thrums through the air, speeding up my heartbeat, lighting up my nerves with anticipation. I have to admit I’m excited. The risers are filling up with what looks like it’s going to be a capacity crowd, and the atmosphere around the pit is electric.

  “The first half of the night is tournament fighting. That’s what just ended,” Clive explains as we make our way through the crowd. We both glance at the bloodstained ring. “Each round the winner moves on, loser is out. Second half of the night is scheduled bouts. Sometimes tournament winners can qualify to get on the card. That’s where the big money is.”

  I nod, understanding. “So if someone can survive the tournament, they can win their way into the card bouts. But the rub is they have no idea who they’re going to fight. And by the time they get there, they’ve been knocked around by a handful of amateurs and are probably not feeling so hot. Definite advantage to whoever’s already on the card.”

  “It sounds stacked when you put it that way.”

  “Maybe. But if you can generate some buzz with your tourney wins and then get on the card, I bet you can drive the bets up. Then you win your bout and you can take home some serious trade.”

  “If you live long enough to count your winnings.”

  “You fight to tap out in the open tourney, right? And then what? Edged weapons in the card bouts?”

  He arches an eyebrow at me. “Have you done this before?”

  “Never for a crowd,” I say. “But I used to enjoy this kind of thing with my old teacher. Not the betting, just the fighting. I know how it works.”

  “You’re right. It’s tap out in the open tourney to qualify for the bouts, and bouts are edged weapons to first blood.”

  “They let them do that?”

  “There’s a lot of money in this room. Law enforcement kind of looks the other way.”

  “Really?”

  “Didn’t you see those guys checking weapons at the door? Law Dogs are the security.”

  I lean in to ask another question, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Kai. He whispers in my ear. “Look over there, to your right, past the two big guys in the black security T-shirts.”

  I look, eyes straining. There, inside what looks like a glass cage of some kind, rising up a good ten feet off the highest-level bleacher and affording the occupant a spectacular 360-degree view of the crowded pit, is what can only be Mósí.

  I hadn’t been sure what we were looking for, since Ma’ii had been his usual enigmatic self and failed to give us any kind of description beyond a name and a gender. I knew Mósí was the Navajo word for “cat,” so I assumed she must resemble a feline in some way. But a feline the way Ma’ii was a canine, or simply someone who’d taken on the name “cat” as an affectation, I wasn’t sure. But now I am.

  She is small, no more than four and a half feet tall. With all the wild clan manifestations in this place, she could be another strange display of Diné blood, but I know she is more. That sense I have that tells me when there are monsters around singles her out as something inhuman. Immortal. Something Other.

  Her eyes are huge, oversize in a small heart-shaped face with a delicate pointed chin. Triangular cat ears protrude past
her blunt bangs and bob haircut, and vibrissae flicker white and gray between her flat nose and small downturned mouth. She wears a bright green party dress, or at least a dress that might have been popular at parties in a 1950s TV show, with a wide circle skirt and puffy sleeves. A clear visor is perched on her head and she has a pencil tucked behind her feline ear. It’s obviously for show because her small clawlike hands whip across the keyboard in front of her, too fast to follow. Four women stand around her, just outside the glass, dressed just as demurely as their boss in matching dresses of complementary shades, shouting and taking bets like old-time stockbrokers. They, at least, look human, except for their bright red cheeks that mark their clan.

  “Mósí,” I say. “Now how the hell are we going to get to her?”

  “Looks like we won’t have to.”

  Coming toward us are two big Bear clan security guards. Huge, heavy-shouldered, and shaggy-haired, like their clan namesakes. One I recognize as the guy who took my weapons. I shift into high alert. Clive said they were off-duty Law Dogs. Chances are they won’t recognize us, but there’s always that possibility.

  “No,” Kai says, anticipating my worry. “Look.”

  He points back to Mósí in her glass box, and this time she’s staring right at us, her eyes cutting through the surrounding chaos to settle heavily on me.

  “Boss wants to meet you,” comes the rumbling voice of one of the guards. He lays a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “We’re happy for the invitation,” Kai says agreeably.

  The guard laughs. “Not you. We were told to bring Neizghání’s pup. That’s it.”

  “Neizghání’s pup?” I don’t know if that’s an insult or a compliment.

  “She’s not going without us,” Kai protests.