My feet tell me there’s solid ground beneath me, a well-traveled road wide enough to move a semitruck across, but my body doesn’t agree. My stomach drops, and a wave of dizziness pulls me up short. I suck in a breath and try to calm the adrenaline that’s pumping through my blood. To my right is the lake runoff, a sparkling bed of water a hundred feet deep. To my left is a seven-hundred-and-fifty-foot drop to certain death. The wind picks up a little, and out on this precipice there’s no protection from the elements. I lean into the breeze, pushing myself forward. My mind flashes back to the Swarm, falling one by one to their beautiful deaths, and for a moment, I swear I can still hear their screams.
Head down, leaning into the wind, I make my way across the dam. I keep moving, eyes scanning, heading for the tower and hoping Ben has my back. A worrying dread has settled in my gut like black tar, and my breath comes in short pants. The back of my neck itches, like someone is watching me, but so far I can’t see anyone.
And then I spot him.
A small figure kneeling on a platform hanging just over the protective railing along the lake edge of the dam. He’s in dark jeans and a black Metallica T-shirt. He has his maps spread before him on the ground, the corners held down by rocks. He’s fighting the wind, too, as it tries to throw his notebook over the side. I’m close enough to hear him curse as he pushes his too-long hair from his eyes.
I have to school the grin of relief that flashes across my face, calm my heartbeat that speeds up, try not to remember the way his mouth tasted like smoke and wine.
“Kai.” I call his name, not wanting to startle him.
He doesn’t hear me the first time, so I say it again, louder. This time he turns, her face tight with annoyance at being disturbed. His eyes meet mine, and his face brightens. And then his glance immediately darts to the sword wreathed in lightning in my hand, and his joy fades.
“Friends?” he asks, voice tentative.
“More than friends,” I say, grinning. “Partners.”
He laughs, tension draining from his body. He sits back on his heels. “I didn’t know if you were coming.”
“ ‘Come hell or high water,’ ” I say, quoting his last words to me back to him. “You’re not trying to help Gideon; you’re trying to stop him.”
He nods, relief breaking across his face. “Once I figured out what he wanted to do, I thought I could talk him out of it. Bit’ąą’nii and all. And at first it worked. A day would pass and he would forget. But then it was only an afternoon and then an hour. And I realized if I was going to stop him, I would have to stay with him. See it through to the end.”
“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”
“I don’t trust myself around him. He has a persuasion all his own. We’ll be talking and I’ll tell him things. Things I don’t mean to, even as the words are coming out of my mouth. I had to commit. I had to be convincing so he wouldn’t ask.” He runs a hand through his hair, fighting the wind to push it from his eyes.
“He’s using you. He doesn’t have the answers you need, Kai. He can’t give you purpose. You’re going to have to find that on your own.”
He narrows his eyes, squinting into the rising sun. “The Godslayer—that’s you, isn’t it?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He wants to use you, too.”
“He can’t. His powers of persuasion don’t work on me. I don’t know why not.”
His eyes flicker to the sword in my hand.
“Maybe,” I admit. “It has other properties. It’s possible.”
He nods once. The wind whips up, rattling his maps.
“So, what’s the plan? You have a plan, right?”
He grins and motions me closer. “I’ve calculated everything. He wants to blow the dams all up and down the Colorado River. My job is the keep the water on track and running true to her tributaries. Only”—he hunches forward, excited—“I think I can generate enough force to push the water into the atmosphere, to turn it into rain. If I can do that, and spread it wide enough, it should become a natural phenomenon, self-sustaining. Nature will take over and I won’t even have to hold it together. There’ll still be flooding, some damage, but nothing like what he had planned. I can’t save everyone. But I can save a lot.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I don’t for sure. But it makes sense theoretically.”
“But you’re using clan powers to do this, not science.”
“I definitely need a little luck,” he says, the grin I missed so much ticking the side of his mouth up. “Magic, medicine, science, and a little luck. If I had duct tape, I’d throw that in too.”
“And if this doesn’t work?”
His voice is matter-of-fact. “Then we die.”
“Can you die?” I ask before I can think better of it.
“It’s one thing to take a bullet. It’s a whole other level to be crushed under the pressure of millions of acre feet of water. I’ll die.”
“Well, when you put it that way . . .”
We sit there for a moment in awkward silence, and then I remember Tó’s parting gift.
“I have something for you.” I reach into my shirt and pull out the pot Tó gave me. It’s the size of my palm and thankfully still intact.
“What is this?”
“Not sure, but a friend gave it to me. Said to give it to the silver-eyed boy. That’s got to be you.”
He frowns. “I don’t understand. A friend?”
“He lives on the lake. Called himself Tó.”
Lines crease his forehead as he stares at the pot, turning it over in his hands. “What does—” He cuts off with a gasp, eyes wide. “Did you say Tó? As in Tó Neinilí?”
“Maybe?”
“A curmudgeonly older man, a little bumbling, likes to dance.”
“Lives on a houseboat,” I say, nodding. “Who is he?”
“He’s a god. A rain god, to be specific. One of the Diyin Dine’é. He gave you this?”
“To give to you. Said the Diné could use a good soaking. I didn’t get it at the time, but now I do. He thinks your plan is hilarious, by the way.”
Kai throws back his head and laughs. Leaps over the railing in one smooth movement and wraps his arms around me. Kisses me, impulsive and wild. “You’re a genius, Maggie!”
I grin back. I can’t help it. “Well, maybe not a genius, but I can carry a pot real good.”
A shotgun blast rattles across the canyon. I instinctively duck, pulling Kai down with me out of the line of fire. I look back over my shoulder, but I’m too far away and can’t see Ben anymore. Kai presses something into my hand. Binoculars. I scan back across the dam from the way I came. Find Ben, who’s waving frantically and motioning toward the southeast. I pivot and use the binoculars to search the sky, looking for whatever Ben saw. It doesn’t take me long to find it.
“We’ve got trouble,” I tell Kai, as a black cloud crosses in front of the rising sun, darkening the horizon. He stands next to me, hand braced above his eyes, trying to get a better view. Trying to comprehend the sudden eclipse. But there is no better view.
“What the hell is that?”
“Locusts.”
* * *
We watch as the swarm moves closer, an immense unstoppable force.
“It stretches for miles,” he murmurs.
I tighten my grip on Neizghání’s sword, letting the swirl of electricity be a comfort. We watch as the first edges of the swarm curve and descend, landing less than a hundred yards in front of us on the roadway.
“Shit,” Kai says.
I watch as the locusts form themselves into shapes, thousands of insects melding together into individual human-shaped figures like the one that attacked me at Grace’s house. Watch as their arms extend into swords, replicas of the one I hold, but forged from living insects. They move forward as one. Another line forms, and another, until there’s a dozen chittering warriors headed our way, and still the swarm keeps coming.
; “I think Gideon knows you switched sides, Kai.”
“Shit,” he says again.
“Well,” I say lightly, “looks like you won’t be crushed by a giant wall of water after all.”
“Should we run?”
“To where?” I look around the dam pointedly. “There’s nowhere to go.”
“Gideon won’t kill us,” Kai says, eyes flickering to the locust army. “He still needs us.”
“So what are these for?”
“To subdue us. He controls the locusts best when they’re in human form. Otherwise they might just eat us.”
“Great. That makes me feel great.”
He glances down at his maps. “I can . . .” He climbs back over the railing and starts flipping through his notebook. “Can you hold them off, Maggie? Ten minutes. I need ten minutes to build up enough of a storm to take them out.”
The locust men have come closer, their high chittering song almost deafening. Ten minutes might as well be twenty. What can I do against a swarm of locusts?
Unless.
“Fish psychology,” I mutter. Because Gideon was right. The Diyin Dine’e do take sides. And Tó is on ours.
I sheathe Neizghání’s sword so I can draw my Glock. Hit the release to eject the magazine and dump the bullets into my hand. And then into my pocket. Do it again with the extra magazine before I trade the gun for the sword again.
I have two handfuls of tiny gunpowder bombs encased in lead shells. For this to work, I’ll need speed.
Speed I’ve got.
I roll my shoulders, breathe deep. Try not to remember the feel of millions of insects clawing through my hair, biting my skin, trying to crawl down my throat.
I take one last look back at Kai. He’s kneeling, eyes closed, singing softly in Navajo. Already in his own world. One hand is stretched out to the lake, the other over the water god’s pot.
“Ten minutes,” I repeat to myself. “Always with the ten minutes.”
I walk forward, letting the tip of the sword trail behind me, sparking fire against the concrete. Once I’m closer, I break into a jog. Honágháahnii wakes and catches, pure potential in my veins. I raise Neizghání’s sword. Lightning cracks and flashes in my hand.
And I run straight into the horde.
Chapter 42
I hit the locust men at full speed.
Duck under reaching arms. Slide on my knees, chopping legs apart as I pass.
The smell of burning locust flesh fills my nose. Blood sizzles. Guts coat the ground.
But it’s not enough. They simply re-form.
I rise in the center, hand digging into my pocket. I pull my hand out, fling it open. Bullets scatter, bouncing and flipping across the concrete.
I raise Neizghání’s sword. Think about calling lightning to me. Focus on feeling it. Ask it to come.
And lighting answers.
I feel it, hotter than Honágháahnii has ever been. Searing, blinding.
I scream, and my breath is flames. I swing the blade wildly, incinerating every bug within twenty feet.
No. Control it. I’ve got to control it. I remember what Tó said, to force the fire out. Away. So I do.
Lightning arcs from the obsidian tips, the same way it did for Neizghání before.
Each bullet is a tiny receptor, and as the lightning strikes, they explode. Fire flares in the sky, fifty feet above me. All around me. Rumbling into the earth itself. I stand in a circle of fire that transforms the locusts to less than ash.
The power shudders through me. Hot, electric, with the desire to do nothing but burn.
I think of Gideon. How he hates the world so much all he wants to do is see it destroyed. But his nihilism doesn’t tempt me. I’m trying desperately to stay alive.
But I don’t know if I can.
The lightning strikes from the sky again, recharging what was lost. Fire pours into my body, and I howl flames. Energy snakes through me, crackling across my skin, wreathing me in a deadly electric blue. I am not Neizghání, a child of the sun god. I am only a five-fingered, playing with too much power.
I drop to my knees, overcome. Somewhere far away I hear my name. Faint. Low.
But all I know is fire.
“Let go of the sword!”
Kai? No. Another voice. Ben.
“It’s burning you up, Maggie! Drop it!”
The sword. My fingers flex, and the pommel drops from my hand. The fires extinguish simultaneously, and I gasp air into my lungs. I collapse onto my back, heaving in air like a drowning man, feeling seared from the inside out.
“Are you okay?” Ben asks. I can see her now, kneeling beside me, her brow knit in concern.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
She freezes, hand hovering over me. “I don’t think you’re burning anymore.”
“Bugs?”
“You burned them all, but”—worried eyes dart skyward—“there could be more coming. Can you move?”
“I told you. To run.”
“You said if the dam broke to run. It’s not broken.” As in on cue, the ground rumbles beneath us. Low popping sounds echo across the canyon. The first of the explosives detonating. “But I really think we better move.”
I can’t move. I lick my lips, looking for moisture, but there’s none. The inside of my mouth is raw. My eyes ache as if I’ve been staring at the sun. I have a sudden absurd thought. “My hair?”
“What?”
“Do I still have hair?”
Ben gives me a look like I’ve lost my mind. Okay. Still have hair. No matter how charred I feel, it was a supernatural fire. I’m not actually burned to a crisp. And now that I think of it, my body doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, my body feels great. Healed. And brimming with power.
The ground shudders and sways. More popping noises and the cracks in the concrete from the lightning strikes start to widen. Shit.
Ben gingerly tugs at the collar of my coat. “Maggie. I think we’d better go.”
Something hits my face. Wet. My first thought is bug splatter, but Ben’s still talking and tugging at me, and I can’t hear the locust song.
“Stop spitting,” I mutter to Ben as another drop hits my cheek.
She frowns. “What?” Her hand flies to her own face, touching. She pulls it back and stares in wonder. “It’s water.”
We both turn our eyes to the sky, where the black cloud of locusts has been replaced with thick roiling storm clouds.
“Kai.” I get to my feet. “Where’s Kai?” We both look around frantically, but he’s not where I left him. “The locusts didn’t . . . ?”
“No,” Ben says. “He was at the edge of the dam. Facing the lake. I saw . . . There!”
She thrusts her hand out, finger pointing, but she doesn’t have to. I see him too. A figure floating in the clouds, held aloft in the storm. A bright nimbus of white light surrounds him, and his eyes flash with the silver of thunder. The rain starts to fall in earnest, fat drops splattering the ground like the heavy tread of angels.
Another boom, and Ben and I watch a chunk of the dam break off, tumbling off the edge. Another, and another, and concrete rips apart to cascade over the edge. We stumble backward, toward the eastern side of the dam, as the world starts to crumble beneath our feet.
Ben screams. The ground tilts and she slides. I grab her hand, pulling her off the cracking concrete. But the dam is breaking around us, and soon there will be no safety anywhere in sight. To my right the lake is rising, waves rocking high over the railing, grasping greedily for their own freedom.
Thunder booms. I look up to see Kai throw out his hand, palm forward. He curls his fingers in, making a fist, and slowly lifts his arm upward. I stare, dumbstruck, as the shoreline changes course, rising into the air at his command. A wall of water rises, as if dragged skyward by an invisible force. It’s both beautiful and terrifying. But it doesn’t stay there long. I expect him to fling it back upon itself, but instead he spreads his fingers sharply. Water shatters to mist, evaporating
into the desert air and rising up to fatten the bulging storm clouds, catching rainbows in their impossible spray.
“Fucking hell.”
Rainbows.
And I know how to get us off this crumbling dam.
“One more blessing, old man,” I mutter as I pull Ben tight against me and, with only a moment of hesitation, wrap my free hand around Neizghání’s sword. Fire travels up my arm, fills my veins, the power of the storm saturating an already oversaturated vessel.
The world tilts, the edge of the dam coming up fast, a fall into oblivion. I backpedal, trying to keep my balance and my hold on Ben and the sword, but I can’t. My feet lose their purchase. And we fall.
I scream to the lightning, desperate as a deathbed prayer.
Ozone fills my nose, something inside me ignites, and I shatter into flame.
Chapter 43
Lightning strikes the command tower on the west side of the canyon, and Ben and I stumble onto solid ground. Ben collapses, vomiting. I’m not much better. My whole body feels like it’s going to shake apart. With unsteady hands, I sheathe the sword in the scabbard on my back. Stomp my feet to try to dissipate some of the raw energy around me.
“Did we just . . . ? Did you . . . ?” Ben stutters out once she’s left the contents of last night’s dinner at her feet.
“I think so,” I admit, my voice as shaky as my hands.
“And you’ve never done that before?”
“Once, with Ma’ii, but he was driving, and it was a lot smoother. Sorry for the bumpy ride.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. Look.” And I look where she’s pointing, back to the center of the dam, where we were just moments ago. Most of the dam is still there, still holding the water back, but there’s a V-shaped chunk of concrete probably fifty feet wide missing in exactly the spot where we were standing. Lake water pours through the break in a powerful rush that cascades down seven hundred and fifty feet to the rocks below. It looks peaceful from here, beautiful even.
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