by Tim Marquitz
Humming in his old, withered voice, the shaman recited a delicate incantation, just a few simple words with a deep inflection, which twisted into a slightly higher pitch, down to a rhythm she could barely hear. He sighed, his breath passing over Nina like winter wind, carrying the scents of pine needles and dead leaves, wet logs and snow. The boha gande closed his arms.
“It is done.”
Nina stared at her hands, searched her mind. She looked up, confused. “I don’t feel no different.”
“So you say.”
He filled the bowl again, this time from the other urn. This particular vessel was dyed black, lacking a single inscription or carving. He held the bowl out to her. “Another gift. A new name, should you accept.”
“A new name ain't necessary. The next deadun ain’t gonna ask my name when it tries to feed on my face.”
“This name, you will want.”
Nina took the bowl, sniffed it, and glanced up. “Any kind of ill side effects you want to tell me about? My teeth gonna fall out or anything?”
“You must have faith.”
Nina thought hard on his words. If she drank this sludge she would never be the same again...might never live like a regular person. Why her? Why not Red Thunder? Or even Pa, who had a wagonload more faith than she ever had. Hell, why not James Manning?
No, she took that back. She'd not want Manning doing what she was about to do.
Life wasn't fair. And there were consequences to everything. Folks made sacrifices when they had to.
Nina sighed and tilted the bowl back, gulped down the dark fluid. It had the consistency of gravy, but tasted like licorice candy. She wasn’t all that fond of licorice.
A smile played across the shaman's wrinkled cheeks.
“What is it, boha gande? You seem...amused”,” she asked after she’d swallowed.
“The spirit world is not devoid of irony, and amusement at said ironies.”
“And this particular one?” Nina groaned. She’d known there would be consequences.
His gray-covered head turned up. “I know the man you face, this Liao Xu.”
“You fought him?”
“I still...fight him.”
“Yeah, I suppose you do.”
“It is time, Ninataku.”
“That’s it?”
“That is it. Go back now. To your companions.”
Nina stood, gripped her knife, and readied herself to gut the next unfriendly thing she saw. Feeling a spark of ornery, she winked at the shaman. “Last chance to let me stay.”
The boha gande chuckled. “Staying is easy, Ninataku, Fire Eater. Ninataku, Shadow Shaper. It is the going that is always hard.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GRETA RAMDOHR SCREAMED IN NINA’S FACE. A string of spit hung from the woman’s lower lip. She coughed, blood spotting her lips. Nina caught her, looked over her shoulder at the thing that had jammed its antler through Greta’s back and ribs. Hooves stomped on her legs.
The rotted mule deer snorted out a cloud of maggot-ridden, fly-infested discharge. Squirming shapes flung past Nina’s face. The beast was big, probably close to three-hundred pounds, and a deadly combination of strong and clumsy. She clutched the base of one of its antlers before it could jerk away and take pieces of Greta with it. Nina yelled and yanked with all her strength, bent its neck down, and plunged her knife in its eye. It twisted as it fell, dropping atop them and eliciting a scream from Greta. Then the woman went dead silent.
Don't bleed out, Nina thought as she pushed herself free through the red muck. She knew better than to hope.
The rest of the world was a ruinatious mess of noise and blood and mud. The red rain was falling again, and Liao’s perversions were everywhere. She got to her feet, while to her right, Cato wrestled with some large bear-looking thing. It stood on its hind legs, the black man’s handy hook-spear sunk into its neck while its rotted teeth worried into the Cato’s meaty shoulder. They danced in a screaming, moaning cacophony, while fat-bodied rats clung to Cato's trousers, gnawing at the cloth to get inside. He pulled his spear out of the beast and stabbed the spiked end into it again.
Past them, Nina saw George Daggett backed up to the wagon by something she imagined hadn't walked the earth in her lifetime, probably not a score of lifetimes. The rotted reptile had a matted feathery crest and was a head taller than George, and it snapped at him with needle-like teeth. The Reb screamed and jabbed at it with his knife, trying to keep the thing away.
A desperate glance around, Nina couldn’t see Pa. No time. She had to focus.
“Spirit warriors of the Land—” she began, then something slammed into her from behind, driving the breath from her lungs. She rolled, scrambled, stabbed, and kicked as something sought to tear out her throat.
Nina flipped on her back and held the thing at bay with one arm while she slashed at it with her blade. It was some kind of mountain cat, or what used to be one. It moved awkwardly, stilted, as if hastily thrown together...or still coming together. Who knew? Nina almost suffocated from the sheer, rotting weight of it.
“...show me your knives, your spears…” she hissed through clenched teeth. She cut the large cat across its blood-matted neck, nearly slicing her own thumb off, immersing herself in gouts of deadun meat and blood. The thing yawled, hissed fetid air into her face. Nina gagged and steeled her stomach.
“...let the enemy feel the sharp edge of our wrath!”
It swatted Nina's knife from her hand with a large, bony paw. She covered her head, pushed with her knees, trying to fend off those deadly, snapping jaws. She screamed at it, punched it, tried to get hold of the cat’s big skull long enough to put her fingers into whatever holes she could find. But it was too damn strong.
Its teeth touched her flesh…
…and then a shadow passed over them, blocking out the gray sky. The weight lifted from her chest, and suddenly she could breathe. Nina coughed and pushed herself up with an elbow, wiped the gunk from her eyes, and gaped.
The shadow loomed over her. An inky black, muscled warrior, covered in nightshade deerskin, held the undead cat by the scruff of its neck, the big feline twisting and swiping with those fat forepaws. The warrior's eyes glinted like onyx as he drew a blade across the cat's throat, finishing the cut Nina started. The rotted corpse dropped while its head jutted skyward, the shadow’s dark hand buried in its blood-wet fur. The warrior howled and yipped, teeth like chips of coal, then bounded off, the tar-dipped feathers of his headdress bouncing.
Nina slowly stood, watched as more shadows formed; they were like scattered motes of dust at first, then everywhere. Soon, the churning mist was filled with warcries. Ax and spear divided Liao Xu's unholy ranks. Black arrows split deadun skulls.
Nina, realizing just how far she'd been driven from the wagon, stumbled back in that direction while the pitched fighting raged all around. She had to be careful lest she become a sudden, unwilling participant. She hadn't the strength to fight anymore. She only wanted to get back and find Pa…and Manning and Rachel and Jasmine and Red…just whoever else was alive.
A skirmish tore across her path. An upright thing, another man-sized mockery of a lizard like the one that was attacking George, dragged three shadow warriors behind it, its powerful legs sinking sickle-shaped claws into the mud. Head long and narrow and filled with needle teeth, it reminded Nina of a skull she'd seen once in a Goshute medicine man’s tent. It moaned and hissed and snapped at the shadows, but was finally brought down with a splash.
Nina hurried for the wagon, hoping to throw herself against its side. One of the shadow warriors—her warriors—careened by, swinging at a feathery blur in the air. The flapper snapped the warriors' head off with its toothy beak.
Or did it?
Nina blinked as the headless warrior caught the thing by its legs and yanked it from the sky, then its head coalesced back into form. Nina inspected the battlefield, saw it was happening elsewhere. Like true shadows, her fighters faded to translucence at will, drifting between w
orlds as blows that would have been fatal simply passed through them.
Even so, some fell. Caught in mortal combat, they were bit into, held in this world while swarms of deaduns covered them. Nina wondered what happened to their souls; whether they returned to the Shadow Lands or went to some other, horrible place. She felt an icy stab in her chest each time one of them faded away.
Still, the tide was turning. The undead horde was falling, quite literally, to pieces.
Nina grabbed Greta Ramdohr's still form by the ankle and pulled her along the muddy ground until she reached the wagon. She bent, checked the woman for a pulse, and frowned at the result. Fifteen feet away, Cato was on his knees stabbing the re-fleshed bear repeatedly in the neck and skull. She blinked and watched him plunge his spear down over and over, sending pieces of bone and loose rot flying.
“It's dead,” Nina told him. But Cato went on, shouting incoherently.
Red Thunder stood out away from the wagon, drenched head to toe in red with piles of deaduns all around him, his chest heaving, tomahawk in one hand, knife in the other, waiting almost eagerly for more enemies.
George sat against the sunken frame, his hands resting on drawn-up knees, the dead reptile laying still. He nudged it with the toe of one boot, then just stared at the ground.
“Pa!” she belted out.
“Over here…” She found him sitting on the other side of the wagon, miraculously alive. His eyes looked up at her approach, and a faint smile touched his lips, his teeth the only part of him that wasn’t red. Nina dropped to her knees and they hugged. Pa held her tight, and they shared the silence. All the deaduns were gone or silenced, hopefully forever this time.
James Manning ambled up from somewhere. He rested his hand on Nina’s shoulder. “Rachel’s missing…and Greta’s dead.”
“I know.”
“Thought you were, too. Dead…”
She got to her feet and gave him a wry smile. “Not your lucky day, is it?”
“Nina girl, it’s the damned luckiest day of my life.” He pulled her into a blood-soaked embrace.
After a few seconds, while James still held her, Nina opened her eyes and peered at Red Thunder. The Indian walked around, aimless-like, his expression twisted in savage wonderment as he glanced about, trying to unriddle the shadows. Nina shared his wonder. She had no idea where they would go once their purpose was complete. Although, she thought that time might be soon, for a weariness had woven itself into her heart and mind. When she was done, so would they be.
Red gazed at Nina, watching.
The thing that was Lester Woodruff hobbled at the edge of the mist, catching Nina’s eye. Red tracked her gaze, spied the deadun in the murk as well, gimp foot sloshing through the bloody mud.
“Woodie,” Nina said, breaking their embrace.
James pulled back and looked where she indicated. He started to go after Liao's puppet, but Red Thunder let loose a warcry and charged. The Indian buried his ax in Woodie's skull and kicked the limp husk to the ground.
Manning squinted at the scene, his whole face bunched up.
Nina felt like she should say something to help alleviate some of whatever he was feeling about Woodie’s demise and ultimate fate, but as her lips parted a low voice interrupted them.
“She has it...”
They looked to see Father Mathias lurching on his elbows from the guts of the crushed wagon. Pa got up with a grunt and went to help the priest. Nina and Manning joined him, the three of them helping Mathias to stand.
The priest’s mouth worked, but his words were faint.
“What's that, Father?” Pa asked, leaning forward.
Mathias repeated himself, and this time they heard him clear as day: “You've got to stop her. She has the key.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CATO INSISTED ON STAYING BEHIND WITH Greta’s body. The big man had her laid out and cleaned her face with a torn bit of cloth he’d found inside the wagon. He was smoothing her bloody hair back and saying, “Poor Greta…ya’ll didn’t deserve all this…” as the rest of them ventured outside the protective circle.
They’d left George, as well. He was half out of it, that weird sludge still leaking from his head. Pa and Manning eased him inside the shoddy cover of the wagon and he barely protested except to say, “get offa me” a time or two, but not with any real conviction.
They found Strobridge about fifty yards away, sitting on a bloody carcass. He had his coat off and was using the inside of it to wipe the gore from his face and beard. The dead mule deer he was using as a chair had half its skull exposed, its head twisted all the way around toward its backside.
“Goddamn thing dragged me all the way over yonder,” he said, waving his hand in some vague fashion. “Then these…shadows came and…hell, I don’t know.”
“Hey!” someone called out. Mason Daggett stumbled toward them through a mess of scrub oak. He flopped down on the ground and just shook his head. “Glad to see ya’ll…where’s my brother?”
“He and Cato…and Greta are back with the wagon,” Nina said.
“Nice of ya’ll to come looking for us,” Strobridge said.
“We ain’t looking for you,” Nina said, more spite in her voice than she intended. Old enmities die hard sometimes.
Pa cut in and explained the reason for their ill-formed posse.
“Good riddance to that goddamn key,” Strobridge spat.
“It’s not the fucking key we’re after,” Nina said, but Father Mathias looked at her sidelong and Manning even turned his head her way a little, too. “Well, some of us are, I suppose. I’m here for Jasmine and Rachel.”
Then Mason explained how he’d been snatched up and literally hauled off the ground, found himself soaring through the air in the talons of something. When Pa asked him about the critter, he said, “I don’t even know. I think I bit its fucking leg off, though.”
“You bit it?”
Mason nodded. “Yeah, I bit it, and next thing I know I’m lying in a patch of that thorny ass bush.”
He was a mess for it; part of Mason’s earlobe seemed to be missing, there was a hole in his cheek, and his shirt and skin were covered in blood and spiky scrub needles. Nina looked at those talon marks on the man's shoulders. They were deep wounds. She wondered if Mathias would be able to heal them—the priest looked as if he were ready to pitch over any moment.
Red Thunder had gone a ways ahead as they conversed, and he came walking back in the company of Buck Patterson. The roughrider walked right up with a damn unlit cigarette between his lips. “Any matches?” he asked.
Surprisingly, Manning had a couple in his coat, and a couple seconds later he and Buck were passing the quirley back and forth.
No one asked Buck what happened otherwise, and he wasn't telling.
“Let me see that,” Nina said and James handed it over. She took a deep draw and suppressed a cough before starting to hand it back.
“If you don’t mind?” Mason asked, grimacing as he got up off the ground.
Nina looked at Buck and Buck nodded. She handed it over and Mason inhaled, blew smoke out and sighed, then handed it to Strobridge. Everyone had a puff but Red Thunder took a draw, even her pa, then they set off, though Mason said, “I gotta check on my brother.”
No one blamed him for it, and Mason set off back toward the wagon.
Red led the rest of them up a short grade, then through a gulch along the base of a hill. At the end, he stopped and pointed up the rise.
Even Nina could see as much, two sets of tracks were visible in the sodden ground. What the hell is she doing?
Red went first, plodding up the steepening rise, turning across its face when necessary, moving in an indirect route to the top. Nina went second and the rest followed behind her. It never got so steep that it presented any real difficulty, though it did take a bit more air in the lungs after the day’s tribulations.
Nina caught sight of Jasmine on a rocky precipice, a good fifty feet of air between her
and the ground below. Trapped. The Taiping Jing key hung around her neck on a long silver chain.
And she held a knife to Rachel’s throat.
Nina wanted to say lots of things. Mainly to tell her to quit mucking about, to come on and let's go. Let's get somewhere safe. But the look in Jasmine's eyes...she was too far gone, a sure kind of demented, like she was downright brainsick.
“Why, Jasmine?”
The black woman couldn't meet Nina's gaze at first. She sweated and stammered, looked left and right as if frightened by things that weren't there. After a colossal struggle, she finally met Nina's stare. Her eyes were full of fear and pain.
“I'm sorry, Nina. I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't mean to take this thing.” She plucked at the key hanging from her neck, then put her hand on the back of her head and rubbed it as if working out a pain. “But he been talkin' to me. Come to me in my dreams last night. Not long after I got scratched.”
Nina's stomach dropped. “What'd he say, Jaz?”
“He told me if I just brought him this, he'd let ya’ll go. He said he wouldn't chase ya’ll no more.”
“Ya’ll? What’s that mean?”
Jasmine sobbed. “I'm goin', Nina. With him. He promised me...promised me I'd live forever. Promised me all sorts of things I ain't never had.”
Pa stepped forward, a gust of wind whipping up strands of his gray-streaked hair. “Hold on. Think about that for a minute. Think about who it is you're dealin' with. This bastard's been chasin' us the better part of a week. He won't think twice about cuttin' your throat once he has that key.” Pa drew a slow breath, frustration coloring his cheeks. “You can’t deal fair with a demon like Liao. Tell her, Father…”
Mathias blinked up at Jasmine and simply nodded his head. Damn if our priest ain’t sick, too, Nina thought.
Nina put herself in front of them. Jasmine needed to see her now. A friend. Not men. “It’s gonna be okay, Jaz. Things are different now. I got my spirit guide. I can help protect us now...”
“No…” Jasmine shook her head feverishly, pressed the blade to Rachel's neck.
