Blood Oath, Blood River (The Downwinders Book 1)

by Michael Richan

  Deem dropped into the River. It was hard to make out in the bright sunlight, but she saw figures moving along the cement sidewalks. As she focused in on them, she saw they were kids – Native American kids, carrying books.

  Winn joined her in the flow. We’re downwind, Deem. It’s dangerous if you’re seen. They’ll change and attack.

  Deem scanned he buildings. The largest one in the center was wrapped in an additional layer of green. That’s our building, Deem said, dropping out of the flow.

  “That one,” Deem said, pointing to it. It was larger than the others.

  “You sure?” Winn asked.

  “No, but we’ve got to start somewhere,” Deem said, “and that building has extra protection. So it’s a good bet.”

  They walked toward the central building. It had been painted yellow years before, but the sun and the elements had turned the yellow into a peeling pale color, streaked in places where rain had carried minerals from the roof down onto the sides of the building. The doors to the structure faced a small circular cement pad, where Deem imagined some benches or a statue might have once sat. The faded wooden sign over the double doors read “Administration.”

  Deem walked up to the doors. She tried the handles, which were hot. The doors didn’t budge.

  “Window,” Winn said, stepping to the right. The lower half of a ground floor window had been broken out. It was about six feet off the ground. Winn bent over to give Deem a boost. She slid up and through the window, then turned and extended her hand to Winn, pulling him up.

  They were in a small room with no furniture, but plenty of graffiti on the walls. Deem noticed a light fixture dangling from the ceiling, the glass of the fixture and the bulb smashed, lying on the ground below it. There was a wooden door with a glass window, also smashed, leading out of the room.

  Winn walked out the door, and Deem followed. They were in the lobby of the building. Behind them were steps leading down to the double doors they’d tried to open. In front of them was a reception window, and hallways led to their right and left.

  Deem dropped into the River again, and saw a woman sitting behind the reception window. Her head was turned away from them. She looked like she was typing. Deem dropped out.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Winn said. “There could be hundreds of them in here, and if they see you, we’re fucked,” he said.

  “You brought your EM gun?” Deem asked.

  “Yes,” Winn said, “but we’re supposed to be exploring in here as kids, normal people making a YouTube video, not gifteds. That’ll give us away.”

  “I gotta know what we’re dealing with,” Deem said. “I’ll be careful, and I won’t stay in long.”

  “Which way?” Winn said. “Right or left?”

  “Well,” Deem said, “I was raised to choose the right. So let’s go left.”

  “Left it is,” Winn said, starting down the left hallway. They passed doors, some closed, others open, exposing rooms inside.

  “We’re looking for a way down,” Winn said. “Gotta find the basement before we can go to a sub-basement.”

  They poked their heads into some of the rooms they passed. They were all the same, mostly empty, some with junk. Spray paint here and there, light fixtures destroyed, glass on the ground.

  The hallway reached a corner and turned right. They continued down the passage. Two large doors were open to their right, and Deem popped her head inside.

  “Wow,” she said, stepping into the room. “The auditorium.”

  They were standing at the back of a large open room. At the far end of the room was a raised stage. Deem let herself drop into the River, and saw the room filled with students. There was a group of teachers, sitting along a table on the stage. Most of them were looking down, but Deem saw one begin to look up in her direction. She dropped out of the River quickly.

  “It’s full of them,” Deem said. “Don’t drop here.”

  “Damnit, Deem!” Winn said. “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s at least a hundred kids sitting in chairs, and teachers up on the stage. Someone speaking at a podium.”

  “Stop dropping!” Winn said. “It’s not helping. I don’t want to get chased out of here!”

  “Alright,” Deem said. They turned and walked out of the auditorium.

  Deem saw the staircase directly across from the auditorium entrance. A wide set of stairs led up, and a smaller set led down. They walked down the stairs and found a closed metal door at the bottom, locked.

  “Did you bring your picks?” Deem asked Winn.

  “Of course,” Winn said, setting down his backpack and retrieving his tools. He turned on his head lamp to light up the lock on the door.

  “This is a no-go,” Winn said. “Look.”

  Deem observed the lock that Winn had lit. Someone had smashed at it repeatedly, trying to get through the door. The lock itself looked so damaged it couldn’t be picked.

  “Great,” Deem said. “Doesn’t look like we can kick it in, either. Would probably already be open if you could.”

  “There might be another stairwell,” Winn said. “Maybe on the other side of the auditorium.”

  Deem walked back up the stairs, Winn behind her. As she reached the top, she felt something pass by in front of her. She’d felt this kind of brush of air many times before, in caves and mines, and her experience told her it wasn’t a draft. Her first reaction was to drop into the River and see what it was, but she knew that would expose her and Winn, so she resisted.

  “What?” Winn said behind her. “Why’d you stop?”

  “Something in front of me,” Deem said. “Significant.”

  Deem strained to detect what was moving in the hallway in front of her. It wasn’t a normal ghost, but it wasn’t a zombighost either. A different mutation? she wondered. She focused as intently as she could – one step away from slipping into the River, which would betray them. She felt the air again. Whatever it was, it was turning in front of her, receding.

  “You felt that?” Deem asked.

  “No,” Winn said. “I didn’t feel anything.”

  “It’s moving away,” Deem said. “I want to drop in for just a second and see what it is. It’ll be facing away from us.”

  Before Winn could object, Deem dropped into the flow and stared down the hallway. She saw a creature that was huge, lumbering away from her. It looked like a bear, but it was twice as big as any bear she’d ever seen. It was so large it nearly filled the hallway. As it walked, she noticed it left wet footprints behind. Blood, she thought. The footprints dried and disappeared after a few seconds. She dropped back out of the River.

  “Bear,” Deem said, turning to Winn. “Huge bear. I mean huge, not normal size.”

  “Spirits of animals he’s trapped here?” Winn asked.

  “Or a new breed of skinwalker?” Deem said. “Awan said he’d been experimenting, right?”

  “I seem to remember that, yes.”

  “Then who knows what’s in this place,” Deem said, a little panicked.

  “As long as we stay out of the River, we should be fine,” Winn said. “That was the plan, remember? Let’s just find the sub-basement and locate the shaman, alright? No more dropping.”

  “Alright,” Deem said, not entirely sure she could honor the promise. She’d learned, over the years, to resist the urge to drop in front of zombighosts and avoid the chase. But this place felt different, and the entities felt different. She wasn’t sure if her fear would win out over her curiosity.

  They walked through the auditorium, toward a pair of double doors on the other side of the room. Deem knew the room was filled with spirits. She resisted the urge to drop and examine them.

  When they reached the far side of the auditorium, they went through the doors. Winn was right; there was another set of stairs. They went down.

  Winn turned his head lamp back on and lit up the lock on the door at the bottom. This one was intact. He removed his tools a
nd began picking it. Deem waited patiently, listening for sounds in the distance. She could hear a rumble that increased in intensity, then diminished. Then she thought she heard a scream, far in the distance. It was just loud enough that she wasn’t sure she’d heard it.

  “Hurry up,” she said to Winn. “It feels like things are shifting in here.”

  “Shifting?” Winn said as he moved a torsion wrench in the lock. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean something is building,” Deem said, “and when it reaches a certain point, things are going to shift. We need to get out before that happens.”

  The lock gave in to Winn, and as he replaced his tools, Deem pushed the door open.

  She turned on her headlamp, and they made their way through a dark hallway that opened after twenty feet into a large room. There were a number of passages leading out of the room in all directions.

  “The tunnels,” Deem said. “This is the central point.”

  “I remember seeing this on the YouTube videos,” Winn said. “I remember those spray-painted arrows on the walls.”

  “People must have gotten in here somehow, even with that door locked,” Deem said.

  “Probably from one of these passageways,” Winn said, walking to the entrance of one of them and looking down it. He could see ten feet before his headlamp illuminated a pile of junk blocking most of the tunnel. “Some of them must be passable. Maybe not this one.”

  Deem walked to another tunnel entrance and looked down into it. It went off into the darkness, further than her headlamp could reveal. “This one looks like it goes a ways,” she said.

  “This is the basement,” Winn said. “But we’re after the sub-basement. If these tunnels just run to the other buildings, they’re not what we’re looking for.”

  Deem paused, hearing the rumbling sound once again. A faint scream accompanied it.

  “Did you hear that?” she said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Sounds far away, but it was louder than last time. Something’s coming, and it’s coming fast. That’s the shift I was talking about.”

  “I still don’t know what you mean by a shift.”

  “It’s like when the pressure builds in your ear, before it pops. You know it’s going to pop at some point.”

  “Any idea what happens when this pops?”

  “Not exactly, but it feels like something bad. There it is again. You don’t hear it?”

  “No! I can’t hear anything.”

  Deem bent over, holding her hands to the side of her head. “It’s so loud!” she yelled at Winn. “We gotta get out of here!”

  Deem struggled to keep conscious. The sound was overpowering and rapidly increasing. She looked up at Winn and was confused that he just stood there, apparently not hearing the noise or feeling the pressure. It was building quickly, reaching incredible volumes. It was so loud she couldn’t think straight, and it was painful.

  Deem did the only thing she could think of to do; she screamed.

  Like the effect of an ear popping, there was immediate relief. Deem opened her eyes, and saw Winn standing in front of her, bathed in a blue light.

  “Oh my god,” she said. Winn looked confused. She turned to inspect the room, looking for the source of the light. It was coming from one of the tunnels.

  “Deem?” Winn asked. “Are you OK?”

  She walked to the tunnel where the light emanated, and looked into it. About ten feet ahead, the floor of the tunnel gave out, dropping down into a room below the tunnel. The light was coming from the room.

  Deem turned to Winn. “That’s it!” she said, pointing.

  “What’s it?” Winn asked, confused. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine now,” Deem said. “Come on, let’s check it out.”

  “Check what out?”

  Deem stopped. “You don’t see that?”

  “See what?” Winn asked, becoming irritated.

  “The hole in the floor? The blue light?”

  “No, I don’t. I see a tunnel running off into the distance. No hole. No light.”

  “You didn’t hear that sound? The sound that built up until it shifted, when I screamed?”

  “You didn’t scream,” Winn said, walking to her and grabbing her arm. “Deem, you’re scaring me. Whatever you’re seeing, I’m not seeing it. This room looks the same to me as when we came into it.”

  Deem looked at Winn and could see he was confused and worried. He wasn’t lying. Why can I see these things, and he can’t?

  “Winn, I think this is the sub-basement,” Deem said. “I think we’ve found him. Down that hole in the tunnel.”

  “Well then, good, I’ll take your word for it. Let’s leave, and we’ll call Awan and tell him.”

  “But why can’t you see it?”

  “I don’t care why, if that’s it, I believe you. Let’s just get out of here.”

  The blue light from the sub-basement lit their way back to the stairwell door for Deem, but Winn seemed reliant on his headlamp. When they emerged from the stairwell, Deem stopped.

  “Winn, I want you to pop your head into the auditorium and try something,” Deem said.

  “What?”

  “Drop into the River, for just a second. Tell me what you see.”

  “No!” Winn said. “Are you crazy?”

  “If you stand in the door well, they won’t see you. I need to know if you can see them like I can.”

  Winn relented, and walked to the double doors of the auditorium. He angled himself so he could see a thin sliver of the room beyond, and dropped. After a couple of seconds, he came back.

  “Ghosts on the floor, in chairs,” Winn said. “Kids.”

  “You can see them?” Deem asked, surprised.

  “Yes, now let’s go!”

  Winn turned and walked down the hallway, back to the reception area. Deem followed him, puzzling over what he’d told her.

  Once they had jumped out of the window and were outside of the building, Winn removed his cell phone. “One bar,” he said, checking the reception. He pressed a button and held the phone to his ear as they began walking in the direction of their car.

  “Deem found it,” he said into the phone. “The Administration building, right in the middle of the school. Go down the right stairwell, and it’s about twenty feet down one of the tunnels.”

  Winn paused as Awan talked on the other end. Deem scanned the complex for the building they’d walked around when they came in. She located it and guided Winn forward as he listed to Awan.

  “Alright,” Winn said. “Bye.” He lowered the phone from his ear and hung up. “He’s calling them.”

  “Good,” Deem said, leading the way. “I’ll be glad to hear when they’ve got him.”

  They made their way around the corner building and through the chain link fence. Once in the car, Deem reached for her Big Gulp.

  As Winn got into the driver’s seat, his phone rang. “It’s Awan,” he said, and he answered it.

  “Hello?” Winn said to Awan. After a moment he said, “They what?”

  Oh no, Deem thought, hearing Winn’s tone. Something’s gone wrong.

  “But that wasn’t the plan, Awan…”

  She strained to hear the faint buzzing coming from Winn’s phone. It was impossible, she’d have to wait until he relayed things.

  Winn sighed. “I suppose…alright. Tell them we’re parked on the north end of the school…alright. Bye.”

  “What?” Deem asked.

  “There’s three elders driving up from Kanab, right now. They want us to wait.”

  “To wait?”

  “That’s what Awan said. Wait.”

  “What, until they get here?”

  “Presumably.”

  “I thought Awan was going to call people on the reservation. In Arizona.”

  “Apparently they sent three people up to take care of it, and they’ve been in Kanab, waiting for the call.”

  “Did Awan know about this?”
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  “It sounded like he didn’t. He seemed surprised, too.”

  “Well, I guess they want us to show them the spot, exactly?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Winn said, sliding down in his seat. “Kanab is only five minutes away, so I don’t think we’ll have long to find out.”

  Deem took another sip of her Big Gulp. “You know, it was Awan’s idea that we do this. If the elders are powerful enough to take him down, why aren’t they powerful enough to find him, too? Why did we have to do it?”

  “I don’t know. But I am beginning to feel a little shanghaied at the moment.”

  They waited until an old brown Chevy Impala pulled up next to the Jeep. Winn watched as two large Navajos got out of the front seat. One of them opened the back door for an old woman, who slowly got out and stood up.

  “I’m guessing the old woman is the one with the power,” Winn said.

  “I thought it was an old man,” Deem said.

  Winn looked again; now he wasn’t sure it was a woman. One of the large Navajo men walked up to the Jeep.

  “You Winn?” he asked.

  “That’s me,” Winn replied.

  “This is Sani,” the man said, introducing the old woman, who walked up to Winn’s window.

  “Will you come with me?” Sani said in a frail voice.

  Winn turned to look at Deem. She shrugged her shoulders. Winn opened the car door and stepped out. Sani took his hand and they walked about thirty feet away, on the other side of the Impala.

  Deem sat in the Jeep, wondering what was going on. When she looked out at the Navajo men, she saw them staring back at her, expressionless.

  “Hi!” she said, raising her hand halfway to wave.

  “Hello,” one of them said back, his face quickly returning to its neutral state.

  Deem turned to look at Winn, who was talking with Sani. Sani was pointing at his chest, as though she was accusing him of something. Winn was talking back to Sani, but Deem couldn’t hear any of the conversation. They went just far enough away that I couldn’t hear them, Deem thought. Irritating, and a little insulting.

  After five minutes, Winn walked back with Sani. He talked to Deem through the open window of the driver’s side.