He was confident that Seven Crow had no idea what was going on, or who had caused it, but he knew enough about the man to be wary of him figuring it out and tracking him down. He had a talent for disrupting Marks’ plans, and he would pay for that.
Marks’ thoughts drifted as he drove, it would be three days before the next release of a banished. He would need every single one of those to stay ahead of Mal’Ak, and to increase his security for the next creature. He wasn’t sure why, but he was certain that each one he released would be nastier than the one before; and he was almost certain that Kish had a secondary motive for giving him the necklace and hammer in the first place. It wasn’t altruistic.
He threw his cap into the passenger’s seat and ran his fingers through his short cropped grey hair. He hadn’t realized how sweaty he was. He drew it down his brow, and wiped the sweat on his fatigues, then cranked the A/C up to max.
His hate for Eli Seven Crow was only one of the reasons Kish’s proposition had excited him. The little devil had promised him enough power that he could take Eskeilay and do with her whatever he wanted. That excited him. Every thought of her excited him; but controlling her and having his way with her whenever he chose? That was intoxicating.
Destroying Mal’Ak, controlling Eskeilay, moving to the second tier of power within The Mahan Group; those were things only a handful of mortals would ever know to dream of, much less possess.
Marks put his hand in front of the vent to trap the cold air as it came out and frowned. There were a few things that bothered him, though. The one that puzzled him the most was what Kish had done in the rift. He hadn’t seen him go in, but he saw him slip from the hungry maw of it just before it collapsed. Just after the old man killed the Ishkitini.
Keezie stared into the snake women’s copper slit eyes and followed their soft sway with her own. They were beautiful in a terrible way. They were feral. They were intelligent and cunning, but unaware of the polite courtesies of the world. Beautiful, but unkempt and unwashed.
“We need your help, Inda Nyoho. We have sick ones.” Ammonih’s voice broke Keezie’s trance. She shook her head and looked away from the women. She watched, instead, as Ammonih reached into his bag and removed a large package wrapped in white paper. The creatures’ heads swiveled his way, their heavy forked tongues tasting the air. He set it on the floor in front of him and unwrapped it slowly, taking his time as they slid closer. Ammonih unfolded the last of the wrapping that covered four thick slabs of raw red meat.
“Give us,” their hissed voices melded together in strange harmonics.
“Will you help?” Ammonih asked.
“Yessss,” they hissed together and bared their sharp pointed teeth.
The Nvnehi brave slid the meat closer to them and sat back as they cautiously approached the offering. Their snake tongue’s flicked tasting the air as they lowered their bodies just enough to snatch the meat from the floor and then retreat into the darkness of the cave.
Joseph turned and whispered to her, “That is Lethia and Velvia. I don’t know which is which.”
Keezie sat up and pulled her knees in to her chest as she nodded. “Why are we here?”
“The sisters have talents for certain things.” Ammonih answered.
“Kaga told me to bring you and Eli here before he sent me to get Ammonih. That’s why I wasn’t…” Joseph’s voice cracked as he explained. “He must have known something he didn’t get a chance to tell us.”
The sounds of the sisters’ movement had subsided, and Keezie wondered just how big the cave system was past the bubble of light that surrounded them.
They sat in silence as they waited for them to return. Keezie shuffled across the floor and crossed her legs in front of Eli’s head. She reached out and absently brushed his cheek with the back of her hand.
Joseph sighed and stood. He rubbed his temples and paced slowly in the small puddle of light.
Keezie had no idea how long they waited until the sound of large scales scraping the stone floor reached out to them from the blackness.
Ammonih stood and beckoned her to do the same. She complied and took her place between the two men as the snake women materialized out of the dark.
Blood smeared and stained the dirt around their mouths and hands giving them an extra air of menace. Keezie shuddered at the thought of being a meal for the sisters. She struggled to keep still and calm. She hated snakes.
“Show us.” They commanded.
Ammonih began unwrapping the gauze from Usok’s motionless form, while Joseph scooped Eli from the floor and placed him beside the massive hound.
Usok’s fur was matted and caked with a flaky brown substance. It looked as if Eli had rubbed it into every inch of the dog’s coat. The poor thing looked emaciated with its fur so tight to its body.
Lethia and Velvia slid up to the bodies, their dry scales scuffed the rock and sent shivers down Keezie’s back.
The sister’s weaving sway twisted them in front of and around each other as they examined Eli and Usok. One of the two, satisfied with the cursory examination leaned close and tasted Usok’s caked fur.
The creature shot upright and loosed a bellow that boomed and echoed through the cavern as she rose high into the air. Her sister screeched, threw her arms up across her face and slithered back into the dark past the edges of Ammonih’s light.
The first sister tumbled to the ground moaning and twitching as if fighting death itself.
“What have you brought to us?” the second accused from the dark. “You would kill us? You would bring this here?” The sister eased into the light her eyes fierce and long fangs descended from the hiding place in the creature’s mouth. A sudden rattle bloomed in the quiet left by her hysterical voice and set the hair on Keezie’s neck to attention.
A terror beyond words gripped her stomach and heart at the sound of a thousand rattlesnakes. There was no place to go but back into the water.
“Forbidden,” they hissed. “Banished. Banished.” Their words were hot with fear.
She slid closer to her sister as she thrashed, but her violent eyes never left the three companions.
Ammonih slowly lowered down to his knees. He lifted his head to expose his neck and placed his hands palm up in front of him. “Inda Nyoho, forgive us. We have no name or face for this darkness.” The creature flashed forward, its mouth wide. Huge fangs dripped and snapped closed inches from the brave’s exposed throat. Keezie stumbled backward until Joseph’s handless arm steadied her.
The snake woman hissed in warning and gently wrapped her arms around her sister then pulled her back into the dark, a whispered chant floated to them from behind that curtain of blackness occasionally punctuated by the rattle of a thousand tails.
Keezie braced herself and worked with all her will to stand still. She shook violently, unable to stop her body from releasing its fatigue and anxiety and horrible fear.
The creature’s chant faded, and silence regained control of the cavern. Keezie could feel her heart thumping in her ears and throat. She drew a breath to calm herself and reached inside to grip her emotions, to control them. She dug deep and looked for the strength to quell her rising panic.
She paused, confused. There was something missing. She searched, unsure what it was.
A jolt of realization shot through her. The stain was gone. She couldn’t find it. She searched the places it liked to secret itself away.
Keezie dove into depths of her soul, but it wasn’t there. She was clean. She almost laughed.
Scales scraped the floor of the cavern and jerked her from her hunt.
Both sisters undulated into view, swaying slower and more cautious than before. They advanced and stopped just beyond touching Eli and Usok.
They whispered. “Cursed magic.” Their expressions were awed which lent an air of naive innocence to their dirt and blood caked faces.
They began a strange dance, they coiled and rocked, rose and fell. Somewhere a chant melded with the motion. It
wafted through the cavern reflecting itself on every surface.
Strange blue lines formed on Eli’s skin, randomly at first and then they appeared more rapidly until it was if the whole of him was glowing with that blue light.
Keezie glanced at Usok. The blueness was muted under the paste that matted his fur, but it was there.
The lines peeled from their bodies, rose into the air and hovered like lightning bugs. They were phantoms. An essence left behind in the bodies of her friends. She could only guess what they were doing besides dragging them towards death or a state not far from it. She felt their resistance to the sister’s call. They knew they were being expelled from their hosts. Parasites.
The air vibrated with the heavy and barely controlled anger of the blue ghosts.
As more and more peeled from the sleeping bodies their light brightened the cavern enough to reveal an endless row of shelves carved into the rock. Each shelf was occupied with books and scrolls and tablets.
One of the sisters produced an open clay jar which she held in front of them. The chant and sway of the dance grew.
The blue creature’s angry vibrations couldn’t resist the women’s call, and the slipped one by one into the jar.
It struck Keezie that they were snake charmers in reverse. The serpents beguiled the little phantoms, coaxed them from the bodies, made them dance and wiggle into the jar. She was transfixed by the chant and motion and lights until the last one reluctantly wormed its way over the lip of the jar and into its endless belly.
The absence of their blue glow left only the memory of shelves and books in the sad pool of Ammonih’s light.
The other sister stuffed a cloth into the mouth of the jar and poured a waxy substance over the top. It oozed over the sides until it hardened to create a tight, perfect seal over and around the mouth.
Gingerly, the sisters placed the jar on the ground beside Eli then looked up at the companions. They held themselves low, their bellies hovered just over the floor of the cave.
“We are tired.” They moaned. “Leave us when they wake.” Their voices trailed off as the slow scrape of scales pulled them into the dark depths of their home.
Eli’s eyes were dry and stuck to his eyelids with firm resolve. He tried to blink several times before the rest of his body intruded, each part vying for his attention with a complaint of its own. His limbs were stiff and sore, his low back ached, his butt was numb from the unforgiving pressure of whatever he was sleeping on and his head pounded and meandered in a fog that was as intense and powerful as waking from a wysoccan induced stupor.
Wysoccan, his mind turned the word over, poked and prodded it. Wysoccan. It sounded funny as it reverberated in his skull. He felt like he was falling.
“Wysoccan, wysoccan, wysoccan,” he chanted and giggled.
Keme and Mingan stirred beside him, their bodies intertwined for warmth in the damp cold of the small wetus they were being kept in. The fire had gone out during the night and in their exhausted and deranged state they had failed to add more wood.
A strange smell hung in the air, like smoke. Seven Crow didn’t want to contemplate what it might be. This was the twentieth morning, the last day of their initiation into manhood. They would emerge from this small bark house men in the sight of all the First People.
His head hurt and swam like a lazy salmon at the end of a late autumn run, the drive to spawn fading with its life.
He was supposed to remember something. Something important. He shook his head, and found his attention demanded by his empty stomach. He needed food.
He blinked his eyes. Peeled the lids up one by one. His mouth was dry. He needed water first and then food.
Light bloomed as someone pried open the door.
Eli…
Eli…
He furrowed his brow, the name sounded familiar, but incongruous.
Eli…
The voice was insistent, but its owner was invisible as he peered into the blinding light of the open door.
His body shook. He was asleep, and someone wanted him awake. “Eli, wake up. Please,” the voice begged. He knew that voice. “Eli, you need to wake up.” It was Keezie. He struggled to sit, to make his body obey. His mind pushed through the haze that wrapped it tight and warm. How did Keezie get in the Hut?
He managed to get himself upright and cracked his eyes just enough to see her blurry face in front of him. He grunted acknowledgement of her presence and tried to blink moisture into the sandy space between his lids and eyes.
He wobbled and set his hand down to steady himself and found Usok’s warm, wet fur instead of the bed.
Usok. Panic and memory flooded though him. He had to get help. Kaga would know what to do. He tried to speak, but his words were sticky and dull.
Keezie poured water in his mouth. He gulped it greedily, then caught some in his hand to splash on his eyes and face. He moaned with the release of the dryness in his throat and the coolness of moisture returned to his gritty eyes.
The film that coated his eyes melted away like half dried pasty glue. When it finally cleared enough for Eli to make out his surroundings, he already had the sense that he was no longer at Keezie’s.
He tightened his fingers in Usok’s fur and sighed softly at the steady rise and fall of his friend’s chest. “What happened?” he asked. When the silence was heavy enough to fall, Eli dragged another query from his scratchy throat, “Where are we?”
“The Sisters,” Joseph answered.
“How long have I been out?” He turned slowly and watched Ammonih and Joseph look to Keezie for answer. He rifled through his memories, as she searched for the right way to answer. There wasn’t much. Just one story of the mythical Sisters and a fractured recollection from an old medicine man. Nothing that would really help him right now.
“I’m really not sure how long we’ve been here, but you passed out in the truck at my house around four o’clock or so.”
“Just over a day.” Ammonih stated.
“What? We haven’t been here that long.” Keezie protested.
“She can’t take much more of this, Captain,” Ammonih muttered.
“Time is a little different with the sisters,” Eli offered. “We must be bad for Kaga to send us here.” He looked at Joseph and Ammonih. “Thank you.”
Joseph looked down at the cavern floor.
“What?” Eli demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Kaga is dead, Mal’Ak,” Ammonih’s voice cracked and sent the last syllable up an octave.
“Dead?” Eli repeated as his mind reeled to grasp what he was being told.
Joseph nodded.
“How?”
The big man shrugged. “Never seen it before. Don’t know what it was.”
Eli tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m sorry.” He knew he couldn’t console him, and he hated himself for being so callous, but centuries of death had tempered his reaction to the loss of friends. He added Kaga Broken Tooth to the collection in his soul. Reminders that he was unable to protect those he loved. He looked back at Joseph and wished he had more to offer than ‘sorry.’
Joseph’s pain was evident on his face and in his eyes, “At least you’re alive, he said. “What happened?”
The young man shamed him with his sincere care, but that wasn’t new either. “Gneechees,” he stated.
“What the hell are Gneechees?” Keezie asked.
Eli shrugged and looked at his three saviors, “I haven’t got a clue.” He struggled to stand, and waived Keezie off as she rushed to help. When he steadied himself, he rubbed his eyes, and looked down at Usok.
The massive hound yawned and blinked. His eyes scanned the four humans, then, he sniffed the air, coughed, and stood with much more grace than Eli.
“We have to get out of here before we eat up much more time” Joseph reminded them. Eli acknowledged his warning and closed his eyes to think.
The fact that there were two monsters that were new to this group wa
s very bad. The fact that he and Kaga were targeted was even worse. They had to figure out where these things were coming from and why.
A slow shallow scraping burrowed its way into his thoughts. He tried to ignore it, but it insisted on his attention. It sounded like someone dragging a large piece of canvas over rough stone. It was quiet and subtle, but it was consistent. Drag, drag, stop. Drag, drag, stop. It was making its way closer to the little group. It was behind him in the dark bowels of the cave. He coiled, ready to spring.
“You are Mal’Ak?” The whispered question hissed from the black, carried by a strange echoed harmonic. He turned toward the voice.
“Some would say so,” he answered.
“Show us,” the voices pleaded.
Eli looked at his companions. Joseph nodded, Keezie bit her lip, and Ammonih stared at him intently.
“The Sisters,” the Nvnehi warrior offered.
Eli nodded, and relaxed slightly. He reached inside his breastplate and pulled the tarnished silver medallion from its hiding place. The gnarled tree was pleasantly warm in his hand.
The sisters crept into the light.
They carefully bent to inspect the medallion. Their long, forked tongues tasted the air and aura of the thing. Their eyes reading every twist and turn of the tree and circle that ringed it.
Satisfied, they raised themselves and twined nervously around each other, their bodies curling in ways that humans could not.
“We are Velvia,” the coral sister bowed, “and Lethia.” The other lowered herself slightly. “You must come with us, Mal’Ak. We have something we must give you,” they hissed in their strange harmonic unison.
“We don’t have time.” The urgency was building to critical mass. Eli was angry and worried and a little scared. He felt as if he had a limited amount of time and too much to do. It also worried him that there were things with enough power to put him down. It went against everything he knew. Then again, what did he really know? He had mostly been taught about his calling and his power by people who had never seen his kind and only knew of stories. The Nvnehi were different, but their knowledge was limited to what his ancestors told them. Helam once told Eli that his father had hinted that the Mal’Ak never shared the true measure of his power with anyone but his immediate heir. That left him without critical knowledge, and it sucked.
Shackles of Light (The Mal'Ak Cycle Book 2) Page 4
