Storm of Locusts

Chapter 14

There are many times I’ve faced down monsters in my life. Frightening creatures that made my blood run cold. But there is something about insects, the mindlessness of the horde, that is particularly terrifying.

Ben screams, Clive curses, and I move.

Honágháahnii wakes. Time slows to the pulse of an insect’s wings, the sustained scream of a young girl, and between one beat and the next, my hand finds the throwing knife tucked in my moccasin. I release the blade, an impossible throw, that splits the giant locust in half. It breaks. Falls.

And then Clive’s wrenching the door open, and the roof is collapsing under the weight of the insects, and we’re running. Stumbling into hell.

The darkness is alive, clutching at our clothes, our hair, our skin. A million tiny claws, grasping, hungry. Honágháahnii shows me each creature clearly, a tiny individual nightmare, There’s so many that there’s nothing I can do but hold back the fear, keep moving, and try to shield Ben.

Ben stumbles. Trips on the stairs of the porch and goes down. I grab for her, yank her up by her shirt, but she slips from my grasp. The swarm seems to solidify around her, a blanket of unnatural blackness. I do the only thing I can think to do.

I draw Neizghání’s sword.

I lift it high, like I’ve seen him do a hundred times. And . . . nothing. The sword stays as it is, black obsidian on black wood, no fire. No lightning.

Shit.

But even without the lightning, it’s a powerful weapon, like a sharp-edged club.

I swing it. Cleave through the swarm. Again and again, until I can get to Ben. She’s struggling on hands and knees to crawl up the stairs. I reach down with my free arm and grasp Ben around the waist. Heave her up and throw her forward up the stairs. She stumbles to her feet, and then Clive is there, pulling her through the open door.

I jump the remaining stairs in a single leap, swing the sword one last time to clear my path, and tumble backward through the door. Clive slams it shut, and I hear the heavy smack of bugs against the wood.

Hands are on me, Rissa and Grace, knocking locusts from my clothes and hair. I hold my arms out, careful with the sword, as Grace whacks me with a long-handled broom.

“You’re clear,” Rissa says. I nod thankfully and hobble to the familiar chair by the sofa.

Ben’s sitting on the floor, sniffling quietly but generally holding it together. Maybe not holding it together well, but I can’t blame her. I’m not sure how well I’m holding it together and I’m used to the monsters.

Rissa and Clive are pushing furniture against the door to help it hold. And Grace . . . Oh, Grace. Rissa was right. Her mom looks frail, a bad tiding away from broken. But she’s got a pair of heavy black combat boots on, and she’s sweeping the bugs into piles and stomping them like she’s crushing grapes for harvest.

“It won’t hold,” I tell the twins, breathless. “The door. There’s too many, and they’re not natural.”

Rissa looks up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this swarm is not natural.” I catch my breath a little before I continue. “I don’t believe it.”

“There’s been locust swarms in the past. Famous ones, that last days and cover a hundred miles. There’s no reason to think this isn’t one of those. I mean, they’re destructive, but they’ll pass. We just have to wait—”

“It looked right at us.”

Grace stops her stomping to stare at me. “What?”

“The giant locust inside the bar,” I say, sheathing the sword. A little tricky the first time, but I manage. “Before I killed it. It looked right at me.”

“It’s a bug. Be serious.”

“It—it did.” Ben sniffles, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She rocks slightly to comfort herself. “I felt it too. Like a presence. It was. . . . smart. It knew we were there.”

Rissa looks grim. “What are you saying?”

“That this door isn’t going to hold. That they know we’re here and it’s only a matter of time. They’ll find another way in. There’s no waiting them out because they’re not going away.”

“So we fight our way out,” Rissa says.

“To where?” I ask. “You said it yourself. This swarm could be a hundred miles wide.”

“The tunnels,” Grace says.

We all turn to Grace. She may look feeble, but her eyes are sharp and her mouth is set in a determined line.

“Mom?” Clive asks.

Grace drops her broom and heads for the back bedrooms. Clive helps Ben to her feet, and we all hustle after her, the steady beat of insects striking the side of the trailer all around us.

“Help me move the bed, son,” Grace says once we’re in her bedroom. Dutifully, Clive pushes the mattress to the side. Rissa and I move to the other side to pull, and soon the floorboards are exposed. Sure enough, there’s a trapdoor there, square and big enough to fit a person through. The lock is rusted shut, like it hasn’t been used in years.

Grace goes to the dresser next to the bed and opens the top drawer. Pulls out a small key, the kind that would fit into a padlock like the one on the trapdoor. “Open it,” Grace says, handing the key to Clive. He bends to fit the key in the lock. It takes a little muscle, but he gets the lock to turn. He slips the bolt off, and the door swings inward. Stale air wafts out, rich with the smell of dirt and age.

“Where does this go?” I ask.

“It’s an old smuggling tunnel,” Grace explains. “Used to use it to move bootleg booze and the occasional human when the Wall first went up. This is checkerboard land—Navajo police got no jurisdiction at the All-American—but there’s plenty of jurisdiction between here and the Wall. So we needed a better way.”

“Are you saying this tunnel goes all the way to the Wall?”

The older woman lifts a shoulder. “Used to. Now, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s caved in.”

Rissa says, “The Wall’s twenty miles east of here. We’re not crawling underground in the dark for twenty miles.”

“And it’s the wrong direction,” I say. “Caleb and Kai’s trail goes west toward Tse Bonito.”

“We’re not crawling,” Grace says. “The tunnel also goes right out to the garage, where there’s some perfectly fine motorbikes that can certainly outrun a bunch of damn bugs.”

Clive grins. He picks his mom up and twirls her around, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Put me down,” she complains, slapping his hands away. “Good Lord. You’re going to break something.”

Rissa laughs. “You’re full of secrets, Mom.”

She sighs as her son sets her gently on her feet. “A woman’s got to keep secrets. Else who is she?”

“You can’t come back here, you know,” I say. “At least for a while.”

The Goodacres look at me like I spoiled the party. I look pointedly at the walls, the ceiling, where we can still hear the constant noise of locusts.

“Grace, you can go to my house in Crystal. Tah’s there, and it’s safe enough. Thirsty Boys can help you out if there’s trouble. And the rest of us will stick to the plan. We go after Kai. And Caleb. The locusts will follow us.”

No one says anything. Rissa still looks dubious, like maybe I’m a little crazy. Like I haven’t been fighting supernatural creatures since I was fifteen.

“You think this is a coincidence?” I hiss, my voice angry. “You think some guy calling himself the White Locust just shows up, steals your son away, and then coincidently, a monster swarm of killer locusts shows up and tries to break your door down?”

“What?” Rissa and Clive say at once.

“How the hell do you know that?” Rissa asks.

“Who is the White Locust?” her brother asks at the same time.

Grace is staring at me hard, part like it’s the first sign of hope she’s had in days and part like I was keeping secrets and she’s pissed. “You better explain, Maggie.”

“There’s not really time,” I say.

“We’ll make time,” Rissa says through gritted teeth.

Grace motions her daughter to silence. “Just tell us the basics, Maggie. We have time.”

I want to argue. The locust swarm has become a black mass pressing against the windows, and that tells me different. But Grace asked, and she deserves an answer. “Hastiin and the Boys were hired to find this guy, the White Locust. It was one of his followers who killed Hastiin.”

“Hastiin’s dead?” Grace asks, surprised.

Ben whimpers somewhere behind me.

I nod, grim.

Grace makes a little motion, touching her head and her chest. “Then what, Maggie?” she says, voice subdued.

“Then I saw the videotape, the one from the guardhouse, and I think I recognized the woman on the tape. I think she’s the same woman who killed Hastiin. She has a clan power or something similar that gives her the ability to sing this song. . . .”

I can tell Grace isn’t following.

“Anyway, I’m sure it’s the same people. The ones who killed Hastiin and the ones who took Kai and Caleb. And they all tie back to the White Locust.”

“You still haven’t told us who he is,” Clive says.

“He’s a cult leader,” Ben volunteers. “Believes in the end of the world, cleansing Dinétah of its sins or something like that.”

“What does he want with Caleb, then?” Clive asks.

“Maybe nothing,” I admit. “Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You mean he came for Kai and Caleb was in the way.”

“So it is Kai’s fault,” Rissa says, jaw clenched.

“You don’t think Caleb’s dead, do you, Maggie?” Grace asks.

“I don’t. You know Kai, Grace. He wouldn’t let Caleb die. He’s a healer. He . . . wouldn’t.”

“Unless he’s the one who hurt Caleb to begin with,” Rissa says, “because your theory about a cult leader is great, but there’s only your word for it. And it doesn’t explain the bloodstains. Or what he said on that tape.”

Rissa knows. She knows what Kai said to me. And in her mind, he left because he did something terrible, something unforgiveable, like kill Caleb. She believes it was his good-bye, and while I don’t believe he would hurt Caleb, it’s hard to argue with the rest.

“No,” Grace says, voice firm. “Maggie’s right. I know Kai. He’s a good young man. He wouldn’t hurt Caleb, and if Caleb was hurt by this White Locust man, Kai would heal him. I know that.”

“How can you know that, Mom?” Rissa asks.

“Because he did the same for you.”

Mother and daughter lock eyes for a moment. The room is quiet except for the growing song of the locusts outside. We all hold our breath.

And then the sound of shattering glass fills the room as the bedroom window breaks.

Chaos, as we scramble for the trapdoor and the tunnel to safety.

Rissa drops first, gun drawn, no hesitation. Clive helps his mom follow, and then Ben.

Clive shouts, “Maggie, you go fi . . .” His voice dies as he looks back at me over his shoulder. His face pales, the expression draining away in fear. Whatever he sees behind me is not good. “Maggie . . . ?” he whispers, his voice soft with terror.

I draw Neizghání’s sword.

“Go!” I shout.

Without a word, Clive drops through the trapdoor.

I can feel it now, whatever horror Clive saw. It’s behind me, reaching for me.

I turn and swing.

And strike a man.

I almost pull up short, I’m so shocked. But I’m moving too fast and he’s too close, so I cleave him in half. Locusts splatter and break, the rotten-pork smell of their guts filling the bedroom.

And the man re-forms, his body a mass of locusts. Crawling over one another, singing their strange shrill song. He smiles, dripping locusts from his mouth, a black carapace for a tongue.

I strike again. He re-forms.

I take his head off, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as the blade is clear, he re-forms.

This time, when his head re-forms, his mouth opens. His voice is the buzz of a thousand winged creatures, the song of nightmares long buried underground, the cry of a million hungry mouths. And he says one word:

“Godslayer.”

Horror shudders through my body. The same word the archer called me after Ben’s wild accusation.

I run.

Honágháahnii has me diving for the tunnel entrance headfirst. I hit something fleshy that grunts. Clive. He puts me on my feet and slams the trapdoor closed. Slides the bolt closed. But it won’t hold long. Already locusts are trying to get in around the thin edges at the seams. Once enough are through to make a man again, I have no doubt they will.

I get to my feet, and we both sprint, sightless, through the earth. Cobwebs cling to my face, something skitters down my cheek. I slap at it, too terrified to scream. The tunnel seems to go on for miles, hours, even though logic tells me that the garage is only a few dozen yards away. But logic has no claim here, and when Clive and I finally spot hazy daylight, we stagger toward it like it’s our last hope in the world.

There’s a rope ladder, and I drag myself up it. Ben sticks a hand out and helps me up the last rungs. Clive is next. And we slam that door shut too.

“Where’s Rissa?” I pant, my heart still hammering in my chest. “And Grace?”

“Already gone,” Ben says. “They went out the back way, headed for Crystal, like you said.”

“Already?” Clive asks, incredulous.

“I thought that was your plan,” Ben says, looking back and forth between us, worried.

“It was,” Clive says. “Until we saw that . . . thing.”

“What thing?” Ben didn’t see the locust man.

“No time,” I say, moving toward the closest bike. “We go. We’ll worry about meeting up with Rissa later.”

Clive doesn’t argue. Just gets on the bike. Ben slides on behind him. I climb onto the other bike, where my pack and shotgun are still tied to the rack, secure my goggles, and adjust the cloth over my nose and mouth.

“Here,” Clive says, handing me a small metal device, curved to fit the shape of my ear.

“What is this?”

“Sort of like a walkie-talkie. A short-range communication link. I call it a commlink. Not the most original name, but as long as it works, right? This way we can talk to each other on the bikes.”

I tuck it over my ear, the round center clicking into place. A thin wire hangs loose against my neck.

“Tap it to turn it on. Tap it again to turn it off.”

“Did you build this?”

“Try it,” he says.

I tap the commlink. “Can you hear me?” he asks, clear as if he were standing next to me.

I nod, then remember to talk. “I can hear you.”

He gives one to Ben, who slips hers on and taps the device. “Hello!” she shouts.

I wince. “Okay, so we know they work. Let’s go, and remember: Whatever you see—and I mean whatever—do not stop. Understood?”

“I know.” Clive kicks the bike alive. “Where are we going?”

“Tse Bonito for now. And then”—I look over at Ben and pat the bloody bandanna in my pocket—“we’ll find a way.”

We skip opening the garage bay, opting to sneak out the back door single file. The swarm is still hovering around the trailer and the bar, which look as though a black blanket has been thrown over the structures themselves. I know it won’t be long before the swarm figures out where we went and follows. We’re buying hours, not days.

“Fire,” Clive mutters over the communication link.

“What?” I speed up as we come off the dirt path and hit the paved freeway. He accelerates to stay close, Ben huddled low against his back.

“Just like the tsé nayéé’, we can burn those locusts with fire.”

“I don’t think so. There’s thousands, maybe millions, and they’re smart enough to avoid it. Plus, your mom won’t appreciate it if we burn her house down. We’ll think of a better way.”

“What if we don’t?”

I have no idea what to say to that, so I don’t say anything at all.