Storm of Locusts

Chapter 37

I wait until the sounds of the party have died and the bright golden lights have all gone out to hunt Gideon down. I go back the way I came. Circle around the pool, hop the gate, and make my way past all the little rooms. I don’t stop at Kai’s. Not because I don’t want to. I do. More than anything. But I know that if I want Kai back for good, I have to deal with Gideon first.

Amangiri’s private residence is a mansion at the top of a small mesa. The darkness is thicker here, away from the main compound’s lights. The once colorful mountains of Canyon Point are rendered into hulking shadows. I scramble up the white rocks, my feet fighting for purchase in the shifting sand. The spill of pebbles under my feet sound like the echoing patter of rain.

Again, there are no guards here, and I wonder if Gideon is trusting, arrogant, or if there’s something else about the man that I’m missing entirely. It’s not a good feeling, and I pat my weapons again, making sure everything I need is with me.

There’s a wall around the mansion. A solid adobe, ten feet at best. I take a few steps and come at it running. Launch myself forward, reaching up hands up to grab the top and haul myself up. And marvel at what lies beyond the wall.

It’s not the house. It’s beautiful in the stark way I’ve come to understand Amangiri. A two-story block of concrete in the same style as the rest of the compound, shuttered windows showing no light at the balconies in the back. What stops me in my tracks are the gardens surrounding the house. Sculpture gardens, full of strange metal-wire statues. Some are beautiful, a ten-foot tall angel with delicate feather-like wings that trail to the ground. Some are hideous, hunched monsters with pointed, razor-wire claws. The monsters devour human figures that scream, openmouthed, as they are consumed. And everywhere, metal insects. Locusts mostly. But all kinds of flying insects—bees, dragonflies, wide, flat-backed winged beetles. In another place, under different circumstances, the statues might be beautiful, but here in the shadowy darkness, knowing what I know about their maker, they are grotesque.

I drop off the top of the concrete wall into the sculpture garden. Move silently through to the residence and head for the back of the house that, just like the hotel, is a wall of sliding glass doors. The first one I try is unlocked. I draw my gun and step across the threshold.

I’m in a living room. Modern, clean, but as soulless as the rest of the Amangiri. Low lighting reveals a fireplace big enough to stand in, now cold and banked. White couches and low, armless sitting chairs. A coffee table centered over a white carpet. And more metal statues. Some of these I recognize as images of the Diyin Dine’é, copies of things I’ve seen on sand paintings or at ceremonial. Although I don’t know why Gideon would sculpt statues of the Holy People for his living room.

“Come out, come out, Gideon,” I whisper in a singsong. “Time we had a talk.”

The room seems to swallow my voice, and it doesn’t echo back to me. Just disappears in the stillness.

I leave the living room and round the corner into a dining room. Metal and wood chairs line a table long enough to sit ten people, but only two places are set. An open bottle of deep mahogany-colored whiskey sits between them, a note perched against the base, written in a flourishing script. I pick up the note and read it: I was hoping you would come. Join me for a drink. I’ll be only a minute.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter.

“I assure you I am not.”

The same attractive middle-aged man from the party moves into the light. He’s holding a silver serving tray. The elaborate curlicues decorating the handles gleam like treasure in the soft light emanating from the room behind him, which must be the kitchen. And on the tray, what looks like, of all things, a pie. Apple, I think, although I can’t remember the last time I had an apple, never mind a whole pie of them. The impossibly rare smell of cinnamon and sugar waft from the dish, and despite the completely surreal moment, my mouth waters.

Gideon smiles, showing even white teeth. A movie star’s smile. Or a charlatan’s. “You are Maggie Hoskie, correct? I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if the messengers I left behind would be enough to pique your interest, but I am certainly glad they did.” He lifts the tray. Breathes in the aroma of the pie. “I made this for you. And the whiskey, of course. Kai told me it was your favorite. He told me a lot of things about you. I hope you don’t mind. Because, frankly, it just makes me that much more excited to meet you. It’s not every day one gets to meet a godslayer.”

Is he trying to flatter me? “Nice speech,” I say, bringing the Glock up to eye level, “but I’ve got a gun.”

“Ah, now,” he says, his grin shifting to disarming, “you wouldn’t shoot a man who baked you a pie, would you?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you, Gideon?” I growl, as K’aahanáanii rolls through my veins. “I’m the crazy one in the girl gang.”

I pull the trigger.

Time slows. The air thickens to molasses, the calling card of Honágháahnii. The silver tray slides from Gideon’s hands, the pie tilting toward the floor. Sound rolls from his mouth, thick as raw honey. It fills the room, a physical thing, and that telltale sweetness of a summer memory pours over me, trying to tug me under. I resist. Pull the trigger again. Both bullets seem to slow in the heavy air. Impossible. But it’s true, and they catch in the locust song like a drop of dew in a spiderweb, hanging suspended between us. I’ve never seen anything like it, and for a moment I gape, stunned.

Gideon’s still moving. He flicks his wrist in a downward motion. The bullets drop to the floor just as the pie explodes against the tiles. A matter of milliseconds.

He moves his hand again, and my gun flies from my grip so abruptly it takes a layer of skin with it. I stumble, start to fall. Catch myself on one knee that goes out from under me, and I slide sideways on the white tiles, skidding through the pie filling.

I draw my throwing knife. Obsidian, not silver, because I think I understand Gideon’s clan power. I release the blade, and a pain tugs at my arm. The wound from the canyon outside Knifetown. I forgot. It throws off my aim, and the blade grazes his neck instead of landing true. A line of red opens across his skin. The locust song cuts off. Everything speeds up to normal in a breath-stealing second, and Gideon roars, “Enough!”

But it’s not enough. I gather my feet beneath me and lunge forward, Böker in hand. Aiming for his chest. He gestures with his hand, knocking my knife away with crushing force. I cry out at my fingers bend and crack, my raw palm stinging.

I feel something heavy hit my chest. It knocks me back, leaves me fighting for air. Another strike, across my belly. Something sharp, and cold metal cuts into my skin. Again. Again. And I realize I’m being wrapped in chains. Around and around they circle me, like a living serpent. They pin my arms to my sides until I can’t move. Something solid shoves at the back of my legs, and Gideon dumps me unceremoniously into one of the metal dining room chairs. He glares at me, all the calm civility of moments ago torn away. His jaw clenches, and a vein in his forehead beats with the force of his anger.

“What is wrong with you?” he spits, his voice vibrating with barely contained rage. “I offered you food and drink. You don’t try to kill someone who offers you hospitality!”

I’m panting, some of the blowback of using my clan powers catching up with me. It takes me a moment to answer. “That’s not hospitality. That’s bait.”

The pulse in his forehead grows more pronounced. “I am not—” He stops. He’s winded too, no doubt from using his powers. He takes a deep breath and starts again. “I am not your enemy.”

“You kidnapped Kai!”

His smile is pained, strain showing around his eyes. “Does Kai look kidnapped to you? He is here by his own volition, I assure you. Whatever lies he told you tonight at the party are exactly that. He was trying to protect you from me, which is admirable but unnecessary.”

“I won’t leave here without him!”

“My dear,” he says, somewhere between bemused and exasperated, “I don’t want you to leave at all.”

Gideon moves around the remains of the pie on the floor and settles himself in the chair across from me. Touches his fingers briefly to the scratch on his neck and looks at the blood in disgust. He opens the whiskey bottle and pours himself a glass. Holds it to his nose and inhales. And then sets the glass down again, untouched. He folds one hand around the tumbler and rests the other on the table. Steadies himself before he starts talking again.

“I don’t want you, or Kai, to leave because I am afraid I need you both.” He rattles his glass, sending the whiskey sloshing around inside. He studies me, intelligent eyes moving over my face. “I can certainly see what he likes about you.”

“Can’t say the same.”

He smiles briefly at the easy insult. “Can we agree to set aside the bravado, hmm? Speak to each other openly? You see, I was hoping”—he hesitates, face lighting up again, excited—“I was hoping that you would join me. Join us.”

“Is that why you put me in chains?”

“Not my first choice.” He glances meaningfully at the pie strewn across the floor.

“I won’t help you flood Dinétah. I saw Kai’s room. The maps, the books. I know what you’re using him for.”

His face remains pleasant, but his hand tightens around the whiskey glass. “I could not have done all of this without him. I admit that. I had a vision, but Kai’s unique power showed me how to manifest that into reality. I am indebted. But to suggest that I don’t care for that young man . . .” He takes a deep breath, visibly calms himself before he continues. “Kai is precious to me, truly. But he still doesn’t quite understand the forces at play here. His vision is limited. You, however . . .” Now he grins, big and generous. “You and I are different, Godslayer.”

I scrutinize Gideon’s face. Aaron said his brother was Diné. From a distance, with the light brown hair and the light eyes, he looks bilagáana. But this close I can see it. A subtle shape of the eye, the bridge of his nose. “Clan powers?” I ask.

He lifts his eyebrows.

“The way you control the metal. The statues, the wings, my guns. It’s a clan power, isn’t it? You’re Diné on your mother’s side.” And then it occurs to me. “No, you’re Diné two ways. That locust song—that’s a clan power too.”

His surprise turns to something else. Loathing. But I’m not sure if it’s directed at me or at himself. “And why would you say that?” he asks, voice low.

“Do you know your clans?”

His nostrils flare in irritation. “I’m afraid my mother didn’t do me the honor of sticking around after I was born. As for my father, I can’t really say much about him, either.”

“I met your foster brother, Aaron.”

His whole demeanor shifts. The muscles in his face seem to harden, the line of his mouth thins to nothing, and his eyes—whatever light they had before—snuffs out. “And how is my dear brother?” he asks in a brittle voice. “Not dead yet, unless you did the honors?”

“Not dead.”

“Well, if you have met Aaron, then surely you have met Bishop and the whole viper’s den at Knifetown. You have seen it with your own eyes, what has become of humanity in this Sixth World.”

“I’ve experienced their hospitality,” I admit. “Didn’t care for it, either.”

He stares at me a minute, eyes narrow, before he barks a harsh laugh. “Hospitality,” he sneers.

“I mean, they didn’t bake me a pie or anything. But I got out in one piece.”

Something ugly crosses his face. “One piece? Are you in once piece?” He lays a heavy hand across my knee. “One need not dismember a woman to break her into pieces. I think you know that.”

A deep uneasiness radiates from his touch, and I shake him off. He doesn’t force it, instead folding his fingers around his glass. He sighs, and now the look he gives me is all sympathy.

“I don’t think you’ve been in one piece for a very long time, Maggie. But I can help you be whole again. Just like I’ve helped Kai, as I’ve helped all my dear friends. I can help you find the one thing that eludes you.”

“And that is . . . ?”

“Purpose.”

“What?”

“Purpose. Isn’t that what you need? If you are no longer Neizghání’s apprentice, who are you? Isn’t that what you’ve been asking yourself?”

“How did you know that?”

“Kai told me of your troubles. No, don’t be mad at him. He has troubles of his own, and my song is very persuasive. You are the first person that has been able to resist it. Did you know that?”

“Is that how you get your ‘Swarm’ to follow you? Promise them things that only exist in their imaginations?”

He fingers the metal insect on his bolo. “The locust has much to teach us. They are resilient creatures, dormant most of their lives. But when they rise, they rise in number and they are unstoppable. They change the world, reorder entire landscapes.”

“They are devourers.”

“Oh yes,” he admits. “But where they cleanse the earth, new life grows. They destroy to make room for the new.”

“I’m not interested in destroying anything or anyone.”

“Says the girl with the gun.”

I say nothing to that, and he takes a small sip of his whiskey. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” He lifts the glass in my direction. “It’s a rare vintage from the cellars here. Better than anything you’ve ever tasted, I assure you.”

I shake my head.

“Suit yourself.” He takes another sip before he leans forward, intent. “But answer me this, Maggie, since we’re talking. Why do the Diyin Dine’é play favorites? Do you know?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? You’ve spent most of your life around them. I was hoping you had some insight. For example, why do they build a wall to keep some men out? Why do they favor one woman over another? If all Diné are their children . . . if even I am their child, as you so kindly pointed out, and we all belong to the land, then why am I left to suffer and rot while others prosper?”

“Kai said he met you at the All-American. You’ve been inside the Wall.”

The chains around me tighten, and I gasp. “That is not what I mean.” The vein in his forehead swells again. He dips his head and takes a deep breath. “You’re certainly no philosopher,” he says dryly.

“Sorry.”

He laughs a little under his breath. “I have to admit that now that I’ve met you, I begin to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Not so much the what, but the why. Why your gods have taken an interest in you.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“You don’t know the way it works,” he hisses, his rage bubbling up again. “Or you don’t want to admit it. I have been a pawn in their games, just as you have. So please, please, don’t presume to tell me how it works.”

I want to challenge him, tell him that Dinétah is a place just like any other, with bad and good, and that the Diyin Dine’é have nothing to do with whatever offenses he’s suffered to bring him to this place. But I’m not sure I believe it. At the very least, he’s right that the Diyin Dine’é were instrumental in building the Wall. They instructed the medicine men and the lathers. And rumors have always swirled that Ma’ii or someone else had something to do with the Big Water. And he’s right about one other thing. The Diyin Dine’e certainly haven’t been shy about interfering in my life. Is it so hard to believe that even now they play favorites?

Gideon’s been watching my face, and now whatever he sees there makes him lean back, grinning.

“So, you do see the truth in my words. You feel that frustration, that unfairness inside just as I do.” He touches a hand to his chest. “And now you see my real vision. The flooding of Dinétah is only the beginning. I plan to challenge the gods themselves. And you are the perfect vessel through which to do that.” His eyes shift to the lightning sword on my back. “With the perfect weapon.”

“The Diyin Dine’e are sacred beings. More powerful than anything you can imagine. You can’t defeat them.”

“Didn’t you?” he asks. “Haven’t you, more than once? It’s remarkable what you’ve done, really. I don’t even think you appreciate it.”

“And I don’t think you appreciate how certifiable you sound.”

His mouth twists, amusement flickering back to anger just like that. He picks up his glass of whiskey and drinks it down in one swallow. Slams the delicate crystal onto the wood table so hard it fractures. He squeezes, and it shatters, sending shards flying from the table. Something strikes me above my eye, and I wince. Blood trickles through his fingers, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“No more, Godslayer,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “No more will I be a victim. I am going to do what should have been done a long time ago. I’m going to destroy Dinétah, and you are going to help me do it.”

He leaves me there, chained in the metal chair. Disappears down a hallway without another word. I try to put the pieces of information together in my head, but a headache is starting to build and I can’t focus. Something brushes my eyelashes, and I try to blink it away, my hands still chained to my sides. Drops of blood fleck the table. I must have gotten cut when he broke the whiskey glass. I lean my head back to try to keep the blood from getting in my eyes. Rattle the chains a little, checking to see how loose they are. Not loose enough to get free.

I look around the dimly lit room for something to help me. Some kind of weapon besides wasted bullets and cooling pie filling.

I brace my feet against the floor and rock the chair. It tips up on one thin leg and then swings back to the other. Again, with more force, and I’m falling to the floor. I hit the tile, my shoulder and hip taking the brunt of the impact. I feel shards of glass dig into my thigh through my leggings. I ignore it, using my weight to shift the chair closer to the spot where I can see my Böker against the wall.

My heart is pounding. I can feel the seconds ticking by, knowing Gideon could come back any moment. I wriggle awkwardly, pulling myself across the tiles, feeling the blood flowing faster from the cut on my head, glass grinding as it rolls under my hip and shreds holes in my leggings. The metal wiring cuts into my arms, pinching the skin. But I’m almost there. I almost have my knife.

I’m inches away when I hear Gideon’s footsteps. Feel him pause in the doorway, the same one I first saw him in, taking in the scene.

“Remarkable,” he says, wonder in his voice, and I think he means it. I make one last awkward attempt for my knife before he reaches with his power and drags the chair, and me, across the room. I slam into the wall of windows with a scream. The glass above me shakes and sways, rippling in its frame.

The chair settles, and I realize that not only is my head throbbing, but my vision is hazy with blood and I’m twice the distance from my weapons as I was before I started.

“This was all so unnecessary,” he says, gesturing around the room, at me in the chair. “Do you still not understand that we’re on the same side?”

He’s wearing white pants and an elaborate metal vest, layers of overlapping steel creating armor. The kitchen light surrounds him, a nimbus of gold. Giant locust wings made of flexible metal flare open, as delicate and beautiful as lace, like some sort of insectoid angel.

I spit a mouthful of blood on the ground, and the small movement makes me dizzy. I struggle to focus. “Let me go,” I say, sounding slightly drunk.

His eyes linger on the place where I’ve defiled his high-end flooring. “Neither of us is stupid, Godslayer. Once today’s business is done and Dinétah is no more, I will be back for you. We will try this conversation again. But until then, I think it’s best you sleep.” He draws a small leather book from the inside pocket of his suit. Unzips it and pulls out a needle. A memory of Knifetown shivers down my spine as he tests the plunger.

“You disapprove of Bishop, but you don’t mind his methods.”

He fills the needle, unconcerned. “His methods are humane, even if he is not.”

“Convenient morality.”

A flash of irritation crosses his features but passes quickly. He walks forward and leans in close to me. Not close enough for me to reach him, my arms chained by my sides. But close enough for him to brush my hair from my face. Study the place the glass sliced open my forehead. His breath smells of whiskey and rotted pork. I turn my head, but he grips my jaw and holds it tightly. He pushes against my face with his thumb, as if searching for something under my skin. It’s horrific, and too intimate, and I toss my head violently to shake his hand off. He lets me go, some emotion I can’t read coloring his face.

“Stay still, please,” he says, lifting the needle to my neck. “I will chain your head to the wall if I have to, but I would rather not. This is thiopental. Do you know what that is?” I flinch as the needle pierces my skin. “It will make you sleep until I can return.”

He steps back from me. Pulls his black case out and stows away the needle.

“Where are you going?” I ask, voice slurring. The drug, combined with my injuries, is too much, and my world is quickly sliding into darkness. I blink, try to force my eyes to remain open.

As he stands there, he begins to vibrate. His wings open wider. The lace-like lattice ripples, begins to shimmer and flow, and a thousand locusts drop free, plopping thickly to the floor. They mill over one another before lifting into the air. He opens his mouth, and more pour out from his throat, crawling over his cheeks, his eyes. He raises his arms, and they rise from his hands. Locust song fills the room. Thick and warm and bilious, a physical thing. Like drowning in a vat of molasses. The steel beams in the wall of glass behind me rattle in their foundations. The glass shifts under the weight of the mass of insects that have settled on the windows. Cracks in the glass split the air like the shrieks of giants. Gideon hovers feet off the floor, arms extended, and locusts swarm to him, encircling him, lifting him higher.

“I go forth to devour,” he says, and his voice is the buzz of a thousand insects speaking as one. “I go forth to remake the known world and bring the very gods to account for their atrocities. I go forth to bring a reckoning.”

The last thing I hear besides the deafening drone of locusts is the groan of the steel beams ripping apart as the glass wall behind me shatters.