Trail of Lightning

Chapter 28

The first thing that hits me is the noise. Dance music thumps in my ears, the heavy bass drum sending vibrations through the soles of my feet. My hand strays nervously to the Böker. If someone wants to sneak up on us in here, I’ll never hear them coming.

We stand at the top of a long expansive stairway that stretches down at least two dozen wide stone steps before disappearing into a hazy underworld. Lights pulse through the clouds of fog below—pink, violet, burgundy, and purple.

“You have got to be kidding me. A dance club in the middle of the freakin’ reservation?”

“What?” Kai shouts.

I shake my head. When I saw the sign outside that read DANCE HALL, I pictured something more like Grace’s All-American. Two-stepping to Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn. This place is not that. The dissonance is overwhelming.

“ID?” someone to my right asks.

I turn, hand on the hilt of my knife, before I realize I’m being carded. A young man sits on a lone barstool, staring at me expectantly. He’s Diné, fairly nondescript in his sagging pants and oversize canvas jacket, except for one thing. His ears. He’s wearing some kind of prosthetic over his ears that makes them curve gracefully up to rise past his hairline and meet in a fine point.

I tear my eyes away from his ears long enough to notice he’s holding a clipboard. “Do we have to be on some kind of list to get in?”

Kai nudges me. “Introduce yourself,” he whisper-shouts in my ear.

“What?”

“Navajo way. Tell him your clans, just the first two is enough. That’s how you get in.”

I do what he says. “I am called Magdalena Hoskie. I am of the Living Arrow clan. I was born for the Walks-Around clan. In this way am I Diné.”

The big-eared kid makes a notation on his clipboard and then grunts, satisfied, and turns to Kai. He rattles off his introduction, bending in low so I can’t quite hear. The doorkeeper dutifully writes Kai’s clans down too, then motions us down the stairs.

I stay where I am. “We’re looking for someone named Mósí. Do you know her?”

The doorman jumps like he’s not used to being addressed directly. Stares at me stupidly.

“She’s expecting us,” I say. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s worth a shot.

Now he’s really looking confused. He licks his lips, and his eyes stray to my weapons. “No one gets to see Mósí tonight,” he says, his voice a high nervous squeak. “That’s orders.”

“It’s important,” I insist.

“No one,” he shrills, eyes scurrying between Kai and me before he latches onto Kai, begging. “Even the high rollers!”

Kai’s been quiet, watching us, but now he touches my arm. “Come on, Maggie,” he says. “He can’t help us.”

“But he knows—” I start. And I’m talking to air because Kai’s halfway down the stairs. I hurry after him. “Why didn’t you let me push that guy a little? I could have gotten him to let us in to see Mósí.”

He throws a quick glance over his shoulder, and then his mouth is next to my ear and he whispers, barely making a sound. “The guy at the door? Jaa’yaalóolii Dine’é—Sticking-Up-Ears People.”

“His clan? Is that why he’s wearing the ear things?” I gesture to my own ears.

“He’s not wearing anything. Those are his ears. They also have excellent hearing,” he continues, “and rumor is, they can tell the difference between lies and the truth. Assume somebody is listening to everything we say from here on out. I know they’re definitely watching us. If Coyote’s associate is expecting us, she’ll know we are here. Trust me.”

I look back over my shoulder. The stairs behind us are empty except for the Jaa’yaalóolii Dine’é doorman. And he’s staring right back at me, eyes cold and calculating, all of his earlier timidity vanished like it never was. Shivers ripple down my spine and my instincts whisper threat. I was expecting the Shalimar to be strange. I wasn’t quite expecting it to be full of monsters.

I turn back to Kai, lean in close to talk. “So this medicine on my eyes cuts through illusions?” I ask.

“Yes. Normal ears are the illusion.”

“The monsters hiding in plain sight,” I murmur. And here we are, walking right into their den.

We reach the bottom of the stairs. I squint into the darkness before us, the colored lights offering only a hazy illumination of the depths beyond. The music still thumps deafeningly. My stomach roils. Suddenly, going in there feels like the wrong thing to do. I stop Kai, hand on his arm.

“What are we walking into, Kai?”

Kai doesn’t respond, already absorbed by something in the darkness I can’t see.

“Kai.”

He comes back to me. Blinks slowly a few times. “Just remember to keep an open mind. And don’t be surprised if you see some strange stuff. It’s going to get weird.”

“Weird” doesn’t quite do the Shalimar justice.

Logic tells me we are underground. I know we came through the doors, walked down the steps. We have to be at least twenty or thirty feet below ground. But the ceiling of the Shalimar stretches far into the dark of a starry desert sky at least a hundred feet above my head. The logic-defying ceiling should make the place feel expansive, but instead it feels claustrophobic, and I can’t shake the knowledge that we are deep below the surface.

We’re in a long warehouse-like room that stretches for probably a hundred yards into the distance. I can’t see clearly where it ends, just a hazy suggestion of a far wall. The space isn’t nearly as wide as it is long. The whole place is maybe half as long across, and the walls are painted to resemble the courtyard of the motor inn from upstairs, circa 1950. But it’s all two-dimensional, like the cutouts of a Hollywood set—there’s a fake lime-colored motel room complete with fake door that doesn’t actually open, and next to it an equally fake diner interior with red vinyl barstools and neon jukebox, with paintings of smiling girls in bouffants and poodle cuts on the walls. All flat and strangely disconcerting. Long tables, the white plastic kind my nalí used to buy at Walmart, are set up around the perimeter of the club, and stationed behind every third or fourth one is a bartender doing a brisk business in agave tequila and cactus beer. In between the bar stations, merchants have set up tables filled with various goods and are shouting over the ever-present thumping bass music, hawking their wares with enthusiasm. I see everything for sale. Old dissected electronics, their guts spread across the tables in wires and motherboards. Piles of clothing, much of it looking like it’s used or handmade. There’s a table of weapons, most of them knives or things sharpened to act like knives, but I also see a locked case against the wall that holds firearms. They’re arrayed on a glass shelf and next to them are magazines of ammunition. Just to the right of the weapons dealer is a young woman selling cedar bundles and leaf-wrapped tobacco, and farther down from there I see a kid offering dented cans of Campbell’s soup and pinto beans, stacked high in pyramids, behind a hand-scrawled sign that says ALL TRADES WELCOME.

But it’s not the black-market shopping or the physics-defying dimensions and otherworldly atmosphere that makes me glad my guns are within reach. It’s the customers.

With Kai’s medicine on my eyes, the children of Dinétah, stripped of all illusions, become the stuff of dreams. Or nightmares.

Many of the clans I recognize. Ats’oos Dine’é, the Feather People, are easy to spot, their feathered bodies covered in the grays, browns, and whites of hawks. Others have more elaborate plumage, showing reds and yellows and blues. All have a third eyelid that moves horizontally across staring eyes. By the bar sit two Big Deer People, huge three-point antlers rising from their heads. They wear wide buckskin skirts and their feet peek out from underneath, dainty black hooves. A man wearing a patchwork fur coat and rummaging through a pile of random car parts can only be Rabbit clan, the ears and oversize teeth unmistakable.

A couple cross in front of us, drinks in hand. They’re robed in elaborate costumes, the woman sheathed in a pale pink dress covered in rhinestones and towering stiletto heels. The man has on a white zoot suit like something out of an old gangster film. Where they could have found such clothes, I have no idea, but considering the clothes Clive came up with for Kai and me, I shouldn’t be surprised. But it’s not what they are wearing that has me gawking. Both the man and woman are skeleton gaunt, their skin stretched too tight over bones, cheekbones jutting forward obscenely. Their hair is lank, their bodies so thin their fancy clothes hang off their withered frames.

“Dichin Dine’é,” Kai says when he sees me staring. “Hunger People.”

Kai guides me toward a long kidney-shaped bar. A few patrons, mostly women but a few men, too, stare as he passes. I can see their eyes taking in his handsome face and assessing the wealth in jewelry he’s wearing. He doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he ignores it well. I move a little closer to him, rest my hand on the hilt of my knife until the avaricious eyes catch me watching and turn away.

I lean into Kai. The music has actually lessened a little, and we can speak at a normal volume, but I’m wary of the Sticking-Up-Ears spies in our midst, so I keep it to a whisper. “Do I seem different to you?”

“Hmm?”

“With that medicine on your eyes. Am I—?” I stop. I know I should be focused on finding Mósí, but I need to know. I need to know if stripped of illusion, Kai can see the real me. And if he can, is it monstrous? Is the evil there, like the taint Neizghání warned me about?

But I can’t quite bring myself to ask it, sure that I already know the truth.

Kai catches the bartender’s attention and signals for a drink, then looks at me expectantly. I shake my head. Kai drops one of the half-dozen bronze rings he’s wearing on his pinkie finger on the bar as trade and then turns to hand me a long thin glass of tequila. I open my mouth to protest when he whispers, “You don’t have to drink it. Just pretend like you are, and try to relax. You look like you’re about to shoot someone.” He says it all through a smile as he sips from his glass, scanning the crowd.

I realize he’s not oblivious to the stares he’s getting at all. He’s on alert, just like I am. The thought relaxes me a little and I take the glass, pretend to take a sip. The raw fumes get in my nose and I gag. Tequila has never been my drink.

“You want to know how you look?” he asks me.

My heart speeds up. He did hear me when I asked. I nod. Hold my breath.

“Like a monsterslayer.” He gives a little salute with his glass and downs the tequila in a shot.

I frown. “What does that mean?”

He signals the bartender for another drink. Gets it and immediately slams the tequila in one swallow. Wipes at his mouth and says, “What do you think it means?”

“Are you saying I don’t look any different?”

“Do I?” He tilts his head, gives me a twisted kind of smile. I’m not sure, but I think he’s drunk, or at least on his way.

“Do you think that much tequila is a good idea right now?”

“Absolutely not,” he admits as he motions to the bartender for another.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Dying,” he mutters, so low I’m not sure I heard him right.

“You’re what?”

He turns abruptly, eyes bright and focused on me. “You didn’t answer my question, Mags.”

“What question?” In my irritation, I’ve already forgotten what he asked me.

“Do I look any different?” he says again. He holds his arms out, on display.

I won’t admit it to him, but he looks better. His skin seems to glow bronze and his eyes have turned an otherworldly silver, hard to look at. The curve of his jaw is stronger, more elegant, and he radiates a kind of charisma, an impossible attraction, beyond even what he had before. It’s almost preternatural. No, not almost. It is.

“You look the same to me,” I lie.

He nods, earrings flashing, like he knows exactly what I’m seeing and what I’m thinking and that I’m not telling the truth. He drops his empty glass on the bar. “See, Monsterslayer? We’re all liars.”

I have no idea what to say to that. “What’s going on, Kai?” I ask. “What’s gotten into you?”

He shakes his head, almost sad. “Let’s just find this Mósí and get out of here,” he says, a shiver rattling his whole body. “This place is messing with my head.”

I don’t disagree with that.

He straightens. “I’m going to go explore a bit. See what I can find out.”

“We should stick together,” I protest, thinking of those greedy eyes on him.

“No. There’s . . . It would be better if I go alone.” He laughs, and I catch a burst of liquor on his breath. “No one’s going to talk to me with you stalking around like you’re going to stick a knife in them. Let me go alone. I’ll be back.”

“I don’t think—”

“I can take care of myself, remember?”

I’m not happy about it, but I let it go. He’s a grown man and I’m not going to argue with him.

“Fine,” I agree. He leans in, his lips brushing my cheek. I tense as the conflicting mix of cedar and alcohol floods my nose.

“To your left,” he murmurs, hot breath on my ear before he steps away. He doesn’t look back and soon he’s lost in the crowd, as much as someone like him can be. I wait a few seconds before looking to my left. I spot what he wanted me to see immediately. Football-player proportions with a shock of red hair. What is he doing here?

Hovering at the edge of the crowd, with a somewhat sheepish grin, is Clive. He’s wearing a Western-style suit and bolo tie, the suit cut too tight for his big frame and solid muscle, and in an unflattering shade of brown. But it kind of works in a Rambo meets Howdy Doody kind of way.

“I kind of expected better,” I tease as I walk up, gesturing at his outfit, “considering what you whipped up for me.”

He shrugs and straightens his bolo. “I can’t find much in my size besides fatigues.”

“I’d be happy to trade up. I bet you’d look great in a halter top.” I ask the obvious question. “What are you doing here? You come to check on my hair?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. Although . . .” He licks a finger and reaches forward, as if to touch my face. I rear back, hand going for my knife.

Color drains from his cheeks. “I was just going to wipe that silver stuff off your eyes. It’s a little too disco, even for me.”

I flush, embarrassed, and drop my hand. “Sorry,” I say, rubbing my bare arms. “Didn’t mean anything. I don’t like to be touched,” I offer weakly.

“S’okay,” he says. “I thought for sure I was going to lose a kidney sooner than this for giving you bangs.”

I frown. “Ha ha.”

“I respect your skills, but you got a rep, girl,” he says as he leans his back against the bar and takes a sip of his beer. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“As a psychopath?”

“That’s a little strong. Let’s go with violent and antisocial.” Clive’s smiling when he says it, but it still stings.

“Like that’s a surprise,” he says at the look on my face. His eyes move across the crowd. “So someone had to touch you long enough to put that on your eyes. Who was the lucky soul?”

“Who do you think?” I don’t tell him it’s not for show, but instead serves a more practical purpose. Kai wanted to hide the medicine from Coyote. Maybe Clive doesn’t need to know either.

“Where is that gorgeous man of yours anyway?” Clive asks, still scanning the room.

“Not sure,” I admit. “He took off without me. Said he had something he had to do.”

He blinks long ginger lashes. “That doesn’t sound good.”

I shrug. “He’s a grown man.”

“Yes he is,” Clive says, voice appreciative. He laughs when he sees my look of surprise. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to steal your man. But just for the record, you do know he danced with me last night.”

“You danced with Kai?”

“More than once. And he’s not bad. Although, I still can’t believe he’s a medicine man.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, shouldn’t there be a rule against medicine men being that damn sexy?”

I agree, but say, “If it’s any consolation, he hasn’t finished his training.”

“You saw the same thing I did in Rock Springs,” he says, suddenly serious, all the joking familiarity of a moment ago gone. He takes a sip of beer before he continues. “Anyway, any luck finding this clue the Coyote told you about?”

“Not yet,” I admit, happy to change the subject.

“Anything I can do to help?”

I narrow my eyes, suddenly suspicious. “You never did tell me why you were here, Clive.”

“Oh, some clients at the All-American said there was going to be a fight here tonight. Some kind of epic grudge match. I thought it might be worth checking out. And since you guys were here anyway, I thought I could help out.”

“The Shalimar hosts fights?”

“Every once in a while. It’s usually a pretty good show.”

I look around the room, but I can’t imagine where a fighting arena might be hiding. Through one of the flat two-dimensional doors, down a rabbit hole with no bottom, through a wardrobe. “What is this place?”

“Good question,” Clive says. “Nobody really knows. It appears and disappears on its own schedule. Sometimes it’s here, other times . . .” He makes an exploding gesture with one hand. “Guess that’s what happens when your establishment is run by a cat.”

“Does Kai know? About the fights, I mean.”

“No idea. But you can ask him.” He throws a nod toward the crowd and I see Kai headed back our way.

“I found out the Shalimar is hosting a fight night tonight,” Kai says. He seems normal enough again, no signs of inebriation. I hadn’t thought about it before, but his healing powers must counter the effects of the alcohol. Whatever Kai’s trying to drown doesn’t stay drowned for long. “Tournament fights to begin with,” he says, “but there’s a mystery billing on the last fight. Rumors of a legendary grudge match.”

“Heard the same,” Clive agrees. “Lots of money to be won if you can make book.”

The fights are interesting, but gambling doesn’t appeal to me. That’s more Ma’ii’s domain, with its impossible odds and the potential for double-crossing. And then I remember what the doorman said about high rollers. “Clive, is there a resident bookmaker here? Someone who runs all the bets? Hosts the fights?”

“Yeah,” he confirms.

“Would her name be Mósí?”

“That cat I was talking about. Yeah.” He narrows his hazel eyes. “I thought you said you’d never been here before.”

“It’s got to be her,” I say.

“What are you thinking, Mags?” Kai asks, wary.

“I’m good in a fight,” I say. And it’s true. I don’t have any fancy martial arts skills, but Neizghání didn’t neglect my hand-to-hand, either. My technique is more down and dirty—strike fast, hit hard, and get out. Add my fighting skills to my clan powers and I have no doubt I can hold my own for a few rounds. That should be enough to get the attention of the Shalimar’s resident bookmaker.

Kai massages the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “If you do sign up to fight, do you think it will really get us closer to her?”

“We aren’t even getting into the arena otherwise,” Clive says. “Guy at the door said the fights are sold out. Participants and support team only, from what I hear.”

“I’m going to do it,” I say. “We need that fire drill and if I have to beat the crap out of a few thicknecks to do it, so be it.”

Kai stares at me a long minute before he speaks. “You don’t have to fight,” he says, holding up three slips of paper in his hand.

“What’s that?”

“Our way in.”

I take the tickets from him. “Where did you get these?”

“How did you get those?” Clive asks, taking the tickets from me. “Jesus, these are front-row seats.”

Kai shakes his head. “Do you want to go or not?”

I give the boys a grin. “Hell yes.”