Tricked (Kevin Hearne) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Chapter 6

“Okay, Coy — Mr. Benally, I mean — what the fuck just happened?”

“I should ask you the same thing, Mr. Collins!” Coyote snarled. “Who was that lady and what were those things?”

“Tell me about Frank first. Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be all right,” Coyote said, the anger in his voice modulating to regret. Frank’s chest was still moving up and down. “Wished he hadn’t of done that, though. He ain’t gonna get another shot, and I was kinda countin’ on him to use it on somethin’ else.”

“What’d he do?”

“He called Changing Woman and told her we had monsters here. Let himself be a vessel, see? So she sent her son, Monster Slayer, to help us out, a onetime limited engagement.” So that had been a god inside him. An aptly named one.

Granuaile’s footsteps approached from the south. “I’m assuming it’s safe now? Ugh,” she said, looking at the headless corpses. “What are those things?”

“They’re sort of like zombies on Red Bull with a little bit of ghost mixed in,” I said.

Frank moaned and his eyes snapped open. Then he closed them again and raised a hand to his head, saying something in Navajo that made Coyote laugh. He must have a killer headache. Coyote helped him up to a sitting position and patted him companionably on the back.

“All right, Mr. Collins,” Coyote said. “It’s your turn. Who was that lady?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I nearly crapped my pants.”

“That was Hel,” I said, “the Norse goddess of death.”

Frank turned to Coyote to see if he was buying it. “He’s not bullshitting?”

“Naw, this guy don’t usually tell stretchers about gods,” he answered. Then he asked me, “What did she want with you?”

“She, um, wanted my help, I guess.”

“Help with what?” Granuaile said, her lip curled. “Personal hygiene?”

“Um … destroying the world.” I tossed Moralltach aside and sat down heavily in the red dust next to Frank, executing a double face-palm. Saying that out loud took quite a bit out of me. What had I done when figures like Hel approached me as a potential ally? My primary reason for going through with the Asgard trip had been to preserve my honor by keeping my word. But I saw no honor in an unstained name now. If Ragnarok began because of me, no one would remember or care that I followed through on my promises. There would be no kind historians to write apologetics for me.

Usually I try to suppress any emotions that savor of regret, because they are invariably aperitifs to a main course of depression, and for the long-lived, that’s a recipe for suicide. But that doesn’t mean they can’t sneak up on me sometimes.

And, like, gang-tackle me.

I felt a slight spell of vertigo as the enormity of what I’d done hit me. I wept silently behind my hands for Mrs. MacDonagh, for Leif, for Gunnar, for Väinämöinen, for the Norse, and for the untold suffering to come because of my bad decisions. Druids were supposed to be forces of preservation, not destruction, and I could not dance around the fact that my stupid pride had turned me into a misbegotten cockwaffle.

Granuaile squatted down next to me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Well, clearly she didn’t like what you had to say about that,” she said.

“Just checkin’ here,” Frank said, his voice thick. “Geologists don’t normally get invited to help destroy the world, do they?”

Behind my hands, I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No, they don’t.” I pressed my tears away with my palms and then dropped them to my lap. “But don’t ask me who or what I really am right now. I’m supposed to be dead.”

“Well, it seems to be a day for dead people to be walkin’ around,” Frank said. “And disintegratin’.” He pointed over to the draugr bodies, which were turning into ash and mixing with the dust of the plateau.

“What was the deal with that freaky knife she had?” Coyote wondered aloud.

“It’s called Famine. She said the next thing she cut with it wouldn’t rest until it had eaten me.”

“Ew,” Granuaile said.

Oberon tried to cheer me up.

Frank Chischilly narrowed his eyes. “Did she say if it works on only one thing or on as many things as she cuts with it?”

“That’s a pretty specific question. Why do you ask?”

“Because there’s a couple of skinwalkers livin’ north of here. She’s headed right for ’em.”

Oberon asked.

Granuaile scrunched up her face. “Aren’t they shape-shifters of some kind? They use an animal skin?”

Chischilly nodded. “They have to use a different skin for each shape. They keep to themselves mostly, unless you invade their territory.”

“You say there’s two nearby?” I asked.

“Up past the ranches a few miles thataway.” He pointed in the direction Hel had gone.

I shifted my gaze and glared at Coyote. “So I guess I know why you’re so anxious to have the mine here,” I said. “Its primary qualification isn’t the proximity to Kayenta’s workforce; it’s the proximity to the skinwalkers. You figured I’d take care of them for you once they show up to defend their territory.”

Coyote shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “I can’t go after ’em myself. If they killed me, then they’d just be that much more powerful.”

Frank Chischilly frowned, clearly not understanding how killing a man could make the skinwalkers more powerful. But I understood. Skinwalkers can’t use a man’s skin — they already have their own. Coyote wasn’t a man, though, and that’s what Frank hadn’t quite figured out yet: Coyote was one of the First People, and whenever he died he always left his remnants behind. If the skinwalkers got hold of a Coyote skin, as opposed to a regular coyote skin, there was no telling what kind of shredding they could do with his power. And the Morrigan, I noted, had been right about thrice-cursed trickster gods. They were torrential fucksluices spraying their happy juices on the innocent and the damned alike.

To distract the hataałii from asking an uncomfortable question of Coyote, I asked him one instead: “How would you handle a skinwalker, Frank?”

He was so surprised by the question that he started to chuckle, and that morphed into a hacking cough. When the fit passed, he said, “You can’t handle ’em. Just protect against ’em and wait for dawn.”

That made them sound like vampires. “They can’t be killed?”

Frank hawked up something green and spat on the ground. “Maybe they can, but I never heard of anyone pulling it off. Least not by any normal way you’d kill a man. They’re wicked fast.”

Granuaile asked, “They only come out at night?”

“Usually. Sunlight won’t kill ’em, but they sure don’t like it much.”

“So you’ve run into them before. You have personal experience.”

Frank nodded. “Long time ago.”

“How’d you deal with that one?”

“We reversed a curse on it. We never woulda stood a chance otherwise. But it shot a bone bead into someone and then came back to make sure it was working the next night. We got it then, when it was standing still.”

I squinted at him. “Got it how?”

“Shot it with the same bead. The bead was cursed. They’re basically witches, and if you know how they worked a spell on someone, you can probably turn it back against them. These two ain’t like the ones I’ve seen in the past, though. They don’t use ceremonial magic. They just physically punish people. Can’t fight back against ’em that way.”

“Well, if they tend to come out at night, we’d better get inside before sundown.”

“Yep,” the hataałii agreed, and then he patted his chest as Coyote helped him stand. “Damn. Where’d my bolo tie go?” he said.

“It kind of popped off and sailed away over there,” Coyote said, pointing.

As everyone looked around uncertainly, I shot a quick thought to my hound.

Oberon, think you can find it and bring it to me?

He trotted off in the direction of the turquoise’s last known trajectory.

I rose from the ground and retrieved Moralltach, but Frank stopped me before I could take a step back toward the hogan site. “Whatever you are, Mr. Collins — if that’s your name — I get the feeling that you were brought here as Plan B.” His eyes shifted to indicate Coyote. “Except now you’re Plan A.”

I favored Coyote with another glare. “Yeah, the plan is sort of revealing itself to me as we go,” I said. “How many of the others are in on this plan, Frank?”

“Oh, you mean Darren and Sophie and everybody? They all know about the skinwalkers.”

“Damn it, Frank,” Coyote grated softly.

“What? He wasn’t supposed to know? Then why’s he here?”

“Too late now. Tell me everything,” I said.

“Well, Mr. Benally says we’re buildin’ a mine and stuff, but we’re also baiting the skinwalkers with where we’re buildin’ it. Not everyone believes in them, you know. Lot o’ people think they’re just myths — I mean a lot o’ the Diné who buy into the idea that there ain’t nothin’ in the world but science. And they also think I’m crazy and oughtta be locked up for sayin’ they’re real. But Mr. Benally believes me, and so does Sophie and the rest of this crew. What about you, Mr. Collins? Would you be willing to believe in skinwalkers?”

“Yeah, I’d be willing to believe most any monster is real — or was real at some point.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Frank said. “Guy who talks to Norse goddesses oughtta believe in a monster or two.”

“I’m going to stop at the car for a minute. Meet you up at the site,” I told Frank. He waved and started up to the mesa, but I held Coyote behind with my eyes.

“You, sir,” I said, “have all the dignity of a badger with the clap. Shark shit has more fiber than you. I’m going to tie you nuts-first to a monkey’s cage and make a mix tape of the resulting noise. Then I’m going to take a bag of marshmallows and a pair of granny panties and—”

Coyote held up his hands in surrender and spoke in low tones to prevent the departing Frank from overhearing. “I hear ya, Mr. Druid, but, look, it really don’t make any differ’nce. You wanted to make a trade and you agreed to the terms.”

“I didn’t agree to kill any skinwalkers for you.”

“And Frank didn’t agree to kill those blue-skinned zombie things.”

“No, but I didn’t lead Frank here to confront them either. Don’t expect me to give you any bonus services. The skinwalkers are your problem.”

Coyote chuckled. “Well, they might be your problem now too, if that goddess o’ death takes her knife to ’em. Can’t blame me for that, Mr. Druid. She didn’t show up here at my invitation with her hungry silverware.”

Oberon returned with Frank’s turquoise in his mouth. he said.

“Thanks, Oberon,” I said, wiping the turquoise off on my jeans. “Let’s go see if we can find you one in the car.” I turned my back on Coyote without saying another word. He didn’t want to know what I was going to do with those granny panties.

Surprisingly, Granuaile did. “Sensei, what were you going to do with those marshmallows and panties?” she whispered as we walked together. “I mean, I’m sure it had to be dire, but it just didn’t sound as threatening as the potential havoc a monkey could wreak on his sack.”

“There was more to that recipe,” I admitted. “He cut me off before I could get to the Icy Hot and the gopher snake.”

“Ew. What would you do with that?”

“I will leave it to you as an exercise.”

I decided it would be best to keep Moralltach on me from now on. It wouldn’t be conducive to maintaining the fiction that I was nothing but a geologist, but that wasn’t much of a priority now, if it ever was. Frank and the rest of them could think whatever they liked about me; they’d never guess the truth.

Of more concern to me was who Hel might talk to now that she’d discovered the slayer of the Norns in Arizona a couple of days after said slayer was supposed to have died. My elaborate attempt to disappear through faking my death would all come to naught if Hel spread it around that I was still walking the earth. She needed to be faked out as well — or eliminated. But trying to invade Niflheim to take on Hel in her home territory didn’t sound like a win to me. She’d have a nearly infinite supply of draugar at her command, a moon-devouring wolf hiding in her basement and itching for action, and the original Helhound, Garm, would probably consider me to be a light snack.

Retrieving the scabbard from Granuaile’s trunk, I sheathed Moralltach and slung it over my back, fastening the leather strap across my chest. I fished out a treat for Oberon before I closed the trunk and tossed it into his mouth.

Oberon asked. Using the new road, the three of us began to walk up to the proposed mine site.

I paused to think about it. Well, I suppose I do, I replied.

Oberon reflected sadly.

Your shoulders aren’t wide enough, I explained.

Hmm. That sounds plausible. It would require a rather elaborate harness, though. Would the discomfort be worth it?

The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, but the price he had to pay was The Matrix Revolutions. Still, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, and I hypothesize that would also be the case here. Think of what I could do to those insufferable cats that prowl on top of fences and taunt dogs worldwide! For the price of some discomfort and chafing, I’d be a legendary canine hero!>

Yes, Oberon, I imagine you would, but, unfortunately, those rocket launchers exist only as props and CGI.

Hound 4, Druid 2, I said, glad to finally score a solid point.

You didn’t call it, so the game continues.

The workers on the mesa noticed the sword, and so did Darren and Sophie, but no one said anything about it; they were too polite.

Asking Oberon to stand sentinel outside, I entered the hogan with Granuaile to survey the interior. Hogans are not particularly large buildings, only about 250 square feet inside, but they’re important to ceremonial life and thus crucial to the beginnings of large enterprises like this one. This hogan was one of the more modern plans, built in an octagonal shape; the walls were fairly free of gaps, since they were constructed with precut logs, and the roof was a latticework of beams covered over with black plastic sheeting at this point, a four-plane design. Tomorrow the roof would be finished and covered with mud, insulating it well, and the exterior walls would be covered too. I thought it interesting that this particular hogan included no windows; circulation came solely from the door and the round chimney built at the meeting of the various beams. In the center of the floor was a fire pit, and Frank Chischilly was hunched down over it, tending a small fire. Lava rocks were arranged closely around it, and Frank had sprinkled some herbs on them. The burning herbs sent fingers of fragrant white smoke up through the chimney.

He shot a glance up at me and then spoke to Granuaile. “We’re going to stay in here tonight,” he said. “Safer that way.”

Granuaile noted the profound lack of facilities. “Guess I’d better visit the privy before sundown, then.”

“Yep. We’ll be startin’ the sing as soon as everyone’s ready.”

“Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

Frank’s eyes flicked over to me. “Well, if you happen to know any way to keep out or repel evil spirits,” he said, perfectly serious, “that would be helpful.”

That was an interesting challenge. “What kind of evil?” I asked, not knowing precisely what to ward against.

Frank stared at me in disbelief and then spat into the pit before asking, “Ain’t there only one kind?”

“No, there’s all kinds of evil, just like there’s all kinds of good. What I need to know is where the source is. We’re not dealing with the Christian hell here or rakshasas from the Vedic planes. Where is the evil coming from? This plane or somewhere else?”

“Oh, I see what you mean now. The spirits come from First World.”

“That’s Black World, right?” I asked. I knew some of the basics of the Navajo faith, but I was by no means an expert. Their creation story follows the Emergence pattern, where people emerge into this world after climbing through several subterranean levels, evolving as they go. According to what little I knew, our plane is Fourth World, which is sometimes called Glittering World or White World. Granuaile appeared lost but didn’t interrupt to ask.

“Yep, that’s Black World,” Frank said.

“How’d they get all the way up here?” I wondered.

“Answer to that depends on who you ask. You want my guess?”

“Absolutely.”

“I think they been here all along, since the world was first bein’ made. We know that monsters an’ spirits from the lower worlds came here to Fourth World in the beginning. But Changing Woman sent her sons, Monster Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water, to kill ’em all. I think they got most of the monsters — they left old age, hunger, cold, and poverty behind on purpose.”

“Ah, but they didn’t take care of all the spirits, right?”

“Right. Those spirits from First World, they were spirits of the air, but mostly ornery insects — angry beetles, ants, locusts, dragonflies, and the like. They got kicked out of all the other worlds for fightin’ all the time, always wantin’ to dominate someone else. Most of ’em got turned into real bugs, but some didn’t and remained spirits. And the way I figure it is, when a soul turns as black as Black World, these old spirits find them a comfortin’ touch of home, and if they’re called to move in, they will. That’s what a skinwalker is: a mean asshole with a meaner spirit squatting inside.”

Oberon said.

“Hmm. All right, I’ve never dealt with anything like this before, but I’ll see what I can do.”

The hataałii didn’t say anything, merely nodded and turned his attention back to the fire. Granuaile and I exited and rejoined Oberon outside. We walked off a short distance and spoke in low tones so that no one could hear, save perhaps Oberon.

“You have a way of warding against skinwalkers, sensei?” Granuaile asked.

I shook my head. “Not specifically. I’ve never been down to First World or run into a skinwalker before. It’s been centuries since I’ve had to deal with any sort of Native American magic. I’ve been hiding in cities to stay away from the Fae, and all the shamans or holy men are hiding out on the reservations.”

“When was the last time you dealt with any?”

“Well, there was this rain god of the Maya who gave me a bit of trouble.”

“The Maya! Do you know what happened to them?”

“Not for certain, but they might have left this plane. They had a priest who could do it. But this is a completely different belief system,” I said, waving back at the hogan, “and so the rules of the magic are different as well. If I wanted to work up something to ward specifically against a skinwalker, I’d have to confront it first and see the pattern of it in the magical spectrum. General wards against magic from another plane may or may not work. And that’s the problem with wards, Granuaile.” I figured I might as well embrace the teachable moment. “You can’t ward against everything, and sometimes the bad guys will win through or around it despite your best efforts. So you know what happens in that case?”

“The bad guys win?”

“What, automatically? Getting past your wards means you’re instant toast?”

“Well, no, I’d fight first.”

“Exactly. You fight. The problem is you don’t know how.”

Granuaile huffed, her pride wounded. “I’ve taken some kickboxing lessons.”

I grinned at her. “Ah, you have? Bring it.” I set myself in a defensive stance.

My apprentice scowled at the idea. “You’ll use magic.”

“I promise I won’t. Not even a little—”

She didn’t lack for initiative. She pivoted and shot a kick at my gut before I finished the sentence. I pivoted as well and her toes grazed my belly, no more. I knew she was the athletic sort, but I hadn’t seen her exert herself until now. She was fast. Lunging in, I socked her in the stomach before she could recover and she staggered back, wheezing. I didn’t press my advantage, and she didn’t seem eager to continue.

“You know a bit more than kickboxing, don’t you?” she said.

I nodded. “Considerably more. We could do the whole Pai Mei thing if you want, but I’d rather not hurt you and I don’t have the flowing white beard to pull it off respectably.”

It will drag on the ground and get dirty every time you go to smell something or eat. It will be a mess.

Thank you. Hound 4, Druid 3.

“That’s all right, sensei, I’ll take your word for it,” Granuaile said, clutching her stomach. “Do I have to carry water up the mesa or something? Wax my car? Paint the rocks?”

“No,” I said, smiling at the movie tropes. “I don’t think I need to break your will. But we do need to train your muscles and get you accustomed to fighting with weapons.”

“I’m going to need a sword, then?”

“We will train with swords, yes, but I don’t think that will be your best weapon. Your size and reach will put you at a constant disadvantage in a sword fight. I think a staff would be better for you, and we will see what you can do with a throwing knife.”

“How will a staff and some throwing knives help against some brute who bull-rushes me with his shield up? Or a smart guy with a gun?”

“An excellent question. Every weapon has its drawbacks. We’ll prepare you for all kinds of antagonists.”

“What about automatic weapons? Can you pull a Neo and dodge bullets?”

“Nope. I cheat if I have the time. I dissolve the firing mechanism with a spell of unbinding.”

“And what if you don’t have the time?” That was an even better question — a dawning ray of paranoia that should be encouraged. “What about snipers?” she added, and I almost burst with pride. I settled for clenching my fist and drawing it down close to my body.

“Yesss! I ask myself that question every day and everywhere I go. Well done. And the answer is, you look around.” I pointed up at the buttes above us to the north and south. “I can’t stand where they’re placing this hogan, because we’re in the ideal spot to get picked off. You have to see the snipers before they see you, take cover, and then unbind their toys into hunks of useless metal.”

“But if you don’t see them in time, or if they have one of those fancy plastic guns, you can’t do anything.”

“Right. Except duck. Druids aren’t invincible, or else there would be more of us around.”

Granuaile turned to consider the hogan, which was lined in the red glow of the setting sun.

“So how do you create a ward, anyway?”

“You can think of it like a Boolean search on the Internet. You begin by defining your boundary—‘all life is okay in here’—and then you layer on the exclusions. ‘And not frakkin’ Cylons and not douche bags and not Imperial Stormtroopers.’ ”

“That’s it?”

“That’s what a ward is. The tricky part is defining your terms. How does the ward know the difference between a douche bag and a boy from Scottsdale?”

“Oh, I see.” Granuaile nodded. “They’re practically synonymous.”

“Right. Much of the time spent constructing wards is devoted to defining your terms magically. And you can’t define the magical signature of something until you’ve run across it once and laid your eyes on it in the magical spectrum. So I have no ward against skinwalkers. Trying to construct one now would be the equivalent of a null program.”

“But you do have a ward against douche bags?”

“Alas! Turns out they’re not malignant magical creatures at all, just naturally occurring phenomena, an evolutionary mutation of modern society.”

Granuaile cocked an eyebrow at me. “Evolutionary? You’re suggesting that douche bags are naturally selected?”

“Sure. Vestigial remnants of hunter behavior manifests itself as douchebaggery in males when confronted with the emasculating role of modern man, where they are no longer expected to provide food, shelter, or even spiritual guidance for their families but rather stay out of the way until it’s time to perform in the bedroom.”

“Really?” Granuaile cocked a single eyebrow at me, her voice drenched in wry skepticism.

“Maybe. I just made that up.” I turned to Oberon. “I should get a point for that.”

“I don’t think so, sensei. Sounded pretty pointless to me.”

is playing. Hound 4, Druid 3, Clever Girl 1.>

Once the equipment was stowed, Darren Yazzie’s whole six-man crew — each of whom I assume was handpicked by Coyote — was going to spend the night on site as part of Chischilly’s Blessing Way ceremony. They unloaded a couple of coolers from their trucks and moved them inside, lit up a few kerosene lanterns for ambient light, and popped open some sodas. They had bedrolls and joked with one another about who was going to snore the loudest. Darren announced he was going to make a quick run into town to grab a couple of party trays full of veggies and some more ice, which was acknowledged only by Sophie; she smiled fondly at him, and I got the sense that he was doing her a favor. Frank didn’t hear him at all, absorbed as he was with arranging his jish for the ceremony.

“Why do they need to stay?” Granuaile asked. “I mean, I get that it’s a necessary part of the ritual, but why?”

I shrugged. “My guess is that they lend their strength and energy to the protections. The more people present, the stronger the blessing. Or the binding. I’ll be watching as it progresses.”

Frank started singing as soon as he was ready, while there was still a touch of dark rich blue in the western sky. As I’d thought, this didn’t produce immediate silence among the crew. They may have quieted down a bit, and a couple of them were paying attention, but it was casual interest. The ceremony was conducted in Navajo — a language I do not speak aside from a few stray words — but Frank was singing and working on a sandpainting on top of a sacred buckskin. It would be one of the Holy People, though I wasn’t sure which one yet.

I turned on my faerie specs to see what magical energies, if any, were being employed, and discovered that Frank was doing something much more complicated than I expected.

To a Druid’s eyes, all magic, regardless of origin, is an exercise in binding and unbinding. Other systems differ from Druidry in what they’re able to bind and how, and usually they call on different energies from Gaia’s, but all those circles and pentagrams and sacrifices accomplish a binding of some sort. Customarily there is a religion involved and a generous helping of faith. Shamanistic systems, like those of many Native American faiths, often seek to bind people more closely to the spirit world for healing and protection or else unbind them from the influence of a malign spirit. I find them all fascinating and a little bit scary, because, except for my own shape-shifting — which involves my own spirit — I have no influence on the spirit world. A Druid’s bindings are physical. But what Frank was doing was occurring almost entirely on the spiritual level.

My suspicion that everyone would play a part in the ritual was confirmed; whether they knew it or not, whether they were actively participating or not, some portion of their energy, their spirit, was contributing to the protection of the hogan. It took no effort on their behalf; Frank was gathering it, channeling it, and redirecting it, and he was doing this through his singing and his sandpainting. Since I had never seen this ceremony performed by any other hataałii, I didn’t know if it was normal — but I suspected Frank might be in a league of his own. In my sight, the energy flowed from the others in multicolored undisciplined globs toward Frank’s sandpainting, and then it flowed outward from there as fine white rays of light. These rays shot toward the base of the walls. The ceremony wouldn’t be complete until the fourth day, according to Frank, but his preliminary songs during construction and his current singing was already energizing a rudimentary protection along the base — and a good thing too. Oberon, who was inside with us, barely had time to warn me before the attack began. I was about to pop open a can of liquid sugar when his ears pricked up and he growled.

A bestial feline scream rent the night and a crunching impact shuddered the north wall of logs, rattling the roof and eliciting more than a few curses of surprise. It was quickly followed by another impact directly behind where I was standing, which enveloped me in a cloud of sawdust and shot splinters into my back.