Tricked

Chapter 7

As any war veteran will tell you, there is a vast difference between preparing for battle and actually facing battle for the first time. You can be told that reading Victor Hugo will sap your will to live, but you can’t understand what that means until you’ve read a few chapters and your eyes have glazed over and someone has to revive you with a defibrillator. Sophie and the six crewmen might have understood intellectually that skinwalkers possessed superhuman strength and speed, but to see it in action freaked them out a little bit. The creatures had nearly punched through the walls on their first try.

Frank Chischilly cast a pleading eye over at Sophie and kept singing. He couldn’t stop what he was doing without stopping the flow of magic; he had to keep singing, had to keep sandpainting.

“Keep on with the ceremony!” she bellowed. “Join in, help Frank where you can. It is our best defense.” They nodded, and some of them offered up their voices along with Frank when they knew the words; the choruses were repetitive.

Any idea what’s outside? I asked Oberon.

I turned around, thinking I would ask Coyote, only to discover that he wasn’t in the hogan at all. Come to think of it, the last time I remembered seeing him was right after I told him off.

“Where’s Mr. Benally?” I asked one of the workers.

He shrugged. “He left a while back.”

“Gods-damned sheep-loving tricksters,” I muttered. Always figuring out ways to get other people to fight for them. But then I got a chill. What Coyote feared wasn’t death but what the skinwalkers would be able to do if they acquired his skin. His absence indicated he thought there was a very good chance for the skinwalkers to get hold of it tonight — which meant we were all in movie trailer territory, where that guy with the low, twelve-pack-a-day voice informs you that you’re “in a world … of terrible danger.”

I was on the east wall near the door, opposite Frank. I moved around to the north side of the hogan as the attacks resumed on the logs there. They were absurdly percussive; the sound reminded me of small battering rams. I could hear wood cracking, splintering, chunks of it flying away outside, and saw the trauma reflected inside. If they were doing this with nothing but flesh and bone, then they were operating on the strength level of vampires, and the walls wouldn’t last very long. I activated two charms on my necklace, squatting down and peering through a gap that had developed between the logs. The first charm was night vision, so that I could see what was out there. The second was faerie specs, because this was my first chance to get a handle on how the skinwalkers’ magic worked.

It took me a while to find them; they were moving so fast that they blurred in my vision. Once I did spot them, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at; each was a gruesome mash-up of three different creatures, and if Frank hadn’t told me about the old spirits from First World, I wouldn’t have been able to interpret what I saw. The physical form causing all the damage was a bobcat, warped and mutated into ferocity beyond its natural bent — so that was the skin they were currently wearing. But underneath that skin, I saw something dark and scabrous, a mottled horror of crouching, insectile menace with orange eyes; underneath that, crippled almost beyond recognition, subsumed to the other two and its nobler nature quashed beneath a blanket of bile and aggression, was a human.

The demon-eyed thing was the glue binding the other two; it’s what allowed the human to shape-shift using an animal skin. I wondered how it would appear in Frank’s magical sight. Something snicked into place in my head — perhaps it was the way the dark tendrils of the insect thing had wrapped itself around both the bobcat and the human — and I realized that this was a magical symbiosis. Alone in the Fourth World, that dark spirit of the air could exert its will about as well as a substitute teacher on a room full of jaded seniors. But with the willing cooperation of a corrupted human, it could overpower most anything. My strategy, magically, should be to figure out a way to sever the spirit from either the human or the bobcat. It was unlikely that any one of them could harm us acting singly; bound together, however, the skinwalkers were practically juggernauts until sunrise.

Frank’s magic wasn’t severing anything, however; his Blessing Way was laying down a ward around the hogan.

I dropped to all fours to see precisely what those threads of light were doing once they slipped under the lowest log. I had to unbind the cellulose in front of my eyes to give myself a peephole of sorts, but once I did and put my eye to it, I could see Frank’s work clearly on the ground outside. His ward was building from the ground up; already there was no way the skinwalkers could get in by digging underneath the hogan. But the protection hadn’t found its way above ground level yet. Crisscrossed on the earth, I saw a webwork of glittering threads, obscenely bright in the darkness, like someone had taken those glow sticks kids use at raves and fueled them with plutonium. I tried to filter the light out to see what was at the core of it, but there didn’t seem to be anything else. One of the skinwalkers slammed into the logs directly opposite me, and I admit I jumped, but then it yowled as it touched the ward on the ground and skittered away.

The light, I realized, might be all there was to it. In First World, or Black World, light was in short supply — anathema, in fact, to all the dark spirits of air that lived there. Make some light in the magical spectrum, and the mojo of First World was neutralized. It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. I don’t do shiny mage balls or handheld fire globes or soft, friendly light whispers in any spectrum. Those aren’t in a Druid’s bag of tricks. Clearly, though, some kind of effective light was being produced by Frank Chischilly and the others participating in the Blessing Way. I couldn’t duplicate it, nor could I think of any other way to ward against the skinwalkers in the short time we had before they burst through — I gave it less than five minutes, at the rate they were tearing through the logs. I wouldn’t be able to come up with a magical bullet to sunder the humans from their First World symbionts either, in so short a time. What I could do, though, was bind the logs back together and perhaps make them tougher to shred in the first place. It would be a time-consuming and draining effort, but all I had to do was keep it up all night.

“Ha-ha, that’s easy!”

I said that out loud?

Never mind. It was merely positive thinking.

I’m not sure if there’s any onomatopoeia that properly describes the sound of an unholy bobcat punching its paw through a log. Punt-thrack-rawr? But that sound exploded near my head, and I got a few wood chips in the face by way of punctuation. The next one or two hits would clear a hole, and then all they needed was to widen it enough to get through. No time to waste; Granuaile and Oberon said something to me, but I had to shut them out and give my undivided attention to keeping the skinwalkers outdoors.

I focused on the log, down to the level of its substance that I normally dismiss as visual noise. There I began to bind it back together, like to like, the simplest binding there is, and though the next impact actually got most of the paw through the wood, I was able to fill it in after that faster than they could punch through it. Once the skinwalkers realized what was happening, their pissy kitty howls went up an octave and switched to the key of apeshit. They backed off for a time, considering, and then I lost track of them. The next impacts came on two completely different walls. The ones after that were in yet another location. They were betting I couldn’t divide my attention and strengthen two or more spots at once. But I noticed a pattern to their attacks that I hadn’t seen before: They were always hitting the same log in terms of vertical distance from the ground. It was the fifth one, every time. It made sense when I thought about it: They had to hit the log hard, leaping off the ground outside the influence of the Blessing Way ward, and then leap back or ricochet out past the ward each time. If they went too low, they wouldn’t have the arc to miss it safely on the rebound. If they went too high, they’d have no problem falling safely, but the force of their hits would be greatly reduced due to simple physics. So if I could strengthen that fifth log on every wall, they’d be at a supreme disadvantage.

Their strategy of trying to weaken multiple points actually worked to my advantage now. I could let them chip away while I tried something different. Keeping my Old Irish headspace going for binding purposes, I carved off a piece of my attention so that I could communicate in English and still keep track of things in the magical spectrum.

“Granuaile, grab that shovel over there”—I pointed to one leaning against the door—“and scoop me out one of those lava rocks from the fire pit. Bring it over here, quick.”

She moved and didn’t question, knowing that I must have a reason for the request and she’d find out what it was soon enough. Best apprentice ever. Oberon didn’t say anything; he knew the businesslike tone, and he knew the faraway look in my eyes that said I didn’t really see him right now. Some of the Navajos followed Granuaile with their eyes and flicked querying glances my way, wondering what the hell we were up to, but they were not about to interrupt the Blessing Way ceremony at this point to ask her. They let Granuaile take a rock from the pit and haul it over to where I was standing.

“Great. Now lift it up to this log here and wedge the shovel blade against it so the rock leans against the log.”

Granuaile looked at the smoking hot rock and then at the dry wood and couldn’t get around her doubts. “Won’t that set it on fire?”

“Nope. Trust me. Don’t move the shovel away until I say it’s okay.”

“All right, sensei.” She did as instructed and then I quit dividing my attention, turning back fully to the magical spectrum. As the skinwalkers attacked various points on all the walls, I began to unbind the rock into its component silica and carbonate parts. As it dissolved into dust and the stored heat vented upward like a furnace blast, I channeled the material into the outer walls of cellulose in the log, essentially petrifying it and upping its strength considerably. There wasn’t nearly enough silica in the rock to petrify the whole log, so I concentrated it in a two-foot area and made it about four inches deep. The skinwalkers would have a much tougher time punching through that, even with their unnaturally strong muscles and bones — and if they did manage it, they would probably injure themselves in the process. Once I’d used all the silica, I divided my focus and let Granuaile know she could lower the shovel.

I didn’t know how much of that the Navajos caught, but I figured I wouldn’t have to worry about explaining the effectiveness of magic to this particular group. They might wonder what I’d done and how, but they’d never doubt the possibility of it. Their faith, after all, combined with Frank’s singing and sandpainting, was constructing a far more effective ward against the skinwalkers than anything I could come up with.

“Need another rock?” Granuaile asked.

“No, let’s wait and see if this works first.” I placed myself directly behind the petrified portion of the log and raised my voice to taunt the skinwalkers. “Here, kitty, kitty!” I made kissy noises. “Come and get me over here!”

One of them obliged. One second I saw nothing but darkness to the north, and then in the next fraction of a second there was a sickening thud, of a distinctly duller and lower tenor than from previous impacts, and then a skinwalker fell gracelessly to the ground — directly on top of the ward surrounding the building. The bobcat screamed and scrambled away from it, but it was literally burned by the contact. It held still for a moment to assess the damage, and that allowed me to check it out as well. There were white lines seared across its fur now, in the weblike pattern I’d seen before in the ward. It was only a narrow strip, as if he’d been thrown on the grill for a few seconds, but his awkward, slower movements proved he had been crippled by it — by that, or by crashing headlong into petrified wood. He wouldn’t be jumping at the hogan with nearly the strength or ferocity he’d had up to that point, if at all. Allowing myself a tiny smile, I checked the log; it was fine.

“Yeah, get me another rock,” I said. “That worked out well.”

Granuaile moved to comply, but Frank shook his head urgently and Sophie spoke for him. “No more rocks,” she said. “We need what’s left for the ceremony.” They were still burning herbs on top of the rocks, and apparently they were more important to the process than I thought.

My apprentice looked at me helplessly. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll make do. The odds have evened out a bit in any case.” With only one skinwalker attacking the hogan, I could keep up with the damage being dealt to the structure. It would be a long night of work, but it was manageable. I sighed with relief; we would get through this.

I sighed too soon.

The crunch of gravel under tires and the rumble of a V8 reminded us that Darren Yazzie had gone to Kayenta for a few goodies, and now he was returning at a spectacularly unfortunate time.

Eyes widened around the hogan and voices faltered, but Frank Chischilly sang on. Failing to complete the ceremony properly might offend the Holy People — and that would rather defeat the purpose of having a ceremony in the first place.

“It’s Darren!” Sophie said, putting a hand up to her mouth in worry. “I asked him to go to town for me — I didn’t think we’d be dealing with them so soon!” She moved toward the door, and one of the crew members — I’d never been introduced — slid over to intercept her.

“Ain’t nothin’ we can do for Darren except hope he figures it out and turns around,” he said. “Anyone who goes out that door will die. Ain’t nothin’ faster than a skinwalker.”

He was right. Those things were faster than Leif and therefore faster than anything I could manage with the aid of magic. Moralltach or no, I couldn’t keep them from taking me down. They were so alien to the magic I was familiar with that I wondered if even the Tuatha Dé Danann could handle them.

Oberon commanded.

Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

Granuaile fished her cell phone out of her jeans and hope bloomed on her face. “There’s actually a signal here!” she said. “We can call him.”

It was far too late for that, signal or no. The hammering on the hogan ceased, and we heard a thunderous impact against metal and shattering glass. I rushed to the east wall, where the door faced the road, and peered through a gap in the door’s hinges. Frank kept chanting over Darren’s startled cries. Through the wee gap, I couldn’t see much except for his truck’s headlights cresting the lip of the mesa. The lights shuddered violently as the skinwalkers rocked the vehicle. A yell, two gunshots — he must have had a pistol in his glove compartment — more broken glass, a bobcat scream, then a human one, and then the headlights reeled crazily and disappeared. A rolling, crashing noise followed, as Darren’s truck tumbled off the graded road and down a half mile of rocky hillside. I doubt he survived it; my only hope was that one or both of the skinwalkers had taken the plunge with him.

Frank kept singing, but everyone else had fallen silent. Sophie was doing her best to be stoic about it, but I saw tears on her cheeks and she’d probably be plagued by guilt for years if she didn’t get help.

I patched up all the logs with bindings while we waited to hear something that would tell us the fate of the skinwalkers. There were no more bobcat growls or attacks on the hogan. A tense half hour passed with no sounds from outside, all of us wishing the silence would last another minute and yet feeling that it couldn’t possibly last any longer. What broke the silence, finally, wasn’t a bobcat. It was a human voice — or, rather, two of them, on the outer edge of what could be called human. The voices were hoarse and throbbing with menace, and they spoke in Navajo on the north side of the hogan.

Peering through the cracks, I saw the skinwalkers in their human form. Though they kept moving from place to place in a blur, they would stop briefly here and there, as if they were following some unseen connect-the-dots pattern on the mesa. In their brief flashes of stillness, they were lean, of stunted stature, and unclothed. That didn’t mean they were underwhelming; their menace was simply concentrated, like frozen orange juice fortified with Vitamin Evil, and their eyes kind of reflected that, a liquid fire glowing out of their sockets with no pupils. The bobcat skin was gone, so now it was just them with that spirit wrapped all around and through them; their human auras were tainted with black ichor. I was curious to see where Hel must have cut them, but neither of them looked wounded. Whatever it was they were saying, they kept repeating it, and lots of eyes shifted briefly in my direction before looking away, pretending that I wasn’t there. Frank winced the first time he heard it but then grimly continued to work on his sandpainting and lead the singing.

I flipped my faerie specs off. “What are they saying, Sophie?” She pretended not to hear and, in so doing, set an example for the others. No one would meet my eyes. They began chanting in time with Frank — he’d apparently reached a sort of call-and-answer section in his “sing.” And I think it would have been a casual passage under normal circumstances, but in this case they were belting it out and supporting from the diaphragm, an unconscious agreement that they should drown out the skinwalkers with their raised voices. Somehow, the skinwalkers’ voices cut through it without increasing their volume.

Oberon asked.

I don’t know, buddy. I don’t speak their language.

“Sophie. I need to know what they’re saying.” I got no reply. “Come on, somebody help me out here. I can handle it.”

The man who’d prevented Sophie from going out to save Darren — and getting herself killed in the process — finally took a step toward me and offered his hand. I shook it and nodded once to him gratefully.

“Ben Keonie,” he said.

“Um … Reilly,” I said.

“I think Sophie wants to finish the sing,” he explained, as she and the rest of the crew continued to chime in at the appropriate places. “But I can tell you what those things out there are saying if you like.”

“Yes, I’d appreciate that.”

“They’re saying, ‘Feed us the white man.’ ”