Fated (38 page)

Trying not to think about all those Richters now loose in the Lowerworld.

Trying not to think about how I’ve failed Paloma, failed as a Seeker in every conceivable way.

All I can do is keep my eye on the prize—racing after him as he heads for a thick grove of trees, causing the spirit animals to dart from our path. So unused to any unrest, much less the invasion of evil, they go into hiding, unsure what to make of it as he continues to move through the brush so quickly, I know I can’t do this alone. I either do something serious, something to stop him, or I’m seconds away from defeat.

I call upon the elements.

Call upon Raven.

My ancestors too.

If what Paloma says is true—that they’re everywhere, part of everything—then they’ll find me here too.

The wind shows up first, wafting and whirling, kicking up great clouds of dust that cut all visibility. And when the earth begins to quake, causing the freak to lose his footing, well, it’s just the boost that I need to push him to the ground, clamp my legs on either side of him, and slam his face into the dirt.

Shouting in victory as I tighten my grip—my triumph short-lived when I realize I have no idea what comes next.

fifty

He struggles against me, fights to break free, but I use all my strength to cling fast to his back and tighten my hold. One hand fisting around a greasy clump of black hair, I yank his head back, and shove my free hand into his mouth. Having no idea if I’m on the right track, but knowing that one way or another, I have to get this thing out.

The soul no longer lost, it’s time to retrieve it—time to wrench it from him so I can return it to Paloma. But with no idea how to do that, I shout, “Give it to me!” Fingers pushing past his tongue, going straight for his throat, when he bites down so hard it threatens to break through my skin.

I yank my hand free, shrieking in frustration and pain, as I grasp his hair tighter and slam his face into the dirt so hard bits of mask break free and embed in his flesh—repeating the move so many times I lose track.

Stopping only when a voice drifts from behind me and says, “I can’t say I blame you, but we really need to keep him alive.”

Dace!

He kneels beside me, answering the question in my gaze when he says, “I heard your call. Horse brought me here as quickly as he could—Raven led the way.”

He heard the call?

Along with the wind, the earth, and my spirit animal?

Maybe there really was more to the dream than I think—a reason we found each other before we’d even met?

Maybe we really are bound in some way?

I look to his right, seeing Raven perched high in a tree, while Horse stands off to the side. The two of them keeping a protective eye on us and a wary eye on the undead Richter, unsure what to make of him.

“Is this the freak that stole Paloma’s soul?” Dace asks.

I swallow hard and nod in reply. Unwilling to tell him that the freak merely ate it—that it’s his brother who stole it and served it to him.

He turns. Casts all about. Focusing on a vine hanging from a nearby tree, his breath slows, his lids narrow, and the next thing I know it’s found its way to his hand, and he’s using it to bind the freak’s arms and feet.

Then he looks at me. I smile at him, and without a single mention of it, he says, “Wolf is stabilized for now.” His brow slants with worry. “Still, we don’t have much time.”

“What do we do?” I loosen my grip on the freak now that Dace has subdued him.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Soul extraction requires years of training. Though I do know you can’t just reach in and grab it, you have to know how to handle it. One false move and you can lose it for good. Back when I was a kid, the elders used to talk about a particular…” He pauses, searching for the best word. “A particular
denizen
of the Lowerworld who they sometimes turned to for help. She’s considered quite dangerous, and in our case, she has no reason to cooperate. Though if the barter is right, she might consider it…” His voice fades, unwilling to say any more, fearing he’s gone too far.

“Do you know where to find her?” I ask, determined to speak to her one way or another.

He shakes his head. “All I know is that she resides in the nethermost level. And while our spirit animals may not want to join us, they can probably at least get us started.”

I rise to my feet, facing Raven and Horse as I say, “Show us the way.”

*   *   *

We head for a shallow trickle of river, Raven and Horse leading, as Dace and I drag the undead Richter behind us. Stopping at the place where the water meets the sand, Raven and Horse refuse to go any farther, as the three of us continue to trudge along the path.

The water soaking my jeans, the rocks ripping the hems to shreds, and when Dace looks down, asks what happened to my shoes, I just shake my head, tighten my hold on the freak, and keep going. The three of us making good progress until the river grows deeper and the current changes so swiftly, we’re swept downstream and abandoned to a series of falls that send us hurtling deeper and deeper into the earth. Reminding me of what Paloma said about the Lowerworld consisting of many dimensions, and sensing we’re getting pulled into yet another one, and then another, the lower we go. Finding our way to the nethermost.

The torrent growing in intensity, becoming so fierce, we lose our grip on the undead Richter, who breaks free of his restraints and tumbles ahead of us. Until the falls suddenly end in a swiftly moving stream that washes us onto a narrow bed of sharp rocks, where Dace and I pick ourselves up and race toward him.

Dace charging forward, gaining in speed, fingers falling just shy of the target when a figure looms large before us, catches the freak in one hand, and says, “I’ll take it from here.”

My eyes widen. Dace stops in midstride. The two of us panting and drenched, standing before a beautiful woman with eyes as black as onyx—a lush and generous mouth—hair that undulates down her back, in waves of amber so glimmering it perfectly mimics the tinge of flaming New Mexico sunsets—and skin so pale and translucent, its hue is unearthly.

“This one is mine. They’re all mine.” Her arm sweeps wide, revealing what we’d failed to notice before—a full roundup of undead Richters strung up by their feet, left to dangle from a grove of tall trees. Their hideous black-and-white skull masks seeming to mock the predicament they find themselves in. Her gaze flicking between Dace and me when she adds, “And now, it seems you are mine too.”

I take in her swishy black skirt, her black lace-up boots, her snakeskin corset of a top, then I look past her—look all around her. Suddenly understanding what I missed at first glance.

The stream didn’t feed into a bed of rocks like I’d thought.

It fed into a bed of bone chips.

There are bones everywhere I look. We’re completely surrounded by them.

There’s even a house made of bones—a large, rambling, dull white palace with knobs and joints on the corners, teeth decorating the windows and doors. And the fence that surrounds it is made of bones too, mostly femurs and spines, with the occasional elbow thrown in.

And that’s when I see that what I first took for trees aren’t trees at all—or at least not living trees. No longer sprouting leaves, no longer providing oxygen or shade, no longer functioning in the usual way. They died long ago, their scorched and bony carcasses are all that remain.

The woman spreads her arms wide and gazes up at the sky. The move causing the sky to darken into a glittering canopy of black velvet, as her face transforms into a skull, her skirt becomes a whirl of snapping, writhing snakes that circle her legs and waist, and her eyes turn into horrible empty sockets that level on me. Her jaw yawning wide, emitting a horrible bone-on-bone scraping sound, as she throws her head back and feeds on a long line of stars that funnel into her mouth.

The sight leaving no doubt in my mind that Dace has brought me to the Bone Keeper’s house.

fifty-one

“You can’t have him.” I glare, as Dace finds my hand. The press of his fingers warning that this is not the best way to proceed, though it’s not like that stops me. “You can have all the others. I don’t care what you do with them—but this one is mine.”

“None of them are yours!” She shrieks, eye sockets glowering, skirt thrashing and slithering. “How dare you even consider it! Don’t you know who I am?”

I nod. Not only do I know, but the Richter we’re fighting over finally guessed too, judging by the way he snarls and yelps and fights like hell to free himself. But it’s no use. With a single flick of her wrist, a knot of snakes swarm him, binding his throat, his arms, his legs—holding him captive like the vines once did.

“Then you know those bones belong to me.
All
the bones belong to me. And these particular bones have been denied me for too many years.” She glowers at the undead Richter beside her. “Today is
Día de los Muertos
—the day when the dead bring me their bones. It is
not
a courtesy. It is
not
an offering to appease me. It is the price one pays for their final admittance into the afterlife. This family of Coyotes has eluded me for centuries, but no more. Their bones will be mine, and since you found your way here, yours are mine too.”

Dace tightens his hold, but I’m too stunned by her words to edit myself. “You can’t take my bones!” I cry. “I’m not even dead!” Dace moves to hush me, subdue me, but it’s no use. I came here to get Paloma’s soul, and there’s no way I’ll let myself fail.

The Bone Keeper stares, weighing my words as her fingers pick at her hissing, slithering, twist of a snake skirt. “That’s easy enough to remedy,” she decides, her shiny black boots gliding across the dirt until she stands just before me. Her skin so translucent it looks like a sheen of wax paper has been pulled over her thin, bony frame—her skull of a face glistening as a result of all the stars she just ate.

Her fingers reaching for me, ready to join me with the undead Richter beside her, when Dace steps between us and says, “We’re not interested in bones. The only ones we want to keep are our own. We’re here for another reason entirely—it’s my understanding you’ve been known to work with the Light Workers from time to time—helping them retrieve stolen souls. This one here—” He motions toward the freak held hostage by the snakes. “He’s stolen a soul we desperately need. If you’ll help us retrieve it, we’ll leave the bones to you.”

Her skirt of squirming snakes shoots around Dace to lash at my legs, their flickering tongues finding all the spots where my jeans have ripped, stinging and lashing my skin as she says, “I don’t make deals.”

Her eye sockets darken in dismissal, as though that’s the end of it. But we didn’t come all this way to give up so easily. I swipe hard at the snakes, watching as they dart back to the protective bed of her hips, as I stand beside Dace and say, “I need that soul, and I need it now. A good woman is dying, and I can’t let that happen. And while you may not care about that, you might care to know that these undead soul stealers and the sorcerer who made them, have terrible plans for this place. They’re going to destroy the Lowerworld as you know it, and all the other worlds too. But you can help stop it. If you’ll just return this soul to me, then—”

“I don’t care about their plans!” she cries, her voice as outraged as her skull face. “It’s
bones
I’m interested in. Every time Coyote invades the Lowerworld, it results in millions of deaths in the Middleworld—a bounty for me!”

“But you’ll get those bones eventually!” I practically spit in frustration. “Don’t you get it? By not even trying to fight this, you’re letting them win at their game. You claim to hate them for eluding you all these years—and yet you’re helping them go through with their plans! It just doesn’t make any sense.”

While she doesn’t instantly cave like I’d hoped, it’s clear my words have had an impact. She grows quiet, pensive, making no further move either toward me or away from me. Her face transforming, returning to the beauty she was when we first came upon her, though the snake skirt remains. She turns to me and says, “Paloma is on my list.”

I swallow hard. Wondering what it means but too afraid to ask, so Dace does it for me.

“The list of the dead,” she says. “Or soon to be dead. She’s on today’s list. It is done. There is no going back.”

“But she’s not gone yet.” Dace strives for calm, though the way he grips my fingers tells me he’s as worried as I am. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You have plenty of bones to keep you busy. You have theirs”—he points toward the freaks hanging from the tree—“and you have his”—he motions toward the Richter bound by snakes. “That’s a lot of fresh skeletons in exchange for one soul. Seems like a pretty good trade, no?”

She flips her hair over her shoulder, a glimmering rainbow of reds that momentarily steals my attention. Nodding toward the undead Richter, she says, “You’re willing to sacrifice Coyotes for Seekers?”

Dace shrugs, face confused when he says, “Why wouldn’t I?” Having no idea what that means. But I do, and the words leave me chilled.

“I find that very intriguing.” She steps toward him, her onyx eyes moving over him, drinking in his wet form, the way his T-shirt and jeans mold and cling. Licking her lips slowly, lasciviously, she says, “Actually, I find
you
very intriguing.”

Dace freezes, eyes locked on hers, hand clasped in mine, as she runs a slender finger down the length of his cheek, around the curve of his ear. Holding his gaze for so long I suddenly understand what I didn’t before: She doesn’t just keep the bones, she
knows
the bones.

Knows where they came from.

Knows their full history—how they found their way to her.

She removes her hand from his flesh, returns to her place. Continuing to gaze at him with an expression I can’t quite decipher when she says, “Why wouldn’t you sacrifice a Coyote for a Seeker?” She shakes her head, eyes sparkling, teeth glittering when she adds, “Because you’re the Echo, that’s why.” She throws her head back, allowing great peals of laughter to boom in the sky—a cacophony of mockery that swoops down around us. Leveling her gaze once again when she adds, “Then again, as the Echo, your destiny is not only a strange one but a shared one.” Her eyes switch to mine.