The Spirit Seducer (The Echo Series Book 1) (19 page)

T
he bone-shattering
conclusion never came. Instead, that horrendous tugging, the pressure of the contractions swallowed us.

We teetered there, right at the entryway of my house in Santa Fe. Layla slammed open the door, pulling me out onto my front porch. Blood dripped from my shoulder, knees, and palms. I winced at the pain building there—the tissue felt hot, swollen.

“Best placed
sipapu
ever,” Layla yelled, dancing across the yard.

She started to giggle while I gaped at her.

“What? It’s better than ending up dead.”

True. But—wow.

“Do you think the kachina will follow us?” I asked.

Layla stopped laughing and snorted. “Yeah. We need to get out of here.”

“Do you think the rest of the
sipapus
are messed up like this one?”

“Probably.”

“So what do we do?”

“First, we get in your mom’s car. Coyote’s got to have your place being watched.”

Sure enough, a kachina was already moving toward us, his spear angled at my chest. I jumped off the porch and managed to wrap my hand around the spear’s shaft. I used the kachina’s momentum with my own and slammed the shaft back into his gut, trying to freeze him at the same time.

“Good shot,” Layla said, standing and dusting off her dirt-covered knees. “Get in the car.”

“Do you think there are more?” I gasped. My hands hurt and so did my shoulder.

“Of course,” Layla snapped. “They can talk to each other telepathically.”

“Shouldn’t I try to close the
sipapu
?”

“Can you do it in half a second?”

“I’ll do it,” Honani offered. He was grayish instead of his usual translucent-white. He moved slowly, achingly, into my necklace.

“Get in the car, E.”

She was pushing against my head, but I wanted to do this—I wanted to get away from another round of attacks and threats. I opened the door. I settled into the old cloth seat. How many times had I sat here on the way to some doctor’s visit, hoping for more in my life than just another round of tests and debilitating pain in my head?

Now I had more life, more adventure. And it was some scary shit.

Layla slammed the Corolla’s dented door shut. “Do you have the keys?”

“No, Layla, I didn’t grab the keys the other day before I was transported from my house.” I couldn’t help the sarcasm.

Her silvery-blond head disappeared under the dashboard.

“I didn’t know you could hotwire a car.”

“Not very easy to do,” came Layla’s muffled reply. “Glad your mom’s is an older model.”

I heard her muttering as she ripped apart wires. There was a loud sizzle, a huge spark, and Layla slammed her head against the steering wheel. She shrieked a curse before muttering about foreign cars being more complicated.

Letting Layla rant, I gripped my necklace. It was the same temperature as my skin. Honani hadn’t looked good.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Honani didn’t answer.

That was unlike him. Something was wrong.

“Honani?”

The pendant warmed a little but Honani didn’t appear.

“Answer me. Please.”

“Too much work to reopen Zeke’s
sipapu
.” Honani’s voice was strained. “Need rest.”

“You have to be okay,” I said, lightly stroking the clay. Worry sat heavily on my heart. This spirit I hadn’t known long was somehow already an integral part of my existence. “I command you to be okay.”

No response. Not a good sign.

I looked at my house. While I couldn’t see the kachina yet, they’d come and destroy it just as they had Zeke’s house.

Tears filled my eyes before I blinked them back. I’d rather have my mom, alive and whole, than the house. There was still a chance I’d find her. That I’d have more to show for the first twenty-one years of my life than a clay pendant and a lot of nightmares.

“Strap in.”

“I’m impressed,” I said.

I slammed my door and a huge pack rat–headed man scuttled around the side of the house.

“Did that thing just throw a nut at us?” I asked.

Layla grunted in satisfaction as the car revved out of my short driveway.

“If my dad knew what I was up to while he was at work . . . ,” she said.

She glanced up at the kachina, its eyes gleaming red in the sun. She shifted into drive as she twisted the wheel. The rat jumped out of the way, chattering and scratching at the car. She slammed the gearshift into second gear and gunned the little Toyota down the street.

“Did your dad teach you how to hotwire a car?” I couldn’t imagine her FBI agent father condoning her that.

Layla snorted. “Please. I learned a couple of summers ago. The leader of the local gang was cute.”

“You know that gang bangers shoot people.”

“So?”

“I thought you were anti-violence,” I said.

“I am. But he was really hot, and I was angry with both my parents. My dad nearly busted an artery and Sussistanako told me I was fraternizing beneath me. Which I was. But he was gay—just needed me for show. Worked for both of us.”

Layla shot through lights and wove between cars. She sped through the last light and took the highway entrance at a dizzying speed, heading south, the little speedometer on the dash way past the legal seventy-five-mile-per-hour limit.

“They can track our energy back to us, so don’t send out any messages to make it easier.”

“I don’t plan to make it easy for them,” I said. “But I’m worried about Zeke. He was fighting a god and several kachina, and last I saw, he almost fell into one of those crevasses. He hasn’t called or whatever.”

“He’ll be in touch.”

“You think he’s okay?” I asked.

“He’ll find us if he is.”

“That’s not comforting. Or much of a plan.”

Layla wove between the cars, missing a dump truck’s bumper by less than an inch.

“It’s the best I’ve got.” Layla’s voice was halfway to hysterical.

“Thanks for your help. How bad did the jackrabbit hurt you?”

She blew out a breath thickened with fear. “I’m fine. Actually, I feel surprisingly good. Better than I have in years. Do you think it’s the adrenaline?”

“If so, it needs to stick around a while. I’m glad you killed Jaguar.”

“Me, too.”

We were quiet. I hoped she was concentrating on driving; my thoughts drifted back to the shards of clay ash on Zeke’s floor.

“What does it mean—that we broke a sacred relic?”

“It’s gone,” she said. “Sotuk must’ve planned for this eventuality. The good news is neither Jaguar nor Coyote have the tablet. That’s a win. Sort of.”

“Not much of a consolation. They’re just going to be even angrier. Well, Coyote will be. And now we can’t track the other tablets.”

“You’ve managed to piss off quite a wide swath of the indigenous elite.” Layla glanced over at me, her lips turned up in a tight smile. “Impressive, considering less than a week ago, you never left your house.”

“I had help,” I grouched. “And seems to me we need a better system for getting around.”

“I can’t transport you like Zeke does.” She clutched the steering wheel tighter, and I knew she was lamenting her lack of power. I hated Jaguar even more in that moment—he’d taken so much from Layla. “And it doesn’t seem particularly safe or reliable at the moment anyway.”

“Point. I think Honani opened that last
sipapu
. One of my spirits,” I said when I caught her confused look. “Can they do that?”

“I don’t know much about the spirit world, E. I have enough trouble navigating this one. Especially now that you’ve joined it.”

I bit back my snarky response and turned on the radio. Lorde’s voice blared into the tiny compartment. Layla glanced at me briefly, and I saw her lips purse in frustration. She twiddled the dial so the volume was much lower.

“I should get a theme song. Like Star Wars or something. Especially if I have to have you for my mentor. I would’ve preferred Yoda or Obi Won.”

“That’s mean,” Layla sighed, flicking her eyes at her side mirror before swerving into the fast lane, gunning the engine to fly around a semi.

“I’m trying to keep my mind off how scary my life is.”

I turned the song back up and sang along, hoping it would distract me from Layla’s impersonation of a NASCAR driver.

“You love getting all nonchalant when you’re freaked out,” Layla said. “Instead, use the time to come up with a plan.”

I clutched my hands together. “Why did Zeke want us to come back to Santa Fe?”

“Godly powers are weaker the farther you move from sacred sites.”

“Does it take more energy to be here? For the gods, I mean.”

Layla considered me for a minute. “Probably. Which means fighting here takes more energy, too.”

“But we’re human . . . or at least half human.” I waited until Layla whipped around another car, thankful I hadn’t swallowed my tongue. “Which would mean we belong here. In the world outside the holy lands.”

“And if we belong here, then we’re at an advantage.” Layla whistled. “Zeke’s smart, E.”

“He probably saved our lives,” I whispered. “And you were trying to warn me away. I don’t get it, Layla.”

I couldn’t get the image of him surround by the kachina and dodging Coyote’s vicious kick from my mind. But the worst image was Zeke sliding toward that hole.

He was Earth. He’d be okay.

“It’s not Zeke I’m worried about, E. He’s lived his whole life in that world. It’s cut out any of his softer bits. You, though, you’re all softness.”

I wasn’t—I was learning to fight back and hard. But now wasn’t the time to argue. Instead, I glanced back toward Santa Fe, half expecting to see a huge pack rat running after us down the highway.

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, their summits painted in golden light, shone in the distance behind us. My chest tightened. Something told me I wouldn’t see my mountains again for quite some time. If ever.

“We need to find the last of the Four,” I sighed.

“First we need to get away from the angry god.”

“No. We need to go to Old Oraibi.”

“Are you freaking crazy?” Layla shrieked. “Why would we go there?”

“Because that’s where Coyote will take my mom,” I said, my chest tightening with the onslaught of panic. “To kill her in Sotuk’s original kiva. If my dad married her there, then it’s completing the circle. Coyote will gain whatever power Sotuk gave my mom.”

“How can you know that? He might need her for something. He’ll want to drain all the power from her that he can before he lets her body give out. That way he owns her.”

Layla swerved around an SUV and honked at a Prius driving a mere ninety miles in the fast lane.

“What if she dies without being drained?”

“Then he doesn’t own her powers or her. Your mother would never offer herself to Coyote, and he has to draw her magic from her—all of it—to own any of it. Like doubling down in poker.”

“We’re talking about my mom’s life, Layla. Head toward Albuquerque. We’ll have to cut through the city to pick up I-40. That’s the closest turn off to get to Flagstaff.” I considered her last comment. “That’s why you still have some of your powers. Jaguar wasn’t able to drain you completely.”

“And I fought him, which means my powers continue to fight him. Only the strongest beings are willing to wrangle another’s power. It’s depleting.”

“Then why would he try to take them?”

“Because I was one of the Four, and he got to me before I knew how to use my magic. I was a relatively easy target. He thought he’d kill me and own my everything.”

“And he would have, if Zeke hadn’t saved you.”

Layla took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly. She was scared. Good. I was, too.

“What do you know about the Four?” I asked.

“My mother hasn’t told me much.”

“But Zeke knows more. Because of his time with Masau.” I said.

“Seems to.”

“And we need all four.”

“Sacred number,” Layla said. “Yes. All four.”

“Could the fourth be waiting to see if we all survived beyond childhood? Or maybe he’s still too young? Turn on the headlights.”

Layla flipped them on. “Doubtful for a couple reasons.” Layla worried her lip. “First, you, Zeke, and I were born within four years of each other. Second, we’re supposed to ‘join together.’ That sounds like more than, you know, just hanging out at the mall.”

“You think this is why my mom was so worried about my virginity?” I asked.

“Well, if we have to all be pure to fulfill the prophecy, I screwed that over.”

Layla’s shoulders slumped as disappointment and shame filled the small space. I placed my hand on her arm.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said.

Our headlights cut across the empty road. I shifted in my seat, trying to peer out farther into the landscape as the sun slipped behind Sandia Mountain.

“Why aren’t there any other cars?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s way easier to drive.”

“There are always cars.”

“Gift horse. Don’t look at it too closely.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No.” Her voice shook. She readjusted her grip on the steering wheel.

“It got dark way too fast.” My heart banged against my chest.

“I know,” Layla said, her voice taking on that breathless quality it got when she was scared. “It’s . . . unnatural.”

“Is it Coyote? Can he do that?”

“We just passed onto a reservation,” Layla said. “Not his home base, but he’ll be more powerful here, on sacred land.”

The moon slid behind a thick wedge of cloud.

“Stop the car,” I yelled.

“What? That’s a terrible idea.” Layla tightened her hands on the wheel and pressed down harder on the accelerator. We jumped forward, speeding even closer to the imminent threat.

“Stop the freaking car. Now!” I shrieked.

Coyote stood in the middle of the highway, more than four times the size of that of a typical human. His massive frame absorbed the light and pulsed out a deep, harsh blackness, all at once.

I
gnoring
my command to stop the car, Layla swerved, her gaze intent on the other side of the road. Coyote expanded, growing larger, taking up all four lanes.

Layla hissed a curse.

“Don’t try it, Layla. He’d love nothing more than to kill us in a head-on collision.”

She stood up on the breaks, causing the car to slide sideways. The tires screamed in protest before they caught. My door faced Coyote and the front of the car pointed toward the open desert.

“I’m not getting out, E. That’s suicide.”

“Drive,” I pointed to the dirt and cholla. The Rio Grande was there, to the west. My chest pinched tight. I tried to breathe through my fear. I was Water.

Zeke believed I’d saved him. I gripped the seatbelt, holding it away from my sore neck.

Layla gunned the engine and the tires tore into the loose sand. Rocks pinged the undercarriage as we fishtailed out onto the scrubby desert.

Coyote shot forward with preternatural speed. He slammed into the car with so much force the car flipped and my head snapped back into my door. We rolled off the highway, over and over, stopping yards from the highway’s shoulder.

“Do you see him?” she asked.

“No.”

Something hit the car and we spun around. The sensation was horrible—completely out of control. Fear erupted through my belly, swarming up my spine faster than a disturbed fire-ant nest.

“We have to get out!” I cried.

As soon as the car slowed, I jerked upward on the handle with as much force as I could as I slammed my shoulder into the door. I fell onto the sand, wheezing.

Once I was sure my legs would hold me, I stood in slow increments. Coyote gripped Layla by her waist. She was a good fifteen feet off the ground. Layla’s legs swung in a slow bicycle kick as her hands gripped Coyote’s huge one.

“Let her go,” I yelled.

“She’s not the one I want.” He glanced down, tutting at the tears streaming down Layla’s cheeks. “Hard to realize you’re nothing more than a placeholder, I know.”

He pulled her up higher, and Layla screamed, her feet thrashing for purchase on the ground twenty feet below her. “If you want her to live, tell me what happened at Yupkoyvi.”

“Zeke, if you can hear me, now would be a really good time to show up,” I whispered under my breath, trying to force my words into that spot in my head he’d used before. “I have no idea what to do.”

I tried to ignore the pain contorting Layla’s face. A thin bolt of silver shot from her hands into Coyote’s chest. I’d never seen anything like it before.

Coyote stumbled, as surprised as I was by Layla’s attack. He slammed a knee into the highway, causing a mini earthquake. I lost my balance, collapsing backward onto my butt.

I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, and one of the leather straps on my sandals snapped, oversetting me again. I fell forward onto my knees, ripping through the already damaged denim.

“I don’t like waiting, Echo Ruiz.” The air around us heated up. “Your friend grows nearly as tiresome as she is tired.”

I gasped, trying to breathe through air thicker than a sauna’s.

“It’s okay, E.” Layla’s voice was soft, full of regret. But I heard her, even across the distance. “Don’t give him what he wants.”

So much I wanted to say. We needed her to fulfill the prophecy. I needed her to laugh and cry with.

Some possibilities are certainties.

She’d been my certainty, my only true friend, for more than a decade. I ran forward as best I could in my broken shoe, but at least twenty feet separated me from Coyote. My leg muscles cramped at the added exertion of keeping the shoes on my feet. I fought forward, straining to reach my friend. Layla hissed as her aura flared brighter than I’d ever seen it.

Was Coyote squeezing the power from her body?

“Sussistanako, come on. Help your daughter.”

Layla’s head fell forward. I was too far away to help. Dread built in the base of my skull.

I needed to get around the car.

“All right!” I cried. “Put her down. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“I think not.” Coyote smiled. “I hold your friend; thus I hold the bargaining chips. I’ll just drop her off somewhere safe. Jaguar will love getting reacquainted.”

The wind picked up, screaming over us. Shakola was the only one with such power, but I couldn’t see her helping her half-sister.

“Jaguar’s dead,” I yelled.

Coyote startled. His eyes took on a calculating gleam as he paused mid-chant. “Who killed him?”

I edged around the car. Only a few feet separated us now.

“Layla. Look, you said yourself he isn’t worth much. The tablet’s broken. She didn’t do it. Jaguar did. She did you a favor. She’s not the important player here.” I winced at the words. “So let her go.”

Coyote’s eyes flashed with something like fear. “You broke the tablet?”

“Not on purpose,” I mumbled.

Damn, that had been a very bad bit of luck.

The wind was louder than a freight train bearing down the tracks. I crouched against its power, trying to keep my hair from my face.

Coyote lowered his arm, almost as if he forgot he was holding Layla. If he dropped her, she’d die.

Layla’s effort to free herself had stopped. I looked around, desperate. She’d been through too much already. I had to save her. Now.

I did the only thing I could think to do.

As quickly as I could, I focused that deep, white energy that had been building in my head. I focused my energy on the car’s gasoline and the radiator, anything with liquid—right, the antifreeze, too.

Zeke had said “I’m Earth.” He’d been strong, sure in his abilities.

Well, I was Water. I might be untrained and even afraid of the very element that defined me, but I was using it. I forced it outward, trying to pinpoint Coyote’s face, and unleashed the pent-up energy.

The explosion burst through my ears, the heat rippling over my skin. Pieces of car shrapnel slammed into Coyote—the rear bumper plowed into his shin and the hood caught him in his chest. He opened his hands, protecting his face from the heated metal as he flew back across the pavement, braying in distress.

Layla flailed as she fell from Coyote’s hand. The wind screamed and swirled. A tire slammed into me, throwing me backward, away from my best friend as she fell toward pavement.

“Honani!” I cried. I slammed into the asphalt.

Layla’s scream was cut short as I scrambled to my feet, heart racing.

The wind dissipated, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.

My spirits hadn’t answered.

I pelted forward, desperately scanning the spot they’d stood. I didn’t see Layla’s bright blond head. Coyote was gone, too.

“Layla?”

“She was removed. By the wind,” Honani said. He was still gray, rough-edged, but not as bad as he had looked earlier.

“Is she okay? Are you?”

“We’ll see. The fight isn’t over yet, for either of us.”

I closed my eyes, sorrow welling up within in me. I’m not sure what I could’ve done differently.

“Go home, Honani. Get better.”

He faded, the coldness of my pendant the only indication he’d listened.

I clamped my fists to my head and struggled to regain control of my emotions. My mom’s seemingly silly dictates all made sense.

No dating. No swim lessons. No trips to oceans or even the local rivers. No being alone—ever. Not because I was too sickly or too pathetic to care for myself as I’d believed, but because I’d learn about myself. I would’ve given away my mother’s carefully cultivated secret.

And I’d probably be dead.

No, I wasn’t ready to forgive her for the lies, but I understood them better now that I’d met my enemies. Hopefully, she and I would have the opportunity to discuss her actions, for her to tell me why she’d been so dead-set on me never learning about my heritage.

Pieces of wrecked Toyota littered the highway. Sirens screamed through the night sky, drawing closer. I could see why the gods avoided Earth. The police were not going to believe my explanation for this mess. My heart slammed against my chest. I wondered if I was going to jail.

Wait—that’s what I was freaking out about right now? I rolled my eyes as I walked over to where Layla had been. Although I’d listened when Honani had said it, my knees weakened with relief when I proved Layla’s body wasn’t there.

I didn’t know what that silvery light around Layla meant, but her disappearance meant she wasn’t dead. Yet.

Relief loosened my muscles and I sank to my knees, cheek pressed against my knees.

I’ll find you. I promise.

Zeke said he’d find me. Well, he wasn’t here, I had no means of transport, and Coyote would come back soon. If the god had been angry before, I’d managed to totally piss him off now.

The sirens didn’t seem any closer. That was weird. I turned in the direction I thought they were coming from. As my gaze swept up to the western horizon, my mouth dropped open.

The emergency personnel had bigger problems than a wreck on the highway.

Much, much bigger problems.

Dust gathered on the horizon, jerking at its invisible chains, lashing at the turf below and the darkening sky above. Flashes of silver caught on its periphery then smothered within the vortex of sweeping night.

I’d read about killer storms in some of my research books, of course. This type of storm was much more common in the Arizona desert than here. But this one was not a natural phenomenon. Not with that nacreous sheen billowing up from the dirt.

I’d seen that before—Shakola was involved in this.

The entire western skyline roiled and seethed—a dark mass waiting to swallow anything in its path.

I calculated the radius as best I could. Tens of thousands of people were in imminent danger. The fallout would deaden the land and foul the water, making it inhospitable.

The Dust Bowl was, according to our history books, caused by intense drought and extreme conditions. I’d read more than one account of that time period in the old, battered books my mother owned. Those histories were written by the Native Americans who’d lived in the Oklahoma region during that period. One book claimed the mass exodus from once fertile farmland was much more disturbing—and in line with what I’d seen in the last two days. The gods’ battles had spilled over onto the land, destroying the very resource they strove to rule.

I stepped forward as Coyote rode the crest of debris. It ripped upward, coating the sky in blackness. A big gash on his chest dripped ch’ich. While not fatal, this was the second time he’d been injured messing with me.

A sign along the highway hung off one of its metal poles, swinging back and forth. A huge gust of wind whipped the metal from the pole, sending it flying away from the storm.

I stood there, a tiny speck against the vastness of the storm. I threw back my shoulders and raised my chin. My aunt Flor used to tell me
de ilusión también se vive
. “Also of hope and aspiration do we live.”

That’s really all I had left.

The ground beneath me vibrated as the storm approached. The first grains of sand hammered my skin, thin lines of blood oozed over my knuckles. I clenched my fists, more determined to do what I could to stop Coyote.

Then I saw her.

My mother was in front of the storm. Her mouth stretched taut in a silent scream. Pain radiated from her, undulating into the ground, ripping the sand and little bits of vegetation from the earth, forcing everything upward in a tidal wave of destruction.

My mother powered the storm.

Coyote had found the worst possible vengeance: Mom loved the land, loved its beauty and fragility. When my mom was upset, she’d go outside and sit in the flowerbed, wedging herself between the butterfly bush and her huge white lilies, their heads dipping and swaying protectively around her. Our house was filled with flora—we even had succulents in the narrow two-foot strip between our house and the neighbor’s.

Now she was forced to witness the destruction of the land she’d always loved. She tried to turn her face away and shut her eyes, but one of the kachina that Layla had fought earlier forced her face forward.

As much as I wanted to rush in, I couldn’t attack everything, from every angle.

I confirmed Jaguar wasn’t there. Good. He better stay dead. So dead.

The wind rallied. I breathed in the grit, making my nose burn.

My mother’s body began to bow under the pressure. I had to get rid of the kachina. Save my mother.

I wrapped my fingers around my necklace. An idea bubbled up, full-formed and perfect.

“Spirits,” I whispered.

Right here
. I felt frigid fingers clasp my shoulder, and I didn’t care that the touch was as cold as a February dawn. Warmth spread through my chest at their continued presence. These ghosts chose to stay near, chose to help me, despite my screwups.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. They waited, their patience immeasurable. “Do you think other spirits here, on this plane, in this time would come help me?”

“Call them. Ask.”

“Er. How?”

Coyote snarled and leapt forward, powering a thick wedge of his sandstorm to lurch into place behind him. He reappeared next to my mother, his warriors in a line behind his huge figure and my mom’s diminutive one. His fingers tangled in her hair as he forced her arms upward over her head. She screamed.

“Stop fighting me, woman!” Coyote bellowed. Me or my mom? She wasn’t fighting very hard. Not with her shoulders dislocated.

My stomach rolled and the spirits behind me murmured, anger building in their voices. Their rage swirled around me, fueling my own.

“I won’t,” Mom whispered. The pain had to be intense, yet she was still awake, still fighting.

“Sotuk promised me the Fourth World. He lied. Call him. Bring your consort here. A god so powerful should fight his own battle.”

Mom’s eyes were fierce, the copper glowing in her pallid skin. “No. I don’t want him to come.”

“Because you realize you mean nothing to him. Then you’re of no use,” Coyote said, dropping her.

She shuddered as the storm crashed over her. With no way to catch herself, Mom slammed against the dirt, her cheek taking the brunt of the fall just before she was swallowed by the avalanche of sand.