Trio of sorcery, p.16
Trio of Sorcery, page 16
With a mocking little head nod, she took on the look of her spirit form. Once her spirit form had merely looked like a bird; now it was that of a woman who was half-warrior, half-bird—exactly the sort of shape that Kestrel himself might take, to show that he was something other than a human spirit. For Jennie to be able to assume this half-and-half shape meant that she had a great deal of power in the spirit world.
But she wasn’t ready to step out of her body and into that world, not just yet. For her to take this shape meant she could, and that was all that the ghost needed to know for now. His eyes flashed with anger and arrogance.
Weapons appeared in his hands.
She gestured. The bowstring snapped, the arrows crumbled. “You will not harm me, spirit,” she declared.
“So you say,” he replied, but now there was uncertainty in his voice. “So you say.”
“And I say, and say again, go from this place. Leave this woman alone. You are not wanted here.” She made her tone as firm as she could.
He tried to push toward her. She held out her hand, palm facing him, this time putting up a barrier by will alone. She felt him shoving against it, but she was able to hold against his force; she betrayed by not so much as a frown how hard it was. If he kept it up much longer, she would start sweating from the exertion, and that wasn’t something she could hide. He was a very powerful spirit even now. She didn’t like to think what he would be like with more stolen power.
His frown grew with every passing moment. Finally, he stopped pushing against her barrier, cursed, and stamped his foot like a petulant child. “You think you have won,” he growled, turning his eyes away in a refusal to look at her.
“I know I have,” she countered, raising her chin and dropping her spirit form. “You are not welcome here. The Chickasaw woman is not for your taking. Nor is any other. Go. And do not return.”
There was one moment when she wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He appeared to gather himself and grew a little taller, his expression full of fury, his hands crackling with energy. He stood like that for a moment and she braced herself for an attack—
With a snarl, he turned about—and vanished.
The feeling of storm-about-to-break left the clearing. She waited a long moment to see if he would reappear and strike at her when she relaxed her guard.
Nothing.
Still she waited. The mi-ah-lushka were tricksters, and not in the amusing sense.
Still nothing.
Gradually, the normal sounds of the night crept into the clearing. Faint rustlings in the trees and grass, crickets. She jumped when a cicada went off nearly in her ear.
Jennie bent and turned off the boom box, then hefted it and headed back up to Caroline’s trailer.
Caroline, Nathan, and David all looked up as she opened the door, but no one said anything. They just stared at her as if they weren’t quite certain she was real. Setting down the boom box, Jennie broke the silence.
“He’s gone,” she said flatly. “I wouldn’t practice down there again if I were you, but he’s gone.”
Caroline was sitting next to Begay on the couch and holding his hand. She rubbed her free hand across her eyes.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” she said.
“So how did all this start?” Jennie asked, slumping down into an old recliner. She felt as drained as Caroline looked. I think I’ll have David drive home.…
“I thought I was going crazy,” Caroline said, unconsciously echoing Begay’s words. “When I was practicing one night, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, looked up, and there he was. When I blinked, he was gone. But he kept reappearing. At first I thought, well, maybe I’m just somehow calling up an image out of my subconscious.”
Jennie raised an eyebrow. “Did you think you were hypnotizing yourself somehow, dancing?”
Caroline shook her head. “I was just trying to find an explanation that wasn’t—out there. I mean, I’m not one of those people that hangs around Peace of Mind bookstore telling anyone who’ll listen about all the ghosts they’re channeling. I like rational.”
Jennie nodded; while she didn’t exactly understand that attitude, she could sympathize with it. The spirit world seemed to scare as many people as it lured. Maybe more, actually. Despite wanting to know, for a fact, that there really was an “other side,” a lot of people didn’t really want that other side to intrude on their world. It scared them when it did. Because that meant that there were things they couldn’t simply take for granted anymore.
“So…when he didn’t go away, even when I stopped and stared at him, I thought maybe I was waking up an image out of the past, or somehow tuning into it, like a television getting a channel it wasn’t supposed to.” Caroline sighed. “After a few more times, it felt like I should just relax and let well enough alone. Soon I got used to seeing him there. Then one day—he spoke to me.”
“What did he say?” That was David, cutting to the chase as usual; the question on the tip of Jennie’s tongue was, “How did you understand him?” She was used to traveling in the spirit world and speaking to the creatures there. It was unusual for someone who didn’t have strong Medicine of her own to be able to understand the spirits.
“He said, ‘Dance with me,’ and it wasn’t a request.” Caroline shivered. “It was like I didn’t have a choice.”
“Then?” Jennie prompted.
“Then, well…I couldn’t resist him. Even when I tried, even when I wanted to stay up here, even when I locked the door, once the sun went down, it was like there was something dragging me down there. I’d light the fire, start the tape, and there he would be, and we’d dance. And it was horrible, like sleepwalking. He didn’t flirt with me, no, he was just dancing around me like he owned me, and I couldn’t help myself. I’d dance for two, three, four hours, and it felt like he was draining all my energy away. I’d feel half dead when he finally turned me loose, I’d sleep until noon and wake up still feeling half dead.” There were tears in her eyes of frustration and anger. “I sent Nate away because I was afraid. I was afraid if it wasn’t real, then it was a psychotic break, and I didn’t want to hurt him. And if it was real—that scared me more, because I knew he’d want to do something, and he’d get hurt confronting the thing. Maybe worse than hurt.”
“That would be about right,” Jennie said dryly. “He was used to commanding people and getting what he wanted. Seemed to me that he was something of a spoiled bully when he was alive.” She shivered a little. “Hard to tell what he’s become as a mi-ah-lushka.”
“You’ve used that name before, what’s it mean?” Caro asked, leaning forward anxiously. “Other than ‘ghost.’”
The cup of coffee went unnoticed in her hands.
Jennie wasn’t particularly in the mood to tell ghost stories, particularly not after facing one down, but she sensed she wasn’t going to get away without some sort of explanation.
“Well, we Osage have the usual sort of expected afterlife if you show courage and strength and the general litany of virtues in life,” she said, trying to make it sound very matter-of-fact. “But our people figure if you aren’t any of these things, instead of going onward, you stick around, kind of half in the living world and half in a shadow spirit world. It’s a pretty unpleasant place, that shadow, which you’d figure, if the only things there are other rotten bastards.”
Caro chuckled weakly.
“The mi-ah-lushka—we sometimes call them the ‘Little People,’ because some of them actually are quite small—are the general name for all the nasty things that live that kind of half-life. Most of them seem to be the spirits of particularly cowardly men, men who died without honor, without paint, and never got a proper burial. All of which your ‘friend’ there seems to be. Some of them are just vengeful—there is, or was, a set of them out at Claremore Mound that are the spirits of a bunch of villagers that were massacred, and let me tell you, no one is safe on that mound unless they’re Osage, and sometimes not even then.” She smiled wryly as David cringed. “The story goes that any man who goes up there at night, or at least at the dark of the moon, comes back singing soprano or pitching for the other team, if you know what I mean.”
Begay rolled his eyes, but he didn’t look as if he disbelieved her.
“There are others, things that aren’t ghosts, but mostly, even Medicine People don’t see them anymore. They don’t much like modern stuff, so they stay hidden. So these days, when an Osage says mi-ah-lushka, he means ‘nasty ghost.’” She took a long drink of lukewarm coffee. “They aren’t just limited to going after Red blood either. They can go after anyone who pisses them off. Some of them have figured out the modern world well enough to really mess with you, even kill you. And as far as they are concerned, when you piss them off, you and everyone around you becomes a target. So, Caroline, your instinct to keep Nate out of this was dead-on.”
The jewelry maker glanced at Begay, who squeezed her hand.
“But it’s over now,” Caro said, and sighed. “I think maybe I’ll stick to practicing with that ICOT group.”
Jennie nodded. “Safer. The drums called him, but I doubt he’ll be able, or even inclined, to follow you into Tulsa. Just keep the drum music off your property. And don’t hesitate to call us if you need us.”
Jennie stood up and stretched, feeling aches all over. Despite her protections and precautions, she’d been “bruised” a good bit by the force of the spirit’s will. She tossed David her keys. “Home, James, and don’t spare the horsepower.”
“Yes, madam,” he said with a little bow.
There was something not quite right about the day.
It had started out badly; overcast, humid, threatening-but-not-quite-going-to-rain. She hated those kind of days, and so did David; they snapped at each other all morning, and Grandfather had taken the hint early and made himself entirely scarce, which was just as well. Some people called this “tornado weather,” because conditions were good for big supercells to boil up. But it wasn’t just the weather that was making them all nervous. Every time the phone rang, both she and David jumped, and whenever Jennie picked up the receiver she had a feeling of dread, for some reason expecting bad news.
Lunch was in keeping with the day, lousy barbeque sandwiches that had too much spice and garlic and not enough sauce, on buns that had gone soggy by the time David made it home with them. After they had both picked at the food and tossed most of it in the compost pile—the phone rang again, and finally it was bad news.
“It’s Nate. Nathan Begay,” said a weary voice on the other end of the line, a voice that sounded as if the speaker was in pain, and was having trouble with his mouth. “I’m in the Indian Hospital in Claremore. The thing’s back and it kicked my ass.” There was a long pause. “I can’t face it again.”
Jennie swore, and David went as alert as a hound that has caught a scent. He focused on her, but managed to keep quiet.
“We’ll be right there,” Jennie said, and hung up. “Begay,” she told David, looking bleakly at him across her desk. “The mi-ah-lushka is back, and Nate got hurt. Bad enough to end up in the hospital.”
It was David’s turn to swear and look stunned. Well, he should. They had both heard of Little People messing with live folks, but they weren’t usually able to physically beat a man badly enough to land him in the hospital. “We need to roll?”
“He’s at the Indian Hospital in Claremore. Let me grab the kit; we need to get him smudged before he gets an unwanted visitor.” She fished her “traveling Medicine kit” from under the desk as David took off like a sprinter, then grabbed her purse, and headed out the door at a run. David had already gotten his car started; she yanked open the door and threw the kit inside, hurling herself in after it.
David had been in the area long enough to know where the speed traps were, and between them, he bent the law over backwards. Jennie was grateful that he was driving; even more grateful that Begay was in the Indian Hospital. Nobody was going to say a thing about smudging, chanting, or any other carrying-on, as long as the participants didn’t start stripping to the skin and taking it into the hallway.
Another advantage: they knew her there, and she got the same access to patients that chaplains did, including after visiting hours, and no fussing about whether she was kin to the patient or not.
Begay was in a four-patient room, and he looked like hell.
David stopped in the doorway and stared.
“I know,” Begay managed out of a swollen face that looked like it belonged to the loser in a bar fight. “Told ’em I was thrown by a bull and trampled.”
That was an excuse that would definitely wash around here, especially now that it was rodeo season. Jennie nodded as she stepped past David and began setting up for her ceremony. This wasn’t the first time she’d done this sort of thing, confusing the trail and the “scent” so a mi ah-lushka couldn’t hunt someone down. “Don’t talk right now. Wait until I’m done.”
She had the feeling they hadn’t arrived a moment too soon; there was a malevolent taste to the air in the room that vanished once she was done with her cleansing and smudging. A passing nurse warned Jennie not to overwhelm the smoke detectors, but since no one in the room was on oxygen, she otherwise left them alone. Jennie was used to working in hospital rooms; she and Grandfather got a fair number of calls from people in here, or their relatives, wanting to be sure that there was nothing bad lingering around someone who’d gotten sick or hurt.
“All right,” she said, once the sage and cedar bundle, the hawk-wing fan, and the abalone shell were put away. She sat down in the chair next to Nathan’s bed. The other three patients pretended they were asleep, but she could almost feel them straining their ears to listen. What would they make of it? There were plenty of Native Americans who didn’t believe, or were Christians…. Still, if the other patients thought all three of them were crazy, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. If they disbelieved hard enough, that very disbelief was a kind of shield.
“Went over to Caro’s place, later than usual,” Begay said with difficulty, around his split and swollen lip. “She was gone. Boom box too. Started for the clearing. Heard the drums before I got there. Then…” He shook his head a tiny bit. “Dunno. Got hit in the back of the head then, not sure. Stuff hitting me, me hitting trees. Wound up by the trailer. Got the truck goin’, got as far as QuikTrip. Clerk called cops, cops called ambulance.”
Jennie’s heart plummeted. The spirit was stronger. A lot stronger. It had ambushed Begay before he even got to the clearing, and now it was clearly able to work in the waking world; if the mi-ah-lushka was strong enough to bash the poor man in the back of the head with a heavy branch, there was no telling what was going on while it beat him further, maybe indeed throwing him against trees as he tried to stumble out.
What was clear was that Begay had given up. The despair in his voice told her that, and the sag of his shoulders, and the way he wouldn’t look straight at her. She didn’t need to hear him say it—it was all there in front of her, his capitulation as easy to read as a highway sign. How does an ordinary man fight something that’s already dead?
Well, damn if she was going to give up that easily.
“Can you stay here and keep watch?” she asked David abruptly.
“You’re not—” He stopped himself just in time, before putting his foot in it, which showed a lot of restraint on his part and better sense than he’d had before.
“I’m going to get Grandfather,” she replied, and tried not to lose her temper at the relief on his face. “I’ve heard of Little People that were this strong before, but I’ve never seen one. Even the ones that were going after that contractor were only doing little things in the waking world, not beating people up. But there has to be something we can do besides let it take Caro.”
“I—” David began, but she was already out the door and out of hearing range before he got any further.
She hoped he hadn’t been about to say “I don’t know what else we can do.” Because she’d have smacked him with a chair if he had.
She’d left her Medicine bag with him, and the moment she got into the car, she realized that was a mistake—because everything went eerily quiet and very, very cold.
She felt a presence beside her and heard a mocking voice say, “The trail has disappeared. But you are just as good for my purposes. Come fight in my world, if you dare.”
And then she felt a shove, and for the first time ever, found herself physically in the other world. As he said—his world. The one that was half of the waking world, half of the spirit world.
She was standing next to the car, but everything was grayed out and dim except for her and the mi-ah-lushka, and the car itself was empty.
“So,” said the ghost, a sardonic smile on his lips. “Will you give this up and admit defeat? Or must I beat you too?”
With an effort of will, Jennie tried to change her form to something better suited to a knock-down, drag-out fight than a skinny, undersized woman—
And nothing happened.
She knew immediately why; it was because she was here physically. She could change her spirit form, but not a real, solid body.
“So you’ve descended to knocking a little woman around?” she replied, trying to put up a brave front. This was probably how he beat up Begay—and Jennie hadn’t even known this sort of thing was possible.
“Oh, but I am mi-ah-lushka, I have no honor to be concerned about,” he retorted. His eyes flashed. “Only what is mine, and what I will have. That is all that concerns me.” He stepped forward, hands already formed into fists.
Well, she might not be able to change form, but she wasn’t exactly helpless. She’d had big brothers—and some martial arts training too. Dirty-fighting stuff. She hadn’t been taken by surprise the way Begay had, and she hadn’t been knocked half silly by a hit in the head.
Yet. And I need to figure out how to get back to the waking world, fast!
