Читать книгу The Guardian - Connie Hall - Страница 11

The Present

Katrina Sanecki picked up her pace on the jogging trail. She could hear someone behind her. The person had followed her for a quarter of a mile. Odd, she couldn’t hear footfalls, but the heavy breathing was unmistakable. Close. Too close. Somehow, all around her, the hot feel of it prickled her bare neck. And she could feel eyes watching her. Goose bumps slid down her arms and legs.

She shot a quick glance behind her. The full moon loomed over her and… Her breath caught as she saw phantom yellow eyes hovering beyond the thick oaks and hedges. A lot of them. She realized it was the hazy lights of the Washington Zoo, looming in the night. The zoo bordered the south end of Rock Creek Park. She let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

Her imagination was running wild tonight. She shouldn’t have come here after dark, but she’d had to work late and finish some reports, then get ready for her hot date. Lately, her guy had turned into an animal in the bedroom, and she liked walking on his wild side. She smiled at the thought of what the night would bring, then her smile died as the rising frantic cry of the animals drifted toward her.

Birds screeched. Monkeys screamed. Lions roared… The breathing. Still there. She hadn’t imagined it. Oh, God! Where was this pervert hiding? She couldn’t see him but, like the zoo animals, sensed him.

She swallowed the lump of fear choking her and sped up. Her legs churned as fast as they could go. Her heart hammered her chest.

The breathing closed in on her…

A rumble split the air, a beast’s attacking howl.

The growl tore through her like claws. She screamed as something hit her from behind and knocked her to the ground. This isn’t happening. Dear God. She’d never been this afraid in her life. She couldn’t struggle, it pinned her to the ground.

No. No. No. She tried to scream, but fear closed off her throat. Then it was too late. Darkness took away the pain.

Fala Rainwater gulped back rising panic and felt the night, alive, teeming, lapping up the campfire flames on the sacred mound. The fire thinned the frigid, damp air, lacing it with cinders and the odor of burning birch. Birch, the wood of choice for switches. Well, wasn’t this a beating? Nah, it was much worse than any spanking she’d ever experienced. She gasped for air and wished she was anywhere but here.

Her pulse thudded in her ears as she looked beyond the fire at the circle of Patomani elders surrounding her. The sacred council of twelve women seemed entranced as they watched the ancient wedding ritual unfolding before them.

Even though it was the dead of winter, beads of perspiration soaked Fala’s forehead. A braid corralled the straight black hair, which hung down to her waist. Beads woven into several strands around her face stuck to her temples and cheeks. The weight of the ceremonial wedding robe draping her shoulders felt like cement rather than doeskin. The feather fringe and tassels rippled down around her soft kid boots. She felt one feather’s sharp point poking into the back of her knee. Legend had it that the feathers were from a Thunderbird god who plucked one every day for a year and left them by a burning fire for the Patomani women to make the wedding robe. Right now, she wished someone had shot the Thunderbird and roasted it, feathers and all.

Beside her, Akando Chasing Deer, her soon-to-be fiancé, didn’t look at all nervous. Firelight glinted along Akando’s black-beaded braids, which hung down his back. It wasn’t that he was unattractive. A New York ad agency would pay a fortune for the high cheekbones, stubborn square chin, long-lashed dark eyes and muscled male body. The wedding robe he wore, identical to hers, covered his powerfully built body and hid its perfection. A finer male specimen didn’t exist, she had to admit. All the Patomani women on the reservation lusted after him—except herself, of course. The irony was not lost on her. She’d be married to this man in minutes. Bound to a man she didn’t love. Didn’t even care for. She saw the self-satisfied, devouring look in his eyes, and she wished she could melt into the fire and disappear into another dimension.

Fala listened to an elder playing the ceremonial flute. The haunting music rose up toward a massive glowing moon that peered down at her. Hands down, the largest moon she’d ever seen in her life. It soared over the tops of the oaks and encased the mound in an oppressive blue brilliance that eclipsed everything, watched everything, gripped everything in its path. Its closeness felt as if it would crush her at any moment.

Meikoda, her grandmother, stepped out of the elder circle, holding the blessing mat. Firelight danced along her ancient face and radiated a gorgeous burnt sienna, the same color as Fala’s skin. They also shared a dimple that hollowed the middle of their square, proud chins. Where Fala’s brows were jet-black, gray shadowed her grandmother’s deep-set eyes.

Meikoda held the mat above her head and glanced toward the full moon. She chanted a spell as she lowered the mat to the ground before the fire. Slowly her gnarled hand unrolled the ancient braided material.

Fala’s eyes met her grandmother’s. The heavy wrinkles weighing down the elder’s eyelids lifted, and the light behind the striking eyes enthralled Fala. They drew her into the unnatural shade of blue, neon, only brighter, wider. They were the strange blue of a dawning sky, alight with the radiance of Mother Sun. They were the eyes of ancient wisdom, portals to eternal magic.

Fala shared the same eye color as her grandmother, and the force of Meikoda’s gaze warred with her own. Fala blinked and quickly lost this battle and her concentration.

Meikoda’s energy struck Fala, and she rocked back on her knees from the impact and sucked in her breath. Okay, she got the warning: Don’t move. Don’t give into your fear and run from the sacred mound before the ceremony is complete. She really didn’t want to be another disappointment to her grandmother, and it took all of her willpower to stay kneeling.

Meikoda flicked the mat’s edge and gently picked up an ancient bowl carved in the form of two bears, their noses touching. White mist spiraled up from the hot potion and flowed over Meikoda’s gnarled hands as she raised the bowl heavenward. She closed her eyes and spoke an ancient incantation. “May blessings from the seven stars bind you for all eternity and the light of our Great Bear Maiden seal the union. Drink from the sacred bowl and be one.”

Fala knew that Meikoda chanted to the Warrior Bear Maiden, known to humans only as the constellation Ursa Major. Since the Dawning, the Great Bear Maiden had always been the totem of her tribe and the gateway to the source of their white magic and that of the Tsimshian’s power.

After a moment of reverent silence, Meikoda handed the bowl to Fala first.

Fala’s hand trembled as she drank from the bear on the left. The bitter liquid burned her throat, then she handed the vessel to Akando. Their fingers touched and he allowed the moment to linger until her eyes met his, eyes that glistened with greed and hunger. He grinned at her, then without taking his gaze from her, raised the bowl to his lips and drank.

Heat from the fire tugged at her, and she shook all over. Her vision blurred. Her head fell back and she collapsed on the ground. All she could see was that damn moon. The magnetic pull of it flayed her skin from bone, going deeper and deeper into her. The atoms of her body strained against the sensation of being torn apart. A strange lifting sensation engulfed her, then her spirit departed her physical body. It churned over her in a brilliant orb.

Akando fell next to her. His spirit roared out of him, bursting into an orange glow not as bright as her own. Fala heard the watching crowd gasp in wonder.

Their spirits, attracted by the energy of one another, drew closer. Before they melded, Fala’s spirit paused and hovered there.

Rainbow-colored rings surrounded the orbs as they undulated, swelled, surged, receded and waved in an age-old mating dance. Fala’s unwilling spirit avoided Akando’s thrusts to reach her.

“Fala, let your reluctance go,” Meikoda ordered.

I’m trying. Fala squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated on reining in her will.

After what seemed like years, but had to have been minutes, Meikoda said, “Enough.” She swept her hands through the air in a quickness that defied her age. A burst of brilliant white light burst from her palms and struck both spirits.

Fala felt her essence rush back into her own body in an electrifying whoosh. It felt as if someone had stepped off her chest and she could breathe freely again. She let the life-giving feeling wash over her, while she caught a whiff of the ionized scent that permeated the air from Meikoda’s magic, a smell much like the cleansed smell after a lightning strike. She grew aware of the flutist who stopped playing. Dead silence blanketed the cold air.

Akando, already on his feet, stood before her. He bent and grabbed her hand and jerked her up before she could protest. When they stood nose to nose, he said, “You’re delaying this on purpose.” The terse words revealed the blow to his ego.

“We’ll try again.”

He grabbed her arms, his face defiant. “I’ll not be made a fool of a second time.”

Fala felt his finger bite into her flesh as she pulled away, a warning flaring in her eyes. Now she knew why she had never liked Akando. His male beauty had spoiled him and he didn’t take rejection well. In fact, he was all too arrogant for her tastes.

“Enough.” Meikoda held up a hand. A bolt of lightning shot out from her fingers, hissing and spitting like a welder’s torch.

Fala and Akando backed away, giving Meikoda a wide berth, a lesson Fala had learned within the first hour of having been dumped at Meikoda’s doorstep as a child. This was the angriest Fala had ever seen her grandmother.

“No more anger on this holy ground.” Meikoda leveled a scathing look at Akando. “We will perform the ceremony again when Fala is ready.”

Akando opened his mouth to protest, but when he looked at Meikoda he looked into the face of the high priestess, the Tsimshian, the Guardian of white magic, the most powerful shape-shifter on earth. He clamped his mouth closed. After a withering glance in Fala’s direction, he stormed away, his form melting into the darkness.

“All of you leave now.” Meikoda motioned to the council, and the women followed in Akando’s wake.

Now that they were alone, Meikoda’s annoyance melted within the folds of her wrinkled face. “Tell me now, Granddaughter. Will you ever be able to finish the ceremony?”

“I can’t force it,” Fala whispered back, wishing she could summon more than dislike for Akando. “I need some time.”

“You only have a week before the winter solstice and the Warrior Bear Maiden reaches her zenith.” Worry pulled at Meikoda’s brow as she pointed skyward.

Fala gazed up at the sky to glimpse the Warrior Bear Maiden. But that damn moon blocked the constellation. On a clear night, the seven brightest stars that sliced through the Maiden’s belly could be easily seen. Her people called this cluster of stars the Utsi Yonia, or Bear Mother’s Womb. It is the Big Dipper. Those seven stars were magical, and on the exact moment of the winter solstice, when Fala had lived four annual cycles of seven, or her twenty-eighth birthday, the Bear Maiden’s womb would open and the seven stars would form a conduit between heaven and earth, thus sanctifying her and transferring Meikoda’s power to Fala. This cyclic blessing would begin all over again when Fala married Akando and bore a female child. The thought of bearing a child and heaping such an enormous responsibility on her made Fala groan inside. It was an honor being the Tsimshian, but at the same time it was a curse.

As if Meikoda read Fala’s mind, she frowned, deepening the wrinkles in her brow. “And you know what will happen if you receive your powers and are not joined to Akando within twenty-four hours.”

“I know, I know.” Fala squeezed her eyes closed to shut out the world around her. It didn’t work. The oppressive heat of the fire and the cold air on the holy mound suddenly collided around her and pressed against her. She felt trapped by it as she said, “He’ll die.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s just that…he was never my choice.”

“Choice. Choice has nothing to do with it, and you know this.” She punctuated her next words with an angry poke at the air. “You were both born at the same instant. You know this binds your spirits and preordains your marriage to him. If you do not marry him, another Tsimshian will not be born. Would you reap those consequences upon the earth?”

Fala hated to think what would happen without a Tsimshian on Earth. The balance between good and evil would tip and the underworld would gain control. Innocent humans would suffer the most. “I know my duty,” Fala said with a touch of flint in her voice. “And I’ll do it, unlike my mother.”

At the mention of Fala’s mother, Meikoda seemed to age before Fala’s eyes. “Your mother always did what pleased her and thought of no one else.” She paused and appeared to be reliving something painful, then she spoke more to herself. “We’ll speak no more of her.”

Fala gulped hard as she stared at the woman whose blood ran in her veins, who had raised her, whom she loved and respected, and whose strength had supported everyone around her. She was the most formidable woman Fala had ever known, but Meikoda’s strength hadn’t been able to manage her only daughter. After Fala’s father had died twenty-three years ago, her mother had dumped Fala and her two younger sisters on Meikoda’s doorstep and left the tribe to never return. Fala knew Meikoda was not only experiencing the pain Fala had just given her by not finishing the ceremony, but also the failure of having lost a daughter.

“I’m sorry,” Fala said, her voice cracking as she untied the wedding robe and handed it to Meikoda. She wanted to say, Can’t you see I’m not like my mother? I’ve lived my whole life proving I’m nothing like her. I’d never turn my back on responsibility, or hurt those I loved, or leave three daughters in your care. Instead she remained silent.

Meikoda’s eyes narrowed on Fala as if she were trying to search inside her, heal that part of Fala that belonged to her mother and wasn’t perfect. “If only humbling yourself could take care of this.” Meikoda sighed loudly. “But it will not keep you safe. You’ll be tested.”

Fala stiffened beneath the gaze. “How?”

“Darkness is drawn to the light of the Tsimshian powers.”

“I know that.”

“But, you do not know what Tumseneha—” Meikoda pronounced the name slowly, Tum-se-ne-ha, adding a certain element of well-deserved contempt to each syllable “—is capable of.”

Fala flinched at the name and felt a chill come over her. Everything in nature and magic had an opposite. White magic versus black magic. Male spirit versus female spirit. Yin versus yang. The Tsimshian’s dark counterpart was Tumseneha, the enemy of every Guardian who had come before her, and now he would be her enemy. “What do you mean?”

Meikoda said, “He will go to any lengths to take your powers and turn them to his own evil plans. Your life is in danger when you are away from the tribe and the elders.”

Fala’s face contorted as she thought of Tumseneha. How many times had she listened to her grandmother’s narratives about the legends of his evil, how he lured Tsimshians to their deaths, how the darkness loved him, how he bent it to his will? He was the object of her nightmares through her childhood and beyond. They had occurred with more frequency now that she was about to inherit her powers. She knew that each nightmare was a mental battle between them in some paranormal dimension, and she had been able to wake up before he hurt her. But the possibility that he could be roaming the earth again caused a wave of terror to shudder through her.

“I thought you banished him long ago,” she said.

“Yes, but he is strong. White magic can last but so long against the powers of darkness, and my powers have diminished over the years. I’m certain he knows that I weaken every day. He could already have escaped his bonds and be plotting to kill you and steal your powers.”

“Wouldn’t we know if he came back?”

Meikoda shook her head. “Not until he strikes. I’ve been praying about it, but have had no visions.”

“That means we’re safe, right?” Fala asked, her voice hopeful.

“It means I am an old vessel and cannot remain the Tsimshian for much longer. The Maiden Bear’s magic needs a new vessel.” She looked hard at Fala.

Fala knew the Tsimshian was a yoke the eldest female in her family had carried since the Dawning. The weight of it covered Meikoda’s face now like a snowdrift. She had shouldered her own responsibilities as well as her daughter’s for two generations, but not without cost. Age had weakened her and she looked tired, more than ready to relinquish the powers to Fala.

“I promise you, I’ll marry Akando and take my place.”

Meikoda lifted her head in a dismissive gesture as if the outcome was still in the balance. “I pray so, Granddaughter.” She reached up and cupped Fala’s chin.

Fala felt the leathered fingertips against her soft cheeks, the current of power flowing from them. She placed a hand over the warm, gnarled flesh and looked into her grandmother’s sad face. She felt a deep pang as she said, “I’ll be careful.”

Meikoda nodded to Fala and withdrew her hand. She reached inside her robe and pulled a leather thong holding a silver amulet from around her neck. “Take this. If Tumseneha is near, it will warn you.”

“What is it?”

“A guarded secret among Tsimshians, a gift from our ancestors and spirit guides. It will help keep you safe, but you must never speak of it or its power.”

Fala tried to place the ancient amulet back in Meikoda’s hand. “But you should keep it.”

Meikoda pulled back. “I am not his target. You need it more than I.”

Fala ran her thumb over the smooth edges of the Warrior Bear Maiden’s image. The mighty bear’s mouth gaped open, teeth bared, showing her spirit and power, an unstoppable force in nature like no other.

“Put it on and don’t take it off.” Meikoda pointed at Fala’s neck.

Fala slipped the amulet down inside her shirt. She could still feel the warmth from her grandmother’s body radiating from the metal. It suddenly felt like a hundred-pound rock weighing down her shoulders.

“Go, now. I pray you return to me.” Her words held a wealth of past disappointments and sorrows. She gave Fala her back.

Fala ran toward the path that would take her down the sacred mound, chest aching, feeling as if her heart might burst. The sad thing was that with each stride toward freedom, she felt lighter, freer. She couldn’t wait to get back to the normal life she’d established, even if it was for only a few days. She was a homicide detective and a good one. She’d much rather analyze a murder scene than take her grandmother’s place as the Guardian. Truth was she wasn’t ready to give up everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish. Life rarely allowed for wants and wishes, and she knew that soon she’d be bound to Akando and take up the yoke of the Tsimshian. The thing that hurt the most was that her grandmother had sensed the same weakness in Fala’s mother as she had sensed in Fala. I’ll prove her wrong once and for all, and she’ll finally believe I’m nothing like my mother.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when the theme song from Phantom of the Opera startled her. She pulled her cell phone from her jean pocket and narrowed her eyes at the caller ID: Unknown Caller.

She decided not to answer as she hurried down the path. It rang again and kept ringing. Then a strange text message appeared in the cell phone window: Answer phone. Highly classified.

Was this the station trying to reach her? She said, “Hello.”

“Miss Rainwater?” A deep timbre floated her name, the kind of strong, velvety-edged cadence a radio announcer would kill to have.

Somewhere in that honeyed voice, she picked up on a Maine accent, his r’s at the end of her name turning into a ha sound: Rainwatah. “Who the devil is this?” she asked.

“Special Agent Stephen Winter.”

“Why are the feds calling me?”

“Actually, I’ve called your partner, too.”

“Wait a minute! Joe’s on leave. His wife just gave birth.”

“And now he’s back at work.”

A smart-ass and a nice voice. Bad mix. “What’s the case?”

“There’s been an—” he paused a beat “—unusual murder at Rock Creek Park. I need your expertise on the case. I’ve already cleared it with your captain, your chief and the mayor.”

Special Agent Winter not only worked fast, but he had clout in the District, too.

“You’re needed there ASAP.” It hadn’t been a polite command, but his baritone had wrapped the words in silken syllables and offered them up like sensual presents. “How soon can you make it to Rock Creek Park?”

“Two hours.”

“Where are you?”

What agency employed this nosey, bossy special agent? And why was he requesting her on this case? She looked forward to getting those answers. She ignored his question and asked, “Where’s the body?”

“Near the jogging trail next to the zoo. Know it?”

“Yeah.”

“Take the service entrance.”

“Okay, be there soon.”

Fala closed the phone, glad she had thrown in the last word. Now maybe she could clear her mind. It felt as if she had somehow been invaded by the hypnotic richness of Special Agent Winter’s voice. There was something strange about it, forbidden, beguiling, almost tangible. She looked forward to meeting this guy. In fact, she could think of nothing better than to be working. It might take her mind off of her impending marriage. Her grandmother’s disappointed face flashed in her mind, and she knew that had been wishful thinking.

Stephen Winter waved a hand over the cell phone on his desk and it hissed off in the emptiness of his office, not a typical government-issue space. Crystals covered the walls of the pyramid-shaped room, and clear, processed ectoplasm bubbled within the space between the crystals, lending the room an appearance that it was alive and moving. The pyramid acted like a cosmic generator and gathered power from the earth’s core, and a beam of pure energy glowed down from the pyramid’s apex. At the moment the beam was a soft blue, the full moon affecting its power source tonight. When the pyramid was fully charged, as it was now, an alkaloid smell seeped from the ectoplasm. Usually the air vents took care of the odor, but not tonight.

Stephen sniffed and wrinkled his nose. He leaned back in his desk chair, snapped his fingers and Billie Holiday’s sexy voice came from the computer speakers on his desk. He and Billie had a long-standing love affair.

He closed his eyes, meditated on Fala Rainwater and focused all his kinetic energy on her. He felt the narrow parameters of his powers, controlled by the blood-binding cloaking spell he was under. It allowed him one clear portal, a direct connection to Fala Rainwater’s mind. His ability to read other humans’ thoughts had all but faded, a consequence that couldn’t be rectified until the cloaking spell was broken. But he couldn’t break it until he was done with Fala Rainwater. An unavoidable catch-22.

The crystals in the office magnified his bond to Fala a hundredfold, and a mental image of her channeled directly into his mind. This was reality unfolding and he was right in the middle of it. Not a bad place to be at the moment.

His chest thrummed at the sight of her, total traffic-stopping gorgeous. Tight jeans curved along her long, thin legs. A royal-blue sweater fell down and hugged her thighs. The way it clung to her shapely breasts, she could definitely turn male heads. And that straight black hair, bound by a braid as thick as his wrist. It hung down to her waist. Several dark strands had been left to drape her face, the glass beads in them shimmering ivory, silver and blue in the moonlight. Her skin radiated a gorgeous burnt sienna. She should have been cited as a menace to mankind.

He felt the blood rush to his groin, heard the seashell roar of his pulse in his ears. He bounced his leg nervously. Up and down. Up and down. He rubbed the stubble on his chin until his skin felt raw, trying to control this purely carnal response. He might as well try not to breathe.

He couldn’t stop his growing erection, nor could he manage the images of her burned into his psyche: her sexy body in the shower, every inch of her soapy skin wet and glistening; the hue of her long hair as it turned coal black beneath the water. Her high-peaked nipples hardening into little nubs when she was cold and stepped out of the shower. The ritualistic way she secured the towel around her, carefully stuffing it into the hollow of her cleavage. How she cocked her wrist downward when she brushed her teeth and the goofy faces she made at the mirror. The slow agony of watching her dress every morning, and the bittersweet torture of watching her undress at night. Day and night, the torment never let up.

He knew how she took tiny bites and chewed her food. The torturous way she let chocolate linger in her mouth, sucking on it until it dissolved. He’d watched the exact way she slept, curled into a fetal ball. Since he’d come under the binding spell, her life was an open book for him, and he’d paid the ultimate price for reading it. Just this morning he’d dreamed about her, and he awakened aroused and wet, and had to take a cold shower. He hated that his weak human side couldn’t control this desire for her. Somehow he had to get a handle on it. Feelings of any kind were dangerous when tracking a target.

A frown tugged at his lips as he forced his attention back on Fala in present time. Fala, whose lithe coltish strides hurried down the heavily wooded path. He watched her long, slender legs in action, her stiff spine and bearing that of a proud warrior queen. He listened to her breath moving over her lips, heard the soft tread of her booted feet on frozen leaves. She was leaving Patomani sacred ground, alone, and…unmarried. Better and better.

Now for her thoughts. The moment he entered her mind, he slammed into what felt like a brick wall. What had happened on the sacred mound? His kinetic power hadn’t been able to penetrate the holy ground of Whitemags—underworld slang for practitioners of white magic. He’d had to wait until the ceremony concluded. Had the old shifter, Meikoda, cast a protection spell for her granddaughter? He could still see Fala but couldn’t read her thoughts. He cursed his luck.

Up until tonight, before the old Guardian had interfered, Fala had been a perfect subject for autosuggestion. He’d used her own disinclination for her chosen mate and added a few mental prods. It had been easy to give her suggestions that she couldn’t marry the guy, and she’d diligently responded to them with very little mental resistance. It had pleased him that she wasn’t in love with this Akando character. It would make his task easier.

He had to give her credit. Her instincts when it came to choosing a mate were better than that of the bringers of her white magic. At least she knew Akando was all wrong for her. Her life force gave off a white, flaming aura. Akando’s essence hardly made a blip on the male radar. She’d incinerate him and blow away the dust. Was there any man on Earth up to the task of marrying the next Guardian? For a moment he envisioned holding her hand. She wore a ceremonial wedding robe, the same one she’d worn to the hallowed mound, and Stephen was also wearing one—not in this life.

His fingers clenched into fists, and he felt his hands tremble as he forced the vision out of his head. The soothing sound of Billie’s voice washed over him before another unbidden memory surfaced. When he had dipped into Fala Rainwater’s psyche, he’d felt the love she held for her grandmother, sisters and her people. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Fala Rainwater didn’t just love on the surface. Her passion went soul deep, consumed her very essence, burned in her core. It had staggered him and sadly reminded him of his own brothers. He hadn’t wanted to ever connect with her on such an emotional level. Too late, the damage was done.

He forced the memory into the darker shadows of his mind. What was love anyway but a burden to be carried through eternity?

Nothing mattered to him at this moment but getting close to Fala Rainwater. Now the dynamics had changed. If he couldn’t read and control her thoughts, it would make his plan harder. Yet not impossible. He welcomed thwarting the old Guardian’s attempt to save her granddaughter. The old Whitemag was on her way out anyway. She weakened by the hour.

He’d discover the source of the magic that was blocking Fala’s mind from his control, then he’d destroy Fala Rainwater.