Black Moon Sing (The Turquoise Path Book 1) (2 page)

Normally the feel of the day’s last heat and the smell of dry brick or dry stone was a comfort to Ellery. But tonight, she couldn’t seem to shake the squeezing anxiety she had felt at the Blue Room.

Vivi’s fine
, she told herself.
She was probably half-asleep when she sent those texts. She was probably dreaming. Any minute now, she’ll call you and ask you to meet her for a drink, and you’ll tell her to fuck off, that you’ve already been to the Blue Room once tonight and you’re not going back
.

But as she trudged on, putting more city blocks between herself and the bar, Ellery’s concern for Vivi gave way to a much more general—and much bigger—fear. Something was…
pulling
at her. Calling to her. The effect felt similar to the vampire’s enchantment, but far more commanding, and yet very distant.

As she walked, she kept darting her head toward the northeast, straining as if she thought she might pick up on some auditory clue over the hum of city traffic. But even as she turned her attention toward the northeast, again and again, she knew it was useless. There was nothing unusual to see there, nothing to hear or smell. And the only thing she could feel was that jittery fear that grew stronger with each passing minute.

Out of habit, she reached through her tokens—the coyote tooth on its leather cord and the bracelet on her left wrist, which dangled a tiny glass pendant that housed a few white filaments from a barn owl’s feather. She did it so many times, poking at the spirits of the animals with which she traded, that she felt the coyote yawn in boredom and Ghost Owl ruffle his feathers with pure irritation. (Not that it was hard to annoy Ghost Owl, even under the best of circumstances.)

Something’s strange about tonight
, she told her animals spirits.

Ghost Owl made no reply, but Red Dust on Paws, the loyal coyote, gave Ellery an impression of a comforting lick to the back of her hand.

That made Ellery smile, despite her creeped-out mood. She could always count on Dusty when she needed a little perspective.

Suddenly Ellery felt Dusty’s spirit snap to attention inside her. The coyote’s tooth warmed a little where it lay against her skin. Ellery felt a strong prickle on the back of her neck—the coyote’s hackles rising—and although she was not in either of her animal forms, still she could feel the twist and tightening of a coyote’s ears swiveling atop her head. Dusty was alert to something behind them—something the trusty coyote was sure meant danger.

Ellery swallowed hard. She turned her head to glance over her shoulder with what she hoped was a casual gesture.

What she saw nearly stopped her heart.

A man was following her down the sidewalk—and with his direct, purposeful stride, Ellery was damn sure he
was
following her, not just strolling along the Flagstaff streets, minding his own business.

A man pursuing her was alarming enough on its own, but this man was all of Ellery’s nightmares come to life in one body. At least six feet tall and strong-looking, he wore a long black duster coat, the hem of which floated behind him with the speed of his stride. Even if he hadn’t chanced to pass through the yellow pool of a streetlight just as Ellery looked back—the light cast a sharp illumination on his unmistakably Indian features—his broad-brimmed black hat, banded in turquoise, would have been all the identification Ellery needed.

The man was Diné—Navajo—just like Ellery. And that meant he had most likely come from the very community she had fled ten years before, fearing for her life.

Ellery’s casual glance wasn’t lost on the Diné man. Her sharp ears picked up his speeding footsteps, and in another moment she could all but feel his hands reaching for her, grasping her, dragging her off to judgment.

You won’t take me, too
, she hissed at him silently.

She turned at the corner and sprinted down the next street, nearly as fast as her legs could carry her.

CHAPTER TWO

“
W
ait!” The man’s voice called out harshly behind Ellery as she ran.

That settled it; he
was
after her. Ellery gritted her teeth and put on as much more speed as she dared. She cursed the presence of so many Typs on the city streets. If it wouldn’t incite a panic, she would have run even faster; she was certainly capable of it. But displays of paranormal abilities tended to unsettle the Typs, and often ended in far more trouble and hassle for the Para than they were worth.

“Please, wait!” the man shouted again.

Ellery wasn’t gaining much ground on him; he was fast for a Typical. Maybe it would be worth scooting along faster, after all.

The dark mouth of an unlit street opened to her left; she darted down it, thinking to put on a burst of speed under cover of relative darkness and lose her pursuer that way. But her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark lane, even through her shades, and Ellery stumbled to a halt, cursing bitterly.

In her panic she had turned down an alley, not a street—and its other end was sealed by a brick wall that looked much newer than the walls on either side of her. If the streets of downtown Flagstaff were like the landscapes of her home, then this alley was a box canyon: steep and impassable on three sides. The only way out was the way she had come in, and there was a Navajo man out there, chasing her down.

She couldn’t go back.
No way
.

Ellery looked up at the sky. A few stars asserted themselves and shone through the light pollution of the city. The sky—that was another way out. Her only option now.

She reached through the bracelet token, and for once Ghost Owl dispensed with his usual grouching. She felt him give an eager screech; he wanted her to get out of this mess just as badly as she did, and as Dusty the coyote did.

Ellery concentrated, opened herself to the intense flash of blue light and the shock of rapid travel through time and space that always accompanied her shifts.

But nothing happened.

Ghost Owl screamed again, more desperately this time, and she could all but see the barn owl’s face before her, his sharp beak clacking in his pale, heart-shaped face, his black, slanted eyes scornful.

“I’m trying,” Ellery said, trying to keep her voice down, trying to keep panic from overwhelming her every thought and every move.

She attempted the shift again. Ghost Owl tried, too, pushing back at her from the barrier between their two worlds, flapping his speckled wings, tearing with this talons—trying to help her break through. But still Ellery remained in her human form.

“What the hell is going on?” she panted, though there was no one there to answer her. She had never been unable to shift when she wanted to do it—ever since she’d been taught how, as a little girl.

Again and again she strained to change herself into Ghost Owl, and then into Dusty, who might at least be able to hide somewhere in the alley better than a human woman could. But there was no getting through the barrier between her world and the spirit world, where her animals existed. There was no way to bring them through the mysterious channels of blue light that connected their two worlds like the fragile strands of a spider’s web.

Wide-eyed with fear, facing the alley’s mouth, Ellery backed up until she bumped into the alley’s rear wall. “Shit,” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”

If she held really still, maybe the man in the black duster would pass her by. Maybe he hadn’t seen her turn into the alley. Maybe he’d go right on past without looking down its length; or if he did look into the alley’s depths, maybe Ellery would be well-hidden by shadows and he would move on.

At the alley’s mouth, she could see the lights of passing traffic—the yellow flash of headlights, the intense red glare of tail lights like the eyes of predatory creatures in the night. Somebody rode past on a bike; the bike’s thin frame, flickering rapidly against the glow of street and cars, made Ellery think of a skeletal monster loping through the Arizona night.

Then the shape she feared to see appeared at the alley’s mouth. Tall, broad in the shoulder, the duster coat made him look like a monolith of strength in silhouette. The hat, the kind a proper and traditional Diné man always wore, loomed atop that black shape like a vulture with its wings spread.

Ellery held her breath, though she was reasonably sure the man was Typical and therefore not likely to pinpoint her location by sound. Not at this distance, with the noise of the city all around them.

“Ellery Chee,” the man called softly down the alley.

Despite her will to remain invisible and silent, Ellery let out an explosive breath. She couldn’t help herself. She felt as if she’d been slugged in the stomach.

The man knew her name—knew exactly who she was. That settled it: he didn’t mean her any good. And Ellery had no way out of this trap. She reached through the owl token again, but the barrier remained as impassable as before. It was hopeless; she was caught at last, and now there was no escape.

The man approached slowly. Against the glare of traffic, she could see that he held his hands out to his sides, fingers spread, holding nothing. No gun, no knife. It was meant to be a soothing gesture, Ellery felt sure. But she saw his fingers as claws, poised to rip and tear at her flesh.

“Go away,” she told him. She was proud that her voice was steady. But as she spoke, she felt that strange pull toward the northeast, stronger and more compelling than before. She bit her lip and resisted it; she couldn’t take her eyes off this man—not for a second.

“I can’t go away,” the man answered. Still walking slowly toward her, still holding his hands out in a display of peaceful intent—or in readiness to catch her if she tried to make a break and run past him. “I need you.”

His voice was deep, but without the gravel of age. It held the rhythms of the Rez—the sound of the Navajo Nation, the place she longed to return to and the place she knew she must never go back to, on pain of death. The sound of home in his voice—
home
, with all it implied for Ellery—was an enchantment stronger than any trick the vampire had pulled. But this man was no Chanter, Ellery felt sure. No Para of any sort. Just an ordinary man, as Typical as they came.

“Back off and let me leave,” Ellery said.

The man was much closer now—six paces away, five.

“Stop right there!”

Ellery didn’t really expect the guy to obey her command. But he did, halting a few feet away with his hands still held out placidly.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Ellery.”

“Then why are you here? Why are you following me?”

At closer range, she could make out his features, even with the glare of the road backlighting his shape. He had the broad, straight nose, dark eyes, and wide mouth that so clearly said “Diné,” and he looked little older than Ellery herself—perhaps six or seven years her senior, no more.

“My name is Hosteen Sikaadii,” he said. “I’m an officer with the Navajo Nation police force.”

Ellery flinched back violently; the brick of the wall bit into her flesh, cold and hard.

“Please don’t be afraid,” Hosteen continued. “I’m not here to do you any harm.”

Ellery’s heart thumped. She was seized by a sudden, desperate inspiration. “You can’t, anyway. We aren’t on the Rez. You have no jurisdiction here.”

The moment she said those words—
the Rez
—Ellery felt another insistent tug from whatever strange force was out there, pulling at her, enticing her, commanding her. And she realized, with a twist of dread in her gut, that northeast—the direction that called to her—was the direction of the Navajo Nation.

Hosteen smiled at her assertion, but it didn’t make Ellery feel any better. “Exactly. I came to find you because I need your help.”

“My help? That’s crazy. I can’t help you. I’m a barista, not a cop. Now move aside and let me go home.”

“You
can
help me,” Hosteen insisted. There was a hint of a plea in his voice, the barest note of desperation. It made Ellery feel a little less afraid, to know that this officer was feeling less than confident right now, too. “And you’re not a barista. Or at any rate, a barista is the
least
of what you are.”

Ellery lifted her chin in defiance. “You don’t know a thing about what I am. Not one damn thing. So go find somebody else to help you; I’m not interested.”

“You’ll be interested once you know more about the case. I feel sure of that.”

Hosteen lowered his hands slowly to his sides, and Ellery tensed, wondering if he’d draw some weapon. But he never did. He didn’t come any closer, either. He just stood in silence, watching her, stilled by awe or—could it be?—fear.

Finally he said, “And I
do
know what you are. I know all about it. But you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m willing to trust you, if you’re willing to trust me.”

Ellery choked out a bitter laugh. How stupidly, predictably, mind-numbingly
Typical
of him, to assume he knew the first thing about Ellery Chee, her life, her past, or her paranormal abilities. If he’d been a little closer, she might have swung a fist at him, purely from exasperation.

Instead, she reached up and very deliberately removed her sunglasses.

She faced Hosteen squarely, staring straight into his eyes, and she noted the superstitious shudder that wracked his broad frame.

“You think you know me?” Ellery said quietly. “Then tell me: what am I?”

Hosteen’s fear seemed to flow through him like a cold current. But though he swayed slightly and his breath came faster, he didn’t allow any of his agitation to show on his face. Ellery admired that, a little. She admired, too, the fact that he didn’t avert his eyes, didn’t break her gaze—even though she knew that under the light of stars or moon, however faint that light, her own eyes glowed a chilling red, like the gaze of an animal caught in the beam of a flashlight.

“What am I?” she said again, braver now, sensing she was rapidly gaining the upper hand.

Hosteen’s voice was faint when he spoke, almost a whisper. But even though it was night and the alley was thick with darkness, he still said the word.

“Skinwalker.”