Gee flapped his wings and tossed something down. “Your arcenciel scale,” he said. “I found it in the rocks, covered with your blood, from the battle with the Flayer of Mithrans.” Edmund caught it and Eli tucked it into the sticky wrap holding my bandages in place.
I looked at Gee, perched in the tree overhead. “You said you’d show me the way through the rift and back, so I didn’t get lost.”
“I would guide you, but the Dark Queen has an angel to guide her, if she lives or dies. Heavenly power is far better than any assistance or pathways I might offer.”
I wanted to argue and call him foresworn, as I had Soul, but Bruiser was dying. I whispered, “Put me in the rift water, Eli. If I don’t drown immediately, put Bruiser and the others in.”
That strange expression was still on his face. “And if you die?”
“Then I’ll have screwed up, you doofus.”
A faint smile ghosted over his face.
I searched through my memories, through poorly learned protocol, and half-recalled Cherokee words and phrases. I couldn’t move, couldn’t touch his chest, over his heart, but at least I had the words. “You have been my protector and shield bearer, my brother in thought and deed.Nvwadohiyada,” which meant “Harmony to you,”said as a type of blessing to the warrior who had fought for me. I had already taken care of Eli and Alex and the Everhart-Truebloods in my will, and I had positioned them in a place of power in Clan Yellowrock. This last blessing was all I could do at this point.
Tears gathered in Eli’s eyes. His nostrils trembled; his lips went hard and thin as if he held in a scream.
“Throw me in the pool, Eli. Let’s see if I sink or swim.”
Gently he slid his arms under my knees and beneath my shoulders. Even with the Anzu feather, the pain was a red-hot razor of agony. Eli lifted me and carried me the few feet to the pool. Soul was on the far side, watching. Silent. Not her usual self, but then shewasa fish. Or an aquatic mammal. Whatever. He knelt again and eased me into the heated water. Instantly my bones stopped aching. My muscles relaxed. But I started bleeding again, a pale cloud of pink in the water. Dudley was hurting so bad it was off the scale, even with the new Anzu feather and spinal damage. I held in a scream, knowing that if I ever started wailing, I might never stop. I breathed short and fast as Eli settled me with a rock at my back and the arm holding the Glob around another rock. Floating.
Other than that, nothing happened.
Edmund was dribbling his blood onto Bruiser’s throat and into his mouth. Bruiser wasn’t breathing, wasn’t bleeding. But what had Gee said?“His soul is ready to depart.”Not“His soul has departed.”
I turned my head, able to move that much, healed at least a little by vamp blood. “Put Bruiser in. Fast,” I said. Edmund lifted my honeybunch as if he weighed nothing and placed him in the water with me. The master vampire had to hold Bruiser up by his shoulders or he would have slid beneath the water.
I had said the word,Nvwadohiyada, the word and meaning lodged somewhere in my brain. The way of the war woman was not always to lead others into violence. The war woman could also lead to peace. The way of the Cherokee was harmony and harmony was peace. To achieve harmony with our clans, our tribe, with othertribes, and with nature, we went to water. Water was sacred. Holy.
Some water was more sacred, holy, and healing than others. More of my blood spun into the water, whipped away. I wondered where the water went. It was rising from the deeps of the earth, a hot spring. It had to go somewhere. I looked down into the deep blue of the hole in the earth. It was so dark down there; it was blacker than the darkest night. Darker than my soul home. Darker than the shadow’s mind had been.
“Eli? Find a small stick? Something that will float?”
He squatted, holding a six-inch stick, dead and dry. “Hold it down in the water,” I said. He frowned at me but he bent over the water and stuck his arm in to the shoulder, lower and lower, until it was as deep as he could push without going under.
The water grabbed the stick. Whirled and spun his hand and arm. Sucked the stick out of his hand and down into the dark. He jerked away, his eyes hard. “You can’t—”
“The water comes up and shoots back down,” I said. “Don’t let go of us.”
“Not planning to, Janie. But we need to remove the silver shackle on Soul’s ankle. Anyone got an idea how to remove a magical ankle cuff?” No one spoke. Eli gave a tiny shrug, pulled a U.S. version of a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and unfolded a pair of metal snips. He gestured Soul over. Unsure, she raised her scaled and burned ankle. “When in doubt,” Eli said, holding me with one hand and leaning out over the water, “use the training provided by Uncle Sam.”
I didn’t watch, not taking my eyes off the blackness of the deeps, but heard small clicks, one, two, a third. A moment later, Soul flashed by me and dove into the blackness. Just as she disappeared, she transformed into her rainbow-dragon form. And once again she had promised what she didn’t deliver. No arcenciel help. No helping me with the rift. Nada.
Yet... I had an angel to help me. And maybe angels and arcenciels didn’t mix?
I angled my gaze up to Eli and smiled. “Mr. Fix-It.”
“That’s me, ma’am,” he said, miming tipping a hat at me.
“Make sure that Shimon is still in pieces,” I said. “Keep him away from the water. Put the others in. Hold on to them.” I felt the presence of others being added to the pool with me, though I couldn’t have said how I knew.
I looked down at the magic within me, motes of scarlet, black, silver, and charcoal, from witch, vamp, Anzu, and skinwalker power, unique among magic users. Now that the magic had been cut and pierced with steel, the star shape was broken. I felt the magic in the corona, old and austere around my head. I thought about the Glob, a thing made of suffering, death, lightning, witch magic, and from my body. There was power here, magic and life. And there was no reason why I couldn’t use the magic in my middle to heal myself, to heal us all, if I knew how. Except that if I tried, I was as likely to kill us as heal us.
I pulled on the Gray Between, still open around me. Using my own skinwalker magic and the power of my soul home, I mentally twined the darker magic ofle breloquewith the brighter, newer magic of the Glob. I began braiding the three strands of magic. My own weird power, the Glob’s, and the crown’s. The braid began to glow, to sparkle, visible in the water to human eyes, which I knew when Eli casually asked, “Janie? Whatcha doing?”
“Changing my life,” I whispered. “Changing my magic. Flying by the... throne of my power.”
I took the long tail of strange new energies and draped it around the others, first around Bruiser, then Stacey, and Tex. My body was above the current only feet below, my neck and chest muscles the only ones still working. “Hold me,” I whispered to Eli. I let my head drop beneath the water. Eli’s fingers tightened on my shoulder, anchoring me in place. I arched my neck slightly, resurfaced, and said, “I call onUnelenehi, the great one, who is the sun.” I dipped my head below the water again, tying the braided power off, sealing it in place, and to a purpose. I resurfaced and said, “I call onSelu, first woman, the corn mother.” I went back beneath. I tried to resurface but I couldn’t, not alone. This time I needed Eli’s help, his hands strong on my shoulders, lifting me. “I call onKenati, herhusband, the first man.” I went beneath the water and Eli pulled me back up. “I call on the great female spirit,Agisseequa.” I dipped again. “I call on the redeemer, who gives everyone a second chance.” I went under a sixth time and opened my eyes, staring at the blue, blue water and the dark hole below me, opening into the earth.
