She had killed and eaten Sabina.
I had seen Sabina when we left the warehouse after the attack there. Grandmother had been in the air at that time, a huge bird. She had to have taken Sabina between then and the last conversation in Raisin’s office... and eaten the priestess. I hadn’t kept the outclan priestess protected. The ancient vampire hadn’t been safe here in my own city.
Grandmother screamed when she saw me. “You! You are the cause of all of this!” She writhed in Aya’s arms. Aya nearly fell back, struggling to hold her. “Kill her, my son!” she screamed.
“No. I renounce you,” Aya said, his voice thick and full of history and pain.
Ka began to moan, weeping softly.
Bruiser knelt beside Grandmother in the parking area and wrapped his long fingers around her head. “Shhhh,” he whispered. “Shhhh. All is well.”
Grandmother whimpered and shook. She became Sabina again. Sabina looked at me. I knew in that moment that Sabina was, in some form, in some manner, still fully conscious within Grandmother, just as Beast was alive in me. Or... perhaps just as I was alive in Beast. That was a scary thought.
“I was a fool. I thought I could reason with her as I did so long ago. I let her take me,” Sabina said.
“All is well,” Bruiser whispered, his lips close to Sabina / Grandmother’s forehead, his hands gripping there.
She writhed and shifted again into Grandmother. “All is not well,” Grandmother gasped, breathing fast. Herentire body was quivering. “All has not been well since that one”—she looked at me—“killed Tsu Tsu Inoli.” She looked at Aya, “He wasmine. He was in place. Ka and I were ready to return the world to its rightful form.” She screeched, “She killed my son!”
“Tsu Tsu Inoli.” Aya murmured a translation fromTsalagi. “Mark Black Fox. Who is Mark Black Fox?”
“That name’s in Immanuel’s journal,” I said softly. “I didn’t bother to read the context.”
“I will give you the power I gave to Tsu Tsu,” Grandmother said to Aya. “The power I tried to give to Ka N’vsita. Together we can retake our power, can take our rightful places in this land. We can go back in time to the massacre and kill the destroyer. We can restore the power of the skinwalkers. Then we can kill all the vampires,” she screeched, “just as your sister and I killed the white man who killed your father.”
I flinched. My father had been killed by two white men when I was a child. Grandmother had put a blade into my hand and taught me how to kill, cutting them slowly until they bled to death. Now she wanted to kill vamps. Probably all the vamps. I remembered the drawing in de Allyon’sLa Historia de Los Mithrans en Los Americas, from so long ago: skinwalkers dead all around the powerful vamp. Only one Cherokee skinwalker woman had still been alive, at his feet. Had Gramma heard about the massacre? Or was that drawing of the skinwalker woman actually Hyalasti Sixmankiller? Had she been there? Perhaps that massacre could have been the beginning of heru’tlun’tamagic.
“Help me kill them all!” Gramma screeched, writhing in their hands. “Help me to go back and kill the destroyer!”
Yeah. My nutso crazy gramma wanted to timewalk and stop that event.
Timewalking back beyond even a few minutes meant changing everything. In Eli’s terms, going back to the fifteen hundreds would be a precision strike, and no matter how careful, the consequences could be catastrophic. I remembered the vision of the dead world, a world without life. Was that the most likely outcome of Ka and Gramma going back in time?
Was that why they needed three skinwalkers?
Aya said, “I remember the tales you told us, Grandmother. I remember the tales of the killing field of skinwalkers, slaughtered by the hand of Lucas Vasquez de Allyon.” He turned his amber eyes to me. “I will speak these words aloud so my sister and her court will know them to be true. I heard the old tales. I did not know my Grandmother wished to change that history. I did not understand it was even possible.”
“I’m not sure it is,” I said. “The potential for a screw-up that changes history way more than she expects is... I don’t even know how to measure it. The arcenciels haven’t gone back in time to fix what they consider the worst crime in all of human history because getting there without catastrophic failure is so difficult. And they’re the masters of timewalking.”
Aya inclined his head. He continued, “Grandmother, hear me. You cannot control your own skinwalker gifts, let alone a time-jump so far into the past. Even should Jane and I agree to help, even with all the magical amulets you might find or steal, you would not be likely to end up in the right place and time. It has been too many years. You have told many different versions of the destroyer and the killing fields, Grandmother. The exact place and time are lost to you. You do not remember. And worse,” he took a slow breath and met her eyes, “you are no longer sane, Grandmother.”
She screeched and writhed in his hands, her shape changing over and over. “You will help me! I command it!”
“No. You areu’tlun’ta.” Aya’s words were formal, carefully spaced. I knew he wanted to be speakingTsalagi, but for us, he spoke English. “Not as a law enforcement officer of PsyLED, but as an Elder of The People, I take you into custody. Wrapped in null cuffs, you shall be delivered to the null prison managed by the council of witches, and you shall be judged by your clan before being taken to the top of the mountains and thrown from the high places. Hayalasti Sixmankiller,” he pronounced, “you have lost your soul.”
He had said something similar once before and I recognized the words as an Elder’s judgment. He was going to kill Grandmother.
The old woman sagged in Aya’s and Bruiser’s hands,sobbing, and for a moment she sounded almost sane. “I tried so hard. I had everything prepared. All we needed was George Dumas and my granddaughter. With them, we could have avenged our people, destroyed the drinkers of blood who killed all of my people, all the skinwalkers whom I loved. Our people would return to us.Tsalagiwould rise again, would become ourown.” She stared at Aya. “Do not do this, my child. Do not unmake what I have worked for so long. TheTsalagican rise as a people, today,now, under skinwalker rule.”
“The Rule of Three,” Bruiser murmured. “Three Onorios, three skinwalkers, plenty of Mithrans, and an outclan priestess. Three times three times three, with their power growing exponentially with each of the groups of three. Three icons with arcenciel blood and scales. And the remaining slivers and ingots from the iron Spike of Golgotha. And a cup of arcenciel blood. They could have done anything. Anything they ever wanted.”
“With the fresh arcenciel blood from Storm’s death,” I said, “it’s possible that they could have timewalked back to the massacre of skinwalkers. They could have killed the Spaniard vamp—de Allyon.”
Grandmother looked at me. Though she was still fighting Bruiser’s magic, her eyes were taking on that strange cast of light that an Onorio’s mind-bound slave always got. Bruiser was still draining her. I hated Onorio binding. So did my Consort. But to keep our people safe, he would attempt anything that needed to be done.
Grandmother struggled against his hands and said, “Shaun is still here. His plan is still in place. He has not been defeated. He will come for us, for he needs the power we possess. You have not yet won.”
“And Mainet Pellissier?” I asked.
