“I figure you have too, little brother.”
Aya’s eyes went wide, and his posture shifted again, the cop falling away. “You called melittle brother, and not in insult. And... earlier you called me Aya.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all weepy on me. Our liver-eating gramma claimed she wanted us to be family.” I shrugged, aTsalagilifting of the shoulder blade, but which now was part uncertainty and part discomfort. “But we already are. Family. You know, now that I’m over being upset that I got tossed into the snow to live or die.”
“Elder sister,” he said, his tone and eyes formal and yet amused, “I grew up listening to tales of your exploits when you were merely a child of five. Growing up in the shadow of a superwoman was difficult. My heart never doubted that you lived.”
“Huh. Why would you think that?”
“How could you not still live, with such a history? But when we finally met, I had to recognize and resolve my long-forgotten childish jealousy.”
My discomfort grew. “Whatever. Back to Gramma. You brought her to me, wearing this.” I shook the internally shattered diamond at him. “Why? It’s obviously a magical amulet. You’re an ass, but not a total jerk.”
Ayatas touched the ruined amulet with a fingertip. He shook his head. “I never saw this before. After I first learned of theu’tlun’tayou killed, and after I saw the security footage of you fighting the half-man, half-saber-tooth lion and defeating it, I watched the footage with Grandmother to see if she knew what the creature was. She claimed she didn’t, but she was... let’s call itoverly interested in the footage.”
“Cop talk,” I said. It was the same kind of commentRick would have made, back when we were dating. “You really mean to say that she knew what it was and she was lying.”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “I’ve been a law enforcement agent for over half of my life. She watched the video dozens of times, and she asked for a copy. I told her no and saw something flash in her eyes like fire. She couldn’t hide her intense reaction to being refused. A day later, my flash drive was missing, and someone had tried to get into my computer. I began to watch Grandmother. Something was different.” His eyes were still on my hand, holding the ruined amulet. “And you had told me that you possessed a gift for seeing magic, which I do not have. I wanted you to look at our grandmother and her magics.” He looked back up at me, the too familiar yellow eyes, big nose, like looking in a mirror that showed a prettier, more refined me. “I wanted you to see her magics, did not think she would try to harm you. And Inever saw thisuntil now.”
“Maybe she kept it in her medicine bag. I’m pretty sure it contained a mixed cluster of spells. An illusion or glamor spell calibrated for scent, probably anobfuscationworking, and several rounds of a big mama attack spell.”
Aya said something inTsalagithat I didn’t understand. Cherokee didn’t curse, but it sure sounded like it. He reached out and stroked my jaw once, as if curious if the cat fur was real. I was fully pelted there, the sensation of his skin on my fur a shock. “I have loved and feared the old woman for decades,” he said. “She saw you shift into this, your half-form. She will want that ability, that power. If she isu’tlun’ta, she will try to take it from you. She tried to bite you.”
Like a sucker punch to the jaw, it hit me. “It would be easy for our grandmother to take my body. We are already genetically linked.” The transition using the snake in the center of all things—my DNA—would be child’s play for an old skinwalker like her. I lifted my claws close to my face. Her blood was caught there, stinking badly, now that the spell hiding her scent was gone. Softly, so quietly that Aya had to bend close to hear, I asked, “Is she still the woman you knew as a child? Is she still Hayalasti Sixmankiller?”
An expression like a steel veneer dropped down, replacing his grief and horror. Just as quietly, Aya said, “No. She is not.” His voice changed, taking on a cadence that was similar to the way tribal storytellers talked when imparting ancient tales or wisdom. “When I came back for a prolonged stay on the remains of the Indian Territory in Oklahoma in 1985, she was different. Colder. More cruel. She has been different for a very long time—” He stopped, his words cut off sharply, as if by a knife, and his face wore an expression of grief, as if he was accepting the changes in hiselisi, his grandmother.
He didn’t speak again and when enough time had elapsed to make me uncomfortable, I asked, “In any of the old stories, is there any mention of a way to reverse the changes inu’tlun’ta? Any binding, forced ceremony, maybe a vampire could reverse her?”
Aya blinked and looked at me, seeming himself again. “No. Not in the old stories. Vampires killed our kind, killed skinwalkers, because we couldn’t be bound. Becomingu’tlun’tais a choice. A decision. Once the first step is taken on that path”—his voice hoarsened—“the old tales tell us that there is no way back. Of course, the old stories didn’t have access to the weapon you carry.”
“It’s called the Glob,” I said, my mind on other things.Bruiser... What if he could bind her? Could I magically drain a liver-eater using the Glob? Force a skinwalker to reverse paths?
“The Glob. Of course,” he said, slightly amused. Then the pleasure faded.
My brother’s eyes held mine, already grieving, as if knowing what I was about to say.
“If we can capture her before she eats another human,” I said, “another sentient being of any kind, there are some things I can suggest.” Bruiser... Did I dare ask him to try? “If Gramma was a vamp, it would be the Dark Queen’s job to make certain that she was neutralized. I’m not sure what I’m responsible for with our particular paranormal species. But once she kills... as a law enforcement officer, it’s your job to find her and bring her in and make sure she’s kept away from humans.”
Aya lifted his head to me, his jaw forward, an aggressivestance. He seemed to steel himself, and when he spoke, his words were toneless. “No other paranormal is likely to be effective against her. The old stories tell us that theu’tlun’tais the responsibility of the family and clan elders. It is their responsibility to render judgment. That would mean me, outside of my job.”
“I’m family and clan too, little brother. I am eldest. I am a war woman, whose job it is to deliver judgment. If I can’t capture her and stop her, thenwewill have to do it. And soon.”
“What will you—” He stopped and started over. “What magical methods of manipulation and restraint would you attempt?”
That was an interesting way to phrase things. Null cuffs were a military and law enforcement tool, and I wasn’t supposed to have access to them, and cops all had a love-hate relationship with null prisons and scion cages, which existed outside of human law and human control. I threw caution to the winds and said, “First, physical restraint and null cuffs. Then maybe, if the witches allow it, a room in the null prison. If that doesn’t work, then magical binding, like what a vampire does to a human but on a greater scale.” Like what Bruiser did to vamps he bound. And I had the Roberes too. Three Onorios working together might do what no one imagined.
But there were lots of things that no one imagined.
The vision of the bloody hull of Monique’s soul home blinked onto the back of my eyelids. Yeah. That’s what Monique was doing. Putting together a cabal of Onorios to fight a battle of her choosing and betray the vamps.
“Greater scale,” Aya said, not quite a question.
“Yeah.” I forced my attention back to the present. “I have friends and scions in high places.” And I have the Glob and my crown. At the words and the thought,le breloquewarmed on my head.
Aya took my knobby fingers in his, staring at the half-form knuckles and retracted claws. “You asked about the old stories. They say, ‘It is a rare but necessary thing for skinwalker elders to shackle one who has lost her soul, and take her to the top of the mountain and throw her off.’ That is what the old skinwalker tales say.”
“Well, that sucks.”
