The place didn’t feel right. There were no official signs indicating that I had driven on to tribal land and I didn’t see anything indicating a tribal name. A lot of Oklahoma was tribal land, but most of the tribes proudly proclaimed their sovereign territory and posted the tribe’s name everywhere and on everything. The style may have been authentic, but it wasn’t natural: elements from eastern tribes, Great Plains tribes, northern tribes, and Aztec culture had all been blended together in one great mish-mash. The lack of antennas, satellite dishes, and other cars was also suggestive evidence that the residents here were “off the grid.” I had met a lot of good people who lived that way, but they tended to be more than a little suspicious of outsiders and had their own laws regarding the use of violence.
I checked the pendant, then dismissed the spell with a grunt. It had been steadily pointing directly at a converted farmhouse five hundred yards off from where I was parked. The back half of the house had been redone in adobe and was covered in pictograms, feathers, wind chimes, and dream catchers. It looked like a peyote adventure as envisioned by someone on LSD, minus the psychedelic colors. It was the place all right, but I really didn’t like the setup. I had been hoping for a trailer park or an old woman living all alone. Here, I was outnumbered a hundred to one, and all one hundred were staring out at my car. I knew Dora was sexy, but I doubted that was the way they felt about her intrusion.
I tucked my athame into the inside pocket of my leather jacket, then stuffed the two things I thought I might need for diplomatic negotiation into a small backpack. As I got out of the car, every eye in the compound shifted from Dora to me. There were a lot of people here for an off-road camp with no vehicles in the parking lot. Most were very old or very young, but the handful of adult males were on their feet as soon as I started walking. I didn’t see any guns, but there were an awful lot of knives and axes laying around. The men’s clothing was as contradictory as the buildings: worn, modern blue jeans with shirtless leather vests on top, decorated in tribal fashion. Some wore moccasins or sandals; the largest, a pair of Doc Martins.
I did what I always do when I was a stranger in a strange land—I walked in like I owned the joint. Nine times out of ten, a confident strut was as good as an all-access pass and would get me past most bouncers and security guards. This was apparently number ten for me. I was still a hundred yards from the house when I realized I was surrounded. Five men, mostly my age, flanked me. None of them looked happy to see me.
The biggest had four inches and fifty pounds on me, which is saying something as I’m not exactly short. He spoke in Cherokee, mostly to his companions. “Rabbit looks lost. Rabbit should not be in wolf’s den uninvited.”
I answered in Cherokee. “My presence is a question for the wolf-mother. I ask you to let me through.” I figured I had started with swagger and there was no reason to change tactic now.
I couldn’t have shocked him more if I had slugged him in the jaw. Despite the hair, battle injuries, and tanned skin, I imagine I still look like an upper-class East Coast white boy. Hearing his language coming from my lips must have been a near fatal shock. When he recovered, he nodded to me, then to the others, and switched to Spanish. “Keep him here, I will see what she says.”
He left and the other four closed ranks. It was intimidating, but I did my best not to let it show. Less than five minutes passed before the big one returned escorting an old woman. Her dress was picturesque shaman and she reminded me of some of the Seminole pride paintings I had seen in Florida. When she appeared, my guardians parted, forming a half-circle behind me, separating me from my escape route to Dora.
She looked me over and I resisted the temptation to fork a ward against the evil eye in her general direction. When she spoke, it was in a language I couldn’t quite place, but could understand anyway. “Little peyote boy, you looking for mystery, excitement. Curse you, boy.” Then she spoke in English. “What do you want?”
“How do I know what she said?” I wondered at my inner voice.
“No idea. I can’t place it. I’m not sure it has a name.”
“Can I speak it?”
“Of course. But be careful. Not a lot of modern words to it. If you try for telephone or airplane, I have no idea what will come out.”
I took a deep breath and went for it. “I would prefer if you did not curse me, wolf-mother.”
I surveyed the impact. None of my guardians seemed to understand the language, but they all recognized it as her magic tongue. She understood me just fine, but didn’t like it one bit. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “How do you speak the Old Tongue, boy?”
“I am full of surprises, wolf-mother. Your pups should know that by now.”
She paused and her tone was slightly softer when she spoke again. Only slightly, like she would have preferred me suffering, rather than decapitated. “What do you want with me?”
“Peace, wolf-mother. I want peace. I want you to unspeak a curse.”
She cackled. “Peace? Yes, white man always want peace. Piece of this, piece of that. What should I unspeak, white boy? I always speak truth.”
“I am white, yes. But I am not the one who lets loose that which should not be disturbed. I am not the one who broke the peace of the Twins. The wendigoes are not a toy.”
“What do you know about Hungry Winter, boy? You don’t look hungry to me. And you people should not have woken Valente. You called demons first.”
“Perhaps. But I could get Valente to acknowledge wrong, to make reparations. Whatever he has taken can be given back. Can you bring Hungry Winter to pay reparations? To put hearts back in chests? They know only violence, death, and hunger.”
“Can Valente? My sons die to his poisons. There is no payment for life, only blood. Hungry Winter knows this: you either dine on the strength of your enemies or they will eat your life piece by piece. Hungry Winter will eat you, boy. You come because you fear for your master. Fear is good. Blood is better.”
“Fear?” Anger crept into my face. I unzipped the bag. “No, I am angry. They murder innocents, people who work for a faceless entity. You think that boy up the road had ever met Valente?”
“He spread his poisons, that is enough. And what innocent others? They all took land that was not theirs and lived on gold that should have been ours. And you fear. You fear, so you come to talk. White man’s talk is hollow. My people know this.”
I pulled out the wendigo head and tossed it at her feet. “I do not fear, wolf-mother. Hungry Winter is strong, but I am Winter Slayer.” My voice rose in an attempt to overawe her. “Unspeak it, wolf-mother.”
She stared at it in disbelief. I could tell, in that moment, she had never seen the wendigo in the flesh before. Dreams, perhaps, but seeing her great spirit champion reduced to a bloody trophy was world-shattering to her. When she spoke again, it was in Spanish. “White devil. I will deliver your head to your master.”
The young men may not have followed our conversation, but they definitely understood that. Before I could react, both of my arms were pinned. The big one reached for an ax and headed my way. I could see the way this was going. If some devil wanted me to trade my soul for some practical combat magic, I would have considered the offer.
There was a pop, like a water balloon bursting, from somewhere behind me. The only sense I could make was that they were getting the champagne ready to celebrate my demise. Then, my right arm jerked forward as the man holding it dropped to his knees, screaming in pain. I stared down at him, not understanding why his left knee had picked that moment to explode.
“Gentlemen,” a voice called out in English behind me. “Please let go of the white devil or my next shot will go through someone’s collar bone. After that, it’s all heads, hearts, and groins until I run out of ammo. Are we all on the same page?” Then, in Spanish, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Heads, hearts, and groins, not necessarily in that order.”
Three of them apparently did, backing off rather quickly while raising their hands. The big guy with the tomahawk didn’t. He rushed and swung, but the blow never landed. There was another soft pop, followed by an angry red gash in his lower right shoulder. In the instant between, it felt like a large, loudly buzzing bumblebee had just darted past my left ear.
“You want to try that again, Tonto? I don’t care how much you think the devil’s body is blocking my line of fire, it ain’t. Don’t fuck with me.”
I stood shock still, not entirely sure what was going on behind me. The voice, vaguely familiar, spoke again. “Who is she, wizard? Why’s she want you dead? I mean, other than general principles…you can be a little annoying.”
“She cursed Valente and she’s unhappy that I cut off the head of one of her curses.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Well, that changes things from personal to professional.” I hoped she wasn’t about to join the Valente Haters bandwagon. If she did, I was definitely repaying the borrowed luck from Dora. Her next question was a pleasant, almost lucky, surprise. “Do you need her alive for anything?”
The voice was high-pitched and sweet, capable of talking about killing someone without sounding dark or morbid in the least. Somehow knowing who was behind me didn’t make me feel much better. “No need to hurt her. She was just about to unspeak the curse, weren’t you, wolf-mother?”
She spat again. “Never. May the winter take all of…”
She never got to finish that sentence before the bullet caught her on the nose, punching her face inward.
Veruca Wakefield called from behind me. “I’m the curse of Lucien Valente, fuckheads. You understand? Pay attention. Some curses are stronger than others.”
6
Veruca and I had driven for fifteen minutes when she broke the silence. “You okay, Colin?”
I wasn’t. The wolf-mother had been a spiteful old woman who had ordered my execution. Still, watching her die like that was something I wasn’t prepared for. I lied. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
Veruca knew better. That’s why she was driving Dora. Clearly, killing people was a normal day’s work for her. She had calmly walked up to the body, verified the woman’s death, and retrieved the wendigo head, all while keeping one long, sleek-barreled gun out and at least one eye on the rest of the tribe. As she escorted me back to my car, I had the feeling that she was accustomed to being horrifically outnumbered in hostile territory. She was all professional. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t open the driver’s side door. Veruca took the keys.
As we drove past a pink and black rice-burner, she cursed, pulled out a keychain remote combo, and pressed a series of buttons. A loud explosion echoed out behind us as we sped away. “Third bike this month. Lucien is going to start docking my pay.”
I think I grunted in response. Words weren’t an easy thing for me.
“Not a killer, huh? Can I ask what you expected to happen?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not that. I thought she’d see I had killed one of the wendigoes and fold.”
Veruca shook her head, a lone scarlet bang whipping around freely, while the rest of her raven feather hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. “My guess: from her perspective, she and everyone she knew had been folding for a long time. People like that, once they decide they’re all in, they’re done folding. Nothing you said could have changed that.”
I didn’t like it, but I suspected she was right. “She spoke of poison…I wonder if it was all about drugs. Maybe she lost someone to a drug addiction. Whatever or whoever it was, it changed her. She broke all of her people’s laws, the peace of the Twins, by calling up the wendigo.” I paused as I reflected on how stupid I had been to go there alone. “There was no going back after that.”
“Yeah, you should have been more careful. Though to your credit, you looked like you were doing all right up until the end there.”
“I suppose. What do you think the rest of them will do? Call the cops?”
“I doubt it. I suspect they hate the police as much as they hate Valente. My guess is they pick up stakes and move some place else. Maybe split into three or four groups under new leadership. They’ve been rousted before.”
“And if they do call the cops?”
She shrugged. “What are they going to say? You didn’t give them your name, did you? There were no security cameras posted, so the cops would need an eyewitness and forensics to nail us.” The way she said the word “eyewitness,” it sounded sarcastic, as if witnesses were a hard thing to come by where Lucien Valente was involved. I thought about asking what would happen if one of them did go to the cops and decided I really didn’t want to know.
She picked up the conversation again while debating which way to turn at the next intersection. “So how did you find them? Lucien spent a lot of money trying to find out who sent that letter.”
“Tracking spell.” I tapped the necklace, now hanging limply from the mirror. “Used the letter and a little bit of the wendigo’s blood to back track her.”
“Not bad,” she said. “You must know your stuff. I keep telling Lucien he needs to use his connections to hire one of the military sorcerers, but he has this idea that he knows how to find his own talent. I don’t think he’d trust the government not to plant one of their own people in the Inner Circle. Maybe Lucien does know how to pick out fae bloods, demon bloods, and psychics, but wizards are a tough commodity these days. A lot of people talk the talk, but not many can walk the walk.”