Hastiin lets out a string of curses and hustles past me toward his niece. For a moment the only sound is the noise of his shoulder holster, the slap of the knife belt as he passes me.
But I’m stopped dead in my tracks. Because I hear it too.
“It’s music,” Ben says, her voice suffused with awe. “Someone’s singing.”
A sweet chorus, like the best summer day you ever had. Sticky with grape snow cones and staying out too late at the creek with your cousins as the locusts sing their mating songs.
Locusts. My monster instincts scream a warning that shakes through my bones.
“It’s a trap!” I yell. But I’m too late.
I watch helpless as Hastiin reaches for his niece, pulling her to the ground. Just as the arrow that was meant for Ben strikes him. Dead center through his throat.
His eyes bulge in surprise. His mouth opens to speak. But no words come out.
Another arrow. Ripping through his eye.
And Hastiin falls down dead at my feet.
Chapter 5
Ben screams.
I hit the ground, rolling for cover. Whoever killed Hastiin is shooting from somewhere above us, an insurmountable vantage point.
Another arrow flies and strikes Hastiin in the meat of his thigh. It makes an ugly thudding sound. He doesn’t flinch. He’s dead.
Ben stands there, staring at her uncle’s body. She makes a keening sound, something low and broken.
“Get to cover!” I hiss at her. “He’s gone. You can’t help him!”
But Ben isn’t listening. She drops to her knees. Falls against Hastiin’s chest, wraps arms around his still frame.
“Move, Ben! You’re a targ—” An arrow flies past my cheek, close enough that I feel a kiss of air as it passes. It’s only a matter of time before an arrow finds one of us. Cursing, I glance around, looking for the other two Thirsty Boys, who took the alternate path up the mountain, but they’re nowhere in sight. I’m on my own.
I focus on the ridge, scanning the switchback for movement. I can feel my clan powers awakening, kindled to life by the danger. My vision sharpens, and my mind shows me the fastest way up the mountain. A thrill of blood lust rises, hot and urgent.
I roll to my feet and run, Honágháahnii fast. Not up the curving path where I’m a nice fat target, but straight up the side of the hill, hands grappling for holds. Branches yank at the sleeves of my shirt. Something sharp rips across my forehead. I ignore it all. Keep moving, tacking slightly north from where the archer should be.
Thirty feet up and I see an echo of something bright on the cliff side to my left. Something pearlescent, diaphanous, and delicate like a dew-soaked spiderweb caught in the sunlight. My mind can’t quite figure out what I’m seeing. Is it fabric? Metal? But it doesn’t matter as a human face rises from behind an oversize boulder. Then shoulders. Chest. The dull black of a compound bow rises above the edge of the rock as the archer raises it to aim down the mountain.
The archer is a Navajo woman dressed in loose white cotton pants and wearing an open-backed shirt. She has a sighting device over one eye, and fingerless gloves grip her bow. She looks formidable. But what has me slowing in my tracks isn’t so much her deadly technology, but the thin membranous insect wings that sprout from just below her shoulder to drape down the length of her back.
She’s focused down mountain, oblivious. She doesn’t even look my way.
She opens her mouth, and a high humming song flows from her lips. It surrounds me, and for a moment I feel that sun-soaked warmth of late summer again, something fragile and beautiful from an idyllic childhood. But it’s a childhood that was never mine. It’s fake, something pretty that has nothing to do with me. An approximation of a perfect childhood too foreign a seduction to lure me in.
She’s still singing when I launch myself onto the path. She startles to silence. Her eyes bulge in shock. She seems to forget that she’s holding a weapon, and by the time she remembers, it’s too late.
I grip the bow, twisting as I rip it from her hands. She cries out as I hurl the weapon over the ledge. I spin back to face her, but she’s no longer standing on the trail. Instead, she’s hovering five feet off the ground, wings buzzing. She’s holding a flimsy-looking knife in her hand.
Her eyes dart toward where the bow went over the ledge. Her fingers work nervously on the hilt of her knife. I have a feeling she’s never used that knife for more than eating dinner. I almost feel bad for her. But then I remember Hastiin and the sound Ben made over his body, and any sympathy in me goes dead.
She dives for the bow, headfirst. I run toward the boulder, leap. Plant my foot on the rock and launch myself into the sky. Grab her ankle. Drag her down. She screams as we both crash to the ground.
We grapple, but I’m bigger and stronger and she’s not a fighter. I’ve got her pinned, my weight planted on her chest, in seconds.
She glares at me, brown eyes shining with hate I haven’t earned. Opens her mouth wide, and that strange locust song pours forth. I think I’m immune to it, but it’s obviously some kind of weapon, so I’m not taking any chances.
I hit her in the face, hard. Her jawbone connects with my knuckles. Her song cuts off abruptly as her cheek slams into the dirt.
“Quit that shit,” I warn her. “Or I’ll tape your mouth shut.” I don’t have any tape, but that’s a small detail.
Besides, I’ve got my own kind of song to contend with. Even now K’aahanáanii is crooning in my ear, urging me to spill her blood. And it would be justified for what she did to Hastiin. But this is a bounty hunt. We’re supposed to bring the White Locust and his followers in to face murder charges, not be murderers ourselves.
And I promised Kai I was going to try something else besides being a killer.
I draw my Böker and her eyes go from hate to fear. I’ve decided to let her live, but she doesn’t know that. For a moment I savor the terror I elicit, the control I have over her. It’s a dark emotion, something I’m not proud of, but it’s there nonetheless.
I flip my Böker around. Bring the hilt down full force against her temple. Her eyes roll back, and her face goes slack. I press my fingers under her nose and feel air. She’ll live, but she’ll wake up with a hell of a headache.
Instinct more than sound tickles something in my awareness. I twist as I draw my throwing knife. Release it before I can think twice.
It flies true, striking my target in the chest, right over his heart.
The Thirsty Boy stares at the knife protruding from his protective jacket. Swallows loudly enough for me to hear.
I grimace, irritated that he almost made me break my new vow not to kill people. If he thinks I’m going to apologize, he’s got the wrong girl. “Don’t sneak up on me,” I snap. “That’ll get you killed.”
He nods, his face bloodless.
I sigh, brace my hands on my thighs and push myself up off the unconscious archer. “You’re lucky I didn’t aim for your eye.”
He says nothing. Smarter than he looks. “You are . . . ?”
“Atcitty,” he says. “Marvin Atcitty.”
I nod an acknowledgment. Walk over. Brace a hand against his chest and pull my knife from his flak jacket. He lets me do it all without comment. “You see anyone else up here, Marvin? Any more like this one, or maybe the White Locust himself?”
He shakes his head. “Curley went down to help Hastiin. I’ve cleared the perimeter. There’s a cave up the trail”—he gestures higher up the path—“but it looks abandoned. I—I haven’t checked. I heard the commotion”—he means Ben—“so I came as fast as I could to help Hastiin.”
“Hastiin’s dead.”
Marvin bristles. “Curley went down to help him.”