Clive takes a few steps back until his big body is framed by the kitchen door. Rissa flops onto the chair next to him. It’s my second favorite chair, and I only have two. Confident they are far enough away from their guns that they can’t surprise me, I lower my Glock.
“So, tell me what’s wrong.”
Rissa gestures to her brother like she’s finished talking to me and it’s Clive’s turn. Clive shifts on his feet. “Well, it’s not that we think he did it. At least I don’t. Rissa doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t know Kai like I do. Like you do too, I mean. I just don’t see him doing something like that, do you?”
I’m trying to follow what Clive is saying, but he’s not making a lot of sense. “From the beginning.”
He flushes, showing red at the neck. “Well, I don’t remember much of Black Mesa. Rissa can tell you what happened after you left.”
“No,” I say, exasperated. “Not that beginning. Why are you here?” The one thing I really want to know sits on the tip of my tongue, demanding I ask. But what if they say he’s left Dinétah? Gone back to the Burque or somewhere else I can’t follow. What if they say he doesn’t want to see me?
“He’s missing,” Rissa says, an answer to my questions, asked and unasked.
“Kai?”
“Not just him. Caleb, too.”
“Who’s Caleb?”
“Our little brother.”
I remember. The teenager at the gatehouse when I brought Kai to the All-American for the first time. We had been running from the Law Dogs, and Kai had been bloody from the beating he’d taken from Longarm. That was before I knew he had healing powers. But I’d never learned the youngest Goodacre’s name. Just called him Freckles.
“What do you mean they’re ‘missing’?”
The siblings exchange a look.
“Maybe you want to sit down,” Clive says, his voice gentle enough to make me nervous.
Rissa’s face darkens, angry. “Clive, I said no.”
“She deserves to know.”
“And we’ll tell her. But not here. Mom said to bring her back. That the only way she would understand is if she saw.”
Clive sighs and pushes himself up. “She’s right, Maggie. It’d be better if we just showed you. Every minute we waste here is a minute they both get farther away. Plus, I think it’d be better to explain it there, with Mom”—he shoots his sister a look—“and stuff.”
“But Kai’s not dead,” I say, keeping the tremble out of my voice this time.
Rissa snorts, irritated. “If you recall, you put a bullet through his heart. If that didn’t kill him, then I’m pretty sure he’s not dying anytime soon.”
“Maggie?” a voice calls from my bedroom doorway.
The twins both reach for their knives. Clive’s on his lower back, Rissa her ankle. I mark the locations before greeting Tah.
“Are these my grandson’s friends?” he asks.
Clive understands first and reaches forward to shake Tah’s hand. “Sir,” he says, suddenly formal. Rissa stands and offers her hand too. Even if she’s pissed at Kai for some reason, she hasn’t lost all her manners. Point for Grace’s home training.
“The Goodacre twins,” I explain to Tah. “Clive and Rissa.”
“Ah,” Tah says, smiling. “I know you mother, Grace. How is she?”
“She’s been better,” Clive admits. “That’s why we’re here.”
Tah’s brow furrows. “And did I hear you say that my grandson is missing?”
“We’ve come to ask Maggie’s help in finding him. We think he and my brother might have been taken against their will.”
“Kidnapped?”
“We’re not sure.”
Tah looks at me. “Maggie will help you.”
And just like that Tah calls my bluff. Because the truth is that nothing in the world could keep me from going to the All-American to find Kai.
I run a hand through my hair, thinking. “I’ll need some things,” I tell the twins as I turn toward the bedroom.
Tah, behind me, says, “Can I make you both some tea?”
Chapter 10
“Who’s out there?” Ben asks, a small dark lump in the middle of my bed. I’d forgotten she was here.
“Some people I know,” I say, stepping over Tah’s makeshift pallet on the floor.
“Friends?”
“Not exactly.” Ben watches me as I pull the sword scabbard from the closet. Run my hands along the black leather. The baldric is elaborately hand-tooled with Western swirls and filigrees. It’s beautiful and something I would have never considered myself, but Tah said it was important to have the proper house for such a sacred weapon when he gifted it to me. Where it came from and how he could afford such a thing is beyond me. But I’m grateful. It’s a work of art created by a master leatherworker. I lay the scabbard across the foot of my bed. Ben sits up to get a better look.
“Move,” I tell her.
“What?”
I gesture for her to get up, and she slides off mattress. I drop to my knees and reach into the space between the mattress and the wall and pull out Neizghání’s sword. Reverent and fully aware that I’m holding a supernatural weapon, I unwrap the sword from the soft cloth. It’s close to four feet long, with a one-handed grip. Its core is a black wood I’m not familiar with, the edges a series of sharpened obsidian laid together so closely that they almost appear as a single edge, the slight differentiation resembling forked lightning. Legend says that the Jo’hanaa’ei, the sun, gifted Neizghání and his brother with four weapons. From these weapons Neizghání made two of his own: the lightning dagger that pierced my side in the arena at the Shalimar and this sword. The dagger is with him underneath the earth of Black Mesa.
And the sword is mine.
I’ve never used it, but I’ve seen what it can do. In Neizghání’s hands, it became a living thing, a weapon of white fire. With it, he could call lightning from the sky. Take the head of a man in a single sweep. Rouse sheet lightning to wipe out armies in a single blinding blow. It’s the weapon of a hero, but I’m going to have to do for now.
Ben’s standing next to me, eyes glued to the sword. I give her a tight smile as I slide it into the scabbard, keeping the hilt wrapped in black cloth, secured with a length of suede tie. Wordless, she helps me lift the scabbard over my shoulder and secure the baldric across my chest.
“Are you leaving?” Ben asks, her voice small.
I nod.
“Can I come?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asks. “Because I killed that lady?”
I pause, close my eyes. I still can’t decide if it would hurt her more to know she killed the archer or that she didn’t. If it were me, it would be the latter, so I go with that, at least for now.
I take a deep breath to release the tightness in my chest and turn to her. “No, Ben. It’s because we don’t really know each other, do we? And the Thirsty Boys will be back for you later today, and they’re your family, not me. So why would I want to take you with me?”
My words are harsh, and I expect her to cringe, maybe even cry, but instead she raises her chin, her eyes blazing. “Because my uncle asked you to.”
So she knows about Hastiin’s request. That’s unexpected.
“I know he asked you to watch after me,” she continues. She steps toward me, hands on her hips. “He said that if anything happened to him . . . if he . . .” She takes a deep breath and practically shouts, “You owe him!”
“I owe him nothing,” I growl through a clenched jaw.
“Then you owe me!” she says, just as defiant. We stare at each other, and even though I’ve faced down gods and monsters, I’ve got nothing on a stubborn, grieving, and annoyingly righteous teenager.
“Tell me about your clan powers.”