I never moved; I did not—could not—make a sound, but suddenly her glistening black eyes left his and instead bored into mine. The spell over me broke, and I dove beneath the covers, shivering, whimpering the night away. In those eyes I’d seen all that was dreadful in the world— hatred, murder, evil for the sake of evil alone and an underlying joy of it.
With the light of day, the fear should have left me, but it didn’t. I felt that being seen by the woman of smoke was a very bad thing; she would come for me. Not that day or the next, but someday. Her coming was inevitable.
Sawyer still stood in the hall watching me. I could ask him about that night, but I knew with a certainty I had about very few things that he wouldn’t answer me. Most likely he’d deny ever having conjured her at all.
I slammed the door in his face, then changed my clothes. Moments later I followed him across the long expanse of land toward the sacred mountain of the south, Tso dzilh, better known as Mount Taylor.
“You aren’t going to lock the house?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Anyone could come by and take things.”
“Do you know why I live out here, Phoenix?”
I had a pretty good idea.
“My people have very little tolerance for witches. In order to avoid the constant assassination attempts, I live as far away from the rest of them as possible. But I can’t leave. I need to be within the circle of the sacred mountains. To leave here is to die.”
“Seriously?”
He cast an impatient look over his shoulder, then paused. “Do you really think killing me would be as simple as tossing me across the imaginary line that separates the Glittering World from the land of the Bilagaanal?”
“Bilagaana,” I repeated.
“Whites.”
When he talked like this it made me believe that we were not only from different generations, but, most likely, different centuries.
“So you could go; there’s nothing stopping you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
“I can only depart the Dinetah as an animal, never a man.”
“Seriously?” I repeated.
“Do you think I make this up?”
“Sometimes. So, if you step over the invisible line, bam, you shape-shift?”
He shrugged, which I took as a yes.
“Bummer.”
“There’s nothing I need that isn’t here with me now.”
My gaze went to his face, but as always it was inscrutable.
“All right,” I said slowly. “Let’s get back to the no-lock policy.”
His eyes glittered for just an instant—animal, man. animal—before he turned away. “While they might try to kill me, they’re a little too scared of me to steal from me.”
I could understand that.
We walked for an hour at high speed. Luckily I’d stayed in shape since leaving the force. Still, keeping up with Sawyer left me breathless.
“What’s the rush?” I managed.
“You heard Summer. A seer in New York is dead.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry about that. But why is this one different from Ruthie or any of the others who’ve died?”
“The seer in New York was very old, very powerful.”
“And Ruthie wasn’t?”
“Ruthie appears to be a lot more powerful dead than she ever was alive,” he said softly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. He paused in his headlong rush, then zoned off as if several other interesting thoughts had come on the heels of the first.
I cleared my throat, and he glanced up, eyebrows lifted. “New York?” I reminded him. “You were going to elaborate on why this seer’s death is more catastrophic than any of the others?”
“Yes.” He still sounded distracted, but he went on. “New York has always been a place where the Nephilim throng. Without that seer in place, chaos is coming.”
“I thought it was already here.”
“Things are taking more of a downward turn than I ever thought they could.” His distraction fled, and his gaze bored into mine. “You will come into your full powers immediately. I don’t care what we have to do to make that happen.”
I didn’t care for all this talk of making something happen, especially when that something involved me.
“So the answer to everything is to hightail it into the mountains for a vision?” I asked. “I couldn’t have one on level ground?”
In his face I suddenly saw something I’d never seen before. Not fear exactly. I doubted I’d ever see that. But grave concern. For me.
“You think they’re coming here,” I said.
He looked north again. “I know they are.”
The sun shone with a fury, yet suddenly I was so damn cold.
“I can take care of myself.”
“You can’t. Not yet.” He started to walk again. “I won’t let anyone hurt you while you’re with me.” He said the words as if he were telling me what we’d have for dinner. “But you can’t stay with me. We both know that.”
There was something in his voice that made me twitchy, something I didn’t want to examine too closely, so I went back to walking and talking.
“Jimmy thinks you sent a chindi after us.”
“I didn’t. Not that he’ll believe me.”
“Make me believe you.”
“Why?”