“Okay. Got that,” I whispered. “Why does Evangelina want to hurt Leo?”
“All I know is the word Shiloh.” Lincoln dropped, landing with a hard flat thump on the black floor, his hands barely catching his weight before his head banged down. “Ask the right people,” he whispered. “Ask the right questions.” He collapsed with a short sigh and closed his eyes, the sun outside and the silver taking their toll. He was asleep, in the undead sleep of vamps. He’d be hungry when he waked. I should have tried to set him free, but that would have meant getting closer to the demon. No freaking way. I turned and ran, stumbling up the steps. Falling. Catching myself on my forearms, bruising. But the pain cleared my head, and I held the scarf like a lifeline as I made it to the top of the stairs and out of the house. Only when I was back at my car did I remember that I’d left the lights on and doors all open. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t going back in there. Not for nothing. I sat in the sunlight in my SUV, in the warmth created by the sun through the windows, clutching the scarf that had saved my life. And trembled.
When I could think more clearly, I drove to a little store, bought three bottles of ginger beer, which was like ginger ale but dark and sharp-tasting, and four homemade pastries, consuming them standing at the counter, needing the calories, and ignoring the anxious glances of the proprietor at my bloody, torn clothes. When my shakes had passed and I had my head on straight enough, I sent the pictures to Big Evan’s phone, and was careful not to look at them for fear the desire to go back and learn more may take me over. By the skin of my chinny-chin-chin I had gotten away from the big bad wolf. Or the big bad raptor—a demon of The People.
I couldn’t fight this thing alone. I needed to call in the cavalry, but I didn’t know who to call, who I could trust to keep Molly alive. With the heater on high, I drove back to Asheville.
I made my room without running into anyone I knew, stripped, and climbed into the shower. I stood beneath the scalding water and let it parboil me, trying to thaw the cold in my soul left by the nearness to the ancient evil. When I was warmer, I dressed and went to the drawer holding my Bible and crosses, the only defense against evil I knew. I put on three silver crosses, held the Bible on my lap, and turned on the gas fire with the remote control as I scrolled through my phone contacts for Aggie One Feather’s number.
Guilt wormed under my skin like bamboo shoots under fingernails. I hadn’t told Aggie—my Cherokee teacher, the elder who was helping me find my past—that I was leaving New Orleans. I hadn’t said good-bye. I was a coward and an idiot. And if the thing in the circle had claimed to be anything other than a Cherokee demon, I’d go on being a coward and an idiot. I checked the time on the cell—nine a.m.—and hit send. Aggie answered on the second ring.
“Hello. How can I help you?”
I thought about that for a moment. Only an elder would answer the phone like that, knowing the odds of it being a solicitation call. “Aggie One Feather.” I paused. “Egini Agayvlge i, in the speech of The People. This is Jane Yellowrock,” I took a breath, “Dalonige’i digadoli. Yellow Eyes Yellowrock. I seek council.”
“How may an Elder of The People assist?” There was no snark in the words, no sarcasm.
I swallowed and said, “First of all you can forgive me for acting like an idiot and taking off without telling you I was leaving.”
Aggie laughed, the sound soothing. “There is nothing to forgive, Dalonige’i digadoli. You have a life outside of my counsel, outside of the sweathouse.”
I do. I did. But it was way more than that. It was the parts of my life staring at each other across a chasm of decades, across a sea of cultures and religion and history. Parts of myself that were bifurcated, broken, torn. Parts that didn’t know how to heal or how to accept the other.
I could almost see Aggie, sitting at her kitchen table, a plate of fresh baked cookies and a bottled Coke frosted with white before her. Her calm reached out across the airwaves and settled around my shoulders like a warm blanket. I relaxed, only now aware that I was tense. I took up my guilt in both hands as if to strangle it, and said, “I haven’t been back to see you since going to water. I ran away from your guidance and took a gig in Asheville to put space between us.”
“No,” she said gently. “You accepted the job to put space between the parts of yourself. The Christian child with the white man’s upbringing and the Tsalagi and our ancient ways.”