“I’m Jane Yellowrock. Jane”—I took a breath—“Dalonige’i.”
Aggie sat across from me, holding her own Coke. “You know some of the speech.” Her voice was soft, melodious, the gentle voice of dreams and nightmares both.
“I don’t remember much of the old words,” I said, my voice and English grating by comparison. I lowered my volume and tried to find the melody and rhythm of the old speech. “When I hear it, maybe it will come back to me.”
“How may I help you?” she asked, the question similar to the traditional words of the shaman.
Shamans were tribal helpers, there to assist, free of charge, any who asked, whether for healing ceremonies, counsel, or more practical help. I remembered this. I remembered. I looked at my icy hands on the frozen Coke. I had no idea what I was going to say until the words fell from my mouth. “Are there old tales about a creature called a liver-eater?”
“Yes. Several. Why do you ask?”
Shock slithered through me, snakelike. “Because I was hired by a representative of the vamp council to hunt down whatever is killing and eating tourists and cops. I followed it. And according to a very good source, what I saw last night was a liver-eater.” Beast coughed with amusement in the deeps of my mind at the idea of being “a very good source.”
Aggie stiffened. The skin around her eyes tightened, the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening. “Why do you think this?”
Because I smelled it? Because I followed it here in cat form? Rather than reply, I said, “The thing I saw looks like a vampire, smells like something rotten, and hunts in the woods and swamp behind your house. I followed it here.” Ah, crap. Yep. That came out of my mouth.
Aggie sat back. “Ahhh,” she breathed, sounding relieved. “I read about the rogue vampire in the newspaper.” She tilted her head, watching me. I tried to interpret her body language and expressions, but they were too swift, too ephemeral. “Why would it come here?”
“It was interested in your sweathouse. It circled it several times.”
“You saw this creature?”
I paused, remembering the scene in the alley, the form bent over the girl’s body. “Yes.”
Aggie watched me as myriad thoughts, speculations, and conclusions raced behind her eyes. I had a bad feeling that I shouldn’t have come here. “What clan are you?” she asked.
The question was unexpected, but the answer was there, instantly, for the first time in more years than I could accurately remember. Surprised, I said, “My father was ani gilogi, Panther Clan.” I caught a fleeting image: a mountain lion pelt and a man’s face. My father . . . An image of shadows on upright logs followed it. I couldn’t tell what the shadows meant, but I knew it was something bad. I said, “My mother was ani sahoni, Blue Holly Clan.”
My shivers worsened and I let go of the frozen bottle, clenching my cold fingers. Other images, senseless fragments of memories, stabbed me. A shadowed cave wall, a vision of snow, a memory of freezing cold. A fire in the center of a wooden longhouse. Drums, softly beating, a four-beat rhythm, the first beat strong. And the smell of sage, sweetgrass, and something harsh like tobacco burning. Beast gathered herself, but not to leap. To watch. To stalk. She had said my past was hidden in the depths of my mind. Now it seemed as if the past was pushing to the surface, like a spring from far underground. Would I finally remember the years I had forgotten? Was I going to remember who and what I was? Breathless, I asked, “You?”
“My mother is ani waya, Wolf Clan, Eastern Cherokee, and my father was Wild Potato Clan, ani godigewi, Western Cherokee.”
Which could be a problem, my unreliable memory told me. Long ago, before the white man gathered us up and sent us into the snow along the trail west, there had been bad feeling between some families of Wolf Clan and Panther Clan. Remembrance of insult and blood feud was often generations long among the Cherokee. Had the conflict been resolved? Clans passed through the matriarchal line, so perhaps the bad blood had been worked through. My memories shouted that there was a problem, but it was all fractured and shattered.
“My great-grandfather was Panther Clan,” she added, as if acknowledging something important. And perhaps it was significant. Tribal relationships were valued by the elders. I remembered that, in the mishmash of my past.
The sound of drums still echoed in the back of my mind, insistent, and the reverberations brought fear. I would dream about this. And it wouldn’t be good.
“What are your parents’ names?” she asked.
“I don’t remember. I was found in the woods near the Old Nation. I was hoping . . .” Impossible hope burbled up with memories, the need of all orphans, to discover their blood kin.