The fox turned and headed up the bank into the woodsy area. I followed. The grass at my feet mixed with rocks and pine needles. A fresh, earthy smell filled the early spring air. We walked clockwise around the island until we reached the side furthest from the hotel. There the fox turned toward the center of the island. After a few moments, we came to a clearing.
I was standing at the top of some earthen steps that loomed about eight feet above a circular pit at the island’s center. The tall pine trees grew in a circle around the pit. From this vantage, I found myself looking down on a labyrinth. Stones had been set into the ground in a circular pattern that looked like a coiled snake. At the center was the head. A long, snaky tongue extended from its mouth, spiraling with increasing smaller stones. The entrance to the labyrinth was at the bottom of the stairs. There, round rocks, resembling a snake’s rattle, were piled.
The fox looked back at me and headed into the labyrinth.
I took a deep breath and followed.
As I wove around the circle, I could feel the energy rising. It was that same strange feeling I’d had before but something about it seemed more intense, wilder. A pulsing feeling of electricity made my ears ring almost painfully. The chaotic energy made my skin itch. With each step I took I felt it even more.
As I neared the center, my heart started racing. The island’s tall trees loomed overhead. Moments later, I stood close to the center. I stopped before I reached the head of the snake. The fox trotted into the space in front of me and then, before my eyes, shifted into the guise of a human woman. She wore leather pants and boots and blousy cotton shirt. Her hair was dark, but the sun’s ray breaking through the trees gave her hair a reddish hue. She wore a bow strapped across her chest and a dagger hung from her belt. Her face was painted on one cheek; three lines blended into a circular solar image. She stood very near the center of the spiral.
“Welcome to ?de-ka Island,” she said.
I nodded in respect.
“?de-ka means sun. Here,” she said, motioning to the labyrinth, “you stand at the heart of the sun, at the head of the snake.”
“The other island, Enita, that is the moon?”
She nodded. “The moon, the crescent. That is why the usurpers have taken the island; they are creatures of darkness. But they have bastardized that sacred lunar space,” she said angrily. “Here, however, they can touch nothing. The sun is their enemy.”
“They are vampires?” I said.
“That is what you call them. They are not from this land. They came from abroad and took over this holy space.”
I looked back toward the HarpWind. It was a shadow in the distance.
“You must leave this place,” she told me.
“They won’t let us just walk off.”
“No sooner than a hunter lets the rabbit off the spit. It will be necessary for you to destroy them. This place, however,” she said, motioning to the labyrinth, “is a doorway. We have long kept such doors secret, locked to your kind. But we are in a new world now. Destroy them, and our doors will be unlocked to you. Complete the spiral,” she said, motioning to the snake’s tongue, “and you will pass through the door.”
“Did Peryn send you?”
She cocked her head and looked at me. “Peryn?”
“Peryn, the forest spirit. She’s like you, right?”
The woman simply looked at me.
“Why are you helping us?” I asked.
“You are now on the fringe just as we are, just as those dark creatures are,” she said, motioning back to the HarpWind. “But the outcome is still unclear. Your kind has finally gone entirely windigo. Yet some of you still remain. We are not sure why,” she said.
“The gateway, where does it lead?” I asked.
She half smiled then. “We shall meet again, I think,” she said, then turned, morphing back into a fox. She trotted to the center of the spiral and then disappeared.
The unanswered question hung in the air.
Chapter 30
By the time I got back to Enita Island it was nearly noon. I knew Jamie would be worried, but I could not let the issue of Pastor Frank’s death go.
I made my way to the back of the hotel and found the small garden they were using as a cemetery. I noticed right away that no graves were marked, there were no crosses, and there were at least thirty bodies buried there.
The two men who had taken Pastor Frank’s body were dropping the final shovels of dirt on a fresh grave. They looked up when I approached them.
“I want to see the Pastor’s body,” I told them.
One of them smiled sardonically and turned away. The other looked piercingly at me with steel gray eyes. “He is here,” he said, looking down.
“You buried him already?”
The man didn’t have to answer me.
I bit my tongue cutting off every sarcastic remark that wanted to leap from my mouth. The less they suspected I knew, the better. I turned and left, ignoring the low sounds of their chuckles. They would get theirs.
Back in the hotel, I wound my way through the halls toward the infirmary. I arrived at Ian’s room to find him sitting up. He looked really good, very healthy. His IV stand, however, was hung with two bags: one was clear, and the other looked like blood.