Trail of Lightning

Chapter 2

I follow the easy tracks, broken branches and grass shine, up the mountain for over an hour with no visual on my prey. I keep moving anyway, sure of my path. And for a moment, lost in the beauty of the waning sunlight and the steady rhythm of my breath, I forget I am here to kill something.

The forest surrounds me. Ponderosa and blue spruce spread across the high desert mountains, sheltering small badgers and mice and night birds. Pine trees scent the air, their fallen needles crunching softly under my feet. Insects drone happily in the cooling evening, buzzing near my ears, attracted to my sweat. There is a beauty here, a calmness that I savor. I will savor the bloodshed, too, no doubt, but this balance between earth and animal and self feels right. Feels true.

The sun sets, the moon rises, and the night settles in thick around me. The trees become shadows, the creatures flee from night predators, and the insects fly away. My pleasure fades along with my daylight.

I keep moving until the stench of corruption grows so strong it becomes overwhelming. Dread, like a dark intuition, builds in my stomach, telling me I must be almost there. I swallow my fear, my mouth dry and sour, and keep going. I run my hands across my weapons again just to be sure.

A flicker of light ahead on the path catches my eye and draws me closer. I hunch down and move in for a better look. A campfire flutters and shivers, casting haphazard flames against the trunks of tall trees. The fire tries its best to rise higher, but it’s just a bunch of loose sticks thrown in a shallow dugout, quickly consumed and not up to the task.

I circle south to come in somewhere downwind and east of the camp. I load my shotgun with shells full of corn pollen and obsidian shot, both sacred to the Diné. Ammo meant for taking out the yee naaldlshii and ch’įdii and any of the other monsters that call Dinétah home. If I’m wrong and this monster is of the more common human variety, the ammo will work just fine on him, too. A hole in the heart is a hole in the heart, no matter what makes it.

I find a good spot, foliage providing me cover but not breaking my sight line into the camp, and I brace the shotgun against my shoulder. I sight down the barrel. What I see turns my stomach.

The monster looks like a man, but I know better. He lies stretched out on a blue sleeping bag under a makeshift lean-to, rough canvas tarp strung across two ponderosas with trading post twine. The bulk of his body hides the girl from view, but I can hear her. A low whimpering mewing as his mouth works at her neck and she begs him to stop.

He doesn’t stop.

Rage floods my body, turns my vision hazy as I fight a wave of memory. The remembered feel of a man’s weight holding my own body down, blood thick and choking in my mouth as powerful fingers grip my skull and slam my head into the floor. A strong smell of wrongness in my nose.

The memory shudders through me, makes my hands unsteady. I force myself to shake it off. Remind myself that it’s just a memory and can’t hurt me anymore—the monster that did that to me is dead. I killed him.

I spare one last hope that Neizghání will come charging up the mountain, flaming lightning sword aloft to save the day. I even wait half a second to see if it’ll happen. But . . . nothing. Just me. Alone.

I raise the shotgun, bracing it against my shoulder. I stick out a foot, eyes still focused in front of me. I step heavily on a fallen branch. The break sends a loud snap into the otherwise silent night.

I wait for him to move, to give me a clear shot. Zilch.

Eyes still set on the monster’s back, I reach down and pick up a rock. I throw it hard at a distant sumac. It smacks into the trunk with a loud thunk. I grip the shotgun, finger on the trigger.

Still nothing, and the girl’s cries get higher, more frantic.

Screw it. I bang the butt of my shotgun on the tree I am using for cover and yell, “Hey! Over here!”

He rears up, head jerking back and forth as he searches the night for me. The nearness to the fire has left him blind.

I swallow down bile. His mouth is covered in red gore. He’s been gnawing at her throat. The sonofabitch is eating her.

I fire. The shot rips through his chest. He staggers but doesn’t go down. Blood trickles, sparkling wet in the firelight, and then pours. I start counting down from ten. Ten seconds and a human loses enough blood that he falls like a brick. I know he’s only shaped like a human, but I hope the rule still stands: I stay alive for ten seconds and I win.

He’s big, broad-shouldered and thick. No wonder he was able to carry the girl up the side of the mountain for miles. In the flickering light of the poor fire, I can’t see much detail. Man-shaped, but with knotty lumps like oversize tumors protruding from his back, shoulders, and thighs. Arms that seem too long, that branch out from his trunk and drag the ground. Skin so translucent it almost glows. And now he’s sporting a bloody hole in his chest.

I pump and fire again, this time taking off a chunk of his shoulder. Flesh and other bits spatter down on the girl, who skitters backward on all fours.

The monster is still standing, and he roars at me like a wounded boar, enraged.

“Run!” I shout at the girl as I advance. Six, five, four and he barely staggers with a hole in his heart and half his arm missing. And I know I’m in trouble.

“Go down,” I whisper. “Go down.”

He reaches a massive pawlike hand under the sleeping bag and pulls out a long wicked-looking ax meant for chopping through trees and little girls’ windows. I have no doubt it will slice through my flesh nice and easy. I don’t plan on giving him the chance.

In one practiced move, I slide my shotgun into the holster across my back and draw my Böker. Seven inches of curved steel, down-weighted for a machete-like strike. But before I can attack, he pivots toward the girl, scoops her up, throws her over his shoulder, and runs.

“Shit!”

I take off after him, struggling to put my hunting knife away and get the small quick knife tucked in my moccasins. I throw the obsidian blade fast as lightning, smooth and spinless in an underhanded release. Grim satisfaction as it flies true and hits him in the back of the knee. He roars and stumbles, almost drops the girl, who shrieks in terror. But he keeps on going. Faster than he should be with a knife in his leg. Faster than he looks. Quickly disappearing into the dark woods. So I do the only thing I can do. I chase.

And with my need, Honágháahnii comes. Like a streak of wildfire through my veins, churning through my muscles, turning me into something more than I am without it. My eyesight sharpens. My lungs expand. And I fly, feet light, barely touching the ground. Instinctively I dodge trees, leap felled branches and dense underbrush. I am close to the monster too fast, in the milliseconds between breaths. I stutter step and then launch myself at his broad back.

Impact, and the three of us crash to the forest floor. The girl goes flying from his arms as he smashes face-first into the ground. His big body cushions my fall, giving me a moment of advantage that I take. I roll, drawing my knife even as I get my legs under me. I’m ready when the monster gets to his feet.

His eyes flicker between my knife and the girl. She’s sprawled out facedown, silent. Maybe already dead, but I can’t tell for sure. His eyes dart between us again, and this time when his gaze settles on the girl, he licks his lips.

I swing my knife for his throat, still Honágháahnii fast, but he throws out an arm to block me. I adjust, twisting before the blade hits, nimble as a mountain cat, and invade his inner guard. I plunge my knife into his belly and rip. Again. A third time. Hard and fast and merciless like I’ve been taught. My hands grows slippery with his blood. The stench of his innards is overwhelming, and my eyes water and blur, but I don’t stop. I don’t pause between strikes to see if it’s working. I just wait for his body to hit the ground.

No luck, as huge arms wrap around me and squeeze. The barrel of my shotgun digs painfully into my spine. I fight to breathe. Fire blazes across my shoulder as he clamps down, trying his best to bite through my leather jacket.

I scream. Pure and instinctual as I thrash helplessly in his massive arms. Panic judders through my bones and stars burst and flame out on the edge of my vision. He squeezes harder. Uses his teeth to worry my shoulder like a dog with a bone. I’ve still got my Böker in my right hand. Desperate, I shift my knife to my left, shimmy that arm loose. And with all my strength, I take a swinging hack at his neck. It’s awkward and clumsy, but it works. He releases me with a bellow of pain. Hurls me away. I go flying, arms and legs paddling wildly.

I strike the ground hard. Agony jolts my side. I can’t catch my breath and my shoulder is throbbing, but I scramble to my feet, fumbling to put my knife between us.

But there’s no need. He staggers, hand clumsily shoving to contain the flesh and tendons of his neck, and I realize I’ve severed his head. I watch in awe as he crumples to the ground.

Dead.

The monster is dead.

I drop to my knees, exhausted. Because what Honágháahnii gives, it takes away, and even that limited use of my clan powers has left me drained. My heart pounds like a big drum in my chest. The roar of a windstorm crashes in my ears, and the shakes are ridiculous. They rattle through my muscles as the adrenaline melts away.

I scream, exhilarated, obscenely euphoric. I know this high. K’aahanáanii, my clan power, a bloodlust that revels in the kill. Guilt and horror suffuse me, and I try to mentally push K’aahanáanii away, but it won’t be denied as long as I am covered in the blood of my enemy, his lifeless body at my feet. I listen as my voice echoes back to me through the trees and wait for the perversity of my killing clan power to pass.

For a while the only sound is my own breath in my ears. The soft rustle of wind through the trees.

Dirt and rocks stick to my blood-soaked leggings and poke painfully at my knees as I crawl over to retrieve my knives. I clean them both as best I can, sheathe the obsidian blade.

I use the Böker to hack at what’s left of his neck until the head comes off. I’m not sure what kind of monster I just killed, but I do know he took too damn long to die, and that makes me cautious. Taking the head is about the only way to guarantee he won’t stand up the moment I turn my back.

There’s a shuffling behind me.

I whirl, too fast, and my head throbs. If there’s another monster, I’m in no shape to fight it.

It’s the girl. I forgot all about the girl.

She’s dragged herself upright, back braced against a bare tree trunk. Her nightgown is torn and filthy. Her hair hangs in stringy blood-clotted clumps. The color in her face is an awful ghostly chalk under her brown skin. I can see her wound now, the black blood, the white of bone and tendon showing through where the flesh has been scraped away by the monster’s teeth. I shake off a shudder of horror and wonder how she’s still alive. The monster wasn’t just gnawing at her. He was trying to dig out her throat.

She tries to talk, her mouth working soundlessly, but the damage is so bad that she can’t speak. Her eyes are big, wide and glazed over. She can’t be more than twelve years old. And, as I’m looking at that wound, my gut says she’s not going to make it to thirteen.

I go to her, crouch down so we’re closer to eye-to-eye. She looks a lot like me. The same dark hair, the same brown skin and broad angular face.

I still have the Böker in my hand, but I keep it flat to the ground, out of sight.

“The monster got you,” I tell her quietly. I point to the wound. Her eyes roll, trying to see the bloody place on her neck. “Do you know what that means?”

A low painful sound is all she can manage.

Neizghání once told me that evil was a sickness. He told me he could see it on people, like a taint. That the bilagáanas had it wrong, and evil wasn’t just some spiritual concept or the deeds of a bad man. It was real, physical, more like an infectious disease. And you could catch evil if something evil got inside you. And once inside you, it could take you over. Make you do evil things. Destroy what you once cared for. Hurt people you wouldn’t have hurt otherwise, and eventually, kill. And if that happened, you ran the risk of becoming just another monster.

He told me I had some of that evil in me, that I’d been touched by what happened the night he had found me. And that it manifested as K’aahanáanii, and it made me strong, made me vicious when I needed to be. But it was a narrow road that I walked. I had to be vigilant not to let it grow, not to feed it unnecessarily. Because my fate wasn’t decided yet. I could be a monsterslayer, or I could be a monster.

I laughed it off when he told me this. Said it sounded like superstition, old people’s talk. Never mind that I was talking to an immortal. But the truth is, he scared the piss out of me. Because I knew why he was telling me this.

We were standing in a field of corpses at the time, his eyes on me, but as distant and unfathomable as the farthest corners of the universe. I was cleaning my Böker on a dead man’s coat. But the curl of Neizghání’s lips and the pinch in his heavy brows told me clear enough what he was thinking.

He was gone the next morning. Why he, the Monsterslayer, didn’t just kill me if he thought I was becoming a monster, I’m not sure. Maybe those years as his apprentice meant something. Maybe he had second thoughts about it all in the end. But here, facing this girl who doesn’t look so different from me, it hits me like a punch in the gut.

I think of giving her the speech Neizghání gave me, but I’m not cruel, just honest. I keep it simple. “It means you’re infected.”

Her wet panting grows louder.

“Even if you survive, the infection is only going to get worse. You’ll have to fight it all your life. It will dig into you, take you over.” I swallow to clear my throat. “I met your family. Back in town. They seemed nice.” I rub at my nose with the back of my hand where it suddenly itches.

She sways where she sits, but her eyes stay on me.

“They would try to say the right things. Try to fix things. Fix you. But they won’t understand. What’s happened to you can’t be fixed.” It’s the most I’ve said to another human being in months. But now that I’m talking, it feels urgent that she know. That she understand why I have to do what I’m going to do.

“The infection,” I tell her. “It’ll make you . . . something else inside. Something that hurts people. Something you don’t want to be.” Something monstrous, I want to say. “Do you understand?”

She swallows and I can see the muscles of her throat working, slick and wet where they show through her ruined skin.

I nod, tighten the grip on my knife. I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I settle for “Close your eyes.”

Her eyes flutter shut. I brush her hair away from her face. Expose her neck.

I murmur “I’m sorry” after all. And I tell myself she understands that I’m saving her, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

I swing the Böker.

Her head separates cleanly.

Her body wilts to the forest floor.

There’s a hard ball in my stomach that bends me over, makes me want to heave. I try to ignore the way my knife suddenly feels heavy and wrong in my hand. How the familiar grip grates like sandpaper against my palm. And I can’t help but think that if this was the right thing to do, why does it feel so fucking wrong?

I stagger back from her body. The ground is littered with the carnage I have wrought in only a handful of minutes. I make myself take it in. The smells, the blood, the headless bodies. I commit it to memory. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

The forest around me is quiet and whatever judgment it makes of me, merciful or monstrous, it keeps to itself. The bare kindling of the campfire sputters and hisses in the distance before it finally surrenders to the flames. Moments later the flames die too, leaving me with only darkness and ash.