Beauty's Beast(5)

She believed him. But why did she believe him?

“You are a Halfling?”

He glanced back and then blew out a long breath. “Yes.”

“What are your gifts?” she asked.

His eyes shifted to the undergrowth and then flicked to the branches.

“I do not consider them gifts.”

She waited but he said no more. He cocked his head. She listened, scented the air and found no threat.

“Best be off.” He set them in motion again.

Samantha thought back to her mother’s teaching. Niyanoka could be born with any gift, not just the ones of their parents, and there were so many. Some were born with more than one. She strode beside him as she tried to recall them all. Clairvoyants, Truth Seekers, Dream Walkers, Memory Walkers, Peacemakers... And then she recalled something else. He had said she was born of the first two Halfling races. She stared at this man, heeded the warning that prickled over her skin and dropped back a few more steps.

“Why did the Thunderbirds carry you?” he asked. “What threatened your life?”

“Ghosts,” she said. “Ghosts and the enemy of my mother, the Spirit Nagi, Ruler of all Ghosts.”

This time it was Alon who lost his footing. He drew up short and turned to scrutinize her.

“Nagi?” he asked as if for confirmation.

She nodded, studying his drawn face. He was right to look so concerned. The ruler of the Circle of Ghosts was a dangerous foe. Merely helping her placed him and his entire family at risk.

“I understand if you do not want me near you, Alon.”

“You are worried about my safety?” His voice rang with incredulity. He closed his eyes for a moment and braced his hand across his forehead as if suddenly struck with a terrible headache. “He is not near. That much I know.” He remained where he was, motionless, his head bowed as if in deep thought. “And there are no ghosts about.”

She gaped. “How...how? Do you see them, too?”

Only Seers and Skinwalker owls could see ghosts. And only Seers could send disembodied spirits to the Ghost Road, though her father said that an owl could sometimes trick a ghost into leaving a human host. Terrible possibilities emerged in her mind.

“I can see them.” His hand dropped to his side. “And I can feel them on my skin.”

Tingling fingers of terror danced like ice water down her spine. He could feel the presence of ghosts?

“What are you?” she asked, unable to keep the panic from creeping into her voice.

He did not answer, only jerked his head to scan the open meadow beyond the line of trees, catching the movement an instant before she did.

Something flashed before them, diving into the open space. Samantha stifled a scream until she recognized the brown and white feathers of a swooping harrier hawk. This was no threat, at least, not to her.

She crouched, still looking for ghosts. They appeared to her as wisps of smoke of various colors, usually at the periphery of her vision. The sunlight that streamed down on the grassy field made spotting them much more difficult than in the darkness and clear cold air of the north. It was another reason her father kept them so far north—so they could see the ghosts before the ghosts saw them.

Before them, the sun streamed down on an open field. At the center of the meadow the snow had receded completely, and lush green shoots sprang up amid the bowed yellow grass. The lush landscape reminded Samantha again of how far the Thunderbirds had carried her.

It took only an instant for the raptor to snatch up a hare. The rabbit screamed pitifully as it was whisked without warning into the sky. But the hawk had managed to sink only one set of talons into the rabbit’s back, and so it kicked and writhed. The hawk flapped and flew in a crazy pattern as the struggle continued. Samantha and Alon watched in fascination.

The hawk released the hare. The rodent fell against the trunk of a downed tree and then rolled beneath. The hawk shrieked and flapped, but it could not fly beneath the thick cover of broken branches to reach the wounded hare.

“No dinner for him tonight,” said Alon, revealing that he had been rooting for the hawk, while Samantha favored the hare.

She stepped out from cover, crossing quickly to the downed tree. The hawk knew her on sight, recognizing the superior predator, and quickly turned tail.

Samantha reached between the cage of dead limbs and retrieved the dying rabbit.

“Broke his back,” said Alon, considering the creature.

Samantha carried the hare by the hind legs. Bleeding, torn and broken, it still waved its front paws in a pitiful effort to escape.

“Do you like rabbit?” he asked, as if she planned to make a stew. But she had no appetite for this little creature.

“It’s in pain. Help me find some stones,” she said.

He cocked his head, obviously confused. “Stones?”

She nodded, laying down the rabbit to search.

“How big?”

Despite their speed, by the time she had the healing circle ready, the rabbit was no longer breathing. Samantha chanted, hopeful to find the creature’s heart still beating, but when she had healed the rabbit’s wounds and repaired its spine, it was very definitely lifeless.

“Damn it!” she cursed.

“It looks good as new.”

“It’s dead,” she said, pointing out the obvious.

“And you don’t like rabbit stew?”

She made a sound of disgust.

“Its soul is gone,” he said.

“Yes, I can see that. Thanks.”

She met his aggravated stare with one of her own.

“It’s just a rabbit,” he said.

“And you’re just a man.”

His mouth quirked at that. He rose. “Wait here. It didn’t go far.”

What didn’t? she wondered.

She watched him stride a few steps away and scoop down to snatch something that she could not see. When he turned, she saw why. There was nothing in his clenched fist.

He returned to her and sank to his knees before the little corpse. Then he shoved his fist right inside the rabbit without making a mark. His hand now seemed as insubstantial as smoke. Samantha gave a little shriek of surprise and tumbled to her hindquarters. He opened his hand and withdrew it.

“What in the name of...”

But before she could finish, the rabbit sprang to its feet and darted to cover. She gaped at the place where it had vanished before turning her attention back to him.

She pointed. “It was dead.”

He nodded.

“You brought it back to life.”

“No, you did that. All I did was return its soul to its body. If you hadn’t fixed it, the soul would have just leaked out again.” He placed his hands on his muscular thighs. She stared at those hands, which now seemed as substantial as her own, but bigger, broader and more threatening. “I can remove souls the same way.”

She swallowed back her rising panic. She knew of only one creature who could harvest souls. She rolled to the balls of her feet, now in a low crouch.

“Just what the hell are you, Alon?”

“Exactly what you’re thinking. I’m a Halfling but not like our parents. I am born of Nagi. A Naginoka, Samantha.”

Samantha shot to her feet as if fired from a gun. A Toe Tagger! How could Alon be a Toe Tagger? Toe Taggers were ugly, hideous. She’d seen them attacking her father, seen their quills, gray skin, bulbous yellow eyes and their long, vicious fangs.

Why would the Thunderbirds bring her to him?

She stared at Alon. He was so attractive that his gaze brought her pulse racing even now.

Samantha rose and backed awkwardly away, her fear making her joints stiff.

He followed her slowly, hands open, extended—hands that could retrieve a soul or remove hers.

“Samantha, stop.”

She didn’t. Instead she did what her father had told her to do, what she had been doing her entire life. Samantha turned and ran.

She plunged through the forest, dodging about the huge trunks of the sequoias, thrashing through the underbrush, tearing up the ferns in her wild flight.

Nagi. He was the son of Nagi. The child of her enemy, the Spirit who had hunted her family throughout her entire life. A Toe Tagger, like the nightmare creatures she saw bearing down on them.

Why would the Thunderbirds drop her like a live rabbit into the nest of a hungry hatchling eagle?

She stifled a sob as she raced on.

Her heart beat in her temples as she tried to pull the air past the fingers of dread closing her throat. She gulped, gasped, wept as she ran. She understood now why her mother had not wanted to send her to Bess Suncatcher. Why she had asked which one would go to the raven. She had known.

Why had Alon said he was the son of Bess Suncatcher? He wasn’t, couldn’t be.

The brush slashed across her legs as she fled. Still in human form, she ran with the speed of a bear, thirty miles an hour, charging through the woods, snapping branches the thickness of her wrist as if they were swizzle sticks.