Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(20)

Until he finally stops asking.

I rub at my shoulder absently, thinking about the monster. Thinking about evil. And wondering if what I saw in my dream is all just coincidence, or if it means something.

“Tell me what you know about these . . . what did you call them?”

He’s leaning against the far side of the truck, eyes focused out the window. “Hmm?”

“You said you recognized the monster back at Tah’s place. Called it a tsé naayéé’?”

He looks like he wants to hold out, probably irritated by my shitty attitude, but I can already tell that holding out isn’t his style. “Well, tsé naayéé’ isn’t exactly the right word for it,” he admits. “But it’s something similar. I know I’ve heard of them before. Like I said, my father was a professor of Navajo studies. He would bring home recordings sometimes, verbal accounts from elders about the old stories. Creation stories, legends, monsters.” He grins. “I remember he had this big box of VHS tapes. You remember those? No? Anyway, he’d gotten this grant from the tribe to digitize them. I used to sit in his study and listen along while he worked.”

“Digital recordings? Is that what you think we’ll find at the library in Crownpoint?”

“That’s what I’m hoping, Mags.”

I frown at the unfamiliar name. “You called me that before.”

“Mags? It’s a nickname. Do you like it? Someone told me that you’re supposed to give girls a nickname. It makes them like you.”

“Someone’s lying to you.”

“Yeah, well.” He leans back and props his leg up against the console, gives me a movie star grin. “You let me know when it’s working, partner.”

“Look,” I say, “don’t get any expectations from this partner thing, okay? It’s not personal. I just work better alone.”

“I thought you had a partner before.”

Neizghání. But how do I explain him? He was more than a partner, more than my teacher. “Gone,” I say simply. “I’ve been on my own for a while.”

“Hunting monsters?”

“No,” I admit. “The tsé naayéé’ was my first solo hunt. I’ve been . . . well, I did some merc work with a local crew a few times, but that didn’t work out. Mostly I’ve been taking a break.” If staying holed up in my trailer could be considered taking a break.

“Well, there you go. Perfect timing.” He spreads his arms. “Here I am.”

The man is relentless, but I feel a smile threatening to break despite my best intention to scowl at him. Even so. “I’ve got dogs,” I mutter.

“Hmm?”

“I said . . . shit . . .”

We’re cresting the last hill, Crownpoint spreading out before us.

The town of Crownpoint is a few miles of trailers and NHA tract housing rolling across low hills, sloping down to the modest campus of the technical college. I remember the main road we’re on skirts the east edge of town so that if we keep going, we’ll find a Bashas’ grocery store turned trading post and a small restaurant that opens once a month for mutton stew. At least that’s what Crownpoint used to be. Now it looks like an abandoned battlefield.

Blackened, burning, and strewn with the bodies of the dead.





Chapter 9


We drive down Route 9 into the heart of Crownpoint, silent. I’ve got my shotgun resting across my lap, and Kai’s staring out the window, looking for what I’m not sure. Signs of life, maybe. But he’s not having any luck. The corpses littering the ground around us are clearly not alive.

“So many ghosts,” he whispers.

“Do you mean . . . ?”

“Ch’?dii. Everywhere. Can you see them?”

I shudder, and it feels like a million tiny ants are crawling down my spine. “No.”

He nods. Says nothing.

In Navajo, the souls of the dead are ch’?dii. They are the residue, the evil deeds every man and woman leaves behind at the moment of death. They can possess the living, causing drowning sickness. Drowning sickness can be a slow death, a sinking into melancholy and depression until you forget to get out of bed, forget to eat, and eventually, forget to breathe. Or drowning sickness can be aggressive, an attack that feels like you’re suffocating, being pulled under and into the grave. Quick or slow, either way, ch’?dii kill. Luckily, they tend to stay near the body or infect the dwelling where the deceased met their end, so as long as we stay away from them, they should stay away from us.

“I had the ghost sickness once,” I say, mostly to hear myself talk. “We were hunting this man, a human, but he had become evil. He’d butchered his family out near Ganado. Wife, kids, cousins, even the horses. My old partner was there with me, but we’d split up, following different leads. I was on my own when I found him. Cornered him in an old abandoned hogan and shot him. Didn’t take his head, though. My mistake. Anyway, his ch’?dii was strong. All that evil, waiting to rise up and take form, and me, stupidly inside the hogan with him, no room to get away in time. My mentor found me hours later. Fevered, delirious, and screaming about drowning. He took me to your grandfather. Four days and nights it took to save me, but he did it.” I glance over at Kai. He’s still staring out the window, but he’s listening. “That’s how I met your cheii. He saved my life.”