Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(26)

“Okay,” I say. “We’re going to move toward the truck. I can’t see them, so you’re going to have to lead. I’ll follow, so keep a clear path. You need to move one, or they get too close, you toss some right at them. Pollen should ground them to the spot, and the obsidian should hurt them. Make them go away if we’re lucky.”

“If we’re not lucky?” he asks.

My voice is a little breathless and I realize that I’m geeked up, the adrenaline starting to course. Ready for a fight, even if it’s one I can’t quite see coming. “Either one of us gets too close, the ghost sickness is going to get us. So I suggest we get lucky quick.”

Kai blinks, and I notice the rich brown of his eyes has paled around the edges, the dark circle around his irises now a quicksilver. A shiver crawls across my shoulders that has nothing to do with the ch’?dii. But there’s nothing to be done about it right now. We need to get out of here. And Kai’s on my side, after all.

“Okay, you ready?” I ask him.

He nods. “I’ll do my best to make sure the ghosts don’t touch you.”

I push the door open and we go.

I may not be able to see the ch’?dii, but I feel them in my gut, like a rising sadness that makes me want to howl, to weep for everyone and everything I’ve ever lost. My nalí. My parents. Neizghání. Even a stuffed horse doll that I had when I was ten. The feelings come fast and furious, threatening to take me over. A sob rises in my throat, but I swallow it down before it escapes. Kai moans, a low sad sound, and I know he must feel them too, his own memories of loss. I shudder and force my feet forward.

Kai heads steadily for the truck, spreading the shot in a wide arc. I’m careful to keep in his footsteps, scattering the shot around and behind me. When he stops abruptly to throw a handful of obsidian at a blank space three feet in front of us, I yelp. He looks back. I nod and motion him forward. We keep going until we hit the passenger’s side door.

I throw open the door, ready to dust the inside with shot if I have to. “Nothing in the truck, right?” I ask Kai. But I know there’s not. I can’t feel them anymore, the crippling sorrow of moments ago lifted like it never was.

His brow scrunches up like I said something funny. “All clear,” he assures me. “They pretty much took off when I doused that first one.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” I say defensively as I climb over the seat and slide in behind the wheel. He gets in beside me, shrugging the tote bag off his shoulder, careful to keep the shot from slipping from his hand. I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the empty shells. He cups his hand and pours what’s left of his pile back in.

“Not so bad,” he says. “In fact”—a corner of his mouth quirks up—“that was kind of fun.”

I shudder. “Fun” is the last word I’d use for that feeling. I start the engine and don’t bother to comment.

“So I make a pretty good partner after all?” he says.

I pull the truck out of the parking lot and onto the road. Head west toward the mountains and out of Crownpoint. Kai’s good humor fades as we pass the deserted houses, the bodies along the road, the reality of what made those ch’?dii staring us in the face. The sensation of a deep, unrequited longing lingers over us even though we’re safe in the truck. Neizghání’s face rises unbidden from my memories, and I turn up the radio, hoping for a distraction. But the only song playing in the whole of Dinétah is Patsy Cline, and she’s falling to pieces.



Halfway through Narbona Pass, I turn to Kai. “What’s up with your eyes?”

He blinks, like he didn’t hear me. But I know he did. I can almost see him spinning an answer. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“When you said you saw those ch’?dii, before we walked out there, your eyes turned silver. Just like they did when we stopped for the coyote.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“The hell you don’t.”

He widens his eyes theatrically, turns that handsome face toward me. “Pretty sure my eyes are brown.” He’s right. They’re back to brown, hints of reddish gold streaking his ridiculously attractive but perfectly normal eyes. He gives me a reassuring smile. “It was probably just a trick of the light. Mags. I think I’d know if my eyes were silver.”

It’s possible. Sure, it’s possible. It’s probably more possible than Kai’s eyes changing colors, but he did see the ch’?dii when I couldn’t. I thought it was just something about his medicine training, but now I’m wondering, thinking it might be something bigger. Something I should know about. “You shouldn’t keep secrets from me, Kai. That’s not how partnerships work.”

He perks up. “So we’re partners?”

“I didn’t mean—”

A bolt of lightning streaks across the late afternoon sky, cutting me off midsentence. We watch as it strikes somewhere to the west. The direction we’re going. Thunder booms shortly after. We both blink in the afterburn.

“Whoa, that was pretty close,” Kai says.

I’d say within a dozen miles of us. I can’t stop myself from foolishly searching the sky, hoping to spot a storm cloud to tell me that rain is imminent and the lightning was a natural occurrence. But, of course, there’s nothing to see, certainly no rain, and my heart thuds with fear, thoughts of Kai’s eyes forgotten.