Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(3)

I don’t bother to answer. If I don’t come back, Lukachukai’s got bigger problems than one missing girl.





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’?dii 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.”