Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(40)

“The champagne parties you were telling me about.”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened?”

“It all went to hell, just like it always does eventually.” He rubs a hand through his hair. “It’s a stupid story. Cliché, even. I did something reckless, people I cared about got hurt, and now the Uriostes want me dead.”

“The Uriostes. That’s that family back in the Burque?”

“Familia,” he says. “And yeah.”

His revelations sit in the air between us. I know he’s trying to make up for last night, share something about himself that’s close to the bone to rebuild some trust, and I appreciate that. But I don’t intend to return the gesture. What I can do, though, is apologize for this morning.

“About this morning, Kai. With the knife.”

“It’s okay. I get it. Shouldn’t have touched you like that. Won’t happen again.”

“No, it’s . . .”

He leans his head to the side and gives me a look. “It’s fine. I’m fine. And I can tell that you’re terrible at apologies. So let it go, okay?”

I swallow, surprisingly relieved. “Okay.”

“So what’s your Big Water story?” he asks.

“You already know it.”

“You mean the thing with your mentor, Neizghání? Coyote sure seemed interested in him.”

“Obsessed,” I acknowledge.

“But what about before him? What did you do before?”

“Nothing before him really matters.”

He frowns. “I don’t believe that. Didn’t you have a family? Siblings?”

My voice is as steady as it’s ever been. “I grew up with my nalí. Until she died. Then I was with Neizghání.”

“Then what?”

“Then he left. End of story.”

“Yeah. I know that feeling.”

I’m ready to tell him he has no idea how I feel, but then I remember what he said about his father. I keep my mouth shut.

“Everybody’s got a sob story these days, huh? Depressing as shit, if you ask me. Let’s talk about something happy.” He gives me a roguish wink and I smile despite myself.

“What did you have in mind? Unicorns? Rainbows? World peace?”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of world peace?”

“No, I mean, what’s that in front of us?”

Kai and I watch as half a dozen figures melt out of the early morning mist fifty yards ahead of us. Not monsters, that much I can tell. Or at least not the kind we’re hunting. These monsters look to be humans.

“Company,” I warn Kai, and he sits up a little straighter to get a better look.

“Bandits?” he asks.

“We’re about to find out.”

I consider speeding up and ramming my way through. Instead, I lift my foot off the accelerator. Crank the handle to roll down my window. I can hear the shrill revving of a motorbike somewhere just out of sight. More than one. No doubt just waiting to see if I’ll run. I’m not stupid. Running now would only give them a reason to chase.

The men who surround the truck wear combat boots and blue army fatigues. A familiar bandanna covers their faces from under the eyes down, black with the outline of the bottom half of a human skull, a white outline of a jawbone and rows of picket-fence teeth that stand out stark in the morning light.

“Not bandits,” I tell Kai. “But we’re not completely out of the woods yet.”

“You know them?”

“Sort of. I know their leader.”

“They’ve got big guns.”

“AK-47s,” I acknowledge. “But they don’t want to shoot us, or they’d be pointing them at us. Just let me do the talking.”

“Sure,” he says, but he sounds unconvinced.

“These are Dibáá’ Ashiiké,” I explain.

“?‘Thirsty Boys’? What are they thirsty for?” He blinks slowly, like he’s bracing himself. “Please don’t say blood.”

“Depends. Trade, mostly. Gold, water, bootleg booze. They’re mercenaries, so they’re mostly thirsty for whatever you’ll pay them. I did a job with them once. Collecting a bounty. Their leader, Hastiin, knows me. We’re sort of friends.” And then as if to prove me wrong, the soldier closest to me raises his weapon and points it directly at me.

Kai sighs audibly. Slips his sunglasses on. “You sure about that?”





Chapter 18


The Thirsty Boy orders us off the road. No need to fight them. Not only do they have superior weapons and numbers, but I’m curious why they’re stopping us. The boy who orders us to pull over and kill the engine won’t tell us. Just orders us to wait.

When Hastiin finally shows up at my window, he’s decked out in the same uniform as the rest of the Thirsty Boys—blue fatigues, big black boots, and his skull bandanna hanging loose down around his neck. His face is hard and lean in the dawn light, all knife-edged cheekbones and deep shadows, shorn skullcap and day-old beard. The rumor is that he served on the front lines of the Energy Wars, one of the original Protectors at the Transcontinental Pipeline protest camp, the one that saw the first mass casualties. They say he breathed in a lot of nerve gas and it ruined something in his brain, so now he can’t keep still. His fingers tap absently against my window’s edge, all that energy focused on us.