Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(55)

“You ever drive one?” Clive asks.

“Can’t say I have.”

“Okay. You ride with me, and Rabbit can ride with Rissa.” He checks the sky, where we’re minutes away from full dark. “Let’s go, kids. The monsters aren’t going to kill themselves.”





Chapter 24


Minutes later we’re speeding across the open desert on a pair of Kawasaki off-road bikes. I’m tucked in behind Clive, the goggles he gave me securely in place, and Kai is riding with Rissa. Clive and I are riding point. I’ve got the senses that come with my clan powers, and he’s got a flamethrower strapped to his wrist. He even gives me a little demonstration before I get on the bike.

“Nifty,” I say as the flame dances in his hand.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he agrees with a feral grin.

It doesn’t take long to get there. Clive’s estimation was right on and we pull into the outskirts of the dusty little encampment just minutes after full dark hits. Clive brings the bike to a halt about twenty feet back from the nearest tent, and we wait for Rissa and Kai to join us. Tents flutter in the light breeze all around us. Mostly dun-colored humps that fit two or three people, but also a few of the old-fashioned white frame kind that you see in old army movies, and plenty of the kind that are made of parachute material and zip up in all kinds of fancy ways. Big poles mark the outskirts of the tent city. The poles are crowned with huge halogen lamps, but only one of them is on and it’s flickering haphazardly, like the generator is shorting out. The rest of the place lies in shadow and darkness.

No sound. No people.

And that in itself is enough to send shivers down my back. But then I take a deep breath and the smell hits me full force. Witchcraft, just like up on the mountain.

“They’re here, all right,” I mutter. “You smell that?”

Rissa frowns. “No, but then I’m not one of you.” I’m not sure if she means she doesn’t have clan powers or that she’s just not Diné. She’s right on both counts, of course, but this odor is so strong I figured everyone could smell it—clan powers, Diné, or otherwise.

I look to Kai. “I smell it,” he confirms, pushing his goggles up on his head. “Like a charnel house.”

I don’t know what a charnel house is, but I know what it must mean. Death. He means it smells like death.

The twins exchange one of their looks but say nothing. The breeze picks up a little, the sparse clouds above us moving across the moon.

“Where are all the people?” Kai asks.

“Rabbit’s right,” Rissa says. “There should be people.”

“Dozens,” Kai says. “This is the first town once you make it past the Wall. Everyone coming into Dinétah from the east stops here to get processed. It’s never empty.”

“Well, they can’t all be dead,” Rissa says.

“They could be,” I counter, thinking of Crownpoint. “But there’d be bodies, and I don’t see any. Maybe the monsters are hunting for food.”

“They ate them?” Clive says, his voice climbing an octave.

I catch a whiff of ozone on the breeze. And sure enough, there at the base of a pole, scorch marks. Neizghání. It can’t be a coincidence.

“They’re hiding,” Kai offers. “The people are hiding.”

“Okay,” Clive agrees. “But where?”

Kai looks thoughtful for a moment. Then he smiles. “The tunnels.”



We’re a quarter mile outside Rock Springs, staring at the empty air. There’s a big hill of rocks and oversize boulders to my right. Kai’s sure that if there are tunnels anywhere, they start here underground until they hit the Wall. We can’t see the Wall from here, the night already too dark to see much farther than our immediate surroundings, but we all know it’s there, like some looming silent giant.

“So how do we find the entrance to these tunnels?” Rissa asks.

“I’ve heard of them, that’s all,” Kai answers him. “Smuggling tunnels. Bringing in goods people don’t want border patrol to know about. So they have to pass near the Wall, and this is the closest Rock Springs gets to the Wall, so it would make sense . . .”

Rissa spits in the dusty earth and says what we’re all thinking. “No people, no monsters. It sounds like a false alarm to me.”

I’m inclined to agree with her, except for one thing. “But that smell.” And the lightning strikes.

“And the fact that there are no people,” Kai reminds us. “That’s not normal. I’m telling you there are usually—”

“I believe you,” she cuts him off. “I mean, somebody lives in all those tents. But they aren’t here now. So you tell me what that means. They’re dead? They’re hiding?” She’s only a silhouette in the dark, her gear jingling as she moves away from us. “Don’t know. But I say nothing’s getting answered tonight.” She’s walking back toward the bikes about a hundred feet in the distance. “We’ll come back tomorrow in the daylight, see what there is to see. Because now—”

But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence before there’s a tsé naayéé’ erupting out of what looks like the middle of nowhere, huge sword in hand, slashing open her stomach.