Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(81)

“Because where else in Dinétah would I be?”

“Where is he?” I ask, scanning the roof for Neizghání. But we’re alone, the trickster and me. “I know you were in this together.”

He frowns. “You think I would collaborate with that oaf? Surely you jest.”

“You need to go.”

“No, Magdalena,” he says, an edge to his voice. “I think I’ll stay.”

I curse, irritated. I was sure Neizghání would be here. He’d admired the vantage point before, said it would be a fine place from which to view the land below. And the lightning. But maybe I’d misread him. Maybe he was down in the field even now. I feel Coyote’s eyes on me. “Look, I don’t care what your part in this was. I’ll deal with you later. Right now I—”

We both hear it at the same time. The scream of a dozen motorbikes accelerating at once, the charge of a hundred bloodthirsty creatures. He tilts his head, listening. “Ah . . . there it is. The clarion call. And we are away!”

I rush to join him at the edge of the roof. A mass of pale bodies moves eastward, pouring up over the lip of the canyon. Like a wave of larvae, they come. Dozens, as far as I can see, converging on the break in the chamisa line.

I see the Thirsty Boys on their bikes, rushing to meet them. Flamethrowers strapped across their backs. The truck is parked in the distance, and a lone figure that can only be Kai stands in the bed of the truck, facing the oncoming monsters.

In unison the Boys veer out, stretching wide to flank the monsters. The Boys’ weapons ignite, and they coat the tsé naayéé’ in a blazing blanket of flame. The monsters’ shrieks echo across the mesa as they burn.

“Clever,” Ma’ii observes.

“Wait. They’re not done.”

Kai climbs up on the roof of the truck. He plants his feet and thrusts out his hands. I can almost hear his singing. I see Clive nearby blast a gust of fire into the sky.

And the wind comes. Just like at Rock Springs, the fire takes flight. Becomes a twisting inferno and eats through the ranks of the creatures like a hungry beast.

“Fascinating,” Ma’ii says, eyes on Kai, his tone one of begrudging respect. “And unexpectedly swift.” He pulls the pocket watch from his vest and checks the time.

From my vantage point I can see we’ve decimated their ranks. There’s only a dozen monsters left. Clive and Rissa join the Thirsty Boys and together they ride them down, removing heads from bodies or dousing them in flames. I grin, breathe a sigh of relief. Our plan worked.

And then something to the south catches my eye. Rounding a curve and coming over the hillside.

“Ah,” Coyote says, sounding thoroughly entertained. “The cavalry!”

I watch in horror as more monsters pour onto the mesa, coming up fast behind the truck. Kai turns toward them, hands raised. I hold my breath as he stumbles. I know he’s exhausted, tapped from healing me and then being forced to use powers so soon after. I scream uselessly for Hastiin or Clive or somebody to come back and help Kai, but they can’t hear me, and the monsters are closing in. They won’t make it to him in time.

Lightning strikes the field.

Blinding bright, and by the time I blink away the afterglow and can see again, he’s there. Fifteen feet in front of Kai, standing between him and the monsters. He’s magnificent, black hair flowing down his back in a curtain of shadow. Armor bright. He carries his lightning sword in his hand.

And everywhere he points it, destruction.

“Punctual!” Coyote snaps his pocket watch shut. “Now the fun begins.”

I gape, mouth hanging open, as Neizghání clears the field. Monsters fall everywhere. They burst into flame, as if at his command, or simply shatter into pieces. He swings his arm and shears heads from necks in one blow. Running, spinning from their hungry mouths, he is violence incarnate. He is beautiful.

“I’ve got to get down there,” I whisper as I watch him lay waste to the army.

Coyote runs a clawed hand through the snowy ruffles of his shirt. “Tarry a moment, Magdalena. And I shall first tell you a story.”

“What?” I say, distracted as I watch Neizghání run a huge tsé naayéé’ through. He’s a force of nature, but there are so many of them and only one of him. And they seem to keep coming. Hundreds of them.

“About a lonely coyote, wrongly accused, and a young girl in a fine position to help him get his revenge.”

That gets my attention. “What are you talking about, Ma’ii?”

“Did you not notice me? There on the mountain with you after you killed the first monster?”

A scream draws my attention back to the battlefield in time to catch a Thirsty Boy go down under a swarm of white bodies. Even with Neizghání’s help, Hastiin’s Boys are dying.

“Stop this, Ma’ii. I know the tsé naayéé’ are yours. Why are you doing this?”

Coyote cocks his head. Blinks. “The tsé naayéé’?”

“Don’t deny it. I know you have the fire drill. I know you made them.”

“Oh, I don’t deny it. But you misunderstand. I didn’t just make the tsé naayéé’. I made them all. They are all my monsters, Magdalena. From the very beginning.”