Jeanne Stein - Crossroads

I grab my cel phone. Cal Frey. Whisper to send Kayani and the fire department.

Does the Navajo Nation have a fire department?

I guess I’l find out.

I need a distraction. I can pul out some boards in back but I can’t do it quietly.

A siren. Good.

Kayani only five miles away must be screeching toward us.

George and his wife exchange astonished glances. Not hard to read their expressions. How could anyone get here so quickly?

George runs back to the car with the gas can. His wife stares at the shed as if wil ing it to burn faster. I don’t wait any longer. I remember where the blowgun hung from the wal. I find the place, rip out the boards with my hands and fingernails. A section comes away. The blowgun stil hangs from its nail. I snatch it and the bone charms in their pottery jar. The one that held ash has already burst from the heat.

I glance up to find George’s wife staring at me. She raises a hand and waves some kind of feather stick at me, shrieking.

* * *

But vampire has already taken over. To the woman, I become a blur, too fast for her to fol ow, even with her eyes.

Her shriek continues to fol ow me. It hangs in the air until it’s cut off abruptly. I watch from the Jeep. Kayani has arrived at the house. He grabs a garden hose but the hole I tore in the side of the shed has only accelerated the burning. The meager trickle of water from the hose does nothing. Final y, he drops it on the ground and the three stand helplessly as the shed burns to the ground.

Only the eyes of George’s wife are not on the shed. They scan the dark, try to penetrate the shadows. She searches for me.

MY CELL PHONE TRILLS. I SNATCH IT OUT OF MY pocket.

“Gus.” It’s Kayani. “Cancel the fire cal. It was a shed on George Long Whiskers’s property. It’s gone. No need to waste water. Send everyone home.”

He clicks off. I watch as he leads George and his wife into the house. Lights go on, and I take the hint. I start the Jeep and head back to Frey’s.

IT’S TWO HOURS BEFORE KAYANI REJOINS US AT

Frey’s. His first words to me are, “Please tel me you got something out of the shed.”

We’re on the porch. I reach to the floor and pick up the blowgun and pottery jar.

His shoulders drop with relief. He picks up the blowgun gingerly by the end and uses a plastic evidence bag he took from a jacket pocket to handle the jar. “I’l lock these in the car.”

We wait for him to rejoin us. He lifts his nose. “Is that coffee I smel?”

Frey and I both lift mugs. “John-John and I had time on our hands this afternoon,” Frey says, his tone as pointed as a jabbing finger. “We went shopping at the trading post.

There’s a pot on the stove.”

Kayani wastes no time helping himself.

Frey waits for him to lean his butt against the railing and take an appreciative pul before jumping in. “What now?”

I shake my head. “I wish I could say I got away with the blowgun clean, but George’s wife saw me. She shrieked like a banshee and waved some feather thing at me.”

Kayani puts his mug down on the rail. “She did?”

“Does that mean something?”

Excitement lights his eyes. “It means she’s probably a witch, an ’ ánt’įį ̨ihnii . She may be the one who initiated George into the witchery way. It is thought only childless women become witches, and she is childless.”

“Is she powerful?”

“Together they could be formidable.”

Frey stirs impatiently, “So where does that leave us?”

“If she describes Anna to George and he connects you to Frey and John-John—”

“Which I’m sure she wil. George knows I’m a v—”

I catch myself. Kayani frowns. “You’re a what?”

I look over at Frey. He gives me an “it’s your decision”

raise of the eyebrows.

I lean back in the porch chair, putting a little more distance between Kayani and myself. “I’m a vampire.”

Kayani snickers the kind of snicker that usual y precedes,

“You’re kidding, right?”

But the seriousness in my face stops him. That and the fact that Frey has not chal enged the claim.

I see the doubt and suspicion build in his eyes. Trust and comradeship evaporate. He glares at Frey. “You knew she was a vampire? You brought her to your son’s home?”

An echo of Sarah’s condemnation. Frey replies in the same heated way with many of the same words. I tune it out.

Kayani wil have to come to his own conclusions. I rise abruptly, “I’l be inside when you decide what to do.”

I pour myself another cup of coffee, glance at the clock. It’s almost dawn. Frey has only given us twenty-four hours to solve the smuggling problem and we are not any closer to a solution than we were twelve hours ago.

Maybe going to George and letting vampire convince him to come clean is the best plan after al. It would keep Kayani and Frey clear and John-John safe.

And if George isn’t involved in the counterfeiting, what then? He stil has the deaths of Sarah and Mary to answer for.

Kayani wil just have to pursue the criminal investigation on his own.

Without George, who wil most likely be dead.

JOHN-JOHN’S SHRILL SCREAM MAKES THE MUG SLIP

from my hand, but before it crashes to the floor, I’m in his room.

John-John is sitting up in bed, his eyes wide, his body trembling. I gather him into my arms, hug him close, rock him.

Frey is beside me then, and I slip away to let him take over.

He talks to his son in Navajo, soft crooning, words whose meaning come through even without the benefit of literal translation.

He is consoling his son, tel ing him he is al right, assuring him his father wil never leave him.

Kayani has come into the room, too. He avoids my eyes, but something he picks up in John-John’s replies to his father makes him cross to the window. He parts the curtains and looks out.

I join him and whisper, “What is it?”

“John-John says he felt something watching him. A red eye. When he woke, it disappeared.”

“A nightmare?”

“Some legends speak of skinwalkers carrying red lights.”

“You think George was here? In John-John’s bedroom?”

Frey has picked up John-John, blankets wrapped tightly around his little frame. “I’m taking John-John in the kitchen for some warm milk.”

We watch until he’s out of sight. I’m shaking with outrage.

“How could he get in without our seeing him?”

“He may not have.” His eyes are troubled. “What John-John saw might be part of a curse.”

“But we destroyed the charm, didn’t we?”

“One, at least.”

“There could have been more?” Each word fans the anger boiling in my blood until I think I wil burst into flame. “I need to get to George and his wife. I can make them talk.”

“You or vampire?” Kayani’s words are sharp.

“Does it matter?” I snap back.

He surprises me by not rising to the bait. To the contrary, his tone softens. “Daniel has great faith in you,” he says simply. “Your kind are not known for their humanity, but I have seen nothing of an evil side to your nature. I have watched you with John-John. He would not respond to you if he sensed danger. You may be the best hope we have to rid ourselv>

“Then I wil go. Now.”

“We need to talk to Daniel first.”

“No. He wil want to come with me. He is too angry. Do you know about Frey’s other form?”

Kayani nods. “Sarah told me. She was afraid John-John might have inherited his father’s curse. It terrified her.”

“It is not a curse. It is a gift to be managed and contained and can be used for good. Frey has helped me too many times to count.” I wave a hand toward John-John’s bed.