Crossroads

No

I need to do something-to save something from the shed to prove that George was a skinwalker. If only they would move away, but they stand watching.

I grab my cell phone. Call Frey. Whisper to send Kayani and the fire department.

Does the Navajo Nation have a fire department?

I guess I'll find out.

I need a distraction. I can pull 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 willing it to burn faster. I don't wait any longer. I remember where the blowgun hung from the wall. I find the place, rip out the boards with my hands and fingernails. A section comes away. The blowgun still 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 follow, even with her eyes.

Her shriek continues to follow 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. Finally, 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 call. 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 tell 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'll lock these in the car."

We wait for him to rejoin us. He lifts his nose. "Is that coffee I smell?"

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 pull 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 'ant'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 will. 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 usually precedes, "You're kidding, right?"

But the seriousness in my face stops him. That and the fact that Frey has not challenged 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 will have to come to his own conclusions. I rise abruptly, "I'll 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 all. It would keep Kayani and Frey clear and John-John safe.

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

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

Without George, who will most likely be dead.