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Mount Taylor was one of four mountains that marked the boundaries of Navajo land, known as the Dinetah, or the Glittering World. Strange things happened there—always had, always would.
Jimmy stirred. He’d been sleeping since we hit the New Mexico border. You’d think his being unconscious would have made the trip easier. Unfortunately, it only meant my gaze kept flicking to him, cataloging memories I’d retained from my dreams.
Like the way his lashes lay on his cheeks, thick and dark, reminding me of how they fluttered against my belly in the wake of his lips.
Or the supple length of his fingers, which could leave me gasping, straining, begging with just one stroke.
When the wind whistled through the tiny crack he’d cranked in the passenger window, ruffling across his skin, stirring his hair then flicking the scent of cinnamon and soap into my face, my whole body tingled with the memory of things that hadn’t even happened.
Jimmy sat up, staring at the huge blob of land that filled the windshield. “Needle
? Haystack? Hell,” he muttered.
“I know where to go.”
He cast me a quick glance. “You are good at this.”
“I am,” I agreed, though again, his praise warmed me. “But you see that?” I pointed to the billowing cloud of smoke that trailed toward the excruciatingly blue sky. “We should probably check it out.”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?”
“Where there’s destruction, there’s usually a Nephilim. That looks like more than a campfire.” It looked like half a town was burning. “If that isn’t the work of our sorcerer, it’s probably the work of something else we need to kill.”
Jimmy’s hand went to his pocket, where he traced the outline of his switchblade. “Fine by me.”
When we reached the blaze, we discovered enough pickup trucks and old, dusty cars to fill a honky-tonk parking lot and a pyre surrounded by at least a hundred people, who stared at the leaping, dancing flames as if mesmerized.
“Zombies,” Jimmy whispered.
In our world, they might be.
I got out of the car, opened the trunk, grabbed a few machetes, and tossed one to Jimmy. He lifted his brows, and I shrugged. “If parts of them start falling off and they try to bite you?” I made a chopping motion. “Off with their heads.”
I didn’t think they were zombies—I doubted the walking dead would be hanging around so close to a fire since it was one of the few things, along with decapitation, that killed them—but I wasn’t going to bet Jimmy’s life on it.
As we approached, a few of the observers turned. They were all Navajo, and quite obviously alive—no decaying eyes, moldering arms, putrefying thighs, or gangrenous tongues. Lucky us.
Hell, lucky them.
I paused and laid a hand on Jimmy’s arm. The ripple of awareness when my palm touched his skin made me shiver despite the steady beat of the sun on the crown of my hat.
He cast me a curious glance, and I lowered my voice to a range that no human could hear. “The Navajo still believe in monsters. We haven’t had to dust anything out this way in ages. They do it for us.”
“You mean…?” Jimmy let his gaze trail back to the massive, billowing bonfire. “We should just walk away?”
“Well…” I hesitated. “Why don’t we make sure it works, then walk away?”
The Navajo whispered among themselves.
He walks in darkness.
He is the night.
Born of smoke.
Death.
Beasts.
