Damned and Desired (22 page)

“I hope so,” she said. “I don’t have much time.”

He wore a suede breechcloth and had brought his leopard skin. Anxiety tensed his muscles. Questions crowded his mind. Would the ceremony free Sakari’s parents? And how would they know? And would he be cleansed of his past? He didn’t think it would be possible to be free of that pain or forgiven for that error. He just did not want to bring any more shame onto his grandfather.

The wooden door opened and Bill held up a hand motioning them to stop. He wore a white shirt, tan pants and a yellow band tied around his head.

The smell of incense and wood smoke followed him.

Stepping outside, Bill closed the door and crossed his arms. “Hello, Son.” He nodded to Sakari. “Welcome Falcon Daughter.”

Brad introduced Sakari to his grandfather.

She placed her hands on her heart and gave a slight bow. “Thank you for doing this, Bill.”

He grunted. Then turned to Brad. “She’s pretty for a demon.”

“Bill!” Brad rolled his eyes. He heard a door slam. Under a large pine tree there was another hogan, a small one several yards away from the other one. Smoke was pouring out of the hole in the roof. An older woman stood at the doorway, wearing a skirt and no top, her long black hair discreetly covering her breasts. She waved toward them.

“Sakari must go with her. She will be tended to by the women for the ceremony,”

Bill said.

Sakari gave Brad a panicked looked but her fear faded some when he smiled and said, “It’s okay. This is how it’s done. I’ll see you when it’s over.”

She took a breath as if to gather her strength. “Okay. I’ll go then.” Sakari slowly walked toward the woman, glancing over her shoulder at Brad for reassurance.

When she got to the women’s hogan, Sakari was shown inside and the door was closed.

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“Sun is down. It’s time,” Bill said as he turned and entered the men’s hogan.

Brad took a breath, fisted his hands around the leopard fur and entered the hogan, closing the door behind him.

It was dark inside. Several men sat cross-legged around a campfire burning low in the center of the room. There were no windows and the only light came from the campfire and the hole in the roof where most, not all, of the smoke from the fire went.

Brad’s eyes burned from the smoky haze that hovered in the single room structure.

“Hello,” Brad said to the other men seated around the fire. They barely nodded.

One was smoking a pipe and eyeing Brad suspiciously.
Great, this is going to be a long
night.

“Have a seat, Son, at the other end of the fire, by the piece of slate.” Bill sat opposite him, across the fire.

Brad waited for several moments for something to happen or someone to tell him to do something. “So how does this work?”

Bill nodded. “You need to cleanse yourself of the past to regain your powers. Your leopard spirit has left you. He walks beside you still but refuses to be one with you. You must coax him back. To do so you must pass several trials.”

“What kind of trials?” Brad asked, trying to get comfortable in the cross-legged position. He glanced at the small clay bowls of powder in white, yellow, red, charcoal, blue, brown and pink.

“Tests, to prove yourself worthy to your totem spirit,” the man with the pipe said.

He seemed to be the leader by the way he sat and talked. “Once you are worthy, then the spirit will enter you again and your powers will fully return.”

Brad embraced some of the Navajo legends and teachings, more so than his brother Jake, but his shapeshifting gift was not Navajo origin, it was
Eigi Einhamr
.

“What about Sakari? How do we help to free her parents’ spirits to enter the spirit world?”

Bill hung his head as if he was disappointed with his grandson’s interruptions.

“You must cleanse yourself first before you have the power to perform other rituals and magic.”

“Of course,” he said sorry for shaming his grandfather. “Tell me what I need to do.”

Brad leaned forward showing his interest and trying to look humble.

The men snickered. “Impatient, isn’t he?”

“Always was,” Bill agreed. “But he has had brief moments where he met with spirits.”

Spirits?
Brad frowned.
He had? When?

Bill’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Brad. The message was clear, “Do not embarrass me, son.” “Brad and I spent time in the sweat lodge when he was younger.

He is a man of honor and looks on the teaching with respect.”

The men nodded their approval.

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The man smoking handed Brad the pipe with an angled tilt of his head. Taking the pipe, Brad acknowledged him in thanks, took a few tokes and passed the pipe to the next man. The pipe made its rounds a couple more passes. The acrid smoke burned his throat and instantly gave him a slight headache at his temples. The temperature of the hogan grew warmer but the fire was still at a slow burn. One of the men added small twigs to keep the flames at a constant height.

The elder shaman placed the pipe aside and picked up a bowl of liquid. Sipping from it, he closed his eyes for a moment, then passed the bowl to Brad. Brad sipped and reached out to pass the bowl. He wondered if Sakari was participating in a similar ritual.

“She will be fine,” the elder said as if he heard Brad’s thoughts. “No, drink more,”

he demanded.

Brad sipped more of the bitter fluid, then looked at the elder for approval. The elder nodded and waved him to pass it.

His head swooned, then colors darted in the flames.
Oh, boy.
He hated to think what would show up on his toxicology screen if they ran one on him now at work. He glanced at his grandfather. His eyes looked like two black marbles, dilated as much as his, no doubt.

The elder pushed the two-foot square of slate toward Brad. “Your first trial is to paint Big Thunder. The sands are in those bowls.”

Brad groaned. “I’m a lousy artist.”

“Your artwork will not be graded. This is to honor the spirit,” the elder said.

“Okay.” Brad had seen sand paintings done before and had made some as a kid but never in a ceremony like this. He picked up the bowl with black sand, then changed his mind and picked up the blue sand. “I sort of remember what Big Thunder looks like but I can’t remember the colors.”

“Ask the spirits to help you,” Bill said.

Brad sat back on his heels, closed his eyes and sent out a thought asking for directions. He asked for guidance so as not to embarrass or dishonor is grandfather. He loved his grandfather more than anything and didn’t want to bring him shame.

After several moments, he opened his eyes and picked up the black powder, drizzled the sand through his hand to outline the body, the arms and legs. As a child he always thought Big Thunder looked part robot, part bird. Then he changed to blue power and made the tips of the wings and the head. His hand cramped and he had to brush away stray grains to make the edges straight.

The men sat with their eyes closed. He wondered if they were sleeping but every once in a while they leaned over and looked at Brad’s progress. Sweat poured down his face, chest and back. And his vision blurred. Couldn’t they have given him that jungle juice after his art lesson? He was getting hungry too. He could go for a pizza about now.

A breeze drifted in down through the hole at the top of the hogan. A welcoming breath 125

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of fresh air. Brad breathed in and enjoyed the coolness as it stroked his sweaty skin.

Thank you.
Maybe the spirits knew he was sweating like a pig.

He leaned forward to continue his painting and stopped. “No.”

“What is wrong?” the elder asked.

“The breeze that came into the hogan messed up my sand painting. It’s ruined.”

The elder leaned forward and looked at the slate. “So it is. Start again.”

Brad blinked. “I’ve been working on this for about two hours.”

“We have all night,” the elder said calmly.

Taking a long, deep breath, Brad eyed the hole in the ceiling and wondered how he was going to finish a painting without the wind interfering.

“Were your thoughts straying from your task?” Bill asked.

Brad thought for a minute. “I think my focus was drifting.”

The elder handed him the bowl of jungle juice. Brad took a sip. Picking up the black sand he drizzled the square outline for the body.
This is going to be a long night.

A stiff breeze whisked away his sand. “Shit.”

The men laughed.

“Concentrate.” The elder puffed on the pipe.

“Make friends with the wind,” Bill said.

Fuck the wind.
Sand blew in his eyes. “Okay, I’ll try.”

* * * * *

Inside the women’s hogan, several women sat on mats around a small fire. Some were naked and others wore a skirt like the elder woman escorting Sakari, leaving their breasts bare. In the dim light, she saw a woman pouring water into a bowl that was set on a table. The elderly woman brought her to it and the other woman removed Sakari’s shift and undergarments, folding them neatly on the table, then sponged her down.

“You may not talk during the ceremony,” the elder woman instructed. “You make this sign if you need water to drink and this sign if you need to go out to relieve yourself. One of us will escort you.” She showed her hand signals of her fingers touching her mouth or pointing toward the door.

Sakari nodded.

“Once the ceremony is over, for as long as you live, you may never, ever, speak your loved ones’ names again, or they will be dragged out of the spiritworld and left to haunt the Earth.”

Sakari shivered.
Haunt Earth or haunt Prygos?
Either way she did not want that to happen.

“Do you understand?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Sakari whispered.

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“Do you have any questions before we begin?”

“No. I am ready.”

“Good. No talking from this moment on. No, matter what happens or what you see or feel. You cannot leave the hogan without one of us.”

Sakari nodded and sat where she was instructed. The other women sat at their places and she realized she didn’t even know their names.

A thin, naked woman, who looked to be in her early twenties handed Sakari a bowl of brownish liquid. “Drink a couple of sips then pass it on.”

She sipped the bitter drink and her head felt light. After several passes, the room sparkled in various colors and the women hummed and chanted in odd music.

Time passed but Sakari couldn’t tell how long. She seemed to drift off to sleep.

From the depths of a peaceful sleep, she dreamt of her and Brad walking along the cliffs of Anartia hand in hand. The seas were calm and the sky a brilliant indigo blue with only a few clouds. The warmth of the sun heated their skin and a soft sea breeze caressed the heather. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Anartia so calm and peaceful,” she said to Brad.

He smiled but didn’t answer.

“Prygos is quite beautiful. Seascapes like this with mountains of flowers. I would’ve loved for you to have seen it.”

He smiled again but then his smile became a grimace.

“Brad, are you all right?”

His face contorted in pain and he screamed. At the same time pain ripped through her body and she was jolted out of sleep. Hunched over, she tried to focus and push the pain away so she could get her bearings.
What’s happening to me?

She felt for her nebula stone pendant and it vibrated and was warm. Could they be sending this pain to her somehow? She reached over to touch Brad and he was gone.

She was dreaming again or seeing a vision. The image was of Brad’s house.

Frantically, she searched for him in the house. His car and motorcycle were there but he was gone.

They came for him. He was gone and she knew where he was.

She opened her eyes and she was sitting in front of the campfire in the hogan, the same as before, except her body shook. A woman handed her a bowl of water. Sakari took a couple of sips.

She gave up trying to keep track of time. As she focused on the women’s faces, she saw animals or other faces. She’d blink and the faces would change. Could the women see different faces on her, could they see a falcon face over hers? The medicine in the drink had made her so dizzy, she doubted she’d be able to shift into the falcon shape if she tried.

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Then she was above the campfire, circling. She heard shrieks and voices below.
Free,
I’m free
. How would she know if her parents were set free? Their souls released from the underworld?

In her falcon form, she was flying and swooping low over the desert plain, over the great red rock formations but if she angled her head just so, she could see the women and the campfire of the hogan.

Great storms seized the desert, violent earthquakes upheaved land masses, opened wide fissures, rain pummeled the dry earth, causing floods. Such destruction the Arizona desert had never seen. Then she was soaring over the cliffs of Anartia, skimming the rough seas and the rocky cliffs. A moment later, she was inside Tarik’s lower chamber, perched on his control panel. A glance to one side of the room and she again saw the Navajo women in the hogan, reassurance that she was still dreaming.

Three Sha Warriors were locked beneath the power of the massive crystals, power surging from them. She could not see who they were but Tarik was busy adjusting controls on the panel and positioning the crystals. The room glowed with prisms of color, blinding her. One by one the Sha Warriors collapsed and the rumble of the machine rose. “Almost there,” Tarik cried out.

The Sha Warriors didn’t move. Tarik had drained every bit of lifeforce out of them.

Dead. And what consequences did their leaving have on Earth? If this dream was true, a horrible thought crossed her mind. The Sha Warriors. Dante was wrong and Tarik had no intention of letting them go after the project. The project would kill them. She couldn’t allow that even if it meant leaving Earth and leaving Brad behind. A deep ache weighed her body down. She swooped down and stood on her mat in the falcon form then transformed back into her human.