Blood Oath, Blood River (The Downwinders Book 1) Read online

  She opened the front door and saw a FedEx sticker hanging near the handle. The delivery man was walking back to his truck.

  “Wait!” she yelled, running out onto the walkway in her bare feet. The cement was already hot and she decided to step onto the grass instead.

  The FedEx guy stopped, turned, and seeing her, returned to meet her on the grass. He handed her the package and the electronic signing board. She scribbled her name, thanked the driver, and ran back into the house.

  She took the package back to her room, not wanting her mother or aunt to see her unwrap it.

  The box was small, and she had it open within minutes. Inside was a thin piece of tin about six inches square. Symbols had been stamped into the corners. It looked exactly like the picture she’d sent to Eliza. She dropped into the River and looked at it again – it transformed into a thin piece of white linen, about the same size. There were two small black beads woven into the material on one side. It glowed a light green.

  Awan said to wet it, she thought, place it over my nose and mouth, and breathe through it.

  She took it into her bathroom and ran water over it, and shook it a little to remove the excess water. Then she walked back into her bedroom, lay down on the bed, and placed the linen over her face. She drew in a breath.

  Hmm, she thought. I don’t feel anything. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

  She let the linen sit on her face for a while, breathing through the moist cloth. After several minutes, she dropped out of the River, and the cloth reverted to the square tin, sitting on top of her face. It began to slide off, so she grabbed it.

  Let’s try Virginia, she thought. She put on clothes and walked downstairs to the guest room. She knocked lightly on Virginia’s door, then opened it.

  Virginia was sitting up in bed, reading. She turned to Deem.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I feel awful again today.”

  “Stick out your tongue,” Deem said. Virginia complied and stuck it out – it was black.

  “I think you’ve been bit again,” Deem said. “Can I check your arms and your neck?”

  “Certainly dear,” Virginia said, putting her book down. “Margie should get the house sprayed. This is really quite annoying.”

  Deem checked her aunt’s arms and found nothing. When she rolled to one side so Deem could check the back of her neck, she found the blister in the same place as the day before, right under the hairline. It was an angry red and the size of a half dollar.

  “Roll back,” Deem instructed. “I have a remedy I want you to try,” Deem said. “It’s a folk cure, but I think it’ll help.” She showed Virginia the tin.

  “How does it work?” Virginia asked.

  “I’ll hold this over your face,” Deem said, “and you breathe through it for a few minutes. That’s all.”

  “Alright,” Virginia said. “Seems strange, but sometimes the old cures are better than the new ones.”

  Deem placed the tin squarely against Virginia’s nose and then dropped into the River. She saw the wet linen drop around Virginia’s nose and mouth, and saw her aunt begin to breathe through the cloth. Deem held the tin in place for a couple of minutes. When she felt it had been enough, she dropped out of the flow and removed the tin from Virginia’s nose.

  “Let’s check that blister again,” Deem said. Virginia rolled over.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time your Uncle Wayne tried to drink Mormon tea?” Virginia said as Deem examined her. The blister was gone.

  “No, I don’t recall,” Deem said. “You can roll back, it’s gone. Stick out your tongue again, would you?”

  Virginia rolled back into position and stuck out her tongue. It was normal.

  Worked! Deem thought. Thank you, Eliza!

  “He’d picked the wrong bush in the desert,” Virginia said, “and it nearly killed him. They pumped his stomach at the hospital. Mormon tea is supposed to settle your stomach. I don’t know why he couldn’t just use a Tums.”

  “Uncle Wayne was always trying new things,” Deem said. “One of the reasons I like him so much.”

  Virginia turned wistful for a moment. “Yeah, he kept me on my toes,” she said. “He thought the world of you, you know.”

  Deem smiled.

  “And so do I,” Virginia said, pushing the covers aside to get out of bed. “I feel so much better, I think I’ll make breakfast for everyone. What do you say?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Deem said.

  “Any requests?” Virginia asked.

  “Pancakes,” Deem answered.

  “Pancakes it is,” Virginia said, grabbing her robe and heading to the bathroom.

  Deem walked back upstairs and hid the tin in her dresser drawer. My first object, she thought. I should find somewhere safe to store it. Nothing in this room is safe from my mother.

  She fell back on the bed and let her eyes close. It was a relief to be free of the skinrunner. After a few minutes, she heard Virginia calling from the kitchen. She rose up out of bed and walked downstairs.

  “Will you get your mother up?” Virginia said as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. “These pancakes are ready!”

  “Sure,” Deem said, turning and walking back out of the kitchen. She walked past the guest room on the ground floor and to the closed door of the master bedroom. She knocked.

  “Mom?” she said. “You awake? Aunt Virginia’s made breakfast.”

  “Come in,” she heard through the door. Deem opened the door and walked into her mother’s bedroom. She could tell instantly that something was wrong.

  “I don’t want any breakfast,” her mother said from the bed. Deem walked to her. She looked weak – a lot like Virginia had looked.

  Oh no, Deem thought. The skinwalker hit her, too.

  “Stick out your tongue, mom,” Deem said. Her mother stuck out her tongue, and as Deem expected, it was black.

  “You’ve been bitten by the same bug,” Deem said. “You’ve probably got a blister on your arms or neck.”

  Margie turned her arms over and the blister was obvious, right in the crease of her left elbow. Margie poked at it with her right hand. “There’s something hard inside,” she said, looking up at Deem.

  “We’ll fix you right up,” Deem said. “I’ve got the cure. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  Deem left her mother and ran back upstairs to her room. She dug in her dresser drawer until she found the tin, took it to her bathroom for a quick re-wetting, and ran back downstairs.

  “This may seem odd,” Deem said as she walked into her mother’s bedroom, “but it worked for me, and it worked for Aunt Virginia. She was in bed like you this morning with a bite on her neck, but after this she bounced out of bed and made breakfast. So it works.”

  Margie looked at the tin skeptically. “This isn’t one of your…things, is it?”

  “No,” Deem said, knowing her mother would reject it if she thought it had anything to do with the River. “It’s just an old folk remedy. Like Echinacea. You like Echinacea, right?”

  “Yes,” Margie said. “Oh, alright.”

  “I’m just gonna place this over your face for a minute,” Deem said. “All you need to do is breathe, OK?”

  “Alright,” Margie said.

  Deem dropped into the River. She saw the tin transform into the linen and fall around Margie’s face. She saw the cloth suck slightly into Margie’s mouth and nose as she breathed. Deem held the tin in place for a few minutes. If she knew I was in the River, she’d be pissed, Deem thought. Normally I wouldn’t around her, but this is for her own good. After a while she dropped out of the flow and removed the tin.

  “Let’s check that bite,” Deem said.

  Margie raised her left arm. The blister was still there.

  “Hmm,” Deem said, puzzled. “Let’s try it again.”

  Margie closed her eyes and Deem placed the tin over her nose once again, repeating the process. As the linen fell into place Deem studied it closely. The two t
iny black beads that were woven into the fabric were gone.

  Doses, Deem thought. Each bead was a dose. I used it up on myself and Virginia.

  “Hold on just a moment, mom,” Deem said. “I’ll be back.”

  She left the master bedroom. As she turned to go upstairs, Virginia called to her. “These pancakes are getting cold!”

  “We’ll be right there,” Deem called back.

  Deem ran up the stairs and into her bedroom, searching for her phone. She located the email she’d received from Awan and opened the picture of his grandfather’s object. It was a square piece of tin with markings. She zoomed in on the markings. There were a total of five, one in each corner and one along an edge. Three of the edges did not have markings. Five doses on Awan’s, Deem thought.

  She looked at the tin in her hands. The two markings in the corners were gone. She dropped back into the River and examined the linen again – no beads.

  Damn, she thought.

  She walked to her bathroom, grabbed her nail file, and wiped it with a cotton ball she’d soaked in rubbing alcohol. Then she ran back downstairs to her mother’s room.

  “We’re going to remove the hard part,” Deem said, “just like we did with Virginia. Then you’ll feel better.”

  “What about the tin?” Margie asked.

  “I think it only had two doses,” Deem said, “and I used them up on myself and Aunt Virginia. Sorry.”

  Margie held her arm out for Deem to access. Deem poked into the blister and dug out the small white bone fragment, grey smoke rising from the incision.

  “Did it hurt?” Deem asked, looking at the bone fragment she was holding in her fingers.

  “Not at all,” Margie said, smiling at Deem. “And I do feel better.”

  “Deem!” Virginia called from the other room.

  “She’s made pancakes,” Deem said to Margie. “We’d better get in there.”

  “Tell her I’ll be right in,” Margie said.

  Chapter Seven

  “So we’re not out of the woods,” Winn said, backing away from the 7-11 where Deem had just purchased a Big Gulp.

  “Nope,” Deem said. “Virginia and I are safe, but I’ll have to keep cutting bones out of my mother. I’ve got no way to cure her.”

  Winn drove out of Mesquite and onto I-15. They were headed back to Ivins. Deem had decided she wanted to talk more with Claude.

  “I guess this means there’s a box number 20 back in that garage,” Winn said. “He must have stolen something of your mother’s.”

  “I saw him in the house last night,” Deem said. “He was a lizard, about four feet long. At least I think it was him. It was three a.m. and I was getting loopy from staying awake.”

  “You saw a lizard?” Winn asked. “In the house?”

  “Hanging above me in a bathroom,” Deem said.

  “Ooo,” Winn said, shivering. “That’d freak me out.”

  “I’m surprised I didn’t scream,” Deem said. “I didn’t want to wake the house.”

  “So what now?” Winn asked. “You can’t keep cutting the bones out of your mom forever.”

  “I know,” Deem said. “When we go with Awan tomorrow, we need to talk with him about how to take down the skinrunner. He said it was hard, but I don’t see what other choice I have.”

  “Are you OK with leaving your mom for a night?” Winn asked.

  “Yeah,” Deem said. “I’ll talk to Virginia. She’s got lots of energy now, and she can tend mom the way mom was tending her. I’ll tell Virginia how to remove the bone. I think she’ll be OK.”

  “It only had two doses, huh?” Winn asked.

  “That’s what I’m guessing,” Deem said. “I didn’t realize what the markings or the beads were at first, and I didn’t think to check them between the time I used it and Virginia used it. Awan had never seen it, so I doubt he knew it was dose-based, either. We should remind him to amend his grandfather’s journal.”

  They sat silently in Winn’s Jeep as he wound through the Virgin River Gorge, twisting and turning, passing slow moving trucks. Winn knew Deem’s reference to Awan’s journals probably got her thinking about her own father’s journals, which was the reason for their follow-up visit to Claude.

  “What do you want from Claude?” Winn asked.

  “More info on the secret council,” Deem said. “If they have my father’s journals, I want to figure out how to get them. It’d be helpful to know more about them. I can’t just break into Dayton’s house and start rummaging around.”

  “You could,” Winn said.

  “Bad idea,” Deem replied.

  “I thought it was interesting that Claude is obviously an apostate from the church,” Winn said, “but he still calls people by their Mormon titles, like ‘President’ and ‘Brother.’ Wonder why?”

  “It’s ingrained,” Deem said. “You get used to it when you’re growing up and it stays with you. It seems like I still run everything through the Mormon filter I was raised with.”

  “Ah, that’s why you don’t drink coffee,” Winn said, “even though you’re an apostate yourself.”

  “You know,” Deem replied, “you might be right. I was raised to hate it. What do you expect? No big surprise I don’t like it.”

  “It was all that was available for breakfast in my home,” Winn said. “My mom made a pot every morning, but that’s all she made. She wasn’t a breakfast person.”

  “She never made you breakfast?” Deem asked.

  “Not once that I remember,” Winn said. “If she didn’t like it, she didn’t do it.”

  “But she’d have cereal for you, so you could eat, right?” Deem asked.

  “Nope,” Winn said. “As far as she was concerned, I could drink coffee for breakfast, like her. I learned to like it, and I learned to skip breakfast, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Deem said. “I wonder whose upbringing was more screwed up, yours or mine?”

  “Mine,” Winn said. “I promise you.”

  After a few more miles, Winn pulled up in front of Claude’s house and they both walked up to the door. Deem knocked, and a dog started barking in the distance. Within seconds they heard it slam against the other side of the door.

  “That dog is something else,” Deem said.

  “I don’t blame him for keeping it,” Winn said. “I imagine he’s got a few enemies.”

  The door opened and Claude smiled at them, pulling at the dog’s collar.

  “Come in!” he said cheerily. “I’ll just put Kimo in the back. Please seat yourselves.”

  “You could leave him out to visit, if you want,” Deem offered, trying to be accommodating.

  “Oh no, my dear,” Claude said, wrestling the dog into the back. “You’d lose a hand.”

  Claude disappeared with the dog and returned empty handed after a few minutes. Deem and Winn were sitting in his living room, the stacks of papers and magazines rising higher than their heads.

  “So, you’re back!” Claude said. He seemed genuinely happy to see them again.

  “I am!” Deem said, smiling. “I was thinking about what you had said, like you said I would, and I felt I needed to talk to you again.”

  “You want to know more about the secret council,” Claude said. “So you can get your father’s journals back. Right?”

  “It’s that obvious?” Deem asked.

  “It’s what I’d do,” Claude said. “Then again, I was never very risk averse. Not always wise.”

  “I have no idea how to go about it,” Deem said. “But I want to try.”

  “I love when someone puts their money where their mouth is,” Claude said. “Of course I’ll help you. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Do you know who is on the secret council?” Deem said.

  “No,” Claude replied, “that’s one of their big secrets. They take an oath to never reveal that. But I do have some educated guesses. I thought your father was on it, and now I’m sure of that. It’s a good bet Brother Dayton is on it. Do
n’t know about the new Stake President, though.”

  “Do you know how many are on it?” Deem asked.

  “Well, it can’t be many,” Claude said. “Remember, it’s only gifteds who are in high-level positions in the church. The local council probably encompasses everyone in southern Utah and Nevada, probably northern Arizona, too, and I’d be surprised if there’s more than a half dozen men on it. There’s another council up north, in Salt Lake. I know there’s at least one General Authority on that one.”

  “Is the Salt Lake council in charge?” Deem asked, “of all the local councils?”

  “No,” Claude said. “It’s not like the church, with Salt Lake always running things. The local councils don’t take orders from anywhere else.”

  “Why are they organized like this?” Winn asked. “What do they do?”

  “I think some of it is camaraderie and being part of a club,” Claude said. “People like to be together with others who are like themselves. That’s why you two work together, is it not?”

  Deem nodded.

  “I think some of them probably get off on the power of it, the secrecy,” Claude continued. “But as for what they do exactly, what they accomplish as a group, I don’t know. More secrets. There are rumors.”

  “Such as?” Winn asked.

  “I’ve heard some say they control the Danites,” Claude said.

  “Danites?” Deem asked. “What is that?”

  “A secret group that does the dirty work of the church,” Winn said. “You haven’t heard about them?”

  “No, and it sounds like bullshit,” Deem said. “Sorry for swearing.”

  “Oh, we’ve crossed another line, have we?” Claude chuckled. “Danites were very active in the late nineteenth century, when the church was still threatened by the United States government. The modern day Danites are the lobbying companies the church employs – far more effective than the Danites of old, and a lot less bloody. But I think it’s just a rumor – I don’t think the secret councils are involved with them. The Danites always took orders straight from the church in Salt Lake. The secret councils operate independently. There might be some crossover, but if there is, I think it’s small.”