Trio of Sorcery (21 page)

She held up a hand, frowning at him, before he could lash out at her. She needed to get him off balance and keep him surprised and off balance. He would feel her protections; that might be enough. At this point, he wouldn't have planned on a confrontation with a Medicine Person. “Come no further, paintless one. You are not welcome here any longer.”

He snorted derisively; she could feel him pressing at her protections. His eyes narrowed with annoyance and speculation. “And who are you, woman, to tell me where I am and am not welcome?”

“I am Kestrel-Hunts-Alone, student of Mooncrow, student of Fox Laughing, student of Sees-Far-Mountains”—
she recited her Medicine lineage as she had memorized it long ago, ending with—“who studied under the hand of Watches-Over-The-Land.”

That got his attention; as she had anticipated, he knew of Watches-Over-The-Land, so she had pegged his time period about right. He looked a little more wary, but he still had plenty of bluster. “So you are a Medicine Woman. Well done, but what has that to do with where I am and am not welcome? These are not the lands of the People of the Middle Waters, and what I want is not one of our blood.” The implication was that any proper-thinking Osage would agree with him that Caroline was fair game.

“Did you not learn your folly with the first Chickasaw maiden?” Jennie asked severely. “The one who threw herself to her death rather than abide in your hands? Take wisdom from that lesson. You are not wanted here. I, a Medicine Woman of your people, tell you this. We are not at war with the Chickasaw any longer. There is no woman here for you. Go, and do not return.”

He laughed scornfully. “Firstly, what if she gives herself to me freely? And secondly, you are but a woman and a living thing, though you have Medicine power. What can you do to me that is worse than what I am now? I will do what I will do, and you cannot stop me.”

“I think that you are wrong,” she replied. She pulled the first of her packets from her pocket, then broke open the soft paper napkin and, with a sweeping motion, cast a handful of corn pollen on the air between them.

He stepped forward boldly. Or rather, tried to, pushing against the invisible barrier she had created. She waited to see what he would do.

“This is small and weak,” he mocked, but there was, for the first time, some hesitation in his tone. He made a trumpet of his hands and blew through it, following the curve of the pollen she had thrown. She felt a pressure inside her head and then a kind of
pop,
and he strode across where the barrier had been. Then he stopped and stood with his arms crossed over his chest, saying without words, “If that is all you can do…”

She debated going offensive this early in the confrontation. It might do more harm than good. Still, if she could hurt him now, it would give him second thoughts.

With a mocking little head nod, she took on the look of her spirit form. Once her spirit form had merely looked like a bird; now it was that of a woman who was half-warrior, half-bird—exactly the sort of shape that Kestrel himself might take, to show that he was something other than a human spirit. For Jennie to be able to assume this half-and-half shape meant that she had a great deal of power in the spirit world.

But she wasn't ready to step out of her body and into that world, not just yet. For her to take this shape meant she
could,
and that was all that the ghost needed to know for now. His eyes flashed with anger and arrogance.

Weapons appeared in his hands.

She gestured. The bowstring snapped, the arrows crumbled. “You will not harm me, spirit,” she declared.

“So you say,” he replied, but now there was uncertainty in his voice. “So you say.”

“And I say, and say again, go from this place. Leave this woman alone. You are not wanted here.” She made her tone as firm as she could.

He tried to push toward her. She held out her hand, palm facing him, this time putting up a barrier by will alone. She felt him shoving against it, but she was able to hold against his force; she betrayed by not so much as a frown how hard it was. If he kept it up much longer, she would start sweating from the exertion, and that wasn't something she could hide. He was a
very
powerful spirit even now. She didn't like to think what he would be like with more stolen power.

His frown grew with every passing moment. Finally, he stopped pushing against her barrier, cursed, and stamped his foot like a petulant child. “You think you have won,” he growled, turning his eyes away in a refusal to look at her.

“I know I have,” she countered, raising her chin and dropping her spirit form. “You are not welcome here. The Chickasaw woman is not for your taking. Nor is any other. Go. And do not return.”

There was one moment when she wasn't sure what he was going to do. He appeared to gather himself and grew a little taller, his expression full of fury, his hands crackling
with energy. He stood like that for a moment and she braced herself for an attack—

With a snarl, he turned about—and vanished.

The feeling of storm-about-to-break left the clearing. She waited a long moment to see if he would reappear and strike at her when she relaxed her guard.

Nothing.

Still she waited. The
mi-ah-lushka
were tricksters, and not in the amusing sense.

Still nothing.

Gradually, the normal sounds of the night crept into the clearing. Faint rustlings in the trees and grass, crickets. She jumped when a cicada went off nearly in her ear.

Jennie bent and turned off the boom box, then hefted it and headed back up to Caroline's trailer.

Caroline, Nathan, and David all looked up as she opened the door, but no one said anything. They just stared at her as if they weren't quite certain she was real. Setting down the boom box, Jennie broke the silence.

“He's gone,” she said flatly. “I wouldn't practice down there again if I were you, but he's gone.”

Caroline was sitting next to Begay on the couch and holding his hand. She rubbed her free hand across her eyes.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” she said.

“So how did all this start?” Jennie asked, slumping down into an old recliner. She felt as drained as Caroline looked.
I think I'll have David drive home.
…

“I thought I was going crazy,” Caroline said, unconsciously echoing Begay's words. “When I was practicing one night, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, looked up, and there he was. When I blinked, he was gone. But he kept reappearing. At first I thought, well, maybe I'm just somehow calling up an image out of my subconscious.”

Jennie raised an eyebrow. “Did you think you were hypnotizing yourself somehow, dancing?”

Caroline shook her head. “I was just trying to find an explanation that wasn't—out there. I mean, I'm not one of those people that hangs around Peace of Mind bookstore telling anyone who'll listen about all the ghosts they're channeling. I
like
rational.”

Jennie nodded; while she didn't exactly understand that attitude, she could sympathize with it. The spirit world seemed to scare as many people as it lured. Maybe more, actually. Despite wanting to
know,
for a fact, that there really was an “other side,” a lot of people didn't really want that other side to intrude on
their
world. It scared them when it did. Because that meant that there were things they couldn't simply take for granted anymore.

“So…when he didn't go away, even when I stopped and stared at him, I thought maybe I was waking up an image out of the past, or somehow tuning into it, like a
television getting a channel it wasn't supposed to.” Caroline sighed. “After a few more times, it felt like I should just relax and let well enough alone. Soon I got used to seeing him there. Then one day—he spoke to me.”

“What did he say?” That was David, cutting to the chase as usual; the question on the tip of Jennie's tongue was, “How did you understand him?” She was used to traveling in the spirit world and speaking to the creatures there. It was unusual for someone who didn't have strong Medicine of her own to be able to understand the spirits.

“He said, ‘Dance with me,' and it wasn't a request.” Caroline shivered. “It was like I didn't have a choice.”

“Then?” Jennie prompted.

“Then, well…I couldn't resist him. Even when I tried, even when I wanted to stay up here, even when I locked the door, once the sun went down, it was like there was something dragging me down there. I'd light the fire, start the tape, and there he would be, and we'd dance. And it was horrible, like sleepwalking. He didn't flirt with me, no, he was just dancing around me like he owned me, and I couldn't help myself. I'd dance for two, three, four hours, and it felt like he was draining all my energy away. I'd feel half dead when he finally turned me loose, I'd sleep until noon and wake up still feeling half dead.” There were tears in her eyes of frustration and anger. “I sent Nate away because I was afraid. I was afraid if it wasn't real, then it was a psychotic break, and I didn't want to hurt him. And if it was real—that scared me more, because I knew he'd
want to do something, and he'd get hurt confronting the thing. Maybe worse than hurt.”

“That would be about right,” Jennie said dryly. “He was used to commanding people and getting what he wanted. Seemed to me that he was something of a spoiled bully when he was alive.” She shivered a little. “Hard to tell what he's become as a
mi-ah-lushka.
”

“You've used that name before, what's it mean?” Caro asked, leaning forward anxiously. “Other than ‘ghost.'”

The cup of coffee went unnoticed in her hands.

Jennie wasn't particularly in the mood to tell ghost stories, particularly not after facing one down, but she sensed she wasn't going to get away without some sort of explanation.

“Well, we Osage have the usual sort of expected afterlife if you show courage and strength and the general litany of virtues in life,” she said, trying to make it sound very matter-of-fact. “But our people figure if you aren't any of these things, instead of going onward, you stick around, kind of half in the living world and half in a shadow spirit world. It's a pretty unpleasant place, that shadow, which you'd figure, if the only things there are other rotten bastards.”

Caro chuckled weakly.

“The
mi-ah-lushka
—we sometimes call them the ‘Little People,' because some of them actually are quite small—are the general name for all the nasty things that live that kind of half-life. Most of them seem to be the spirits of
particularly cowardly men, men who died without honor, without paint, and never got a proper burial. All of which your ‘friend' there seems to be. Some of them are just vengeful—there is, or was, a set of them out at Claremore Mound that are the spirits of a bunch of villagers that were massacred, and let me tell you,
no one
is safe on that mound unless they're Osage, and sometimes not even then.” She smiled wryly as David cringed. “The story goes that any man who goes up there at night, or at least at the dark of the moon, comes back singing soprano or pitching for the other team, if you know what I mean.”

Begay rolled his eyes, but he didn't look as if he disbelieved her.

“There are others, things that aren't ghosts, but mostly, even Medicine People don't see them anymore. They don't much like modern stuff, so they stay hidden. So these days, when an Osage says
mi-ah-lushka,
he means ‘nasty ghost.'” She took a long drink of lukewarm coffee. “They aren't just limited to going after Red blood either. They can go after anyone who pisses them off. Some of them have figured out the modern world well enough to really mess with you, even kill you. And as far as they are concerned, when you piss them off, you and everyone around you becomes a target. So, Caroline, your instinct to keep Nate out of this was dead-on.”

The jewelry maker glanced at Begay, who squeezed her hand.

“But it's over now,” Caro said, and sighed. “I think maybe I'll stick to practicing with that ICOT group.”

Jennie nodded. “Safer. The drums called him, but I doubt he'll be able, or even inclined, to follow you into Tulsa. Just keep the drum music off your property. And don't hesitate to call us if you need us.”

Jennie stood up and stretched, feeling aches all over. Despite her protections and precautions, she'd been “bruised” a good bit by the force of the spirit's will. She tossed David her keys. “Home, James, and don't spare the horsepower.”

“Yes, madam,” he said with a little bow.