Moss grew so thickly in the shaded areas that it was like piled carpets in overlapping shades of green from nearly black to nearly white. A flash of lightning forked across the sky. I looked up, into the face of the brewing storm, violence all around me. Drops of rain pelted my face, cold, washing away my sweat. I shivered.
With a sudden roar, the drizzle increased to a true rain, beating the trees and leaves with a hollow patter, slamming against the bare stone, kicking up into the air again, and cascading back into rivulets, rushing down the bowed rock face, through the pathways of pitted depressions, across the ridged spines, down the mountain, splashing and gurgling, as if the earth drank down the rain.
I followed the downward movement with my eyes and then with my feet, to the far right, where scrub grew, dropping fast from Horseshoe Rock, away from the stable flatter stone to the deep earth and down, sliding and slipping below the curve of the broad cliff face into a narrow gorge. Loping with a gait that felt odd in the hiking boots, I splashed through runnels and rills and slipped through muddy depressions. Leaves tossed pooled rain at me; branches whipped me.
I opened my mouth, scenting, pulling in the world with a harsh sucking sound. My breath came fast, almost painfully, in gasps that resounded off the trees and filled my head with partial memories. I have been here. I have been here. Home . . .
The elevation fell away, quickly and furiously, trees and leaves and ferns flashing past as I followed the water down. A deer froze off to the side, and I slowed. Crouched. Stopped. Fixed her with a steady stare. Her scent flooded my mouth and body, and I started to salivate, staring at her. I panted, studying the doe. I don’t know what she saw in my gaze, but she whirled and bounded over a fallen tree, moving fast, uphill. My muscles tensed, bunching tight, as if to follow. I held myself still, hands gripping the boles of saplings to either side.
Meat! the voice said.
“No,” I whispered.
The presence within me, the voice that spoke to me, the . . . the weirdness that set me so much apart from the other girls, hissed, frustrated. And growled, stirring as if alive. With long practice, I shoved the voice down and moved on, away from the fresh meat. Deeper into the trees, the light dimming into colorless false dusk. Holding on to trees to keep my balance, catching myself when gravity took over and the earth fell away.
Artificial evening took over from the afternoon as the sides of a tight crevice closed in, and the rain became drenching, wetting through to my skin, down into my waterproof boots and the collar of my denim jacket. Shadows dappled and moved as if alive. Rain coursed down the mountain.
Nothing looked the same. Everything looked the same. I have been here. I have been here. Home . . .
• • •
The trees, which had once been huge and old—older than the ravens and the owls, old as the sky and the earth itself—had been raped by the white man, cut and butchered and carted away on trains, leaving bare earth and eroded soil. Now they had been replaced by saplings. I remembered both—the old, massive trees and the barren earth. I remembered the time of hunger. I remembered young trees, when the world tried to regrow . . . the world before and the world after. And a world of fire, when flames consumed everything and the few remaining animals raced in panic. For a moment I saw fire, red and scorching, the mountainside black with suffocating smoke. And the flood that followed, wiping out what little was left.
I had studied the history of the place. I was remembering the early nineteen hundreds, when white men stripped the entire Appalachian Mountains bare of trees. Matching my memories, there had been a fire . . . here. A time long before I was born. Surely it had been long before I was born. Yet I remembered.
I leaped over a rill of water and vaulted over a fallen tree, my palm abrading on the wet, rough bark. Now the trees were somewhere in between in size, no longer saplings but not yet old, not yet wise. Less than a hundred years in age. So much smaller than my earliest memories. And still I plunged down, into the ravine with the water and the rain. Searching.
Something white caught my eye. I stopped. Frozen. Still. Where had I seen it? What?
Rain rolled down my face to hang on my nose and jaws, to drip from the end of my braid. I was at the bottom. Too far right. I moved left, slightly uphill, my feet squishing with the wet that rolled down my ankles into my boots.
I saw the glimmer of white quartz beneath a matting of soil and decades of leaves. I raced to it, knelt, and brushed away the detritus that hid it. And saw the faint line of gold trailing through the quartz. I touched my necklace. The same gold. The same exact gold: from this place, from this rock.
I sobbed hard, a concussive explosion of trapped agony. It was real. All this time. The memories, the dreams. All real.
Unbalanced, I slid downhill, my feet unsteady on the steeply pitched hillside. Caught myself on trailing branches and an oak trunk. Trying to think. How had white man not seen dalonige’i? The yellow rock. The gold he lusted after. How had it remained hidden?
Slightly above me, the ground around the boulder gave way, carrying with it pebbles and dirt and a few fist-sized rocks. Erosion had hidden the boulder. Floods had uncovered it, hidden it, and uncovered it again. And though the trees had been raped from the earth by the white man, though they had trampled all over the chasm, they had missed it. The boulder was still here.
My feet, precariously perched in the mud, slid out from me, and I sat down hard, landing with a splat in a runnel of water. A roar of white water sounded nearby, running off Horseshoe Rock above, the runoff grown to a river in the rain. Leaves bowed down, and droplets still drummed, and creeks appeared that had been empty only moments ago. Long minutes passed. I leaned a shoulder against the white quartz stone. Lifted a hand to rest against it, my fingers splayed on the cool stone. It’s real. . . .
Rain raced over me, dribbled through my fingers onto the quartz. I’d found it. I had found the place of my dream. The only thing I had of my past. The one thing that the voice that possessed me and I agreed upon. This rock.
What had happened here? How long ago?
A shiver caught me up. I was so cold. My fingers were blue gray against the white quartz. I stood and moved uphill to a slightly more level place and stripped, tossing my wet clothes across a branch, careless even with the jacket and boots. I opened my knapsack and pulled out my sleeping bag, glad that the pierced and tattooed greenie who sold it to me had insisted that I buy the best rainproof brand. I dried off as well as I was able and climbed inside the bag, zipped it closed, and tied off the hood that protected my face. A mini-tent.
Encased, I curled into the fetal position and stared at the rock, unable to take my eyes off of it. My shivering eventually eased. The day died. As long as there was light, I stared at the white quartz boulder. With the thin vein of gold running up its side.
Dreams began the moment darkness fell, the night wet and chilly and utterly black. I was so deep in the chasm that there was no sky, no moon, no stars, not even clouds to spit out the rain. Yet rain still fell. My body vibrated, shuddering with tremors that I felt in every muscle, every nerve fiber, every cell. My flesh sparked and tingled, itching and painful, like a bad sunburn.
In my dream I untied the sleeping bag and looked down inside. At my body. If clouds were made of light instead of water vapor, they would look like this, like me, all sparkly silver, thrust through with motes of blackness that danced and whirled. The vaguely human-shaped mist coalesced, thickened, and eddied around me. Was me.
In my dream I stared as night rain beat down on the sleeping bag. I saw the snake in my body, deep in my cells, thousands of snakes, millions, each a double helix of snakes, twisted and writhing. And I saw the other snake, in my memory. The snake of the voice. The snake of the presence.
And I . . . shifted. Changed.
The grayness enveloped me. My body bent and flowed like water—or like hot wax, a viscous, glutinous liquid,
full of gray light and gray shadows and black motes of power. The bones beneath my flesh popped and cracked. Pain arced through me like lightning. I heard my grunting scream, muted for lack of breath. The agony was a blade, slicing me bone from bone, nerve from nerve, fiber from fiber. Agony that went on and on. Whirling like a tornado of torture.
My breathing changed.
The light that was my body grew brighter, the dark motes within me darker.
Both began to dissipate. I slept.
Day came slowly, rain dropping with sharp splats onto the wet ground. Night bird sounds gave way to morning birds.
Hard to catch. Not enough to eat. My stomach rumbled, low growl of the hunter.
I crawled from bag, leaving behind earrings and gold necklace on wet cloth. I stepped from the sleeping bag, unsteady on four feet. Paws. With claws. I flexed my claws out, happy to see them clean and bright, slightly yellow in pale dawn. It had been long. Many years. Many moons. She was in control too long this time.
I—Beast—stepped down the slope to water, to a pool gathered in a shallow basin below the white boulder. The rock that tied us together as one. She did not remember why. But I—Beast—did. I am good hunter. I forget nothing.
I lapped at pool and then, hungry, snatched at human bag of human food. Bloodless, dead meat. But here. With strong claws, tore into bag and into other bags, scattering smoked meat across ground. Wolfed it down. Salty. Cold. Satisfied for now. Sat, grooming, above the water pool. In its reflection saw a mountain lion sitting, eyes golden, with human-shaped pupils. Puma concolor. Mountain lion. Big-cat.
Heard scurrying in leaves. I froze. Slow steps sounded from downhill. Dainty. From upwind. Four legs. Tiny hooves. Smelled deer.
Leisurely sniff. Hunger rumbled. Prey. Slow hunch. I curved into earth. Wary, cautious placement of paw, paw, paw, silent into lee of white rock. Deer came down for water. Paused, head up, eyes going wide. Tensed.
I launched. Up. Claws out. Lips pulled back. Killing fangs exposed.
Deer leaped.
In midair, I twisted, a sinuous move, claws out. Sinking deep. Blood flooding like life. Struggle of prey, legs flailing. With a single wrench, snapped neck. Doe quivered. Dying. Flesh in jaws was strong with muscle, wet with blood. Taste flooded my mouth.
I held. Unmoving. Feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling. Long moments later, her heart stopped, I dropped her, licking mouth and bloody paws and claws. Looking around for any who would steal.
Theft happened here once. Theft of prey and theft of life. Now this was a good place. Alone. With blood food. I screamed. Claiming this place. My territory. Mine! Satisfied, I settled to the throat of the deer and ripped into warm meat.
Snafu
Author’s note: Fans are always asking me about Jane’s early life and training, about how she went from the children’s home to rogue-vamp hunter. Well, here’s a small insight into how.
I unstrapped my helmet and sat, straddling the beat-up Yamaha and taking in the storefront. It didn’t look like much. The dirty display windows were covered on the outside by steel bars, and on the inside by cheap, bent, bowed metal blinds. In the creases of the blinds I could make out wood studs and wallboard on the other side, as if the business wanted to make sure no one could see in. ENDERS SECURITY AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS, INC. was stenciled on the door. My place of internship and on-the-job training for the next six months. I was eighteen and on my own, after spending the past six years in Bethel Nondenominational Christian Children’s Home. I couldn’t decide whether I was excited at the thought of finally being here or dismayed at the dingy storefront.
Using a steel chain and keyed lock, I attached the Yamaha to the pitted and scored aluminum bike post that was situated near the storm drain. It wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do until I could afford the one I really wanted. And there was no point in making it easy for my only transportation to be bike-jacked. This neighborhood looked anything but safe and secure. Lucky me. Knowing nothing about Asheville, I’d picked Enders out of a list of possible PI and security businesses to take my paid internship for my private investigator’s license. From the broken-down look of things, I’d picked wrong. Closed businesses, run-down buildings, little traffic, and what traffic there was consisted of pimpmobiles and rusted, dented, kidnapper-style paneled vans.
Eyes on the guys watching me from the street corner, I patted my saddlebags, checking the latches. The teal compartments were secure, held in place with leather straps and small locks. Everything I owned was in the compartments: my toothbrush, shampoo, and a few changes of clothes—jeans and T-shirts. Boots I hadn’t been able to pass up in the “gently used clothing” consignment store.
The August heat had laid a slick of sweat down my back, and I unzipped my vintage leather riding jacket, freeing my hip-length braid. I touched the gold necklace that I still wore like a talisman and headed for the door.
The guys on the corner started toward me, both with street swaggers meant to intimidate. Hands loose at their sides. One had a bulge at his navel. Gun, I was guessing. The other slid a hand into his pocket and back out. A short length of rope. Metal on his other fingers. Brass knuckles. Really? I thought. Really? Two armed teenaged boys, younger than me, tattooed, Gun Boy with blondish dreadlocks and Brass Knucks Boy with an Afro, like from the seventies.
I reached the door and twisted the knob. Locked. Some small part of me wasn’t surprised. A slightly bigger part was delighted. Funnnnn, it whispered. I ignored it, as always.
Using the storefront windows, I checked behind me. No one watching. No one approaching from behind. Just me and two gangbangers on the street, in view of the security camera of my new place of business. Which was locked. Yeah, really. Was this a test of some kind? An unlucky accident of timing? I retucked my braid, shrugged my shoulders to relax, and came to a stop, my back to the door. The guys separated, coming between me and my bike, a pincer move that cut off my retreat.
Fun, the crazy part of me murmured again. The crazy part of me that I had just discovered turned into an animal. Like my own personal werelion, except not. The crazy part that had been penned in for years in the children’s home, and wanted out now, to play with the humans, play being in the eyes of the beholder, like a cat playing—with a couple of stupid rats. Yeah. The crazy part of me, the part that the Christian children’s home had worked so hard to knock out of me. It rose and glared at them through my eyes, and I chuffed with laughter, showing my teeth. Wanting them to try something. I couldn’t help it.
Knucks Boy hesitated at my grin, just a slight hitch in his get-along, as Brenda, one of my housemothers, would have said. A tell, as my sensei would have said.
I set my bike-booted feet on the cracked sidewalk, the worn treads giving me good traction, much better than the fancy previously owned boots in the saddlebags. Stupid thoughts for a skinny teenage girl facing two armed men. I should run, bang on the security office door, and scream a little. But I didn’t want to. I wanted this. I pulled in air through my nose and out through my mouth, relaxing further. Fun, the crazy voice panted. Fun . . . fun . . . fun.
“Hey, baby,” Brass Knucks said, coming to a stop about five feet away. “Nice bike. How ’bout we go for a ride on that nice lil’ bike?”
“No,” I said, sounding bored.
“How ’bout we go for a ride on this?” Gun Boy asked, grabbing his crotch.
“Now, why would I want some scuzzy, flea-infested dude with BO and probably STDs?” I asked.
Gun Boy pulled his gun from his pants with a move that was all elbow and lifted shoulder. Nothing economical about it, nothing graceful. As the gun came free, I stepped up, blading my body, and kicked out. A single fluid kick that shoved his gun back into his gut, but with enough force to hurt. Hurt bad. His air whuffed out with a pained grunt, and his body bent in two. My leg bent and I clocked him with a knee to the face and a quick, follow-up one-two to his nose. Mess
y.
I backed away as he fell, kicking the gun under the closest van. I gave Knucks Boy a little four-fingered “come and get it” wave and he rushed in with a roundhouse. I ducked and tripped him. Head-butted him with the loose helmet. He landed on the other guy and I followed him down to drop a knee in his back. He made a little squeal as I landed. I caught the loose helmet, and I bopped him in the back of head with it. Kinda hard.
I stole the rope and the brass knuckles from his nerveless fingers and tossed them down the storm drain near the bike. Behind me the lock clicked and the door opened. A laconic voice asked, “You want me to call the police? You know. So you can make a police report?”
I stepped away from my would-be-attackers and considered. “How long do you think they’d be in jail?” I asked. “How much time would they do?”
“Hours and they’ll be back out on the streets,” the voice said. “Then they’ll tie you up in court for weeks, and plea-bargain down to zip.”
“You got it all on camera?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“I want a copy.” I shoved the guys over, out of their pile, and patted them down, removing their ID. I checked the pictures to the IDs and handed them to the man behind me. I said, “Anton Jevers and Wayne Roles Junior.” I met the eyes of the one who was still mostly conscious. “There’s this new thing called YouTube. You can upload video onto it for the whole world to see. I ever see your faces on this street again, I’ll upload the video and everyone who knows you will be able to see you get beat up by a skinny girl in a bike helmet.”