“When I was in Mexico, I lived in a village near Tlaxcala. At the foot of a mountain, la Malintzi. An extinct volcano, a place of magic. The people there have believed in ‘witches,’ people with special powers, long before the españoles arrived. Their brujos can transform themselves into their animal forms. In the Nahuatl language they call them tlahuelpuchi.”
“Tla-huel-puchi,” Sonny repeated the word. He had never heard it.
“They can change into luminous balls of fire. They can change into their nagual.”
Sonny waited.
“Raven is one,” she said.
“He studied, like you, to become—”
She smiled. “You don’t study to become a tlahuelpuchi, you are born one.”
“Like a curse?”
“One is what one is from the beginning of time.” She looked at him and her eyes made him shiver. “You see, evil was born at the beginning of time. All legends tell of the evil germ within the apple or the ear of corn. The legends warn us that evil keeps us from fulfilling our human potential. It is there in the heart of every person.”
Sonny nodded. “Are you tlahuelpuchi?”
“No. I can call my nagual, but the transformation is not evil. The anthropologists call us transforming tricksters.” She laughed. “As if the label explains us away. We are not evil.”
“So Raven is one of these tlahuelpuch? He did the murdering all along?”
“Probably.”
“And I thought he was controlled by those in the drug ring.”
“No, he is a lord from the underworld,” Lorenza replied.
And he’s got Rita, Sonny thought.
“What now?”
“Now you enter your nagual,” she said. “Now you will truly acquire the power of the coyote, so when we go to the mountain and meet Raven, you will be his equal. Now we will go into the world of spirits. Sing your song.”
She turned on the tape with the drumming, and Sonny closed his eyes and repeated the words of his song, chanting softly to the drumbeat.
As the sun moved westward, she led him into the underworld, the world of spirits, where Sonny was able to acquire the strength of the coyote.
They practiced, until he understood that the power of the coyote was something inherent in his body and soul. He learned that he could move at will from this world into the parallel world of spirits.
When he finally opened his eyes, the room had grown dim.
“I see,” he said.
“Now you’re ready,” Lorenza whispered.
27
“Raven’s place is just beyond La Cueva,” Sonny explained as they drove through Tijeras Canyon, then turned north toward the village of La Cueva.
He described again the mountain clearing, Raven’s ceremonial circle of rocks in the form of a Zia sign. Around it, the poles from which hung cow skulls, bones, feathers. He remembered the dread that seemed to permeate the isolated spot in the pine forest.
“The tlahuelpuchi uses a secret place to change into his animal form,” Lorenza said. “Raven uses the circle as the center of his power. But it’s a cemetery. He holds lost spirits in captivity, sucks their energy. It’s the place where he enters the world of his nagual.”
“Lost spirits?” Sonny questioned.
“That’s his business, to imprison souls. It’s his way of upsetting the world. A way of returning to chaos.”
And Rita was to be yet another sacrifice. Blood and sacrifice formed Raven’s world.
“What is Raven’s past?” Sonny asked.
“The same as ours,” Lorenza replied. “The dark side of our nature has always been with us.”
“Yes, but Raven’s been around a long time, hasn’t he? Was he there, in Tlaxcala?”
“Yes. The power of the tlahuelpuchi is very old.”
When she didn’t continue, Sonny asked, “Why did he come here?”
“Because this is sacred space.”
Sonny nodded. Yes, don Eliseo had explained the valley of his ancestors in such terms.
“But why start the Zia cult? The sun worship?”
“They don’t worship the sun. Quite the opposite. They want to bring down the sun. That’s a part of Raven even Tamara doesn’t understand.”
“Bring down the sun?”
“This era of time is ending. As don Eliseo has instructed you, there will be violence as the Fifth Sun dies. Raven is one of those who thrives on chaos. His motive is simple: he wants to rule the new time born from the ashes of the old.”
“So he creates the violence we are living through,” Sonny said.
“And each one of us helps,” Lorenza reminded him. “When we give in to that part of our nature that brings destruction, we join the forces of the brujos like Raven.”
“What’s Tamara’s role?”
“He uses her. Tamara didn’t know what she was getting into when she joined Raven. For her it was a game, a way to join the sun cult she thought she could control. She wanted to be the Zia queen, a sun queen, and Raven held the prize up to her.”
“Then they split up. Why?”
“Because of you,” Lorenza replied.
“Me?”
“Tamara really cares for you. She knows you are equal to Raven. You might say, she sees the gift in you, the potential of the nagual. When she discovered Raven’s real power, she realized she was in danger. You have similar power, but without the danger.”
“She believes I’m an old soul from her past lives,” Sonny mused.
“You are,” Lorenza whispered.
Ah, so even Lorenza allowed the possibility of past lives, Sonny thought. “Are there others like Raven?”
“Yes. Brujos who believe only in fear, violence, wars, and famine.”
“Sounds biblical.”
“Every age and every country has had its prophets describing the end of time. Time comes in cycles, and each era ends. It’s at that ending of an era that we can choose to move on with our development, our goal, or return to chaos. Like all ages of transformation, this is the time when we are most vulnerable.”
“And they use that vulnerability against us,” Sonny said.
Raven didn’t work alone. There were other sorcerers who had been around since the beginning of time. Time itself was born and moved to completion, collapsed, and from it was born a new era. It was during the collapse, or end, of an era that the negative forces of the universe worked to create the new cycle of time in their image. That negative power—a germ present at every creation—did not die. Its sign was violence.
“That’s the way it’s always been,” Lorenza said. “Civilizations end, the world is destroyed, and out of that violence something new is born. There is a struggle between good or evil. The Aztecs described our present time as the world of the Fifth Sun. Four prior worlds had been created, then destroyed.”
“Go on.” He nodded, thinking of Rita as he looked down at the speedometer. He was going as fast as he dared. To get stopped by a state cop now would serve no purpose.
Lorenza continued. “Their legends say Quetzalcoatl created people out of ashes during the world of the First Sun, which was called Water Sun. A flood came and swept away the people, and they were turned into dragonflies and fish.
“The Second Sun was called Jaguar Sun. The sky fell from the heavens, and the sun could not continue its journey. Darkness came at midday, and the people were eaten by the monsters of darkness.
“The Third Sun was called the Rain Sun. Fire rained down and the people were burned. Burning rocks and lava fell from the sky, and the red rocks were deposited on earth.
“The Fourth Sun was called the Wind Sun. In the end the people were blown away by a ferocious wind, and they were turned into monkeys. They were called the monkey people.
“The Fifth Sun, our sun, is called Movement Sun. And the legend holds that the people must pray each morning that the Fifth Sun follow its journey, or it will fall and earthquakes and famine will destroy the people.”
She paused.
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Sonny glanced out the truck window at the setting sun, the Fifth Sun of Lorenza, the Grandfather Sun of don Eliseo. For Lorenza the age of the Fifth Sun was ending. The evil in the universe was bringing down the sun.
Everywhere nation rose against nation, people against people. The abuse of drugs and violence were symptoms of a far deeper phenomenon. Sure, the drug cartels wanted control, so drugs were being used to sap the soul of people, to make them sleep. But every person or organization or government who practiced control used the same techniques. Evil was loose in the world, and the morality that described humanity had been sapped.
At that moment, when an old era was dying, the people had to decide which way to turn.
They passed the village of La Cueva, and Sonny turned off the paved road onto a barely visible dirt road that led to Raven’s compound. Around them the pine forest and brush grew dense and dark. When he was as close as he dared to be, he turned the truck off the road and followed the vague outline of an old lumbering road into the forest.
He stopped, turned off the ignition, and listened. Around them the forest was ominously quiet. On the east side of the mountain the afternoon shadows were deep; the sun had already gone over the crest of the mountain.
He reached for his pistol. With his thumbnail he scratched a cross on the soft lead of a bullet and fed it into the empty chamber.
“To kill a brujo,” he said.
Lorenza shook her head. She didn’t believe in the power of the pistol. “Trust your medicine,” she said.
Sonny reached under his shirt and pulled out the leather pouch that Lorenza had given him. Coyote medicine.
“Good.” She smiled.
They slipped out of the truck and headed into the forest. Raven’s place was not far away.
The dusk grew thick. Sonny stopped to listen. He motioned for Lorenza to stop. He had felt a presence in the brush. He sniffed the air. Coyotes. Yes, three or four coyotes were following them in the dark.
He motioned again and quietly moved forward through the pines and scrub oak, every sense now alert. He was moving like the coyotes, stealthily, aware of the danger nearby. They continued deeper into the thick forest until they came to the edge of Raven’s circle. This was it, Raven’s center of power. The small meadow was surrounded by dense pines.
“Here,” Lorenza said.
“You know this place,” Sonny whispered.
Lorenza nodded. “I have been tracking the tlahuelpuchi a long time,” she replied. “We know of this evil place.”
She turned and faced him, and in the shadows of the tree branches Sonny saw her owl eyes shining. Yes, she, too, was becoming her nagual of the spirit world.
“Raven moves like a trickster. You know by now he leaves many signs, many clues. Don’t you see? He has drawn you to him.”
Sonny shivered. Across the circle he heard a dry branch crack; overhead, he heard the flutter of wings.
He looked up to see the gathering of ravens in the pinetops.
Wind chimes made of dry bones swayed in a gust of wind that swept across the clearing, lending their mournful clacking to the screech of the large crows overhead. Bleached ribs hung from long poles, tibias knocking against large hip bones. Black feathers were hung everywhere, the dull feathers of vultures, the jet-black feathers of crows, and the taboo owl feathers.
Animal skulls decorated the tops of the piñon poles. White, vacant-eyed skulls of cows, sheep, and the smaller skulls of raccoons, skunks, foxes. Bird skulls. And since there had been no rain recently, everything was covered with a thin coat of dust.
Large, chalky stones formed the large outline of a Zia circle, a cemetery for the forsaken. Here Raven and his followers performed their perverse ceremonies to bring down the sun, and here, perhaps, lay buried the bodies of past victims. If not their bodies, their spirits, for Raven’s goal was to capture and hold the souls of those who stood in his way.
Sonny sniffed the air. Raven was nearby! Waiting.
Overhead, the cries of the ravens grew stronger, the flutter of wings no longer a presence felt, but shadows that came swooping out of the sky, stirring the dusk. Mountain ravens, dozens of them, their dark eyes fierce as they circled the clearing.
Sonny peered into the afternoon darkness. There, across the clearing, he spotted a dark figure. Raven standing in the shadows of the pines. His visage dark, his eyes burning with hate.
“Raven,” Sonny whispered.
“Yes,” Lorenza replied. “He is waiting for you. Remember, he wears the Zia medallion. It gives him great power. Don’t allow him to draw you into the circle. In the circle he can transform himself. He is a trickster, don’t let him trick you. You are in your nagual now, the spirit of the coyote is in you.”
Sonny felt the bristle of coyote hair along his arms and legs.
“Use the coyote medicine,” Lorenza said. “Become coyote!”
He pulled out the leather pouch and began to sing the words of his song.
When he was ready, Lorenza called. “Call coyote! Become coyote!”
Sonny held the leather pouch with the coyote hair aloft. “Coyote!” he called to his brothers and sisters, and the guardian spirits replied.
In the forest a coyote barked, then another. They were answering the call. First one appeared, then a second, until the thicket around them was full of their shining forms, their fur reflecting the dim light of the moon rising over the Estancia Valley. Luminous in the dark, a circle of protection, they surrounded Sonny.
“You are ready,” he heard Lorenza whisper. “Remember, in your vision you have power. In his circle the power is his.”
He nodded. Around him the coyotes of the forest moved like shadows. The ravens in the trees cried a warning but did not drop to do battle.
Sonny’s eyes glowed bright. Suddenly the world of the forest was no longer dark, but glowing with light. The shadows that moved were distinct, like he remembered the animals that came when he had done the peyote ceremony with don Eliseo. That had been a way to enter the nagual, he knew that now, but he had not followed the peyote path. Now he had this power, to tap the resources within, to enter Raven’s world.
He felt the danger inherent in the dark world of spirits. Here life and death met. Raven could not have Sonny as his ally, so he must kill him. And only in the circle of evil could he kill Sonny’s old soul.
Again Sonny sniffed the night air. He looked up. Overhead the ravens called, coal-black eyes staring down at the intruder, but they did not attack. In the dark the coyotes protected Sonny.
He moved like a shadow, circling, not entering Raven’s trap but staying hidden in the bushes. He moved quickly, with something like the rush of adrenaline flowing through him.
Beneath him the earth held the scent of people. Men had passed through here, and a woman. More than one woman, but there was one distinctive fragrance. Her. Rita.
He moved cautiously, in an arc toward Raven. He felt strong, his movements liquid. Rita’s scent was faint, but lingering on the trail nevertheless, brushed against the bark of a tree where she’d steadied herself when she stumbled, clinging to the tips of dry grass. Raven had brought her through here on the way to his compound.
Overhead he heard an owl, its cry echoing in the dark forest.
He paused, sniffing the night breeze, alert, every muscle tense, his heart pounding. A hush came over the ravens in the treetops as the dark grew almost complete.
Raven had also moved forward, now he stood waiting in the center of the clearing. Raven had chosen his circle of stones for their meeting, the evil circle of transformation that was his advantage. He was daring Sonny to meet him in the center of his power.
The test between the two had come, and with it a sense of finality. The call of a raven filled the night; it was answered by the hunting cry of a coyote.
Behind Raven stood the adobe compound, Raven’s nest. In one of the rooms, Rita and Cristina would be huddled in fear. Only the dark figure of Raven stood blocking the way.
Sonny uttered a low, savage snarl. The cries of the coyotes surrounding the circle echoed his call.
He hunched his shoulders; his body hair stood on end. There was only one way to take on Raven. The time for being cautious was long past; now he had to rely only on his strength, the animal power of the guardians around him, the newfound power of the coyote spirit coursing through him.
“Rita!” he cried, and charged across the clearing.
Raven turned in surprise. What he saw startled him. He had not expected Sonny’s power to come from the world of guardian spirits, and yet the dark figure bounding toward him was clearly the spirit of Coyote. The man he must kill tonight had entered the world of the nagual.
“So be it,” he said.
Sonny’s attack knocked Raven backward, to the edge of the circle. Raven jumped like a startled bird, high in the air, his cry of defiance filled the night as he struck back.
Sonny moved quickly and escaped the blow.
“Rita!” he cried.
His only thought was to save Rita. That was his advantage. He struck at Raven, and the blow sent him reeling out of the circle.
Raven cried a warning. Out of the circle meant a lessening of his power. Now he was vulnerable.
“The winner takes her,” Raven taunted, brandishing a weapon, a shining scimitar that glistened even in the dim light.
He struck at Sonny and Sonny stumbled back into the circle. Raven raised the curved blade to strike.
At that moment an explosion filled the night. The rabble of ravens in the trees rose in a clutter of fear.
A surprised Raven dropped the blade, grabbed at his chest, and looked up. At the edge of the clearing stood Lorenza, Sonny’s smoking pistol in her hand.
“Ah, bruja,” Raven cursed, and fell backward.
Sonny jumped up, prepared for an attack from the spirit ravens, but they rose and disappeared into the evening dusk.
He stepped cautiously toward Raven’s body. The man Lorenza called a tlahuelpuchi had more than one life. Even wounded, he was to be approached carefully. In the dim moonlight something shimmered on Raven’s chest. Blood? No, the Zia medallion. Sonny reached down and tore it from Raven’s neck.