The Obsidian Mirror, page 9
“She’s fine! She’s healed,” Kaylee reported.
“Thank you, Mama Labadie,” Chaco said. “I owe you. I won’t forget.”
“No you won’t, coyote, you,” she rejoined, starting to pack her things. “Sometime I call you, you come. Lotsa times I need a tricky one like you.” She smiled briefly, a quick tightening of the lips completely unlike the wide and generous smile of her dancing.
“Is Damballah-Wedo the same as Quetzalcoatl? They both assume the form of great snakes,” Chaco asked.
The mambo spared him a glance and shrugged.
“I dunno. Damballah-Wedo is the greatest of the loa, the kindest, most generous. He have any other name, I don’t know.”
She packed the silk flowers in her satchel, gave the room a glance all around and turned again to Chaco.
“She fine now. But you playin’ with some evil things here. Dangerous. Next time,” she shrugged again. “I dunno. Maybe she dead next time. You be careful.” She hefted her old satchel and left, Kaylee following behind.
Chapter 9
Kaylee returned to Sierra’s bedroom alone. “You might not have realized it,” she said to Chaco, “But that woman has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. She kind of scares me, to tell the truth.” Kaylee checked on Sierra again.
“She seems fine, now. Can I trust you two to take care of her? I don’t want to find out that she’s been attacked by another demon, or something.”
Chaco looked uncomfortable and Fred stuffed a paw into his mouth and began to hum.
“Well, there’s a problem,” Chaco admitted. “You see…” And he told her the whole story. Kaylee’s brown eyes went wide with dismay.
“Are you telling me that this, this Neco-something is sending monsters after her? That this is the second attack? That there will be more? We’ve got to get her out of here! She can’t stay here. What are…” Again, Kaylee seemed likely to go on for quite a while, so Chaco interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said simply.
“What do you mean, ‘It doesn’t matter’?” she asked on a rising note. “Of course it matters. We can’t let Sierra stay here and be attacked and possibly killed by…”
“I mean,” said Chaco patiently, “That it doesn’t matter if she stays here or goes somewhere else. Necocyaotl will find her no matter where she is.”
“Why? What’s Sierra done to deserve this?”
“It isn’t what she’s done. It’s what she’s going to do that he wants to prevent. But she’ll be all right for now. Fred and I will be here, and I think that Dumballa-Wedo left his protection on the house. Don’t you feel it?”
Kaylee shook her head doubtfully.
“Well, I do,” Chaco said. “Go home, Kaylee. We’ll take care of Sierra.”
“Why doesn’t this Quetzalcoatl take care of her?” Kaylee demanded. “Damn, that sounds familiar, where have I heard of Quetzalcoatl before?”
Chaco looked embarrassed. “Well,” he said tentatively, “Sierra told me there’s a statue in a park…”
“Yes!” Kaylee exclaimed triumphantly. “That’s it. But it doesn’t look like a plumed serpent to me. It looks like a giant…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” interjected Chaco. “And Quetzalcoatl is doing what he can, but his brother is just as powerful as he is. Anyway, I believe she’s safe for now. I promise I’ll look after her.”
Sierra slept on through the night as Chaco and Fred took turns watching her. As the birds began to fuss outside in the gray morning light, Sierra turned in bed and stretched. Then she saw Chaco sitting in the chair beside her bed, and she choked in the middle of a yawn.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, clutching the covers to her chest. She noted with annoyance that the pillow beneath her head was unpleasantly wet and cold. She was sure she had gotten a dry pillow. She sat up and threw the pillow off her bed.
“We almost lost you,” said Chaco, swallowing hard. His eyes were suspiciously bright, and he turned away from her for a moment.
“Lost me? I‘m right here. Just where I was the last time I woke up. Why are my pillows always wet?”
“You were really sick. Mahaha’s poison was worse than I thought. And you washed off the shegoi poultice, so the poison had a chance to take hold of your soul. The last time you woke up was a day and a half ago.”
Sierra sat up. She didn’t feel sick. Her headache was gone. She pushed down the covers and felt her ribs for the bandage, which was gone. “What did you do? It’s like nothing ever happened,” she said, running her fingers over her side in amazement. Apparently, she had once again been sidelined during an important play, and she was getting tired of it. Although, come to think of it, she was pleased that the deep, lancing pain had disappeared along with the bandage.
“It’s a long story,” said Chaco. “First, breakfast. Then I’ll tell you all about it.”
Chaco brought her an enormous tray of food—eggs, bacon, toast, juice, oatmeal, and coffee—and Sierra found she was ravenous.
“Honefftly,” she protested through a mouthful of toast, “I don’ uffually eat iff mush.”
“Oh, I love to see a woman with an appetite,” Chaco said. His face was impassive, but she thought he was definitely repressing a grin. While she polished off the food, he told her about finding her unconscious and icy cold and how he asked Kaylee to find a mambo to heal her.
“What’s a mambo?”.
“A priestess of Vodún.”
“Vodún? Is that like Voodoo?” she asked, her skin crawling.
“Oh, Voodoo is just Hollywood nonsense,” Chaco scoffed. “Vodún is real, and it’s a healing practice. At least, most of the time, it’s for healing. There’s always a few bad apples, but Mama Labadie is a good woman, and powerful.”
“Where did you find a Voodoo priestess in Sunnyvale, California?” wondered Sierra. Voodoo and high technology seemed unlikely neighbors.
“Vodún,” Chaco corrected. “There are Vodún practitioners everywhere. You just have to know where to look. I knew that Kaylee had connections with Vodún, and I knew you had written her number down on the note pad next to the phone, so I called her.”
“No kidding?” Sierra said slowly. “Kaylee is a Voodoo worshipper? I never would’ve thought it. How did you know?”
“Vodún,” Chaco said again, a bit crossly this time. “Kaylee wears a vévé, a symbol of the loa Madame Ézilee. She’s wearing it in that picture of you two in your photo album. No one could mistake it.”
“You mean that necklace she always wears? I just thought it was because she likes to wear African-print dresses and things.” She shook her head. “You think you know someone…”
But her mind had returned to the task she had been given. Suddenly, she wondered how much time she had lost since her encounter with Mahaha. The day she had been attacked had been May fifteenth.
“Chaco, what day is it today?” she asked in a panic.
“May twenty-second.”
That long? She had lost an entire week of her life, with nothing to show for it. She sank her head into her hands. Then she sat up straight and took a deep breath.
“OK. I’d better get on with it. Could I have some privacy, Chaco?”
Chaco left the room, closing the door behind him. Sierra showered and brushed her furry-feeling teeth. The morning ritual was soothing, making her feel as though everything were normal. She had almost forgotten what normal felt like.
She brushed out her damp hair, braided it, and marched downstairs to look for her backpack. She found it still in the front hall, where it had been tossed the day she was attacked by Mahaha. She took it into the living room, sat on the couch, and began methodically searching through the pack. She lifted out waterproof matches, a flashlight, and a small tool kit and set them aside. She found a small towel, a plastic bag full of trail mix, and a water bottle. She dug a little deeper and discovered insect repellant, sunscreen, and a squashed canvas hat. Reaching the bottom of the pack, she discovered what she had been hoping to find, stuck between the pages of a dog-eared paperback novel: two glittering blue-green feathers that had made their way into the book’s pages and escaped being used as her weapon against Mahaha. She pulled them out, stroked them flat against the palm of her hand, and sighed with relief as they chimed sweetly at her touch.
Holding the delicate feathers in her hand, she went upstairs to her bedroom and located Quetzalcoatl’s “invitation” in her little carved box. Back downstairs, she went into the kitchen and showed the feathers to Chaco and Fred.
“Three whole feathers,” she said. “I hope that will do it.”
Fred regarded the feathers anxiously, orange eyes swiveling. “Now what?” he asked.
Sierra gazed at the brilliant feathers, her expression blank. She had no idea what came next.
“I wish I had just a little more information here,” she said plaintively.
“What kind of information?” asked Chaco.
“Like what the feathers are all about, and what they’re supposed to do. Little things like that.”
Chaco settled back in his chair, wearing what Sierra had come to recognize as his storytelling face. “Have a seat, Sierra, and I’ll tell you.” Sierra sat. Fred plopped his fat bottom down on the floor, stuck a toe in his mouth, and watched Chaco with enormous orange eyes.
“Feathers can be magical,” Chaco began, but Sierra interrupted him.
“All feathers?” she asked. “How about pigeon feathers? They’re all over, and you don’t see anything special happening.”
Chaco looked patient. “Not all feathers, not all the time,” he explained. “But feathers can be filled with power. You know why the Native Americans used eagle feathers in their headdresses and ceremonies?”
Sierra shook her head.
“The eagle is the greatest of birds. It flies close to the gods, and can be a messenger from the gods. Its feathers carry their power, and that power can be tapped by a shaman, someone who has learned to commune with the gods through nature.”
“But,” continued Chaco, warming to his subject, “the eagle is not the only sacred bird. In fact, all birds are sacred…”
“Even pigeons?” Sierra interrupted skeptically.
Chaco regarded her with some annoyance. “Just because you think they look or sound funny doesn’t mean they aren’t sacred,” he said severely.
“Okay,” she said meekly. “Just asking.”
“Have you ever really looked at a pigeon?” Chaco asked.
Sierra shook her head.
“No. I think of them as rats with wings.”
“Next time you see one, look at the feathers around its neck. They are as glorious as the feathers of a bird of paradise. Anyway, back to Quetzalcoatl’s feathers. If even ordinary bird feathers are magical, how much more magical are the feathers of an Avatar of such great power? Each feather springs from his pure essence, which is creativity, communion with all natural things, nurturing, love. That’s very powerful stuff. You could change the world with just a few of Quetzalcoatl’s feathers. What do you plan to do with them?”
“I don’t know,” Sierra admitted. “There are two problems here. I mean, there are more than two problems, but there are two overall issues.” Chaco’s golden eyes were fixed on her face with an intensity that made her nervous. Fred clambered into another chair and sat up alertly to listen, like a meerkat guarding its den.
“First, I have to figure out how to get the feathers in contact with Simmons. I can’t just walk up and say, ‘Ms. Simmons, take a look at these feathers, willya?’ I need to find a way that won’t seem weird or suspicious. Maybe as a gift that’s supposedly from someone she knows, or something.”
“Feathered cape,” suggested Chaco. “They used to be very popular.”
“That was a long time ago, and I can’t make a feathered cape out of three feathers,” replied Sierra. “Second issue: I need to make sure she receives it, whatever it is. If I try to get in to see her, I’m sure she’ll refuse. She must have had something to do with firing me, even if I can’t figure out why. I don’t know anyone who knows her on a personal level, so I can’t deliver it through a friend. To be honest, I don’t even know where to start.”
Chaco got up and stretched, causing interesting things to happen down the length of his lean body. “One thing at a time,” he said. “I know we need to solve the problem quickly, because you’re in real danger. But when I get stuck on a problem, I go and do something else for a while. Eventually, the answer comes to me.”
“What do you like to do?” asked Sierra, immediately regretting it as Chaco rewarded her with an evil grin. Blushing, she weighted down the feathers with a saltshaker to keep them from being blown about and lost, and retreated to her workshop. She would work on jewelry for a while. It was always relaxing to lose herself working with the metal and stones.
She picked up a half-finished setting from her workbench and held it to the light. The pieces always looked like junk at this stage. The silver was discolored from the heat of the torch, and the metal was still crusted with flux, used to make the solder run properly under the torch flame. She scrubbed the setting with a toothbrush and warm water to remove the flux. She had textured the metal in a pattern reminiscent of seaweed or water, and she planned to add a tiny starfish molded from silver clay. The stone would be a lovely, irregular cabochon of turquoise from Arizona’s Sleeping Beauty Mine, a clear, robin’s egg blue with no matrix inclusions or veins in its perfect surface.
Sierra picked up her packet of fresh clay, intending to start on the starfish. As she did so, she saw the unfired silver clay pendant she had made from a leaf. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She stared at it for a long moment, then ran back to the kitchen for the feathers. Back at her workbench, she put the feathers in front of her and began to draw in her idea sketchbook. Several times she ran to her office and used her computer to search for images, then sketched some more in her book.
By evening, her neck was kinked and her hands tired, but she felt she had made real progress. She set the results of her work in her small kiln, and programmed it for the amount of time and heat required to transform the fragile, gray objects into pure silver. The kiln would shut itself off after the prescribed time, so she tidied her workspace, washed up, and went into the kitchen. Chaco was busy at the stove and Fred was watching him intently, drooling slightly.
“Smells great, Chaco. I didn’t know you could cook,” Sierra said as she uncorked a bottle of wine. “Care for any?”
Chaco nodded. Fred squeaked, “Can I have some, too?”
“Don’t give him any,” Chaco advised. “Mannegishis can’t hold their liquor.”
“Can too!” protested Fred.
“How old are you, Fred?” asked Sierra.
“Mmmm, maybe a thousand? More? I don’t remember.”
“Well, you’re all grown up, then,” Sierra said, and poured a small glass of wine for him.
“You’ll be s-o-o-r-r-y,” Chaco said in a singsong voice, stirring something fragrant in a pot.
“Give him a break,” Sierra said, handing Chaco his own glass. She sat down at the kitchen table. Before long, Chaco had served bowls of soup, redolent with sausage and herbs and full of vegetables. Slices of warm sourdough bread with garlic and herb butter complemented the soup. Nothing was said for a while as they enjoyed the food, though it was far from silent, as the mannegishi tended to slurp.
After dinner, Chaco piled the dishes in the sink. “You ought to be getting some rest,” he told Sierra. “You’ve been through the wringer, and you need to take care of yourself. Fred, make yourself useful and wash the dishes.”
Chaco half-pulled Sierra up the stairs to the background accompaniment of Fred protesting that he couldn’t reach the sink and didn’t know how to wash dishes anyway. In her bedroom, Chaco pulled back the covers and fluffed the pillows (now mercifully dry). “There,” he said, sitting her on the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel pretty good,” Sierra said. And she did. Nothing seemed to remain of the attack—except for her memories. She was afraid she’d be reliving that in nightmares for a long time to come.
“I think you could feel even better,” he said fondly, putting his lean, brown hands on her shoulders and drawing closer. His mouth closed over hers, and in her surprise, she only knew that the closeness of him was sweet. For a moment, she melted into the embrace like warm chocolate. It had been a long time since a man had kissed her like that. And Chaco was, by even a conservative estimate, the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Heat ran like lightening across her skin where he caressed her, and her rational resistance (“He’s not even human!”) drowned in a flood of sensation and desire. He is so beautiful, she thought. So long, so strong, so…
This line of thought was interrupted by the sound of crockery and glass shattering downstairs, accompanied by a raucous chorus of “Love the One You’re With.”
“Fred!” roared Chaco, leaping to his feet and running downstairs. Sierra followed him, nerves jangling with the abrupt transition from sensual delight to noisy chaos. Fred had dragged a chair over to the sink, which was now overflowing with sudsy water. Sitting in the midst of the suds, the mannegishi belted out the song, singing off-key but with enthusiasm. A bowl and three wineglasses were on the floor in shards. The bottle of zinfandel, which had held at least another glass of wine in it, lay empty on the table.
“I told you not to give him any wine,” Chaco said crossly. He turned off the tap and began picking up the bits and pieces on the floor. Sierra extracted Fred from the sink and wiped him down with a dishtowel. It was like trying to dry an enormous and slippery baby. By the time she had him dried off, he was snoring loudly, his great orange eyes hidden behind heavy lids. She deposited him on her living room couch under a throw rug, and went back to help Chaco clean up.
“You were right, Chaco,” she said, humbly. “No more wine for Fred.”
Chaco gave her a wry grin. “His timing was bad, that’s for sure.”
