THE GODS gathered in a council of war at a great stone table where neither Light nor Dark held sway.
The horned serpent Uktena and Kokopelli, trickster god of life and music, brought forth evidence that the Dark Court again meddled in human affairs. Alliances shattered, reformed, and broke anew as fierce debate raged.
And so the great creator Damballa forged a powerful artifact, a staff to be wielded by a new council charged to keep the balance of all things.
Excerpt from Chronicles of the Neutral Council
1. Skyfall
THIN line of fire arced high overhead, followed by another deafening boom as the rocket exploded. Phil Johnson grabbed his ears, but couldn’t suppress a grin. His smile sank into a frown when he realized the sacred ceremony drew to a close.
“It’s almost over; we have to get in there.” Phil’s half-hearted lunge was blocked by a slender arm and coils of dark hair framing a suddenly stern face.
“Ain’t happening, so just cool your jets.” Ankti Naatoqa, his liaison with the local tribes, blocked Phil with practiced ease despite being nearly a head shorter than his lanky six-foot frame.
With feet planted wide and arms crossed, the striking blue jacket draped over her sturdy frame billowed out from the dark top and matching pants like a cape in the rising wind. Raven hair pulled tight and coiled into a traditional bun above each ear gave the added impression of old-style earmuffs. Though she was only a couple years older than him, her stance told Phil that getting inside was non-negotiable. He already knew she was no pushover by the way Ankti dealt with tribal leaders. Most twenty-somethings lacked her smooth confidence and self-assurance.
As a full-blooded Hopi, the young woman proved instrumental in getting him interviews with dozens of couples living on reservations around Phoenix. His bureau papers and permission from the tribal council gave him authority to speak with those families still able to have children, but Ankti made it happen.
The experts back east would analyze the data Phil collected, but to his thinking little more than clean living might account for the local population’s relative immunity to the C-12 virus. Still, he was only halfway through the month-long assignment and would keep digging.
A great place to start was the intriguing event underway behind the wooden gate Ankti guarded. Several tribes gathered inside the crude walls, conducting an ancient ritual to protect their people from the rampant manmade virus. They’d converged on this little corner of Arizona, defying the crumbling infrastructure and dodging the worst pockets of civil unrest caused by industry’s collapsed.
Ankti had scheduled interviews with representatives from the Cherokee, Navaho, and Pueblo nations, but nothing was going to replace watching first hand. His palms itched to shove the girl aside for just a peek—something his superiors would want him to do—but the thought was just an idle daydream.
Whistling rockets and reports overhead punctuated the chanting and rhythmic drums from within. Sparks swam into the desert sky on the hot breath of some massive fire that must have raged in the center of the enclosure.
The gathered nations would be undertaking fertility rights, wearing ceremonial regalia and enacting rituals passed down through generations. They’d never let a white guy from Philadelphia through the door, and his face grew hot at the thought of violating the sacred event. But still…
Phil tucked in the tail of his dress shirt and slicked a sandy-brown lock of curls back, as if making himself more presentable would help. They’d come straight from an evening meeting that he was starting to think had been intended to keep him away from the ceremony.
“Maybe you can go in and just sort of…I don’t know… take notes. This is the real thing, right, dances and music meant to protect the tribes from the virus? My report won’t be complete without a good account. Are they doing the Sundance in there, Firedance, other rites? And since when do fireworks play into these things? I need to know.” He gave her a crooked smile, letting it reach his blue eyes in the way that worked so well on the girls back in his college days.
Of course, Widener College had closed before he’d completed his four-year program in Communication Studies. Like everywhere else, there just hadn’t been enough professors and supplies thanks to declining populations and pervasive riots. They’d been naive to think the country—the world really—could continue as usual as the population aged out and fear settled across the masses.
As the school’s doors closed, the board of directors had handed out diplomas like consolation prizes. “The world’s probably ending, but here, have a sheepskin.” Still, it had gotten him into the statistics branch at the Disease Control Center, a blended organization of national assets often referred to simply as the Bureau. The DCC had people way smarter than him scrambling to pinpoint the source of declining birth rates and figure out a cure.
But his college, could-have-been-in-a-frat-if-I’d-wanted-to smile had the opposite effect on the serene woman with broad high cheekbones and perfect coppery skin. Ankti’s lovely face darkened.
“We do not speak of such things. If you know enough to ask, then you should know the dances are not to be spoken of outside the tribe and—” an explosion overhead followed by crackling streamers that fell like stars cut her off.
“I swear I wasn’t making fun,” Phil said as soon as the noise faded. “You’re right, I should have known better. Please forgive me. I just feel so powerless. Despite decades of data collection, all we know at the Bureau is a third world contraceptive virus went wonky thirty years ago and spread across the globe. Only three percent of the world population can still have children.
“But it’s different among Native Americans here in the southwest. Birth rates of the Hopi and Pueblo people have only dropped fifty percent. Why so different from other parts of the world with similar climate and conditions? It’s more than just a statistical anomaly, and my bosses are counting on me to find an explanation. Don’t you see, Ankti? This might be the Rosetta Stone to decipher how to combat C-12 before things get even worse.”
Her liquid brown eyes softened as his voice broke. The world might be on the cusp of the end of days, and it worried him. He’d been born a C-12 carrier, just like his contemporaries, and wouldn’t be having children of his own unless some miracle cure could be found. But the doctors and scientists couldn’t put the genie they’d unwittingly released back in its bottle. The virus core they’d spliced their little sterilizing agents onto mutated too fast, was too resistant, and spread like wildfire. For all intents and purposes, the virus itself had burned out, leaving an altered human genome largely lacking in reproductive capability.
“The tribes gather in times of great need as they always have.” She reached out and took his hand. “I won’t report on the gathering to outsiders, no matter how urgent the need. To do so would be disrespectful to our customs and ancestors.” At his sigh of acceptance she hurried on. “You are correct though. Traditional ceremonies seldom use gunpowder or other pyrotechnics. We’ve borrowed from Chinese and Anglo traditions in an attempt to call more attention to our prayers. That started in North America when the tribes were pushed to celebrate Independence Day. We never truly assimilated the practice, but honored our warriors and other achievements during July. So why not steal some of the white man’s thunder to aid in our ceremonies?”
She returned his smile as another series of booms sounded overhead and lit the sky with cascades of falling sparks. This really was the grand finale. Participants streamed out of the far gate. Several were observers in street clothes, others in grand regalia. Styles varied from heavy beadwork to grand flourishes of dyed leather. Other outfits tended to tight lines, colorful cloth, and simple headwear. Many dancers wore a minimalistic breechcloth or jerkin, preferring to decorate bare chests, arms, and legs with painted symbols and stylized art. Men and women shuffled from the enclosure to the beat of departing drums and low chanting.
“We can go in now,” Ankti finally said. “I’ll tell you what I can, but I doubt much of it will be news.”
“You sure? Not everyone’s gone.”
A lone drum, maybe two, beat on inside to the low singing of male voices.
“That’s just the fire vigil. It’s been too dry to leave a fire unattended.”
Lights from departing cars illuminated the dusty ground, throwing neatly cultivated cactus patches to either side of the gate into stark relief. This was the second drought year in a row. Maybe part of the ceremony he’d almost witnessed focused on bringing much needed rain.
He was about to ask Ankti about rain dances, but the shadows were acting odd and pulled at his attention. Instead of lengthening and dropping away as the last car departed, the ground brightened as eerie gold light bathed the area. A miniature sun came into existence overhead, burning like a military flare to light the enclosure up like midday. But unlike a flare that would arc away or drift down on a parachute, the blazing ball streaked toward them, silent, blinding, and leaving a sparkling trail.
“Rogue firework, something in that last barrage went haywire!” Phil got the words out just as the missile shot into the far end of the enclosure.
He shielded his eyes and ducked low, anticipating the concussive explosion of sky-borne rockets. But the thing hit with a zip, sizzle, and muted thump like a felled tree making the ground jump.
Vertigo washed over him, an acute feeling of being watched. Phil peered into the shadows along the fence line, but there was nothing there. Ankti startled him from the disorienting moment by darting through the gate. He followed close on her heels.
The bonfire guttered low in the center of a wooden enclosure forty feet across. Pungent wood smoke carried the scent of burnt herbs and incense. Smoke and dusk left a haze over the scene. Two older men and one younger sat on bleachers, drums on their laps keeping cadence with taut, precise blows. They wore street clothes, and had donned jackets against the cool night air. Whatever had struck didn’t faze these hardy souls.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Phil scanned the area.
Except for a few folding chairs, perhaps for use by the older participants, there wasn’t much else to see. Whatever pyrotechnic had shot back along its trajectory must have fizzled out just as it landed, thankfully without exploding and scorching anyone or setting the tall wooden fence on fire.
Ankti bowed her head and raised a hand in greeting as they approached the drummers. Phil mimicked the gesture and was pleased to receive a wave in return.
Movement in the smoke opposite the fire resolved into a lone dancer. The figure crossed in front of the flames, a silhouette draped in skins and doubled over under a large pack. He shuffled in that oddly mesmerizing way of the indigenous people, moccasin feet stomping out tight little circles.
The smoke shifted, and Phil blinked. The man had surely been old and bent, with an impressive hook of a nose and feathered headdress. But now, although he still shambled in that shuffling gait, the performer looked much younger—certainly no older than thirty—with thick dark hair falling past his shoulders. The nose was still proud between wideset eyes, but not the caricature beak from just moments before—a trick of the smoke or, more likely, the dancer had pulled off a ceremonial mask. He’d likewise dropped the pack he’d been carrying. Tighter and tighter, the lone man circled, his feet weaving an intricate pattern, but missing a step here and there.
“He’s hurt!” Ankti’s exclamation pulled Phil’s attention away from the pattern he couldn’t quite follow, and she hauled him forward just as the dancer stumbled.
Phil reached out and caught the man as he fell to his knees. He reeked of sage and maybe burnt rosemary, as if smoked. Which might not be that far off the mark. The white leather tunic and pants were supple as buttered leather along the front of the outfit. But when Phil shifted his grip, the back of the man’s clothing crumbled like old newspaper, and his hand came away black.
“He’s burned.” Phil eased him onto his side, which drew a grunt from both men. The guy was a slab of beef. “His tunic is charred through. We need an ambulance.”
“No doctors,” the injured man wheezed in a dry croak.
“Damned rocket. Fireworks burn hot. Sounds like his lungs might be scorched too.” Phil fumbled for his phone.
“Make the call,” Ankti said as she pulled several items from the pouch that passed for her purse.
Phil stood and punched in 911. Ankti balanced a small roll of gauze, bandages, and antibiotic cream on a silver packet and gingerly pulled away a patch of burnt leather along the man’s shoulder. A tin sat in her lap, and she dabbed thick yellow liquid on the blistered skin she’d exposed.
“Quite the girl scout,” Phil said after the first ring then cursed as static filled his ear and the line went dead. “Cell service is crap out here.”
To be fair it was crap everywhere. He dialed again with the same result before reaching for his work phone. The DCC had a special contract that bumped up the priority of their service to nearly pre-virus reliability levels. But this time when he keyed in the number, the line exploded with screeching tones like an old-style fax machine. The battery heated up fast in his palm, and he hastily keyed the power button before the damned thing melted down. Ankti raised an eyebrow as he shook his head and blew on his tingling fingers.
“Did it bite you? This is nothing to fool around with. Second-degree burns along his side. Might be third degree ones hidden under there. I’ll pull my car around. We’ll need to get him to Painted Rock General.” She unfolded the silver packet an impossible number of times, revealing a tissue-thin emergency blanket that she draped over her patient.
“No hospital.” The man’s voice was strong with an air of command.
Phil opened his mouth, but snapped it shut. No use arguing. Phil squinted through the smoke and waved. The drummers played on, ignoring the exchange.
“Little help here! We have a man down.” No one so much as looked up. “Hey!”
Ankti shrugged, and Phil stood, intending to drag a couple of the men over. The fire wouldn’t go out of control in the few minutes it would take to help figure out a plan.
“You care for me. Know medicine.” Beady black eyes caught Ankti in a hawkish gaze.
“I know a little first aid.” The woman tucked the blanket in tighter and shook her head as if to clear it before turning. “Phil, I can handle this. Let’s just take…” she trailed off and looked back. “What’s your name?”
“K—k—k.” The man stuttered as if fighting to get his name out, the brash command gone from his voice.
“Poor man’s freezing cold. We’ll take Kay to my place.” Ankti nodded, coming to a decision. “I’ve got the week off and can nurse him back to health.”
Something about her idea sounded wrong. Phil squinted at the drummers. He took two steps toward them and paused. What did he need to tell them? Something about the hurt man. He looked back into shining black eyes that gazed on with a kind of pressure. Hopefully the guy wasn’t fevered on top of the burns. That might not be easy to deal with at home, but…Ankti seemed competent. She’d be able to take care of Kay. A building anxiety he hadn’t noticed flowed away with the decision. Yes, Ankti can handle this.
They loaded Kay behind the passenger seat. He’d dropped into a near stupor once they’d decided on a course of action. Away from the smoke, Phil found himself thinking more clearly. This wasn’t going to be an easy recovery, and he didn’t like the thought of Ankti alone with a stranger on her couch.
“The Bureau put me up in a three-bedroom townhouse. It’s a corporate property that’s too big, but it’d be perfect for getting Kay situated with his own room.”
“But I need to watch over him.” Ankti gently closed the rear door and went on to explain she’d once aspired to be a nurse. With several first aid courses under her belt, she’d even become the unofficial medic at tribal events—thus her pouch of goodies.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to be alone with a stranger, even if he’s recovering. We don’t know anything about this guy.”
It wasn’t a macho notion, just common sense. Phil eyed the muscular arms and broad chest that rose in shallow breaths in her back seat. Someone certainly needed to take care of Kay, and since hospitals were out Ankti seemed a good alternative.
“I’ve only got a studio apartment.” Ankti sounded embarrassed and uncertain.
“Then it’s settled. You can both stay with me. I’ll be in that lime-green junker over there.” He pointed to the expense report item that would offset the bill for his fancy digs. “Follow me to Stony Brook Gardens. It’s a townhouse complex off I-15. I’m in 118, the last unit on the far end. Place is like a ghost town because the corporate folks aren’t holding retreats anymore. Plenty of parking.”
“I’ll need to pick up clothes at some point, but”—she looked from Phil to Kay, perhaps thinking she was about to move in with two strangers instead of one—“it’s a deal. Wait, he had a backpack earlier. Let’s grab that.”
They headed through the near gate and poked around behind the dwindling fire. A foot deep crater big enough to lay down in had been blasted in the hard-packed dirt, and bits of what looked like charcoal lay scattered about. The pack Kay had dropped must have been three feet long, but there was no sign of it now.
“Maybe the drummers took it when they left.” Ankti shrugged, then pointed to a glowing branch that must have kicked out of the fire. “Oh, there’s something.”
Odd that he hadn’t noticed the fire watch leaving.
Ankti walked over to the branch and picked it up! Drummers forgotten, Phil lunged to stop her, but pulled up short, blinking in confusion. Rather than holding a red-hot brand, Ankti’s delicate hand wrapped around a two-foot length of gleaming wood with holes down the middle. One end tapered to a flat mouthpiece, while the other flared.
“A flute?” He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. It certainly had looked like a burning branch.
The wood was rich caramel with a leather wrap securing an ornamental block six inches from the tapered end. The little carving of a beast squatted with mouth open to expose delicate wooden fangs. The dying fire shimmered and danced in reflections across the polished surface. Simple animal carvings came to life near the neck and bell, seeming to sway and glow in response to the flames.
“Handmade and old.” Ankti tucked the flute into her jacket. “Let’s get Kay back to your place.”
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