The Spirit Seducer (The Echo Series Book 1) (20 page)

My mother’s prayers to my father, all those years of protecting his tablet, his daughter, had led her to this moment. I stumbled back, tears burning in my eyes. I couldn’t do this.

The smell of ozone bit at my nose. Something large and empty tugged at my left, lifting my hair from my nape. Over the din of the fight, I heard the distinctive
shhhiiiing
of a blade as someone pulled it from a leather scabbard.

Zeke.

The tightness around my heart eased a little. He was here. He’d come just as he’d promised, when I needed him most.

“I told you to lay low, stay out of trouble.” His voice was strong and sure, his eyes never leaving Coyote.

Maybe Layla was wrong and Zeke did care about me more than he liked killing the demons he’d fought for so long. Now wasn’t the time; I tucked my burgeoning hope away for later.

“My mom,” I said. “She’s in there.”

I didn’t know how much more to say, but Zeke seemed to understand.

“Get her.”

I braved the fury of the winds as they wrapped around me and scratched my flesh. The grit filled my nose and burned my eyes. I couldn’t see her.

I wouldn’t last in here long.

Four more steps, and I nearly fell over her. She’d rolled onto her back and her eyes were bulging. Her mouth was open. Her neck strained. She was fighting, but she was pale and her eyes lacked their normal coppery effervescence.

I caught her under her arm and pulled. Her body bowed under the strain of her dislocated joints. The pain had to be unbearable, but I wasn’t strong enough to pick her up and I wasn’t sure that would be any better.

My breath was labored as my lungs rejected the dirty air; I tugged and pulled, inching backward out of the storm.

Zeke stepped in to meet a kachina I hadn’t seen. He slashed it with his sword before stabbing the demon through the gut with his spear. Zeke bought me the time to pull my mom another few feet.

My muscles twitched and my lungs spasmed, begging for clean air. I was too deep into the storm—something I had no way to control or alter.

I couldn’t stop this storm. The waves of energy were too strong, and they’d continue long after the original energy source dissipated. I held my mother close, feeling the heat leach from her skin.

I’d never felt so helpless. I closed my eyes. I felt Zeke’s hand on my head, just a quick touch. I wanted to lean against him and stop trying.

Where’s the badass who took down Jaguar? He’s playing your emotions against you. Don’t let him.

Zeke was right.

My desires were split. I wanted to save my mother more than I wanted to stop the storm. Stop Coyote.

Coyote counted on me to choose my mother, which is why she was displayed so prominently.

“That’s right, Echo. He doesn’t know how smart you are. Use that against him.”

“Mama,” I whispered.

“
Mi’jita
, if you let me go, Coyote doesn’t get my magic. I give it to you instead. My last gift.”

Behind my closed lids, I saw her: her soul, the part of her that Coyote wanted to own, and if he completely broke her body, he would.

“I’ve already given up that mortal manifestation,
mi vida
. That’s why you can hear me now. Soon, Coyote will realize this.”

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“I was never your responsibility,” she told me. “But you were mine. I should have trusted you more. I wasn’t strong enough to be what you deserved. Trust in Zeke, as I did not. He’s your best chance.”

I grabbed her spectral fingers. Her hands were so cold, like my spirits. I gasped against the chill. “You loved me. I knew that. And I love you, Mom.”

She smiled. That soft, perfect smile I’d miss so much.

“Ah, Echo, you’ve become an amazing woman.”

My lip trembled, but I forced down my emotions. “Go. Please. Now. So Coyote can’t take you from me again.”

“I am so proud to be your mother. I’m part of you. Forever. As is the rest of your family. Seek out Sotuk. He has the answers you need.”

My mother’s coppery essence slid over my skin. The sensation was cold and hot all at once, like sitting in a hot tub in a blizzard.

I felt her, next to my heart. She was warm, strength in her love. But it wasn’t my mom—it was her magic, a separate entity that would never speak to me, offer advice and comfort.

Because my mom was dead. The copper color faded from her eyes; beneath, they were a soft amber. The original color was beautiful, but without her normal vivacity.

Fingers wrapped around my wrist and yanked me back. I stumbled along, finally gulping greedily at the clean air. Zeke dropped my arm and stood next to me, his spear in his left hand. He pulled his sword from its sheath again and crouched, studying the storm. It surrounded us now. Soon, the edges would creep in and overtake us, too.

“You have to work your spirits,” Zeke said. “You called them up, but you need to tell them what you want. Lead them, Echo.”

My throat tightened. “I’m not a strategist. I’m not even a fighter.”

Honani pressed close to my side.

“Water means life. There is a reason you control it. Masau, the god of the dead, created water jugs to give to his people,” he said. “Do you understand what that means?”

“Not really,” I sighed. “But a magic water jug would be useful now.”

“We believe in a cycle, a circle that forms life, death, never-ending. Coyote takes from the earth. He returns nothing. There is no balance in his assault.”

Balance. My mom harped on it. Zeke had mentioned it; so had Layla.

Coyote had been too ambitious, trying to control the past through the
sipapu
s that led to the land of death, and the future through the clay tablets Sotuk had left for his chosen people. Chaos bred more chaos, but no one could live a successful, peaceful life that way.

Under Coyote, life on Earth was destined to fail. Sotuk refused to give Coyote that much control over the people. Coyote, trickster, leader of chaos—the last of the gods capable of the responsibility.

I was fighting the battle my father started the moment he let his people take ownership of his tablets. Sotuk foretold further deterioration for mankind if they chose to ignore his lessons. But he also promised the failure of crops, the dying off of bees, livestock—making our resources scarcer.

Sotuk’s choice also came full circle. Or maybe not.

A kachina jumped forward, his spear leveled at me. I was still in shock from my revelations.

“Move,” Zeke shouted. His arm propelled me backward, away from the advancing warrior.

Zeke met the weapon with his own, shoving the demon backward with sheer strength.

“Focus,” I whispered. A plan. I needed one. Now. Something to do with water, with returning the balance.

“Sotuk’s people,” I began, feeling exposed. Silly. “My people.” I breathed. My pendant heated. My muscles relaxed. That was right. My people. “I could use your help. Please.”

The silence after my request resonated through me, building under my feet, spreading inward like a vacuum pulling all the air from a space. It built, growing, pressing against me, against the storm and Coyote and his warriors.

My ears popped as space bent around me. Voices, thousands of them, rose in dismay as they saw Coyote’s destruction. Destruction stopped life—and only water healed these terrible scars.

This part of New Mexico had been an ocean thousands of years ago. While my spirits weren’t old enough to remember that time, many lived here when springs and swamps still dotted the landscape.

And I was Water.

Still, I couldn’t fight something this large alone. I needed those memories. I needed the collective afternoon rainstorms. I needed to remember my mom sitting with her flowers, sliding the blossoms next to my ear.

When I was fifteen, dancing in the rain. Arms raised, twirling in time with the thunder. Zeke was there, just out of reach, watching me revel in the sheer joy of life-giving rain.

He’d been there. Always. Protecting me.

As he did now.

“We have one chance,” I told them, still facing the storm. “We need water. Lots of water. From the sky, from the ground. From your memories. Go back—as far as people populated this land. We must balance the destruction.”

The spirits pressed against my back, their voices raised in a chorus of agreement.

Zeke’s blade flashed against a break in the blackness, fighting back the demons we all face in some form. He’d keep me safe as long as he could.

Sand, juniper, and cacti flew through the air.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

Raindrops hit my face, forcing the dust back to the earth, cleansing the dryness from the air, soothing my tortured skin. Coyote paused, sniffing the air.

Zeke moved in front of me. He twisted as a huge beast launched itself forward, trying to tackle him. Slamming his spear into its side, he turned to slice through another that ran by.

The spirits behind me chanted for rain. The song was old and their voices were clear and sweet.

The clouds shifted, and moonlight poured through the mass of Coyote’s clouds for a moment before they were obliterated by thicker rain clouds.

Hope sang through my veins. Thunder ripped through the sky. The few remaining demons moaned as water poured from the sky—as improbable as a full Santa Fe River tumbling from the Sangre de Cristos each spring; the mighty Rio Grande after a rare week of rains.

The deep-seated panic I’d always felt when I was near water receded. That wasn’t real—it was the remnants of my mother’s magic.

The spirits sang louder.

The torrent thickened so much between one breath and the next, Zeke became a hazy outline. I laughed, spreading my arms wide. I twirled in a circle, opening my mouth and letting the cool water slide across my tongue.

Huge raindrops hammered into my skull. The water pooled in low pockets, forming thick puddles.

Coyote slammed into Zeke, his tawny eyes focused on me. Zeke, who was battling two other kachina, stumbled. One of the kachina leapt forward, and I held my breath. We were so close to winning this. I urged Zeke to raise his spear. The other kachina shifted into a better position, his human hand clutching a spear similar to Zeke’s.

“No,” I whispered. “Zeke, I need you.”

Something enormous and cold swept around me, meeting the demon’s attack. My spirits. They blocked Zeke from my view. My heart hammered. That strike had been imminent, deadly.

Coyote clawed at the spectral bodies as they spun into a funnel. They screamed in agony.

“Leave! Please. Don’t let him hurt you.”

They hesitated, unwilling to leave me alone.

“This is between Coyote and me,” I said as much for Coyote’s benefit as for my spirits’.

“It is our water that destroys the storm,” Honani said. “We cannot leave.”

I faced the god as rain dripped from my face, trickling down my nose and from my lashes.

Coyote whipped his fist around, and I sidestepped. But his knuckles still glanced over my cheek. Pain exploded there.

“No holding back,” I murmured against the exhaustion. I’d give as much as it took—even my life—to stop Coyote’s chaos and destruction, to right the wrong I’d unintentionally caused.

This was what Coyote hadn’t yet realized—what Sotuk and my mom hoped I’d learn from their sacrifices. Only through selflessness did one gain real power.

“You can’t fight chaos, Echo Ruiz. It surrounds you, bombards you, wears down your defenses. I always win. Sotuk didn’t understand my power. But he will learn.”

Coyote slammed into my body. The bones in my leg groaned under the immense pressure of his blow, but I managed to roll away from him. I hopped back to my feet, the adrenaline keeping the pain at bay.

“You made a mistake,” I said as I landed in a deep puddle, the wet sand beneath the water ripping at my skin. “You couldn’t break the relic and release its magic because you weren’t its creator. I am, through my father. He created Earth. Water. Air. Fire. You. Me. All of this.”

“He cares nothing for you. He doesn’t return to protect you even now,” Coyote snarled, circling. He wanted to toy with me, make sure I was as broken as my mother was before he killed me.

Fine.

“You shouldn’t have let me in that close. She’d made plans.” Plans so I’d have the water now lapping over Coyote’s shins. He hadn’t yet realized he stood in a depression. I kept talking as the hole filled, frothing at his knees. More. I needed more rain. Faster. I pushed closer as my spirits moved behind my back, their rain mixing with mine. All the water slammed into Coyote.

The water in the pool was at his waist. If I fell in, it’d be too deep for me to stand.

“She’d had a contingency plan for years. She powered the storm as long as she did because she knew I would’ve traded the tablet for her. She knew me. They planned better than you.”

Coyote aimed for my cheek again, but he missed. I rolled forward into the pool, barely able to keep my face out of the rising water, and kicked him in the knee as I asked the spirits to pull the water up behind it. His leg buckled and he fell toward me. He landed in the water, floundering as it curled and gushed around him.

The rain poured over us, obliterating everything else from view. Its life force pulsed each time a drop slammed into my body, but I also felt its urgency, its rising power, and thirst to coalesce into a raging river. One that would carry away anything in its path.

I rolled again, but the churning water slowed me. Coyote caught me in the side of the head. A thick, low buzz settled between my ears. His fingers circled my wet neck, and I managed to get my forearm between us. He squeezed my wrist. The pressure was intense, horrible, and my wrist gave under his much greater strength. He could still kill me, even with my additional magic.

My nails shredded and broke as I clawed at Coyote’s hand. I focused on the water, and the rain grew heavier, more focused around Coyote. It pounded him—as sharp as nails slamming into his skin. I gasped for air as the drops slipped from him and onto my face. I needed a whirlpool to suck at his legs.

A group of the spirits whizzed past me and slid into the water. They spun faster and faster, whipping the water into a frothy vortex.