Qaletaqa (27 page)

Well, at least there was one thing I could
agree with the gods on.

“So, do you know how to kill the Matwau?” I
asked.

Uriah ran a hand through his hair, wincing
when his shoulder lifted too far. “Kind of.”

“What do you mean, kind of?”

“I’m not sure if I can explain it. I can feel
how to do it, but using words to describe what I’m doing with my
power…I just don’t have any.” He paused, staring at nothing.
No…pointedly not staring at me. Was he hiding something?

“It’s like I’m taking my power and…collecting
it, I guess. I have to get it all into one place and then use it
against the Matwau, push it away from me and into him. It felt a
little like what you do to me when we touch.”

“How do you use your power against him?”

“That’s the part neither of us was sure
about. I still have to figure that piece out on my own, apparently.
I don’t know what will happen. I just know it has to be all of my
power.”

I felt like my bones had just turned to
sawdust. I slid down to the bed in disbelief.

“All your power?” I whispered.

That had been my last hope, that Uriah could
use the power I gave him to break the bond when the Matwau was
dead. If he had to use all of his power to kill him…

“Claire, are you alright?” Uriah asked,
suddenly hovering over me.

“Yeah, fine,” I lied. “Just tired. I didn’t
get a lot of rest last night.”

He seemed to accept my answer straight up,
wrapping me in his arms as if one embrace could erase the spirit
crushing defeat I had just suffered. It almost could. Before this
all started, there wasn’t anything in this world I didn’t think
Uriah could fix. Illusions don’t just shatter and leave you, the
jagged edges dig into your skin and leave scars that will never
fade.

“Hey, what was it you wanted to tell me?”
Uriah asked when he pulled back enough to meet my gaze.

He was obviously trying to get me talking
about something else, but I was more than happy to take the bait
and let thoughts of Uriah fighting centuries old dead men in the
parking lot of the hotel and crushing my hope of not losing him
slide into the very, very back of my mind.

If this Ahiga character was on our side, then
I wouldn’t complain about where he came from or how he found us. I
still might complain about how ragged Uriah was looking, though. If
I ever got the chance, I’d certainly have a few things to say to
Ahiga. But for now, I needed to get back to what I had seen and
forget everything else.

“The wolf, the one you said you threw into a
tree when you first escaped the Matwau’s creatures…he comes back,”
I said, still finding it difficult to focus on what I was
saying.

“The wolf comes back? What does it do?” Uriah
asked.

“It attacks you.” I couldn’t imagine what
else it might do. “After you beat back all the other creatures you
turn and start running at the Matwau. That’s when it attacks. You
didn’t seem to know it was there. It looked like it was ready to
kill you, no matter what the Matwau told it to do.”

“Huh, that’s never happened in any of my
dreams,” Uriah said. He stared at nothing as he thought.

“That’s never happened in your dreams?” I
asked. “Maybe it’s nothing, then.”

“No, it’s not nothing. My dreams are nothing
like yours, Claire. I dream about facing the Matwau every night,
but they’re training, not prophecies. I’m sure you’re right about
the wolf. I’ll have to be prepared for it.”

I was about to argue, pointing out how new I
was at dreaming or touching souls or seeing into someone’s future,
but a sharp pounding on the door scattered my thoughts. I looked
over at Uriah. He shrugged and went to the door.

“It’s Harvey,” he said after looking through
the peep hole. He opened the door wide and let an ecstatic Harvey
rush into the room.

“Hey, Harvey. You should really be sleeping,”
I said. If he felt half as tired as he looked we should have had to
wake him with a bullhorn.

“I just got off the phone with Mark…” Harvey
stopped. “Whoa, man what happened to you?”

“It’s a long story, just forget about
it.”

Harvey shrugged, probably guessing he didn’t
want to know anyway. “My friend Mark just called. I told him about
the trees going from aspen and such to piñon right before you
reached the desert like you mentioned at dinner last night and he
narrowed the list down to two places. Pinetop, Arizona and Taos,
New Mexico. Now I know you told me not to bother with New Mexico,
Uriah, but I told Mark to search everywhere just in case.”

Taos. I had been to Taos a couple of times to
go skiing with family. The hulking mountains in the middle of the
New Mexican desert certainly fit, but there was something else.
Something from the dream. I remembered the trees. The odd strip of
bare ground slashing through the forest. The formation had seemed
familiar at the time, but I couldn’t place it. It was the wrong
season.

Cover the scene with snow, and it was easy to
recognize a ski slope.

I had never been to Pinetop, but I did know
that they had both a ski slope and casino. My father had been to
the casino several times to meet with the owner before the casino
opened in San Juan. I remembered him complaining about how small
the ski slopes were in Pinetop. Judging by the distance I had to
travel with the lone wolf, the ski slopes I had been on in the
dream were not small.

Another bit from the dream jumped out at me.
The pueblo ruins. Both times we went skiing in Taos we drove down
to Pueblo de Taos to visit the pueblo ruins. They were one of the
best preserved ruins in the state. I wanted to kick myself for not
seeing it sooner.

If Harvey hadn’t burst in right then to give
me the answer, I might have carried it around for who knows how
long before figuring it out on my own.

“It’s Taos,” I said, breaking into the guys’
conversation. They both turned and stared at me.

“What?” they asked in unison.

“It’s Taos. That’s where he’s leading us.
That’s where you’ll fight The Matwau.”

“Are you sure?” Harvey asked. “Mark had a few
other possibilities, but he thought these two were the most likely.
I could tell you the other ones just to be sure.”

Shaking my head, I said, “No. It’s Taos. I’m
sure.”

Uriah rubbed his hand across his mouth and
chin. “Are there prairie dogs in Pinetop?”

“Prairie dogs?” Harvey asked. “I’m not sure.
Why?”

“Melody said the creatures working for the
Matwau were having trouble getting rid of some prairie dogs at the
meeting site. It confirms he’s driving out the animals so they
can’t help me, but I already expected that,” Uriah said. “Can we
find out whether there are prairie dogs in Pinetop?”

“You talked to Melody again? What did she
say? How’s she holding up? Did you tell her the stories?” Harvey’s
words tumbled out, stepping one over the other in his hurry to get
them all out.

Uriah’s head popped up. “She’s fine, Harvey.
I told her the stories, don’t worry.” Uriah turned away from
Harvey, a deep frown creasing his face. I knew that frown.

Startled awake as I was, I still would have
felt any noticeable changes in the Twin Soul bond immediately. I
took the time now to feel the bond again. No difference. It changed
constantly depending on how both Melody and Uriah were feeling at
the time, but there was no overall change in the bond. There was
something, though. Something Uriah didn’t want to talk about.

I carefully stowed that bit of information in
the back of my mind for later. “Harvey, can you use your phone to
check the internet for the prairie dogs, and for pueblo ruins
around Pinetop?” I asked. “I saw some ruins in the distance when I
got down to the desert in the dream.”

Harvey stopped tapping his foot and snatched
his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah, uh, just gimme a second,” he
said.

I walked over to where Uriah was pacing.
Putting a hand on his arm to calm him, I stared into his eyes. He
stopped his pacing, but avoided looking at me. I think he knew the
questions I was holding back.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said,
glancing at Harvey, “when we’re alone.”

I nodded my agreement as I stroked his arm.
Careful of the little cuts and bruises dotting his skin, I tried to
calm whatever it was that had flustered him.

“How do you know it’s Taos?” Uriah asked
quietly.

“In the dream last night, there were ski
slopes, which both places have, but there were ruins in the
distance when I reached the desert area. I saw them, but I didn’t
realize I’d seen them before until Harvey mentioned Taos,” I said.
“I’ve been to the ruins near Taos. I think it’s safe to assume Taos
has prairie dogs too. Just like every other part of Northern New
Mexico.”

Letting out a deep breath, Uriah pulled me
into a hug. “All Melody could really tell about the meeting place
was that there were prairie dogs. I knew it wasn’t very much, but I
hoped it would help. The ruins, though…it has to be Taos. It has to
be.”

Despite everything still left to face, Uriah
sounded like we had just won a battle. Perhaps we had, a small one,
but one that might change the odds in our favor. We needed that
extra edge so badly.

“Well, I can’t find anything about there
being prairie dogs in Pinetop. That’s not really an exact ‘no’
about them living there, but it seems like a good sign that they’re
not there in numbers large enough to be a problem, anyway,” Harvey
said. “The closest ruins to Pinetop are in Springerville, about an
hour away.”

“An hour way? Is that close enough to fit
with your dream?” Uriah asked me.

“No, I think that would be too far. I ran for
a while, but nowhere near sixty miles,” I said. “The Taos ruins are
much closer, less than fifteen miles I think. That fits a lot
better.”

“Are you sure?” Uriah’s eyebrows were knitted
together in anxiety. The wrong choice would be devastating.

“I’m sure.” The moment I heard Harvey say
Taos, I knew it was the right place.

Harvey glanced between us, still looking
unconvinced, but desperate to see Melody again. He looked ready to
bolt out the door. “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

“Split up,” Uriah said.

“What? You promised, Uriah. You said we would
do this together.”

Tears burned my eyes. Did this have something
to do with whatever he didn’t want to talk about? He couldn’t
possibly have figured out why I needed to go with him so badly,
could he have? My breath caught in my throat as I struggled to
speak. I would not leave him alone. I knew what he was facing.
Nobody else did. Nobody else could help him like I could.

“Claire, I know what I promised. I’m not
asking you to abandon me. I’m asking you to go ahead of me with
Harvey. I need you to get to Taos as fast as you can,” he said. He
took my hands in his and waited until I met his pleading eyes.
“Melody said there would be traps. I want you and Harvey to go
ahead of me and see if you can find out what the Matwau has
planned. But only if you can do it safely.”

“Why can’t we go together?” I asked.

Uriah reached up and stroked my face, right
down my jaw line, a gesture that nearly melted all of my
resistance. “You know why we can’t. The Matwau will know the second
I start heading for Taos. I have to follow him. If I rush ahead, I
risk putting Melody in danger.”

I did know. I knew before I asked the
question, but still I wanted to deny it. “Can’t I stay with you?” I
asked. It was selfish, but I was afraid to leave.

“Harvey will need your help,” Uriah said. “I
can’t send him there alone. I need you to go.”

I couldn’t fight him on this. We’d be back
together before the fight, and then I would fight him with
everything I had if I needed to. He was not going to face the
Matwau alone.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll go.” I wanted to cry.
Instead, I took a deep breath and turned away.

“I need you do something else, too.” Uriah
paused. “Remember how I told you that Kaya said you would have to
make a choice?”

“Yes.” A queasy feeling in my stomach made me
look toward the bathroom. Please don’t ask me, I thought.

“I need you to make that decision. I need you
to promise me you won’t try to help me once we reach the
Matwau.”

He asked me.

“You promised,” I whispered, still not able
to face Uriah.

“I know. I promised we would do this
together, and we have. You’ve helped me so much already. I just
don’t think you can help me when it comes to actually facing the
Matwau,” he said. I could hear Uriah pacing again. “What could you
do, really? I’m the only one that can hurt him, the only one who
knows how to kill him. I think Bhawana’s vision is right. I have to
fight the Matwau alone.”

If Bhawana was the only one who had had a
vision of Uriah, then maybe I would have been forced to agree.
Besides, if she was right about Uriah facing the Matwau alone, she
also had to be right about what would happen after the fight. There
was no chance of me ever admitting that. Nampeyo’s vision was more
specific, detailed to give her descendant a chance to fulfill their
destiny. I had put so much into her vision, I couldn’t go back now.
I wanted to prove Bhawana wrong on how Uriah would beat the Matwau.
Because if I did, maybe she would be wrong about Uriah and Melody
too. She had to be wrong.

Uriah wanted my promise, though. What could I
say? I would never leave him to fight alone. I still wasn’t sure
exactly how my part in this bit of history was going to play out,
but I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to help the man I loved.
Glancing over my shoulder at Uriah, I could see that his face was
adamant in his decision. He would not move from that spot without
me making the promise.

I made my choice. I lied.

“I promise I’ll stay away from the Matwau, if
that’s what you really want.”