In Graves Below Read online

  Idrián twirled and stamped his right foot, completing the intricate pattern that reinforced the dreamwalk magic protecting his ancestors, thankful that his dreamwalk self didn’t have the disabilities of his flesh-and-blood body. He took one last breath of dreamwalk, then looked up and slowly rose in the air toward the deep red sky with blue stars that morphed into grains of multi-colored sands as he passed through them. His patrol had been quiet, yielding neither recalcitrant demons nor sexy women.

  Dreamwalk was malleable and huge, even his people’s claimed portion of it, so he could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like he’d been in Afghanistan, where a roadside bomb had vaporized his lower left leg and foot. The dreamwalk-manifested graves of his ancestors were clean and orderly, but they wouldn’t stay that way if demons ever figured out he was the only living dreamwalker on patrol.

  He flowed up through the familiar earth and rejoined with his body, sprawled comfortably in the soft soil of the tribe’s underground kiva. It felt like sliding into a warm blanket, dried by the noonday sun. He exhaled the last of the dreamwalk essence, then inhaled the air of Earth. The room was still and blissfully quiet. It was as relaxed as he’d felt in days.

  “Still sleeping your life away, Eaglefoot?”

  Idrián’s eyes flew open as he sat up fast. “Black Fox?” He looked around, wondering if it was just wishful thinking, or a remnant of a waking dream from the part of his mind that stayed in the real world. “Grandfather?”

  Like right out of a Hollywood movie, a miniature storm formed at the north edge of the round kiva space and grew into billowing, black thunderclouds, complete with blowing dust and miniature lightning that struck the side wall and left tiny singe marks. The turbulent clouds billowed and swelled into the ghostly form of his grandfather, wearing his favorite jeans, western-patterned chamois shirt, and turquoise-beaded headband.

  Idrián bowed his head, then looked up with a grin. “Flashy.”

  Black Fox tried to look thunderous, but the corner of his mouth twitched, acknowledging Idrián’s appreciation for the dramatic entrance. “How long have I been gone?”

  “Five months.” Idrián pulled on the silicone socket liner and a sock, then reached for his prosthesis. It looked like a wire-form model of a leg, built with carbon fiber and magic by his friend Warrk, with just the right amount of weight to make Idrián feel balanced, and a socket that magically adapted to his stump as it swelled and shrank during the day. He carefully wiped any dust out of the socket before pulling it onto his stump. “Where have you been?”

  “Time moves differently in the spirit world, much worse than dreamwalk.” Black Fox stared determinedly at his left arm, which was fading in and out like a strobe. “It’s harder than you think to manifest something the living can see.” The arm diffused, then stabilized. “The others tell me it’ll be months before I can make non-dreamwalkers see me.”

  “I thought you might be looking for Miàoyīng.” Black Fox’s beloved wife had died in a freak, fiery accident twenty years ago, when Idrián was ten. That her spirit had never come back to the land had hurt Black Fox’s feelings deeply, though he’d never admit it.

  Black Fox looked peevish. “I will look for her soon, but my living grandson has unfinished business.”

  Idrián was determined not to let his grandfather rile him. He carefully levered himself up and onto his feet, then brushed the dirt off the back of his pants before grabbing his cane. Now that he was standing again, his hips and back muscles reminded him that he’d probably overdone it that day, and would need to pop a couple of anti-inflammatory pills to get any sleep. He didn’t like taking them, but he’d never figured out how to use his earth magic to heal himself in the real world. He was afraid he’d never be the medicine man his grandfather had been. “Tell me what to do about the wards.”

  “Have you found your dreamwalk partner yet? You need her help.” When Idrián rolled his eyes, Black Fox crossed his arms. “Have you done any of the three simple tasks I asked of you?” He ticked them off on ghostly fingers. “Train dreamwalk warriors? Find your dreamwalk partner? Make babies?”

  “Simple tasks?” sputtered Idrián, despite his best intention to stay calm. He held up a finger. “No warriors to train, unless you count one fear-eater demon.” He held up a second finger. “Haven’t met her, and yes, I’ve looked.” He held up his thumb. “See previous answer.”

  “What do you mean, haven’t met her?” growled Black Fox. “What about that woman in your dreamwalk, a month ago? She has nice, wide, childbearing hips and large breasts. She could handle twins. She was very hot for you.”

  Idrián fought not to grind his teeth. “How could you know about her, if you weren’t here yet? Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter, because I haven’t seen her since.”

  Idrián marched toward the stairs that led out of the sacred space. In ancient times, the tribe had used wooden ladders, but his family had installed a stair unit decades ago, to make it easier for Idrián’s elderly great-grandmother, a formidable spider woman and dreamwalker in her day, to get in and out. Despite his annoyance, Idrián took his time, making sure his feet were placed correctly on each step. One of the many little things he’d taken for granted before his incident was getting feedback from his legs without having to look.

  He stepped up into the mobile home’s cozy space, then closed the trap door and whispered the words of the spell that made the outline vanish. It was handy having witches in Magic who’d trade spells for useful ingredients found on hallowed ground.

  Black Fox rose through the solid floor. “She probably didn’t come back because you didn’t teach her how. You were too busy kissing her. That alone should have told you she’s the partner you have been waiting for, not a certain evil blonde vulture with cold eyes and skinny hips.”

  “Fine. I’m doomed to be alone. The dreamwalk will be overrun with demons that will destroy our people’s graves on their way to Earth, and the tribe will die when I die. Go bother Roman.” Idrián turned away and walked to the kitchen, where he kept his meds. It might take months to get a VA hospital appointment or a treatment plan, but at least it was easy to refill prescriptions online. He knocked two pills into his palm and washed them down with the last swallows of cold coffee from his morning cup. He never wasted water if he could help it.

  He leaned against the counter and glared at his grandfather.

  “You’re too stubborn for your own good,” grumbled Black Fox.

  Idrián snorted. “As stubborn as the káhá tsiní who chose not to teach me about the wards or about how to find living people in dreamwalk, because I ‘wasn’t ready.’” His grandfather’s private family nickname meant “armadillo” in the almost-extinct Piro language, and for good reason. Their ancestral stories said armadillos didn’t like to do anything that wasn’t their idea, and grew their armor to make it hard for anyone to make them.

  Black Fox frowned sourly. “Fine. We are both stubborn men.” It was as close to an apology as Black Fox ever came. He drifted closer to Idrián and tried unsuccessfully to put a hand on his shoulder. “The Tompiro Spider Woman gave me a prophecy for you. She said your way to the earth is with the dreamwalk woman who conjures the key, and that she’s in danger and needs you. Tomorrow. Now. Yesterday. What do you know about her?”

  The Tompiro Spider Woman’s ability to see the future had saved both her people and the Jumano tribe from the Spanish slavers. Since having come back as a spirit, she only delivered prophecies concerning critical matters, such as the importance of the tribe welcoming the founders of the town of Magic, or a warning about the coming Civil War. Idrián was both honored and alarmed that she was stirring herself for him.

  He thought back to the dreamwalk fight. “She wears feathers like she was born with them. She’s handy with a slingshot. She’s a dancer—she thought she was lucid dreaming the solution to her choreography problem.” Her unseen vibrant energy had drawn his focus like a magnet and distracted him from the batt
le with the big fear-eater demon. He was already losing, and would have been defeated if he’d seen her beautifully muscular, hourglass figure and stunning face during the fight. He wasn’t going to admit any of that to his grandfather.

  Her words came bubbling up from his memory. “She said something about ‘the Mile High City.’ I think she lives in Denver.”

  “Then we must drive the truck to Denver.”

  The Spider Woman’s prophecy was important, but the most convincing argument was that Black Fox was willing to travel, something he hated more than anything.

  Idrián would have to make arrangements for Rollie and Hanif to come tend to his animals, a favor they’d done for him before. And if Idrián didn’t find time to get at least a couple of hours of sleep, Black Fox would have to learn to manifest in the real world enough to do the driving.

  Chapter 3

  The lithe, heroic male dancer leapt high into the air and executed a perfect sweeping kick against his opponent, a flexible male dancer with sly, demonic body movements. The angle of the staging made it look like the hero raked a clawed foot across the demon’s chest, and the demon contorted with convincing pain.

  “Yes, that’s it, Mack. Now I believe your talons are weapons, not just costume decoration.” Riya Sanobal gave the blond a thumbs-up sign. “The costume ladies promise they’ll have the feathered leggings ready for tomorrow night. You’ll look great.” Even in a long, black wig, he wouldn’t look as darkly handsome or amazingly sexy as the painted warrior from her dreams, but audiences loved Mack.

  She turned to the other male dancer, Kenji, a wiry Japanese man. “Perfect timing on the reaction. Twist a little more stage left on the recovery. Let’s make sure even the cheap seats get to see the blood, since we’ve gone to all the trouble to rig it.” Kenji grinned and patted the rehearsal chest piece he was wearing. They’d load it up with fake blood for the performances, to make it look like Mack’s taloned feet were really doing damage. Kenji’s talent would sell it.

  “One more time,” she announced, “to set it in your bodies. We’ll go right through to the end, unless Whitney misses with all her rocks.”

  She reset the rehearsal music to a few bars before the sequence they were working on. As the male dancers listened for their cue, Whitney subtly twitched a finger to the beat, counting. She was a self-described ballet refugee from a prestigious company back East that could never seem to find even a supporting role for a tall, athletic African-American woman, no matter how talented she was. Ballet’s loss was the Maruaway Dance Theater Company’s gain. She was just coming into her prime as a dancer, and Riya hoped her friend would get the recognition—and roles—she deserved. Riya wasn’t above using her minor magical ability with doors to find opportunities for her honest and hard-working friend.

  In time with the music by a modern Native American composer, Riya called out, “Four, five, six!”

  The dancers executed Riya’s choreography perfectly and continued through the fight sequence. The rock sequence went off without a hitch. Whitney had obviously been practicing with the slingshot as Riya had suggested, because her little foam “rocks” hit Kenji’s demon almost every time. They’d developed various choreographic contingencies for missed shots, but it was much better when Whitney nailed her target.

  With Kenji’s demon vanquished, Whitney’s bird woman and Mack’s native shaman character twined ever closer with a celebratory dance, ending in a romantic almost-kiss as the music’s last, plaintive flute note echoed.

  “And fade to black,” said Riya. “Perfect. Really great work. We’ll figure out your entrance and exit once we’re in the theater.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “Take ten, but Denise wants us all in the big classroom at a quarter of eight for a big announcement.”

  Mack made a beeline for the drinking fountain, rotating his right shoulder as he went. He strained it while on his moving-company job about a month ago, and it still bothered him. Kenji sat on the floor in a full-splits position, then leaned forward to fish his phone out of his backpack to check messages. In addition to dance classes, he taught three very popular yoga classes during the week, and Riya wouldn’t be surprised if some of the students paid just for the privilege of seeing him sit like that in shorts. She had to admit she enjoyed the view, too, but she was the wrong gender for Kenji.

  Riya closed the music sound file on her computer, then added a couple of notes to her “to do” list. With only five days until opening night, the list was growing like a weed. Whitney grabbed a bottle of water from her bag and sauntered toward Riya.

  “Did Denise decide which performance the company’s going to video? I want a copy.”

  “The Saturday matinee,” said Riya. “It’ll be good to have St. Peters’ name on your résumé.”

  Whitney made a sour face. “Great. I can say ‘I was ‘tree number two.’ It’s your piece I want for my demo reel. You work with us to tailor the piece to our strengths, rather than get pissy when we can’t conform to the piece.”

  Riya thanked her friend for the compliment, but refrained from commenting on Jonathan St. Peters, the hotshot, special guest choreographer from New York. Not that Riya disagreed with Whitney, but Riya was about to be named as the new artistic director of the company, which meant she needed to practice diplomacy—not her strong suit.

  She hoped Denise’s big announcement was about the new position, because the board of directors had kept Riya on hold for the last two months. Riya was already doing the work for free, so it would be nice to have the official title and get paid a living wage, or what passed for it in the nonprofit dance world in Denver, Colorado. At least the company paid a stipend to the dancers. Far too many dance companies paid everyone but the dancers, shamelessly taking advantage of their desire to dance and their dreams of being discovered.

  “Some of us are hitting the pub around the corner after rehearsal. Want to come?” Whitney was a born social organizer and loved bringing friends together. If Riya ever started a charity, she’d hire Whitney as the outreach director.

  “Tempting, but I have the early shift at the coffee house.” Riya shut her computer and slid it into her bright orange and purple bag. She was done with her choreography duties for the evening, but she was also a dancer in two other pieces and the big “Spring Awakening” piece by St. Peters, so her night was far from over. “I still need to check in with our sound tech to make sure she has everything she needs.”

  “Thank God I don’t have to be at the bank until nine all this week,” said Whitney. “Speaking of jobs, Mack says The Douche got fired again.” She shook her head. “How do you fail at being a store greeter? He told Mack he’s moving back to Chicago, where his genius will be appreciated.” She made air quotes around the word “genius.”

  Riya shook her head. “Chicago can have him. I can’t believe I fell for his metric ton of bullshit. Author, my ass,” said Riya. She slipped into her clogs, then checked to make sure she hadn’t left a trail of belongings behind her. “The fact that he called himself ‘The Duke’ should have been my first clue.”

  It had hurt to discover her ex-boyfriend, Carl “Duke” Polliard, part-time job-hopper and full-time author of nineteen unfinished manuscripts for the great American novel, had “friends with kinky benefits” arrangements with half the women in town. At least she’d figured it out before letting him move in with her.

  “I hear you.” Whitney slung her bag’s strap over her shoulder. “I just need to meet guys who aren’t dancers or bankers.”

  Riya caught up with her friend. “That’s why I volunteer at the rehab center. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you see what some of the war veterans or accident victims are going through.” Riya loved using her dance background to help people find new ways of using their bodies so they could regain mobility and self-sufficiency. Too bad she couldn’t do that for a living, instead of pouring coffee and taking on freelance choreography gigs. She loved dancing, and couldn’t imagine her life without it, but she
didn’t want it to be her only life.

  She wanted a home, one she could nest in. She couldn’t help it, considering the number of bird shifters and bird-like demigods on her mother’s side of the family. Her flighty parents moved often and loved to travel, and as a child, she’d logged more air hours than most pilots.

  Her father was a cloud spirit who could only visit the Earth dimension for a few months at a time, or he’d start to go misty around the edges. Riya’s mother was half human and half avian demigod, and could shift into any bird form she chose. Riya was a rare genetic fluke, mostly human with no shifting ability, or ability to become fog like her cousins could, or ability to see the future like her grandmother could. Outside of her parents, most of her magical family didn’t want anything to do with her. At least she healed fast, and she’d lately gotten better at working magic.

  And while envisioning her dream nest, she wanted it to include pets, children, and a sexy dream warrior shaman with complex, intricate designs inked on his very lickable skin. She’d dreamed of him most nights for the past month. He talked to her a lot, as if he didn’t have anyone else to share his thoughts with, but frustratingly, only saw her as an exotic bird. Riya was afraid her subconscious was comforting her with dreams of an insanely hot, talon-footed man because her real love life was so disappointing.

  She set aside her worries as she and Whitney walked into the studio’s largest classroom and joined the twelve other dancers who would be performing in the upcoming spring concert. Riya crossed to the long, mirrored wall and set her bag down, then used the waist-high barre to support a series of quick leg and back stretches. She was one of the older dancers in the company, and it paid to treat her thirty-year-old body with respect.

  Riya had to give credit to Denise, the company’s new executive director. The woman was blithely ignorant about dance production, but she knew how to sell tickets and attract big donors, enough to double the size of the professional company. The publicity blitz had the weekend’s performances half sold already, meaning their budget had already broken even. Jonathan St. Peters looked and sounded like a charming, humble, fun guy in all the interviews. Too bad the real man didn’t match his public persona.