The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries Read Online Free PDF

kiva. Hurry.”
    A shot of fiery blood flushed Catkin’s veins. “Were you attacked by Fire Dogs? Flute Player Believers?”
    The woman’s lips moved. Catkin had to lean down to hear the murmur: “They are coming back. You must go. Now.”
    “Who’s coming back?”
    The woman collapsed to the dirt, panting, and moaned, “Don’t you understand? They will kill him! As they did the others! They are c-come …” Her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp.
    Catkin leaped from the woman and ran with all her might.
     
    THE RATS STOPPED TEARING AT THE CLOTH WHEN THEY heard the footsteps on the roof and began anxiously tapping their feet to signal each other of the approaching danger.
    Browser stood alone in the darkness, breathing hard.
    A sliver of light appeared, and rat eyes sparkled all around him.
    He waited, his sweaty palms on his war club.
    The hides moved away enough for the person on the roof to smell the blood and corruption, but not enough to expose himself to an arrow from below.
    A whisper of wind flowed over Browser’s face and he tingled as if he could already feel the sting of the knife as it carved the flesh from his bones.
    “Browser?”
    “Oh gods, Catkin!” Relief coursed through him, leaving him light-headed. “Lower the ladder!”
    The hides flipped off, and the ladder came down with a thump. Ash glimmered in the sudden flood of moonlight. Catkin started to step onto the top rung, and he shouted, “No! Don’t come down! I’m coming up.”
    He ran for the ladder and climbed.
    Catkin extended a hand to him and pulled him off the ladder onto the roof. He saw in her eyes how he must look, his round face streaked with soot, his moccasins dripping blood.
    “I am uninjured,” he said.
    “What of Bole and Walker?”
    “In the kiva. Dead.”
    Her face slackened and he longed to touch her, like a man drawing strength from a Power bundle or finely carved fetish, but her voice stopped him:
    “We have to get back up the trail, Browser. Now. I found a badly wounded woman. She’s the one who told me you were in the kiva. I pray she lives long enough to tell us what happened here.” She turned to go.
    He gripped her arm. “What woman? The woman with the little girl?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “There—there was a woman with a girl on the roof of the kiva. She—”
    “Tell me on the way,” Catkin said, and hurried across the plaza.
    Browser followed her into the dappled moonlight of the trail, but as they started to climb, he stopped suddenly and spun back around. “Catkin? Did you pick up the bells?”
    “Bells?” she said, confused. “You mean the one in the dead woman’s belly? You took it.”
    His skin crawled. “Never mind. I’ll explain later.”
    As they neared the top of the trail, Catkin slowed briefly, then broke into a run.
    “What’s wrong?” he called as he sprinted after her.
    Catkin stopped near the painted boulder and stared at the ground. She leaned over, touched something, and rubbed her fingers together.
    Browser kept his eyes on the trees. “What’s the matter? Where’s the woman?”
    “She was here when I left.” Catkin held up her hand and Browser saw the blood shining blackly on her fingers. “But, then, the mummy was here, too.”
    Browser jerked around. White paint splashed the boulder, as it had before, but now it shone, radiant in the moonlight. In the mummy’s place two figures had been painted, a man and a woman. Both wore the long capes of the Katsinas’ People. From the woman’s feet, a black line extended, then coiled, getting smaller and smaller, the rings tighter, until the spiral became a dark abyss.
    “What is that?” Browser asked.
    Catkin stood up and scrutinized the painting. “Us, maybe. Perhaps she thinks we are walking a path into darkness.”
    “She?” Browser’s gaze pinioned Catkin.
    “Yes. The woman I thought was injured. Even with the bad light you can see she wasn’t dragged or carried from this spot.