Twenty-one

twenty-one

Zhen

I could tell Kris had no idea what I meant, so I elaborated. “I’m totally thinking on the fly here, but you know how we have those wards around the doors of Grandma’s building?”

“Oh, sure, the ones that reveal if something aside from humans comes through.”

“What if we use those, but tweak them so they’ll force a reveal? Maybe we can get the Raven Mockers to revert to their human forms.”

She pursed her lips for a second before she turned to look at Ama. “Ama, which is their default shape? Human or raven?”

Ama snorted a laugh, and her expression turned wry. “Only the ancestors know the answer to that question.”

Uh. So, my brilliant idea might not have been so brilliant? But I only got one of those a year. Damn, did I blow it?

“Still, it’s worth a shot,” Ama mused. “At the very least, it will reveal them if they try to sneak in as a person.”

Oh, so maybe it wasn’t a failed attempt at brilliance. Awesome. I did try, after all.

“Cut up chains for me before you get too deep into your arts and crafts project,” Kris requested of me.

“I can do that, sure, but is it still called arts and crafts in this scenario?”

Kris gave me a funny look, like she had no idea where I was going with this. “What else would you call it?”

“Murdercrafts?”

“Does that make us murderspouses? I feel like that should be a hashtag.”

I cackled like the demented handbasket of crazy that I was. Of course, I cut up the chains for her first. I’d seen her struggling with one as I came in. These bolt cutters were not the sharpest, and even with me and my manly hand strength, it took some effort. Once I got about eight cut, though, she assured me that was good enough.

And then it was time for murdercrafts.

Kris’s purse was the gift that just kept on giving. She carried a fat marker and talisman paper, along with tape. Sometimes I felt she was more prepared for fighting off things that went bump in the night than me. And by sometimes I meant, like, ninety percent of the time. Had Grandma or Mom outfitted her with a bunch of stuff before we left? It sure felt like it.

I got myself all comfy with my bad leg stretched out and started drawing up reveal talismans. With a twist, of course. I wanted these bad boys to do something. I’d tape them on all the doors and hope they’d force a transition. I hated EFTs, and fighting one inside of a building was only marginally better than fighting one outside. Sitting here, preparing for murder, got me all sorts of anxious and excited. Plus, my bond was much happier with Kris in touching distance.

I really needed all of this to work. For all our sakes.

Ama was busy doing her prep work as well, but her eyes were on the two of us. After she was done, she sat down with a long sigh and a wince, like some part of her was aching.

“You okay?” I was worried about her going into a fight in this condition.

She waved me off. “Old people problems. Pay it no mind. How long have you two been married?”

“Er, not long. Almost a month?” That sounded right to me.

Her eyes nearly crossed, mouth spluttering in surprise. “You bound yourselves together like that after only a month of marriage?”

My brain chose to pay attention at that moment. “Wait. You can see our bond?”

“Of course I can see it!” She pointed to both of us, particularly the chest area. “Medicine men see life and death, y’know, and you two are borrowing power from both to do what you did.”

Kris lifted a staying hand. “We didn’t do this.”

Seeing Ama’s confusion and a touch of disbelief, I hastily explained, “We don’t know who did this. We woke up bound, and we’ve been trying to undo it.”

“It’s incredibly frustrating.” Kris sighed. “Depending on our stress levels, the bond either keeps us chained to each other’s sides, or we can go several miles apart from each other. It’s whimsical, changes by the hour, and forces us to do things we’d rather not. If I didn’t like this man so much, I’d have murdered him by now to get out of it.”

“Awww. Lǎo pó .” I leaned in to put my head against her shoulder, batting my eyelashes up at her. “I like you enough to not murder you too.”

“That was not the right takeaway—Ugh, forget it. Close enough.”

Still, if Ama could see the bond with her naked eye, maybe she had a different insight into this. No one else in my circle had insight.

“Ama, do you think you can undo this binding?”

She immediately shook her head no. “When souls are bound, it’s best not to undo the binding. Flesh and spirit are one until death. If one is harmed, so is the other.”

I sat on that answer for a second, mulling it over. “So, you think, what? That trying to undo it might kill us?”

“Or harm you in a way you’ll never fully recover from.” Ama glanced between us. “I would not try to break it. I would fully embrace it. Your bindings might chafe at you—all bindings do—but think of them as the reins on a horse. If you just pull on the reins, the horse goes nowhere. Use them as the tool they are, to guide and motivate, and you ride with the wind.”

Now there was perspective for you. Since the discovery of the bond, Kris and I had battled with it. Fought to get it to let us do what we wanted to do. But there had been moments when we weren’t fighting the bond—like with our trip to California to pick up her inheritance. We had focused on our own tasks, and it was easy peasy lemon squeezy during that whole trip.

Kris paused in her chain making. She had her thinking face on. “You know, our grandmother said something similar to me. That it could be our stress that affects the bond. I’ve been keeping track of it on a spreadsheet, and from what I’ve seen, our emotions do affect it.”

“There’s your answer.” Ama nodded, looking all sagely and wise.

“So, you think it’s not really stress? But rather us fighting it?”

“I do. Really, the stress is a by-product of your frustration with it.”

Now, she had me there. That was likely the case.

I thought about it. Thought about my mood when I’d gone out to do a perimeter sweep, and how I’d started it while irritated with the bond. No wonder I’d been yanked up short so quickly, so many times—I’d been fighting with the bond before even starting.

So, if I meditated, calmed myself, and opened my emotions up to the bond in a positive way, would it give me the fighting room I’d need tonight? I had a feeling the answer would be yes. Honestly, I felt excited by the ideas Ama had handed me. For so long, I’d viewed the bond as nothing but a chain pulling me down, my future a brick wall stalling me in place. She had just opened a couple of windows. You bet I was eager to explore.

“Ama, when I grow up, can I be as smart as you?”

She laughed at me, eyes crinkling up. “You’re plenty smart, Zhen.”

“Awww, I love you too.”

She laughed some more and flapped a hand at me. I liked making people laugh, so it made me happy to watch her.

I went back to the prep work on my talismans. While I worked, I put myself into a calmer mental state, or tried. Some breathing techniques helped the feeling along, and I felt the bond calm down along with my breathing. Sweet, this seemed to be working. Shame I wouldn’t have time for a full meditation just yet, but maybe I could squeak one in once I was done with this. I had four talismans made up when I paused and really looked around. Huh, how many did I need to make? Surely not more than four. There were only two doors in and out of this place.

Jake jogged inside, wiping water off his forehead. “Phew! It’s starting to come down now. Does it normally rain this much here?”

“Rainy season,” Ama explained. “All it does for a good two months.”

“Figures we’re fighting in the middle of it. Oooh, Zhen, what magic you working over here?”

“Reveal spells,” I replied while handing the talismans over, along with the tape. “Tape them up right inside the doors, both of them, please?”

“Sure. What, uh, are they supposed to reveal?”

“I’m hoping I wrote them up right so they’ll force the Raven into human form.”

Jake lit up with an evil smile. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful. Okay, I’m right on this.”

He’d helped me with stuff like this many times over the years, so I didn’t need to give him any more instruction. I turned him loose with no qualms.

But that meant my toy had been taken away, and I had nothing to do but sit there. Granted, I was pretty, so that wasn’t a waste of time, but it did make me bored.

Kris finished up her rattle cage thing. I looked it over, not sure what design exactly she’d been going for. It was nothing more than a stick with this metal ring—it looked like a lost gear repurposed for this—nailed to the top, and then she’d zip-tied the chains to the gear. Like a baby rattle, only the baby was in a death metal band.

She gave it an experimental shake. The chains made lots of rattling noise.

“I think it works,” Kris said with satisfaction. “Ama, does it need to be louder?”

“No, no, I think it’s splendid, and when tonight is over, I’m taking it home with me.”

She was the one who lived in Smoke Wolf country, so I was okay with that. Not like I needed it, anyway.

I cast about for something to do, my gaze landing on Kris’s gun, which was resting on the ground next to her thigh. Picking it up, I checked it over, but it seemed clean and fully loaded.

“Zhen,” my darling wife drawled in warning.

I gave her my best smile. “Yes, darling?”

“I know that you are bored—”

“Very bored,” I admitted freely.

“—but please do not shoot things.”

“Why are you acting like I’m untrustworthy?”

“Because I have heard the story of the vacuum cleaner.”

I winced. Who the hell told her that story?

Jake, of course, chose that exact moment to come back. He heard Kris, clearly, as he was already laughing. “Oh man, that was such a funny day. His mom swore he’d never live it down and she’d tell his future spouse. I see she made good on her promise.”

Kris waggled her eyebrows at me. “That she did.”

“In my defense,” I said to no one in particular, “I was twelve . Okay? I didn’t know better. I’d checked the gun first, but I didn’t think to check if there was a round in the chamber. Okay? I didn’t mean to shoot the vacuum. Honest, innocent mistake. I haven’t cleaned a gun inside the house since.”

“Is the deceased vacuum cleaner still around?” Kris mused. “Maybe we can have it stuffed and mounted above the fireplace.”

“ Lǎo pó ,” I whined at her. “Why must you be so mean?”

She just grinned at me, all sassy. I’d get her back for this.

Guo hopped out of a shadow and circled the ward, then lightly smacked the air with a paw—only for it to be repelled. I blinked, not expecting to see that.

“Whoa. Ama, your ward rocks.”

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” She had a little smirk playing around the corners of her mouth.

“I truly didn’t.” Since Kris wouldn’t catch the significance of this, as she didn’t have enough experience with wards, I filled her in. “Typically speaking, magical wards are made for specific creatures. Makes sense, right? It’s like any other tool. It’s made for a specific type of stress and weight. Take it out of that element, and it doesn’t perform nearly as well. Wards are especially tricky in that sense. It’s why I have a ward, and I do use them, but I don’t rely on them heavily. Depending on the type of creature I’m fighting, they can be about as effective as paper.”

Kris pointed to where Guo still stood. “So, the fact he can’t cross over this barrier is amazing, then? Because he’s from a wholly different mythology?”

“Right. Ama, do you have experience pitting your ward against other creatures not of this area?”

“I do.” That sage expression was back in full force. “It does take some tweaking. I’ve taught Kris how to do it. Adding in iron shavings with an ash and tobacco mix will bolster any defense. I know you worry for her, so going forward, she can use this type of ward to boost her defenses.”

“Awesome.” It made me feel so much better.

“That said,” Ama warned with an uplifted finger, “it does have its weaknesses. You cannot put it on wet ground. Or uneven ground, like gravel. It disrupts the power and balance.”

Made sense.

“Also, you must keep it in line. If something happens during a fight, say—” Ama abruptly cut herself off.

For a second, I didn’t understand why. Then I realized the small fire she had going in the middle of the circle had flared for a second and the smoke had shifted.

Anyone who had been around a campfire knew that the smoke shifted willy-nilly depending on what the wind was doing. But we had no real wind in here at the moment, even with the doors on this side open, as the storm outside had calmed down a little. However, that smoke was definitely angled sharply toward the northwest, and it was holding steady.

“Is that…” Kris shifted uneasily, hand reaching for her gun and fingers wrapping around the grip. “Is that the signal?”

“The Raven comes.” Ama threw a few more tobacco leaves on the fire, but the smoke tendril didn’t so much as twitch. “It comes quickly.”

I lifted up, getting to my feet because this absolutely wasn’t the time to be sitting down. Jake had left at some point, so I called Sheriff Parker immediately. She had a radio channel open to everyone else, so it was fastest to have her alert them.

She answered on the first ring. “ Zhen. ”

“It’s coming,” I told her. “Coming in fast. Alert everyone else.”

“ Got it .” She hung up.

I put my phone back into Kris’s purse—I wasn’t saying I lost phones in a fight on purpose, just that it had happened a time or nine—and readied weapons.

“Ama. Thought. What if it comes down through the roof?”

“If it tries to come from up above, the smoke will stand upright.”

Okay, good to know. I hope it didn’t do that, though. I’d hate to destroy a perfectly nice barn.

The sound of something unearthly and piercing split the night air. I turned sharply around and barely caught it as the Raven burst through the barn at full speed.

Showtime.