Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,80

to use force, much less deadly force.

Kavon huffed. “No. I’m not. I wish there were a rule I could hold to, and I really wish this wasn’t the path Dave has asked me to take.” Kavon glared at the older shaman. “But if we want to protect our people, we have to stop the threat here and get out of this loop his people have created. We have to kill him before he kills us.” Anzu screamed and clacked his jaws. He was recovering.

“Agent Boucher!” Salma sounded scandalized.

Kavon turned to her. “I will not allow the ifrit to purge the world. Before they thought they were putting the pieces of the world back as they’d found it, but they didn’t. Talent is part of us now, no matter where it came from. So if a purge is not a solution and prison didn’t work, we have to protect our world. I don’t like the thought. I don’t like the thought of taking any life, but I’ve taken a vow to protect civilian lives, even if it requires deadly force.”

Kavon turned toward Dave. “That was your goal, wasn’t it? A teacher wouldn’t be as useful to you as a federal agent who had sworn to protect others. Never contact me again or I will grab you by your non-corporeal neck and shove you into one of those magical streams that people don’t come out of.”

“Agent,” Thuya said in a placating tone. Kavon whirled toward her, and his anger was a shockwave that blasted the spirit plane. Only Julie kept her feet without stumbling.

“Bennu,” Kavon said, to Darren’s horror. Bennu was already shrinking into his smaller form, and now he hid his head behind Darren’s knee.

“He can’t,” Julie said. “They can’t conceive of reality that doesn’t already exist. We showed them what it means to murder, to end the life of a fellow creature, but they don’t know how to do it. They don’t die and they don’t kill. That’s why the trickster gods always got humans to act for them.”

Kavon’s guide shifted into his Cape buffalo form before pawing the ground so great chunks of sod flew through the air.

Darren shook his head. “I don’t mean to question your beliefs, but they killed thousands of us in the last purge. They know how to kill.”

Julie’s smile was sad. “No, they forced us to move to the spirit plane. I’m not sure whether or not they understand that we can’t return without bodies to return to. They might have even pushed those souls into one of the passages to another world. I don’t know. But they know that destroying our bodies does nothing to damage our spirit. To kill a spirit, to remove it from reality, that is an anathema to them.”

Pochi made a chittering sound and his form shimmered so that for one second, a creature that looked half jellyfish appeared in his place. Then Pochi and Johnson blinked out of existence. Apparently Pochi wasn’t willing to be part of the discussion and had taken himself and his person back to Earth. Considering he had been the only one who could inflict real damage on Anzu, Darren’s worry ratcheted up several notches.

“Guides kill guides. I’ve seen it. Bennu killed O’Brien’s stonefish guide. His guide was corrupt, so Bennu destroyed him.”

“If your Bennu could destroy a guide, it was because he saw the necessity and the path in your mind,” Julie said. “We teach them about possibilities they cannot see for themselves, but the spirits who live here are not old ones. They were born in this place, which is part of Earth. They are tied to our world and our people.” She turned to Kavon’s bull. “You are a child of Earth. You understand the nature of the danger as the old ones cannot. You could make a choice to kill; you could imagine that reality without another to lead you down the path.”

“I won’t ask my bull to do something I wouldn’t,” Kavon said. “How do I kill it?” Kavon took a step toward Anzu.

Anzu darted forward. His claws dug into the ground and his skeletal jaws reached for Kavon. Darren cried out a warning, but Kavon’s bull had already reared up. Before he came down, he had switched into his mastodon form. He trumpeted angrily and brought both front legs down on Anzu’s back. Anzu screamed and snapped at the bull, tearing into the flesh of his back leg.

“No!” Kavon yelled. Blood poured from the wound.

Closing his eyes, Darren